The Confident Copywriter

Have you ever considered using a templated response so you can bid more and faster on the job boards like Elance? Sounds smart on the surface. Bad move when you look more closely. There are a couple of good reasons why.

Imagine a buyer has awarded you a project based on your bid. Now, imagine he’s trolling for a new provider for a new project. He’s delighted to hear from you…until he notices your response sounds eerily familiar. If he was thinking about maybe using your services again, you just changed his mind.

I’ll share an actual response I received from a prospect. He posted a project for web site makeover, and I took quite a bit of time to write to him about how I could help. He wrote back:

“Thanks for taking the time to do a thorough review of the current web site. The comments specific to my website are certainly appreciated vs. the “cut and pasted” sales pitches in most of the other bids.”

I won this bid, at a price tag two times the stated maximum bid. All because I took the time to craft a singular response that spoke to the customer’s needs.

Taking the time to craft a response shows the buyer your keen interest in their project
because it really interests you, not because it’s just another notch on your keyboard.

If your responses are grammatically clean, and you’re responding thoughtfully to each bid, you now have two issues you can cross off the list as reasons why you’re not winning projects.

Of course, no one wants to recreate the wheel for every single bid. Thankfully, there’s a middle ground…using a modified template. It’s a fast, easy and effective way to create what look like a very personal, targeted response to each bid without spending half an hour on each one. And it’s a good way to cut down on potential grammatical errors.

First, you create a core response that never changes, no matter what project you’re bidding on. This would include your general greeting and closing, and basic information about you, your services, terms, etc. Then, add to the core with keywords and phrases that more specifically suit the buyer’s objectives. It makes the whole bidding process much faster and less stressful.

I’d be happy to show you exactly how this is done, and together we’ll craft some templated responses and modifications to help you bid faster and more successfully.