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Should you hire a copywriter? Here are some signs that it might be time to offload your content creation process to a freelance copywriter.
As a business owner, you work hard for the day where you can say that things are going well. You want your business to be successful and for the long hours you’ve put in to finally pay off.
Finally, that day comes when you are reaching the level of success you’ve been working so hard for. It’s at this point in the growth of a business when you realize that you or your small team just can’t do it all anymore. The emails, blogs, website, SEO, social media, and all things content creation start piling up.
At this point you have a few options:
Hire a full-time or part-time member of your team
Deprioritize certain pieces of content or platforms and decide to focus only on a few
Pay for a platform or tool to better optimize the process
Hire a freelance copywriter or content writer to help
While these aren’t your only options, these are some common paths that business owners will take when they notice a content gap. So which option or options are right for you?
If the level of work needed is an ongoing project load where you need a new set of skills or expertise, then hiring a full-time or part-time employee might be a great solution. However, hiring someone full-time or part-time is a big commitment. For many business owners, it’s not a workable solution for your budget.
You could also choose to take a hard look at the things on your to-do list and decide what is worth your time and what you can deprioritize. If you don’t have the budget or aren’t ready to hire any kind of help, this is usually the only path forward. However, this requires sacrifice on the part of your business. What are you willing to give up so that you can do it all yourself?
For many business owners and marketing teams, the right answer is to hire freelance help for your writing and content creation projects. How do you know when to hire a freelance writer? Here are the top signs I’ve noticed with clients I’ve worked with when hiring freelance was the right decision:
1) You are playing catch-up with your content
For many of the clients I’ve worked with, the biggest reason for hiring a freelance copywriter was the realization that things are falling through the cracks. It's been a few weeks or months since you've updated the blog. The website is out of date. The email list is going stale and needs re-engagement. The content creation process is sporadic or reactive as opposed to proactive. Or there just hasn’t been any new content created in awhile.
Many businesses are barely floating by with creating sporadic content. This can work for a while but eventually, the lack of content catches up to you. Without current and consistent content, you are at risk of losing current customers or clients who don’t feel nurtured or supported. Or, losing potential customers or clients who aren’t getting the information they need to make that purchase decision.
When you focus on the business side of business, it can be easy to forget that as your audience and list of customers or clients grows, so does your responsibility to those customers. A business relies on its content to distribute accurate and action-oriented information that drives customers to the sale and builds fans who come back to your business again and again.
By hiring a freelance copywriter, you can get back on track with your content. A copywriter can not only start writing content for your business but can also help you think about a long-term content marketing strategy that works in line with your business goals. If you are feeling like you are flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to content creation, it might be time to hire a freelance copywriter.
2) Writing is... not for you
Writing is not for everyone. If your least favorite part of running your own business is writing about your business, then that might be a task worth offloading. If you don’t enjoy writing, it’s not just you suffering in the process. Your business could also be suffering by having content created by someone who isn’t dedicated to the unique art of the writing process.
If you create content for the purpose of creating content, you are missing the point of content creation. Content marketing is storytelling. You are sharing the journey of your business and inviting someone along for the ride. Telling the right story and using the right language is not easy to do, especially if you don’t enjoy writing in the first place.
The art of storytelling is what differentiates successful businesses from unsuccessful ones. By hiring a freelance copywriter you can focus on your strengths while someone else focuses on telling your best story.
3) You need a boost... an SEO boost
If you feel like you have no idea what’s going on when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) don’t fret, because you are not alone. So many of the start-up businesses, entrepreneurs, or one-person marketing teams that I work with admit that they feel completely lost when it comes to trying to rank on Google.
While many have hired an SEO agency to help identify their gaps, that insight only takes them so far. Most SEO agencies will identify your targeted keywords, backend website gaps, and content opportunities, but they aren’t going to be creating that content for you.
A good freelance copywriter is not just writing content, they are focusing on the goal of that content and working within your SEO strategy to try and help your business rank and grow. Part of a freelance copywriter's job is to write content that answers your audience's questions, keeps them on your site, and strategically optimizes your content.
With a copywriter in your corner, the responsibility of SEO rests not just on your shoulders. You can turn to them for SEO support, guidance, and content that aligns with your marketing and SEO goals.
4) You have NO TIME!
This is a big one for a lot of business owners that I work with because the more successful your business gets, the busier you tend to become. Spending hours writing content starts to feel like a giant waste of your valuable time. There are 1,001 things you need to have done by yesterday and spending time writing another blog post seems like the lowest priority on your list.
Especially when you realize how much time it takes to actually create a valuable piece of content. It’s not just about actually writing the content, you need to research the topic, perform consumer research, optimize the content for SEO, and format and edit until it’s just right.
For many business owners and entrepreneurs, this means that content is often deprioritized. Creating content never feels as urgent as other aspects of your business often do. This results in your spending time after hours trying to create content after you checked everything else off your list or deciding not to create that content at all.
Hiring a freelance copywriter allows you to offload certain projects like your blog posts, email campaigns, social media posts, or website updates that don’t make sense for you to be spending time on anymore. All the parts of writing content that I mentioned above — writing, researching, editing, SEO, formatting, etc. — are now owned by that freelance copywriter. This frees up valuable time in your schedule to focus on building your business instead of spending hours writing about it.
5) You need a cohesive voice and a better writing strategy
A lot of the larger or more established businesses I work with are creating content but don’t have a cohesive strategy in place for their content marketing. For example, some have multiple writers creating and posting content with no checks and balances in place to ensure the brand’s voice remains consistent throughout.
Other businesses tend to be reactive with their content creation. This means they have no strategy or schedule in place for creating content that aligns with their business goals for that year. For example, a new product is launching and now there is a last-minute scramble to put together an email and blog campaign that aligns with the launch schedule.
It might be time to hire a freelance copywriter to build better organization around the content creation process. A copywriter's job is to speak in your brand's voice and tie together that cohesive story that you are trying to share through your content. A copywriter can help you build out a long-term content marketing strategy and help keep your brand voice and style consistent.
6) You are too close to your business
Many of the business owners I work with love writing and have done most of the writing for their business up to the point that they hire a freelance copywriter. What ended up being the deciding factor for hiring freelance help was the realization that they are too close to their business to write about their business.
As a business owner, you might assume that you are the best writer for your business because who knows your business better than you do? While this is true, and no one will know your business better than you, sometimes it pays to have someone outside your business doing your writing.
It can be hard to take off your CEO hat and put yourself into the shoes of your consumer. By hiring a freelance copywriter, you might open yourself up to new content ideas, topic areas, or writing styles that you might not have ever thought of. It can be helpful to have an outside brain look at your business more objectively and help you identify gaps that you didn’t even realize that you had.
Not every business hires copywriters, but every business writes copy. Deciding whether to write your own copy or hire a freelance copywriter to do it for you is not always an easy decision. However, if you fall into any of the buckets above, it might be time to consider.
Whether you are looking for a copywriter or considering one, I'm in your corner and here to help. Schedule time with me to discuss whether I am the right fit to help meet your content needs.