So you’ve decided to hire a copywriter. This is very likely to be a good move, and that’s true for several reasons. It’s going to save you time and energy so you can focus on the making money part of your business, and the work you get from a copywriter for $50 will likely net you 10, 20, or 100 times the investment if you market the content right.
Now, I could end this post way early and just say, “Hire us, you’ll be in good hands!” and I’d probably be right. Here’s the thing, though: We might not be. I don’t know until I get a chance to talk with you about your project. Not every custom writing service has writers with the expertise necessary to write convincingly about your product or service, and you might not like our approach to the job. There are loads of variables.
So, with that, let’s look at what I think are some of the most important things to look for when you decide to hire a copywriter.
1. Get the Basics out of the Way Early
Find out how long the company has been in existence, how many staff writers it has, and how many current contracts it has. You’ll want to approach this part of the process the same way if you decide you just need a single freelancer. Overscheduled and overcommitted copywriters will not deliver the quality you need, will almost never deliver on time, and will likely never develop enough of an understanding of your brand to be convincing.
2. Dig Deeper on Their Experience
This one is tricky. Let’s say you’re a law firm looking for a copywriting company to manage your blog. You contact a copywriting company and someone enthusiastically tells you that they write “lots of legal copy.” You’re thinking, “This is great! They already have a good handle on what I need and they know how to write the stuff we need!”
Well, that could be true, but bear in mind that there is a difference between volume and quality. That they write a lot of legal copy doesn’t mean much. What if this company churns out copy for a dozen personal injury blogs in Texas but yours is a real estate law firm in New Mexico? It’s an entirely different situation. The same holds true for any business. A five-minute conversation won’t tell you much about a company’s experience. That’s why it’s important to be very specific about what you need and find out if it can deliver.
3. Be Clear on What You Want
All too often, clients will ask for an article or some other piece of content based on the concept of their brand without providing enough detail for the writer to construct an adequate draft. Most copywriters or copywriting companies will be happy to deliver a paid sample. If you want to know what they are capable of producing, they need to know what you need produced.
A good copywriting company will have a creative brief that outlines the major questions the writers need answered to deliver the product you want the first time. Fill it out thoroughly. Don’t skip anything. Be concise. The better idea your writing service has of what you want, the easier it will be to gauge if it will be a good long-term fit.
4. Develop a Style Guide
One of the best ways to determine if a copywriter or copywriting company is a good fit is to present a style guide outlining your desired approach to content creation. Your style guide should include information on every type of content you might want to order. That includes articles, social media posts, press releases, etc. What kinds of things should be listed in a style guide? Here are a few examples:
• What style do you want for press releases? Do you want them to pass PRWeb standards, or is it more important that they be suitable for newspapers and other print media?
• What is the target word count for your articles?
• Do you want segment headings for your articles?
•Do you want your copy delivered in a specific page format or font?
• Are there any keywords you want to appear in every article or blog?
Some of these things will show up in the creative brief as well, but you want to make sure you cover the bases yourself in case something you think is important doesn’t show up there.
If your writer or service balks at your style guide, they aren’t the right fit. Most will do what it takes to accommodate a new client, but some have their own agenda. The latter type might work if it is a super-specialized writing service (for example, one that only deals with legal services clients), but if not, you probably won’t be happy. That said, sometimes the writer does know better than the client what will work and what won’t, which brings me to my final point…
5. Pay Attention to Feedback
So you’ve filled out your creative brief. You’ve delivered your style guide. You’ve had enough conversations to figure out that this company (or freelancer) has the skills and the time necessary to work with you. Now it’s time to pay attention to the feedback they give you on your project. Does it seem like they’ve read through everything thoroughly? Do they have questions, comments, or suggestions? Do they bring up things about the project you hadn’t considered?
The more the writer or company has to say, the more you’re going to learn about their approach to the job, their attention to detail, and their ability to work with you. If you like what you see, go ahead and arrange for a paid sample. Don’t be surprised if what you get back isn’t perfect the first time out, but also don’t be too quick to bail if it’s not 100% right. It will take time to get on the same page. The point of this project is to determine if it’s possible to get there, not land there. After a revision or two, it should become clear to everyone what it’s going to take to get the message out in a way that makes you happy.