Here’s the thing…
As a small-to-medium enterprise (SME), your voice is important. It needs to rise above the din of all the power players around you, and it needs to stand out from your peers. Chances are, whatever product you’re selling or service you provide, you do it at least as well as the big guys and probably with a lot more heart.
Many companies, especially small and medium-sized businesses, often have a hard time finding people within the organization who are willing (or able) to write content that gets you noticed. If you’ve ever tried getting people in your organization to update your blog or social media accounts consistently, you know that it can be a challenge fitting it in with the other responsibilities that they need to meet. Even if they do it well, they probably don’t do it with enough regularity to keep things legit.
This is why you should consider hiring a professional copywriter or copywriting company.
Ask Yourself…
Have you looked at your website, blog, and social media channels and gotten that sinking feeling in the pit of your gut wondering how people are perceiving you based on what they’re reading about you?
All of what customers and prospects see reflects on your business (it’s just the way it is), and if their first impression isn’t stellar, it can be a disaster. Many times, that first impression is going to come from things like emails, press releases, Web articles, tweets, and Facebook posts. If those things aren’t written well, they are misrepresenting your brand.
So here’s what you should do right now: Take a few minutes and go visit the places where your content lives on the Web. Try to look at it from the perspective of a potential client or customer. It’s OK; we’ll wait.
All set with that? Great! Now ask yourself: What was the first, knee-jerk impression you got of what your company is putting out there? Yes, it matters. People will immediately judge your brand based on the quality of the content you put in front of them, and they will judge the words you use more harshly than anything else. Those automatic reactions can cost you precious leads and customers, so take your own critique seriously.
What a Professional Copywriter Can Do for You
Before you decide it’s not worth the money to hire a copywriter or copywriting company, it’s important to understand a few things.
For starters, most people’s primary objection to letting an “outsider†write for them is that someone outside the organization won’t understand or adequately represent the brand. This is a prevailing fear among smaller enterprises, because they tend to have a more close-knit, family atmosphere. It’s a concern for medium-sized organizations as well, because they want to protect their reputations and continue to grow. The problem is that both of these mindsets can backfire on you.
It is true that a professional copywriter won’t know your business as well as you do, but that’s not why you hire one. You hire one because he or she knows how to use words well and how to engage your audience.
Face it – if you looked at your own content and found any part of it just a little cringe-worthy, you just settled the argument. It doesn’t take an intimate understanding of all the inner workings of your business to make it look good. All it takes is a clean, professional image – one that makes your company look focused on the customer. That’s the job of a professional copywriter.
Common Copywriting Services
Here are a few common services copywriters provide, along with reasons why you should hire one to handle them:
• E-books – To help show your expertise about your brand
• Blogs and Web Articles – To reinforce your marketing strategy
• Landing Pages – To increase the probability of capturing the sale
• Press Releases – To increase your exposure
• Sales Letters – To compel and engage; to build a sense of urgency and excitement around your product
• Taglines – To ensure people remember who you are
• Brochures – To sell your product, not just talk about it
• Product Descriptions – To showcase all the benefits of your product
• Emails – To build a relationship with your customers
• Social Media Management – To make sure people talk positively about you and share your content
Sure, it can take a leap of faith to hire someone to represent you, but it takes a much bigger one to leave your brand image to chance. There comes a point where you need to let the pros do what they do. The right company-copywriter relationship can give your SME the boost it needs to take things to the next level.