October—it’s a bone-chilling month for sweaters, campfires, and pumpkin spice lattes in New York—so let’s talk horror stories.
Did you know that there are copywriting agencies (lots of them, in fact)…in which clients NEVER get to meet their writers firsthand?
These wordsmiths may as well be ghosts!
In The Wizard of Oz, the illusion of the “Almighty, Powerful Oz” was necessary to hide that he was, in fact, a weak wannabe-tyrant, incapable of true leadership. Similarly, agencies that hide writers behind the curtain are often doing so to exude authority and distract your attention from their shortcomings.
Let’s pull back the curtain…
Before I joined MarketSmiths as a salaried Senior Copywriter, I spent 18 years on multiple agency rosters as a freelancer. Here’s what life was like back then:
It’s 8 pm. My inbox lights up: urgent deliverable needed!!! At first, I’m confused: “Why does the file name say ‘August,’ when it’s October?” The project manager’s response?
“Don’t worry about the deadline. We’re way overdue anyway.”
Somehow, somewhere, the account managers couldn’t get the brief together, couldn’t get ahold of the original writer who ghosted them, couldn’t find the task in the cluttered project management system, couldn’t keep up with the incoming requests—and it isn’t the first time.
Here’s another common agency freelancer scenario: I get a panicked message from a project manager:
“The initial writers on the project totally botched this one. Can you fix it, PLEASE???”
Most agencies hire freelancers after viewing a handful of samples to see that you can string a sentence together. Do you understand the client’s industry? Can you write the type of deliverable the client needs? Are you a strategic thinker? They dish out the work on a hope and a prayer—and the results aren’t always pretty.
You can’t meet “your” writers because you have no writers.
Some freelancers live to work, but most are working to live while pursuing other dreams. Names popped up in our project management system for a few weeks—maybe even a few months—soon to disappear faster than suspects in Agatha Christie novels. You could have a different writer every single time—not the ideal situation for strong brand consistency.
It’s a broken system, but it’s chillingly common.
Why? Freelancers are lean—and relatively cheap—for agencies to employ. When work is slow, you don’t have to pay anyone’s salary, 401(k), vacation time, or sick days.
But when work ramps up, it becomes impossible to build reliable, efficient, and dedicated teams.
Output suffers on every level:
- Quality: The deliverables coming back are disjointed and all over the map in terms of voice and tone—like a different writer penned each one—which is likely true.
- Collaboration: You’re asking questions that go unanswered. You’re giving the same feedback over and over like a broken record—and wonder if anyone’s listening.
- Timeliness: You needed this content yesterday and yet, consistently, it’s coming in weeks or even months behind schedule. When it is on-time, it feels slap-dash like someone burned the midnight oil to get it to you before you canceled the account.
- Cost: You’re paying by the hour—and, conveniently, each piece requires heavylift revision work, which drives up the hours. The rotation of novice writers means more billable hours for the agency—and projects consistently coming in over-budget for you.
You work with managers who give the illusion of competence.
The hierarchical structure most agencies employ is supposed to fill you with confidence in the partnership: “If something goes wrong, the account manager will make everything better.”
Once you sign on the dotted line, you meet your trusty account manager for the “intake” process—which involves filling out a lengthy questionnaire that feels akin to writing a high school essay. (Wait, aren’t you paying them to write for you?)
- Your account manager agrees to write up and deliver briefs to the writers.
- Writers submit their work back to the account manager who passes it over to you.
- Your feedback goes to the account manager who handles revisions and rewrites.
When the account manager doesn’t share feedback, the writer can’t gain insights to become a brand expert and write better. Like a Marxist dystopia, writers are utterly detached from the products of their labor—and, therefore, they don’t really care whether they’re advancing your business objectives or not.
There’s no workplace culture and no incentive to stick around. Everyone works in their isolated bubbles, with little more than a “please” or “thank you” discussed among one another. As a freelance writer, I never spoke to fellow writers. Account managers encouraged me to ask questions, but didn’t always provide answers.
Often, account managers—tasked with damage control—don’t last long either. Case in point: I once wrote for an account that had six different managers in six months! Worse yet, their individual preferences and interpretations of each client’s needs were all vastly different.
Without a strong workplace culture, writers are churning, managers are churning, clients are churning—it’s an endless cycle.
It’s all tricks—no treat—when agencies hide the writers from you.
The horrifying truth? Most content marketing agencies make their profit by padding the bottom line with wasted hours—hours spent making and fixing false assumptions, trying to create better writer briefs, rewriting wretched first drafts, and onboarding a continuous stream of freelance writers. Contracts are riddled with plentiful protections and caveats to justify the overage, but it’s not a good experience for anyone.
Like the kid who’s upgraded from pumpkin basket to bottomless pillow case to store a more bountiful Halloween haul, we know… there’s a better way.
In the early days, MarketSmiths founder Jean Tang tried the freelance route—but she loved the first two hires so much she brought them on full-time, and never looked back. After three consecutive years on the INC 5000, this divergent content agency model stands as one of MarketSmiths’ key differentiators in a crowded pumpkin patch.
- At MarketSmiths, you have a dedicated team and direct access to writers from day one. She knew it was a risky gamble to hire salaried writers, but that trailblazing Jean also knew what so many others have struggled to grasp: Along with a salary comes a sense of pride, a sense of accountability, and a growth mindset that’s worth every penny. Assignments are tackled promptly—and with gusto—because every writer, new or senior, is held to a higher standard and ultimately accountable for maintaining impeccable client relations.
- Instead of filling out a questionnaire, you hop on a kickoff call. After reviewing the resources you sent over and taking notes, your writers come to the meeting to soak up your brand firsthand, ask questions, and (most importantly) verify understandings—of client insights, audience insights, industry and market context. Only then can we craft effective reader journeys.
- When you provide feedback directly to the writers themselves, efficiency is built into the system. While a strategist always provides a second set of eyes and rigorous 35-point quality control to every piece of content the team produces, it’s the writer who revises, ponders, and polishes the draft according to your feedback. We deepen our understanding with every deliverable and share client insights through an Internal Style Guides, which serve as a single source of truth in hitting the mark and maintaining brand consistency.
If you’ve had a bad experience in the past, don’t be spooked by the idea of “agency partnerships.” They’re not all rotten apples! There’s a better way—and we’d love to show it to you. Reach out and treat yourself to MarketSmiths.
