Tradition abounds in the American workforce, especially if a company settles into a process that works. But as times change, technology accelerates, and companies grow, it’s important to remember that habit and progress are two opposing forces. Or, as the old business maxim goes, what got you here won’t get you there. This is especially true in today’s market when it comes to sourcing copywriting.
One thing that keeps a company moving forward is its messaging. As new marketing channels are unveiled and audiences go in search of content like digital nomads, it’s essential to understand what your customers are looking for, how to get it to them, and who the right copywriters are to work magic with words.
But as we explored in the first post of this series, the challenge of content sourcing and production is fraught. From resourcing difficulties to in-house writer overwhelm to missed deadlines or opportunities, the signs of copywriting tradition that’s no longer working are many. In this post, we’re going to break down the common approaches to getting content produced, how each one should work, and why they usually don’t.
Traditional approaches to meeting your content needs
Businesses have a number of choices when it comes to sourcing copywriting, depending on their size and needs. Likewise, copywriters come in a wide variety of skills, experience levels, and areas of expertise. But typically, copywriters come in three varieties:
- The Freelancer. A true freelancer is someone who runs their own business and works for an agency as a 1099 contractor. Freelancers typically work on a project-by-project basis, based on their availability. They’re usually hired through individual referrals or a freelancer site like Upwork.
- The Embedded Contractor. For a writer with more consistent availability, staffing agencies like Creative Circle will hire out agency writers. They may still be a 1099 contractor (or full-time employee of the staffing agency) but they usually contract for more availability and/or a set schedule.
- The In-house Writer. Companies who want a full-time, in-house writer dedicated exclusively to their work will typically hire a W2 employee directly to work a dedicated, full-time schedule with continuous availability.
For larger companies, one writer typically won’t be enough to cover the workload. In those instances, a business’ options are to hire additional staff writers, or contract with an agency to outsource their overflow writing.
Like individual writers, agencies work at various levels of commitment as well, ranging from channel-specific agencies, such as digital marketing, web writing, social media, SEO, etc. to full-service agencies that handle digital marketing across the board, to an agency of record, which is a company’s go-to agency no matter what their marketing or advertising needs are.
These are the traditional ways that companies work with copywriters, but they don’t always work. The good news is they aren’t the only way. (Read on for the big reveal.)
The risk factors that lead to non-optimal content
Whether a company uses an individual freelancer or an agency of record, they’re all likely asking themselves the same question: Am I buying something that will actually be useful? Or, will our campaigns fall flat, produce tepid results or—worse still—increase costs due to rewrites on my end?
A recent study revealed that 58% of marketers feel their content strategies are only moderately effective. Part of that reason is that there’s not traditionally been a real vetting process for copywriters, or the copywriting process. Traditionally, copywriters are chosen based on a combination of resume screening, interviews, samples, and pricing. Once in a while, a writer will agree to take on a sample project.
Even a writer who passes all the tests, however, can still leave a brand exposed to risk. For example, there’s no guarantee – even with a solid resume and years of experience in your industry – that the writer will be able to produce usable content in one shot. When that happens, your choices are either pay them additional hours to rewrite, take the time to try again with someone new, or hand it over to your (already overloaded) in-house people to revise. Either way, the impacts of this type of shortfall can affect your bottom line from monetary, time, and resources perspective.
Portfolios can also be misleading, because they showcase only the final product. You, as a hiring manager, can’t be 100% certain how heavily the work you’re seeing differs from the original draft. Was the original idea on the mark? How heavily was this piece edited? How much support was needed along the way? And, if you’re hiring through a staffing agency, you have to trust them to uncover this information on your behalf.
This is not to say that your experience will be negative 100% of the time—there are freelance unicorns out there who can absolutely deliver exactly what you need on the first try. But they’re still only one person with 24 hours in a day. And if they’re really good—they’re likely booked out for months.
Still, the majority of marketing VPs find themselves burning the midnight oil, writing or rewriting content themselves because either a freelancer didn’t deliver or their day-to-day team is overbooked already. Especially when deadlines loom, this “tradition” leads to a treadmill of copywriting that’s insufficient, and team members who want to stop running in circles.
There’s a better way to source your content
When “what’s always worked” for your copywriting needs isn’t working any more, it’s important to explore what else is out there. A rising new category, for example, is the Content Agency of Record. This business model works something like an Agency of Record, but with a twist and a specialization. Writers at a Content Agency of Record are all experienced writers who focus solely on their clients’ copy and messaging needs.
With a CAoR in your corner, you have a team of writers at your disposal who can meet quick turns, scale up and down as needed, get up to speed quickly, and understand your tone and voice as well as your in-house writers.
To find out even more about how a CAoR works—and how it can make your copy flow like water—read the next post in this series.
