Your team needs copy. You’re relaunching a website, revamping a blog, developing a sales deck, or authoring an ebook. Or maybe none of those things—or maybe all of them.
Regardless, your team needs words that work—they need to be good and they need to sell. You’ve arrived at the infamous Copywriting Crossroads: are your copy needs better filled by an in-house writer or an agency?
The truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer—the solution that’s best for your needs now might be different a month from now. Or maybe the best answer is a combination of in-house and agency writers.
What doesn’t change are the factors that go into making this decision. Here are six major considerations that play a critical role in determining where to go for the best copywriting companion.
1. Seniority
The first question you and your team need to answer is how experienced you want your writer to be. A more complex, in-depth project might require a writer with many years of experience. For a short, simple, one-off project, a less-experienced writer may do.
Naturally, a more senior writer will be more expensive than their junior compatriot—meaning the level of expertise you want will factor directly into the price you pay.
Using an in-house writer will give you access to a single level of seniority. You might pay a premium, but you’ll be assured that the person working on your project is always as experienced as you need them to be.
While all agencies have their own processes for writing copy, at MarketSmiths, our proven methods ensure that a senior writer is always hands-on during the writing phase and then completely involved in the editing phase. What does this mean for our customers? It means fair prices paired with expert level work.
2. Recruitment
Next, you have to find the writers to produce your content. If you’re hiring an in-house writer, this might take time. You need to get the word out, post the job online, sift through resumes, make time for interviews, and then choose and onboard the best candidate. This whole process takes time—which might not be a problem if your project isn’t a rush job.
However some projects are very time sensitive. For these, the turnkey solution an agency provides might be your best bet. There are copywriting agencies armed with writers at all times, ready to dive into the complexities of your business, tear them apart, and turn them into effective, lead-generating copy. For projects with a tight turnaround time, the preparedness of an agency makes them an excellent choice.
3. Management
Management becomes the next big factor—how will you make sure your writers are covering your topic the way you want it covered? How can you ensure they are following the guardrails of your strategy?
The answer is onboarding. This involves introducing writers to other team members, teaching all about the subject matter and internal processes, as well as making direction, strategy, and management of the specific project as clear as possible. You will have to do this regardless of whether or not you’re hiring new writers or an agency.
A major benefit of hiring an in-house writer is that they are usually just a desk away. Barring in-house writers who work remotely, this ease of access makes communicating with your writing staff a breeze. An agency will need to be emailed and communication can slow down project deadlines.
Despite this, agencies are typically pretty responsive (their business depends on it!) and willing to work to whatever management style you need. Not only that, but working with so many different companies has made agencies project management experts—and they might even be able to teach you a few things.
4. Utilization
Even after you pick out the best writers for your needs, you still need them to have the time to get everything you need done. If your copy needs are a tall order, this might mean hiring more than one writer. But if the assignment outweighs the capacity of the team you risk burning out your staff. And on the flip side, if the assignment is less than what takes up the person’s time you might end up paying them for sitting around.
By nature, marketing is feast or famine, ebb and flow—dependencies are at play, etc. It’s a tricky beam to balance, and falling off in either direction can make for an epic catastrophe. At an agency, writers are always working on your project. With an account, you only pay for the work they do for you—and nothing extra.
You can also rest assured that if an agency has taken on your project, they have the capacity and bandwidth for it.
5. Versatility
It’s no secret that not every writer is good at every format of writing. An agency gives you access to all sorts of talent, all across the spectrum. This can help if you plan on using a lot of different types of copy for multi-pronged advertising campaigns or a big website launch.
On the flipside, you might only need one piece of content, in which case, hiring a writer who can excel at that one piece might be your best option. If your company plans on producing a series of informative, educational ebooks, hiring an in-house writer with ebook expertise might lead to stellar results.
6. Economics
For all these assets of the in-house vs. outsourcing copywriting debate, the bottom line is the bottom line—how much are you going to end up paying?
Again, this depends on the size and scale of the project. Hiring an in-house writer means paying an extra salary, more taxes, and offering benefits and perks. It can be a large expense to add another employee to your office space.
Hiring an agency can involve many different payment plans, but often it simply involves you paying for the work the writers do and not a cent more. Depending on your project, this can actually end up costing less than hiring an in-house writer!
If you think an agency is right for you (and want to spice up your copy and maybe add a dash of humor), get in touch with us today.
