I recently attended a presentation by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Thomas Friedman that shed new light on the value of outsourced copywriters. The theme of Friedman’s talk: “The Big Trends Shaping the World Today: Economics, Technology, and Geopolitics.” Friedman wove a compelling perspective on how everything is interconnected in an era he’s dubbed the “polycene era,” the era of many.
So what’s the “era of many” got to do with developing your content and copy? Actually, quite a lot. You see, when MarketSmiths’ team of business copywriters is tasked with creating content we look outside of a company to give the copy better context and more relevance.
“Can’t my in-house writer do that?” you ask. Maybe. But we find (and our clients concur) that in-house writers tend to get heads down into a company and often don’t reflect or weave in what’s going on in the wider landscape. They tend to miss or minimize the effect of what’s happening outside their company or their industry. In turn, they can diminish the connection to a company’s audience.
As outsourced copywriters, each responsible for a pipeline of copy for several companies and across an array of industries (and for markets all across the world), we’re constantly synthesizing what’s going from, as Friedman says, through an economic, technological, and geopolitical lens.
We bring to the table questions or points that often don’t occur to company leadership or in-house subject matter experts. It goes beyond, “Here’s what’s on your competitors’ websites.” (although that in itself is often a revelation to clients). It’s also, “One of our clients was just talking to us about X. You’re in a different industry, but does this impact you also—and how?” Or ,“We noticed this is trending in the news. How is this affecting your customers?” Notice, we focused on the impact on customers, because, again, as business writers, that’s the audience we’re usually addressing.
What does this look like in practice?
- It’s proposing fresh ideas and copy angles. For one global tech company that specializes in contracts, it was suggesting thought leadership on the impact of 2025 tariffs—and then recommending the paper be spun into smaller digestible chunks, including a blog post and infographic.
- For a pan-African company whose sales division heads travel the continent but needed a wider world view of best website practices, it’s developing a trusted voice on the value props that companies in finance and banking, healthcare, legal and a dozen more sectors look for in selecting a provider.
- For one of the top RIAs in the US, it’s bringing to the forefront that their clients need to think beyond traditional investment vehicles and insurance—and writing about digital assets as part of estate planning.
- For a leading US provider of queue management systems, it’s using our writers’ real-life experiences at major sports events and hospitality venues to inform blog posts.
- For myriad technology development companies, it’s helping them wrangle tech-speak into crisper, more focused web copy and easier-to-navigate website structures. How? Because this is our job, all day, 5 days a week—and we know how visitors find, navigate, and respond to webpages. We’re immersed in the language and mindsets of prospects.
- For a diverse back-office services provider that essentially hadn’t changed their messaging for decades and wanted to expand from regional to national, it’s being their eyes, ears, and voice when it comes to how enterprise companies can most effectively talk to their customers and prospects.
At the end of the day, a company’s marketing copywriter has only so much exposure, so much experience outside your organization. An outsourced copywriting team greatly expands that perspective, giving you invaluable insight into best practices, important messaging, impactful presentation, and so much more. It provides the pulse of what’s current and what works.
And it’s also hugely cost-effective. An outsourced team raises knowledge exponentially without multiplying head count.
When our world is so interconnected, when no company thrives in a bubble, why would you settle for the singular, when you can bring richer and more diverse perspectives to your marketing?
Tap into a bigger context and better results; talk to the poly-talented team at MarketSmiths.
