So, you have successfully launched your project into the next phase of its life cycle.
It could be the company product you’ve been working on for ages. Or maybe it’s the online store you have spent quite some time putting in place, or you just set up a SaaS (Software as a Service) company that you need to start promoting.
The next step for you is to build brand awareness around your products, services, or company, and in the process get to engage both prospects and customers for your business.
Before now, I expect you to have put a foolproof plan in place for attracting customers to your brand. And if you haven’t, now is the second-best time to have your content marketing plan all figured out.
Of course, there will be lots of content writing for your company website, blog posts, and social media posts.
Why Hire a Professional Writer
As it’s typical with most start-ups and sole business people, the big question is “why hire a writer?” The simple answer to that question is, “hiring a writer is a professional thing to do”.
Yes, and even though you’re good at writing, you may not have the time or energy to write consistently. And when your writings aren’t consistent, you will find it tougher to build an audience.
And besides that, generating ideas isn’t one of the top priorities on your to-do list because you’ve got prospects to call on, meetings to attend, and accounts to update.
So if you want to make a success of your content marketing, you’ve got to hire a professional writer.
Besides that, you can get someone to help you tell your brand’s story using the right words. And of course, you get to save time that you would otherwise have spent writing your own content.
This brings us to the next phase in our quest for professional writing!
Choosing a Professional Writer to Hire
Once you decide to hire a professional writer, you have to choose one of three options:
- Hire an in-house writer to do all your writing
- Engage a copywriting or marketing agency to handle all your company’s writing
- Hire a freelance professional writer to do all your writing.
While each of these options has its strengths and weaknesses, let’s look at the best option for you.
Hiring an in-house writer gives you so much control over the content creation process. You will be able to monitor everything from ideation, research, choice of topics, editing, and proofreading.
However, you will have to pay a full-time salary and all the working benefits. Don’t forget that your in-house writer will need a workspace, which your company has to pay for.
And besides that, you may not have enough writing jobs to justify keeping a full-time writer.
If your writing needs require some form of specialists to handle, an agency would be the right choice. You can engage an agency to manage the full process of content creation, promotion, and analytics.
But then, we’re talking about content writing without the other stuff that your firm may not need right now. Also, an agency would most likely contract your writing jobs to a freelance writer.
So where does that put you? Because you just engaged a middleman parading as a writing agency, instead of going directly to the writer.
So the agency collects a cut from whatever is paid, while still engaging a freelance writer. But if you decide to hire a professional writer, you save cost and time.
You don’t have to monitor the whole process, plus you are able to deal directly with a professional writer without middlemen.
8 Advantages of Hiring a Freelance Writer
Here are the 8 benefits of using a freelance writer:
1 – Produce Consistent and Quality Content
I’ve known quite a few entrepreneurs who believed they could handle writing all by themselves. And then they start with so much gusto and enthusiasm and then…
They find writing not so appealing, or they find that other activities have taken over their time. And then the writing suffers, with the few audiences they’ve been able to gather.
But a professional writer lives, eats, and sleeps writing, and they do it quite well. You have someone who invests all of their active hours creating interesting content, writing posts that your audience will find entertaining, educative, and full of value.
A professional writer will produce quality content that will showcase your brand as a thought leader. If you want your audience to perceive your brand as caring, then let the writer do her job.
The writer ensures that your content is ready at the right time, so you don’t miss any post. Your brand will come across as consistent and trusted because of the quality of your content.
2 – Faster Turnarounds
Freelance professional writers are known to deliver projects at faster turnarounds. Take for instance that you contract your writing jobs to a marketing agency.
Since most agencies offer different types of services, your job isn’t given dedicated attention. At least, not in the same way a freelance writer would give to your writing job.
And when your job is accepted by the agency, it has to pass through some processes. It goes from one unit to the other, or from one department to the other. And then it eventually gets to the desk of the writer, which could also be a freelance copywriter.
The same process is followed as the written job is sent to you for revision and approval. So you find that these processes can add to the turnaround time of your content.
But a freelance writer gives you a direct line for communication. You can discuss virtually all areas of your written content.
You can also request for new information to be added or removed from the ongoing job. There is no middleman or intermediary which shows down the turnaround time.
This arrangement turns out more productive for both the freelance writer and your business.
3 – Vast Experience
If you want a writer with vast experience in content writing, it has to be a freelancer because these are people who have worked with hundreds of different agencies. And yet they are not bound to any of those agencies.
Think of the wide knowledge and experience that must have been gathered along the way. Also, working with businesses in different niches comes with its benefits.
When you engage a freelance writer, you also engage all the experiences that she has been exposed to. You can get some guidance and advice on how to manage your content marketing. Learn about what works, and what to focus on for your business growth.
It’s a win-win situation that gives you knowledge from a freelancer’s knowledge base, while they learn about yours. As your demand for content writing increases, so the knowledge and experience of the writer does.
4 – Act as Your Media Consultant
Having a writer who is dedicated to your company can offer you more benefits. Due to the close working condition with the writer, you can seek and receive professional advice.
And one such piece of advice is the choice of media that best projects your company. There are lots of content types such as text, audio, graphics, and videos. And each of these content types is best suited for particular audiences and situations.
But when you have an experienced writer working on your content, you can ask for some advice. Most writers I know are more than willing to offer professional advice to their clients.
5 – Help You Gain a Fresh Perspective
Very often, the path of least resistance presents a more comfortable option even when it comes to writing content for your business website or blog.
And so, you will find lots of business owners creating content that seems to flow with the tide. Some people erroneously believe that trending will do their brands much good.
However, a freelance writer will offer a fresh and professional perspective for your company by giving you ideas and suggestions that will differentiate your brand from the rest.
6 – Personalized Service
Earlier on, I did mention that agencies service a lot of companies. And also different types of marketing services are assigned to different clients.
So while an agency may be one of the best places to go to if you seek professional writing service, they just might not give you that personalized service that your brand-new company needs.
A typical agency will service hundreds to tens of thousands of clients, working to ensure that every single client gets good value for their money.
However, the agency does not have the resources to service each client on a personal level. The most that you will get is a dedicated account manager, which you will share with other clients.
Except you are one big enterprise or Fortune 500 firm, personalized service isn’t coming your way. But a freelance writer has fewer agencies that allow for personalized service to clients.
The writer can sit down with you to understand what your company is all about. Capture your thoughts, ideas, and plans and then express them to your audience through writing.
If you prefer a writer who will listen to you before projecting your brand, the freelance writer gives you that privilege.
7 – More Convenient Than Hiring Full Time Staff
Freelance writers come and go, sometimes without the need for contracts unlike when you hire a full-time staff member to handle all of your business writing.
A full-time employee comes with a lot of responsibilities that your business must take care of. There is a pension, health insurance, benefits, and bonuses. And besides that, you are prone to litigation from unhappy staff members.
Having a full-time employee has its advantages too; as it lets you exercise full control. But sometimes, it may be the right move for you, especially if it’s a small business.
There are lots of freelance websites where you can engage a freelance writer for as low as $5. You will find hundreds of willing writers on Fiverr and Upwork who will work on a project-by-project basis.
That means you do not need to have any contractual agreement before the job is done. And once any of the jobs is completed, you can both part ways, or still decide to engage the writer because of the quality of work done.
One more thing, if your business is such that you produce an average of one post daily, use a freelance writer because it’s a total cost of $150 – $300 ($5 – $10 daily per 500 – 1000 words respectively) for writing the content. That’s if you choose to engage the services of a freelance writer for the posts.
8 – Most Flexible Option
Of the three options that we started this post with, hiring a freelance writer is the most flexible. Hiring an in-house writer gives you full control while exposing you to more risk.
Agencies do not expose you to many risks but they leave you much less control over the process while freelance writers give you a level of control and shield you from employee risks.
Freelance writers can be engaged to write on a project-by-project basis, but full-time writers have to be paid in full every month, even if there isn’t much writing to be done.
Conclusion
Writing is a basic need for every business to succeed in today’s world.
There is a need to create interesting, educative, and entertaining content for your audience. You also need to create documents such as articles, whitepaper, case studies, reviews, and blog posts.
All of these will require that you engage the services of a professional writer. And you can decide to engage a marketing agency, a full-time writer, or a freelance writer.
While the marketing agency has its benefits, it may cost you much more than engaging a freelance writer. Also, a full-time writer may entail more risks and costs to your business.
This post highlights some of the advantages of choosing to hire a freelance writer instead. You are able to produce quality and consistent content, enjoy faster turnarounds, and get professional advice.
Also, a freelancer can help you gain a fresh perspective, offer convenient flexible working terms.
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