How to Get What You Want from a Copywriter
So you’ve decided to hire a professional writer to help you with your marketing content. It’s a no-brainer, right? Assuming you’ve taken the right steps to make sure you’ve got the right person, you can now set yourself on cruise control and let the writer write. Right?
Well, not quite. No matter how much of the creative burden you offload to the writer, you still have an important task to perform — communicating what you need and want to your creative team. If your writer (or graphic artist, or web designer, et cetera) receives wrong or incomplete information about your mission statement, corporate values, target market or the other things that make your business tick, you’ll get marketing content that misses the mark. Effective communication with your writer will help ensure strong, effective copy just as effective communication with an architect helps ensure that your home ends up with the right number of bathrooms. “Hey, the house looks great now that it’s built. By the way, did I mention we’re a family of twelve?” Oops.
Some items you want to make sure you discuss with your writer include:
Priorities. Writers love background information, so by all means pile it on. But at some point before the writing starts, make sure you’ve highlighted the talking points nearest and dearest to you. (A competent writer should ask you for this right off the bat, but make sure it gets stated regardless.) What are the most important things your audience needs to come away with after viewing your marketing content? What must they do? How must they feel? What things about your business set you apart from your competitors? Once you’ve discussed these things with your writer, you can then throw an avalanche of white papers, web links or other data on his/her shoulders, confident that the big points will get the most “ink” in the final product.
Creative scope. Putting your writer on either too long or too short a creative leash will put a noose around your chances for getting the right final product. If you tell the writer, “Hey, you’re the creative guy. Just come up with something,” be prepared not to like what happens. The writing you get may “sparkle” and represent a high professional standard, but it may also cover the wrong topic or emphasize the wrong message. On the other hand, if you’re mapping out every little point and sub-point down to individual phrases, you’re really writing the piece yourself and using the writer as an editor or transcriptionist. That’s okay if it’s the arrangement that you and the writer agreed on, but if you’re paying somebody to create content and then spoon-feeding every single word to that person, you’re wasting time and money.
Direction. Many business owners and marketing directors bring a new writer onboard when they intend to make a drastic change in the direction of their marketing. But what if you just want to continue what you’ve already started? That’s great too. Like a session musician sitting in for an established member of the band, a skilled writer can mimic a wide range of tones and styles. while the presence of that new player adds the jolt of fresh energy you seek. Just make it very clear to the writer that it ain’t broke and you don’t want it fixed. Not a problem.
Speak to your writer, and you’ll get writing that speaks to your customers. And that’s the most important communication of all.
Check out my website at reynoldswriting.com.
