You’re thinking about hiring a copywriter to write some marketing copy for your business. You’ve reached a point where you know you want it off your plate—so you can crack on working on bits of your business you enjoy—but are you really ready to hire someone?
As a copywriter who’s worked with hundreds of businesses in the last (almost) two decades, there are four questions I think a business owner needs to confidently answer before hiring a copywriter.
The 4 questions
When you begin contacting and speaking with a copywriter you might like to hire, they’re probably going to ask you these four questions during your very first call. (Or in the second or third email you trade.)
Being ready will put you on the front foot and make a great impression—the copywriter will know you’re serious and ready to hire someone like them, because you’ve thought about this stuff.
If you can answer these, then you’re probably ready to hire a copywriter.
If you can’t answer them, then this is your cue to start preparing your responses.
Question 1: What would you like to achieve with this piece of marketing?
You want to start a blog. Why is that?
You want to create a door drop flyer. To meet what goal?
You want a landing page for the service you’re about to launch. What’s your lead target?
When a client understands the specific goal they want to achieve, the creatives working on it can approach the project with that goal in mind. And this will influence the angle and direction they take.
What can happen when you have a clear goal
I used to write for a Las Vegas wedding planning company. Their goal was to become the authority on classy elopements in Las Vegas.
They already had a piece of content on the site titled ‘the ultimate guide to eloping’ but it was poorly written and way too short. Like under 1,000 words, which just ain’t enough for an ultimate guide. Particularly on a subject as hefty as eloping in the world’s wedding capital.
Knowing the business owner’s goal was to position the company as an authority on small elopement weddings, I took this guide and morphed it into a 7,000 word beast. It covered all the obvious questions a couple could possibly want to know when researching weddings in Vegas. Then I threw in some stats, personal stories, infographics and images for good measure.
That piece went from generating 2 leads in 12 months, to securing 24 leads in the first 30 days of the piece going live.
Having a clear goal when it comes to what you want a piece of marketing to help you achieve will make sure you and anyone you hire to help you make it, are on the same page.
Question 2: Who is your audience?
Audience affects the tone of the copy, language choices, and even how a piece is formatted and structured. So before hiring a copywriter, it’s really important to know who your business is targeting and—to take it a step further—which segment of your audience this particular piece of content is aimed at.
Should this copy speak to:
- People who don’t know you exist yet?
- Folks who have browsed your site or products but not bought?
- Regular repeat customers?
- Former customers that you want to re-engage?
The more specific you can be about your audience, the more focused the message can be.
Tip: Your audience is not ‘everyone’.
Why ‘everyone’ isn’t a good answer to this question
I’ve worked with many adult industry businesses over the years. And for one of them, I sat in on quite a few meetings they were having with an external marketing company that were hired to help with branding their online store.
They were asked the questions, “Who is your target audience and most loyal customers?” And they responded, “Everyone. Men, women, everyone.”
It quickly became clear why this answer doesn’t work.
The business sold sex toys.
Now, knowing that, does ‘everyone’ as a target audience work?
No. No it does not. For all sorts of legal reasons and practical reasons, not everyone is their target audience.
By thinking about the people who actually shopped with them, as well as the people they wanted to attract, they could get very specific about our target audience. And this helped me out. I was able to go away write copy that catered to those people and, as a result, we quickly ranked for a crazy number of keywords and had content that pushed the right product to the right people.
Question 3: What’s your budget?
Blurgh. Yuck. Money talk. No one likes it, but it’s an essential thing to know before hiring a copywriter.
Certain content mill sites have led people to (wrongly) believe you can get good copy for 50 bucks or less.
I won’t say that’s impossible. But it’s highly improbable.
Actual copywriters base their fees on all sorts of variables.
- How experienced they are.
- The complexity of the project.
- The client’s industry and needs.
- The deadline and turnaround time.
- How many revisions the copy is likely to need.
If you’ve got a budget in mind, or that you must stick to, let the copywriter know what that figure is.
They might be able to do everything you need within that budget. They might even be able to offer a bit more. Or they might need to let you know what’s realistic and can be achieved with the budget that’s available.
Removing budget as a barrier to your collaboration
There have been several occasions during my career when the money-chat has derailed what would have been some great working relationships and collaborations.
These are the times when the potential client and I will have traded a couple of emails and set up the free Nice to Meet You call that I offer. (Mostly to go through these four questions.) And it’ll all be going great. But then talk about price and budget.
They’ve either not looked at the prices at my site or they haven’t looked at copywriter prices generally to set themselves a realistic budget.
So when I give them a figure in my sales proposal, it’s turned out to not be OK and way more than they were expecting to spend.
And that’s OK. It is what it is. But it emphasises why it’s important to have a figure or budget in mind before hiring a copywriter and starting those conversations.
The other side of the coin is when the client has a ballpark of how much they want to spend. And while it might not get them exactly what they were first imagining (a complete website rewrite), we’re able to find a way to get them close for that same amount. (A rewrite on their core pages, plus a few blog edits, which instantly lifted the entire site content and lead to positive feedback from new and existing clients.)
The earlier in the project that you have a figure in mind, the easier you’ll find negotiating what you need and making sure you don’t waste each other’s time.
Question 4: Who will design/develop/upload the copy?
Copy is usually only one part of a marketing project. And the design or upload of the copy isn’t usually in a copywriter’s wheelhouse. (Although some who work primarily in digital marketing copywriting might offer SEO or uploading as an add on.)
Copywriters regularly collaborate with designers, developers, marketers and SEO strategists. If you have someone in mind who will get the piece of marketing you need out into the world, great! If you don’t, then let your copywriter know before you hire them. It might be that they have people in their network who would be perfect for your project.
Preparing your answers
So there you have it. They’re the four questions.
- What would you like to achieve with this piece of marketing?
- Who is your audience?
- What’s your budget?
- Who will design/develop/upload the copy?
Most copywriters will ask these questions (or a variation of them) during an intro call or in the first few emails you exchange.
If you don’t have this information jotted down, then take some time in the next couple of days to make a bullet point list in a Word or Google Doc, so you can refer to them in your initial call.
Confident that you’re ready to hire a copywriter?
Then the next step is making sure you find the right writer for your job.