As a professional copywriter, it constantly amazes me that many businesses persist in producing their marketing communications in-house, regardless of whether they have the necessary skill and resources. This is misguided for so many reasons.
I’m guessing those very same people wouldn’t dream of drawing up their business accounts themselves (unless they’re trained accountants). And if their business was to suffer a catastrophic IT failure causing plummeting productivity with every minute of downtime, you can be sure they’d summon IT support immediately.
It’s no different for copywriting. Because what you put out there matters.
Five reasons you should seriously consider using a professional copywriter:
- The impression you’re creating – If your blog post, mailing or brochure is littered with spelling mistakes, careless typos and clumsy sentences that make it difficult to read, what does that say about your business? Your professionalism? The attention to detail you devote to your work for clients? I’ve seen many stunning websites that probably cost thousands to create undone by poor copy. The website design may look great at first glance but when you take a few minutes to read it, the content appears to have been written by an untrained intern.
- The opportunity cost – It’s easy to see why delegating a piece of writing to an employee is so tempting. It may initially appear to be a low cost option. But the hours that employee spends staring at a blank screen waiting for inspiration to strike or struggling with repeated rewrites is time they could be spending more profitably doing the job you actually hired them to do.
- Getting the job done – Employees have to juggle so many balls in the air, typically working on a variety of projects involving several different departments. Of course, each department believes their project is the most urgent and should be prioritised over everyone else’s. Sometimes, logic flies out the window and less important, less urgent jobs have to be given precedence simply because of the internal politics involved. Professional copywriters don’t get sucked into any of this. They can simply focus on writing excellent copy, day in and day out. There are no endless departmental meetings to swallow time and no egos to consider. They can single-mindedly focus on writing persuasive copy that gets your messages across by the deadline they’ve been given.
- You know too much – You’re probably wondering how that can be a bad thing. Well, when you’re very close to the subject you’re talking about it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees. This means it’s hard to filter out all the detail and home in on the important points you need to get across. You quite literally know too much. An external copywriter, coming to the topic with fresh eyes, is skilled at identifying your key messages and expressing them in a way that people can understand.
- The end result – The best writing often appears effortless, with the result that everyone thinks they can write – until they have to do it. Will the mailing or landing page written by an untrained member of your marketing team get the results you need? An experienced copywriter has years, if not decades, of experience. And experience really does matter. It makes all the difference when it comes to striking the right tone of voice, creating an impact and stirring the reader into action.
As the American firefighter ‘Red’ Adair famously said, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur”.
If you’d like me to quote for your next marketing project, please get in touch.
(Full disclosure: The picture above is not my actual desk – it’s far too tidy)
