What It Looks Like To Work With a Copywriter
When you're looking for a copywriting addition for your team, it's important to understand just how they will partner with you to achieve your content goals. If their process doesn't mesh with how you and your existing team work, you may want to reconsider a partnership with them.
Since this working relationship is highly influential in your copy's power and success, it is essential to find a copywriter you love. While interviewing copywriters, you will want to ask them about the process and how they work with their clients to elevate and develop meaningful messaging for the brand. Below is an example of how I work with clients to craft their stories poignantly.
Getting to know each other
At the very beginning of our working relationship, we will get to know each other. Getting to know each other may happen over a phone or video call. During this call, I'll ask you questions about the scope of the project you're looking for me to partner with you on, along with your timelines, and finally, your desired outcomes. These questions will help me gather project-specific information, and they may sound like this:
What aspects of this project are you looking for me to take point on?
When are you looking to launch this work?
If this project meets all your expectations and more, what would it result in?
After I get to know the project-specific expectations, I ask a few questions to help me understand if we would partner well culturally. These questions may look like this:
What does your company value?
Do you have experience working with other freelance copywriters?
What expectations do you have around communication and accessibility?
What it is like to start working with a copywriter
When the contracts are signed and the work begins, most copywriters will ask for a brand messaging guide or your branding deck to help them understand the way your brand sounds, what kind of feelings you aim to evoke, and the story you tell.
Depending on the size of the project, you can expect to review anything from drafts to an outline if it's something with a significant scope.
As you review outlines and initial drafts, make sure you leave feedback on the tone of the writing, not just the content. While it is crucial to ace the content, it can be a challenging edit if you wait to leave brand-related feedback until the final draft. I encourage my clients to tell me what sounds like them and what doesn't from the start, so each draft gets a more precise outcome on the content side and a polish on the branding side. This draft review process makes coming to a final draft speedy and painless.
When I work with clients, I create blog posts or in-depth case studies. My standard review process looks like a quick review of a draft, a 15-20 minute review of the first draft, and a 10-15 minute review of the second, hopefully, the final draft. I don't usually need more than that to get content shipped off to your audience so you can start seeing results!
How to continue your work with a copywriter
Once you work with a copywriter, if you enjoyed the experience and got the value you were looking for, it is easy to return to that copywriter again and again. The more they work with you, the more they know your brand voice and tone, and the easier it will be to accomplish projects faster and with better results.
If you're looking to continue working with a copywriter, some good ongoing projects they can help on could be curating blog content (this is my favorite!), writing ongoing customer case studies, starting or taking over the copywriting for your company newsletter, writing social media captions/posts, creating fresh ad headlines and copy for new ads.
When you initiate an ongoing contract, you must continue to set your expectations for the writer around deadlines and deliverables. A successful partnership is equal parts working well together and clearing any murky water so things can move smoothly forward.
Ready to work with a copywriter
If you're looking to grow your blog, start a company newsletter, or feature some of your past customers' success stories, I would love to chat. You can contact me by emailing randalyn@cre8tives.co to make creating powerful, concise content a breeze.
