Do You Really Need a Copywriter on the Payroll?

As you probably know, content is king when it comes to marketing your products or services. Every company that wants to be seen needs to create consistent content regularly, because this is the primary way of presenting themselves to the world. With this in mind, it may seem logical to hire a copywriter as a staff member. Let’s get a closer look at the pros.

Pros of having a staff copywriter:

1. Availability. You always have them available (inside the working hours, that is, of course). No more thinking whether you’ll find a good enough hire in time.
2. Quality. You know the quality of work this person does, and it satisfies you. With freelancers, you can’t be 100% certain about that; especially if you’ve not worked with them before.
3. Consistency. A staff copywriter is part of the team and part of the company. They probably fit well with your corporate values and goals, and they know the image you as a company are trying to convey to the audience. Basically, this person is at the heart of the organisation they are representing through the texts they produce, so you can be sure they won’t mistakenly picture the company in a weird way, and the communication with the customers and customers-to-be will flow smoothly. This is probably the biggest advantage of having a staff member writing corporate texts.
4. Cost predictability. If a person is on the payroll, they get a fixed amount of money for a fixed amount of working time (every two weeks, per month, or in a year). You have this planned for in the corporate budget, and a sudden project won’t throw off all your financial plans.

There’s also another option – outsourcing your copy to a contractor. These are the pros of hiring freelancers:

1. Flexible amount of manpower. When you have a certain amount of people doing the same job in your company, you can’t magically cram more work into them if it needs to be done. When hiring freelancers, you can task as many people as needed with the job you have.
2. Flexible hours. The Internet is open 24/7 and is international by definition. This means there’s an audience waiting for your social media account to upload a new post at any given time. You can task a freelancer with posting during the out-of-office hours or creating a piece of content right in time for you to review while you’re having your first cup of coffee in the morning.
3. Talent versatility. You may need many various types of content created. One person may not be equally well versed in all of them. With freelance talent, you can select the creator who specialises in the type of content you need right now, so that you can get the best result. You can also select different contractors for texts that need to be written in different styles. Another thing that using freelancers’ services helps avoid is writer’s block. A staff content creator may run out of creativity from time to time, and you outsourced talent can be really helpful in that case.
4. Flexible cost. With freelance workers, you pay exactly what it costs to have your work done. If you need a low volume of content that will not be worth a decent salary, you can outsource the small amount of work that you have to independent contractors without overpaying your staff employee. This is also a good option for companies whose amount of work fluctuates through the year, for example, during seasonal promotions.

So, there you have it. No option is better than the other; one may be more suitable for your business based on your needs.