Choosing to work with freelance copywriters is often a great idea, but these tips will help you to get an even better return on your investment.

Before we begin, I’m going to assume that you recognise the benefits of hiring freelance copywriters and know that these include:

• Cost savings (it’s usually cheaper to hire a freelance copywriter than it is to recruit one, or use an agency).
• Pinpoint control of costs. Unless their contract includes a retainer fee, you can generally employ your freelance copywriter – or not – at will, depending on your needs and their availability.
• An objective, original approach to your copy.
• Expertise and skills that you may not have in-house, and which would be costly and/or difficult to recruit for.
• Fresh insights and understanding borne out of working with multiple clients; these will be amplified if your copywriter is a specialist.
• Search engine optimisation (SEO) benefits that can drive revenue and reduce marketing costs.

However, the fact remains that hiring a freelance copywriter is a business investment and, not unreasonably, you want the best return on investment (ROI) you can get. So here are my top tips, based on a decade of freelance copywriting.

Top tips for getting best ROI, from an experienced UK freelance copywriter

Specify your objectives and desired outcomes for every job

Basically, you need to tell your freelancer exactly who you are addressing, why you are addressing them and what you want the audience to do (or think, or feel) after reading your content. This will vary according to the format, subject matter and other variables.

I cannot over-state the importance of specifying objectives; it affects everything from tone of voice to content length, target platforms, readability scores, the lot. For example, I write mostly about technical subjects like software and medicine, and my content is frequently aimed at subject experts. If I were to take standard copywriting advice and pitch that content at a Flesch-Kinkaid level of 60, large parts of my messaging would be lost and the audience would find it too simplistic to engage with. They wouldn’t trust the message. My clients would not appreciate that!

Personally, I also use clients’ objectives to inform the volume and nature of my research. A clear indication of target audience and outcomes helps me to work more efficiently, which often reduces the hours taken to do the job and, in turn, minimises my clients’ bills.

Define your brand identity, including tone of voice, and share it with your freelance copywriters

This is particularly important if you use multiple freelance copywriters and/or share content via a range of outlets.

In general, big organisations have comprehensive guidelines on tone of voice and brand representation. It makes sense to share these with any freelance copywriter, because copywriting is a branding and marketing asset that should harmonise with complementary assets and messaging.

Brands and brand images are valuable business assets, and consistent messaging is a crucial means of protecting them.

However, if you are looking for a freelance copywriter for small business, you may not have determined your branding and tone of voice in much detail. In that case, you may wish to find a freelance branding specialist, or simply work with your freelance copywriter to develop your house style. This can work very well if you engage a copywriter with experience in your sector.

Share your customer and audience profiling with your freelance copywriter

This is really important! Ideally, you’ll have lots of customer engagement data that details your customers’ preferences. It may come from various sources: feedback, conversations (e.g., with your sales reps), online reviews, journey mapping, etc.

This data is copywriting gold. Without it, your freelance copywriter is forced to make assumptions about your audience, and you will almost certainly miss out on content conversions.

Good copywriting (especially good conversion copywriting) begins with knowing the target audience and providing the messages they want to hear. You can’t do that without decent data.

Don’t forget that, if you are concerned about handing over sensitive business data to a freelance copywriter, you are quite within your rights to ask them to sign a non-disclosure notice or agreement. I have NDNs with virtually all of my clients.

Share your SEO strategy, ambitions and priorities with your freelance copywriter

Most (hopefully all) UK freelance copywriters understand the power and importance of SEO and they should be able to optimise content – to some extent – in all cases. However, if your organisation has an SEO strategy, your content will be much more effective if you share this with your copywriter. Additionally, you will find it much easier to objectively measure your copywriting ROI using SEO tools and dashboards.

Personally, I like to know whether my client has an SEO strategy, what their SEO objectives are for each job, whether they need me to use specific keywords and provide metadata, etc. That’s my minimum. Ideally, they will also tell me who their competition is, so that I can visit their website and check ʼem out!

Does your organisation have a preferred sales methodology?

Whether you favour the challenger model or prefer a conceptual, consultative or provocative approach, this can (and often should) be reflected in your copy. Larger organisations tend to write this into their branding and tone of voice guidelines, but a freelance copywriter for small business will appreciate being told directly.

Ongoing communication with your freelance copywriter gives you increasingly effective content

Many of my clients are people I’ve worked with for years, i.e, repeat business. In some cases, I reckon I know aspects of those businesses as well as some of the people working within them, and that’s because we’ve spent time discussing the organisation’s evolving needs, targets and priorities.

I think that is a key advantage of using one freelance copywriter consistently (but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?) In any case, ongoing communication will give your freelance copywriter the quality insights they need to provide content that really works for you.

I hope you have found this article interesting and useful; if you are looking for an experienced UK freelance copywriter, please contact me for a chat.