When You Should Hire a Copywriter
When is it time to hire a copywriter?
You’ll see many copywriters blog about why you should hire one; few of them discuss timing.
But timing is important, too.
Installing a new roof during the rainy season? Poor timing.
Answering a phone call with a mouth full of Sour Patch kids? Poor timing.
Ducking Jorge Masvidal’s left hand and knocking him out with a face-splitting straight punch? That’s good timing.
So, depending on your timing, hiring a copywriter may or may not be in your best interest.
You Need to Hire a Copywriter When:
You’ve already launched your product or service successfully (you’re making money)
You’ve got a marketing strategy
You’re already publishing a lot of content and you need to mix in persuasive copy
You no longer have the bandwidth to write copy in-house
You’re building or rebuilding your website
You’re building a landing page and you need it to convert (make money, get subscribers)
You’re not good at writing persuasive copy. Period.
Or, as Amy Harrison puts it, you have an audience of 20,000, you’re attracting 2,000 visitors a day, or your price point is $495.
Any of that sound like you?
Then hire a copywriter as soon as possible. (I may know a guy.)
Because a good copywriter will save you time, save you wrinkles and weight gain, and make you money.
If none of those bullets made you go “mhmm, that’s me”...
Then you shouldn’t hire a copywriter. It’s too soon, my friend.
I suggest hustling for a while, building your network, selling your product or service, generating revenue, etc., before you hire a copywriter.
Because here’s the thing.
Good copywriters aren’t cheap. (Watch out for the ones who charge $10 an hour. They’re not good.)
Good copywriters will expect you to have things like an email list, traffic, a marketing strategy, and/or clear goals.
They can’t help you if you don’t.
Is Now Not a Good Time to Hire a Copywriter? Do This Instead
I talk about this in a short LinkedIn video, but I’ll break it down for you here, too.
There are five things you need in place to hire a copywriter and get the most out of your investment:
A basic sense of your audience. Who they are, what their sharpest pains are, who they’re trying to be or become, etc.
Details about your product or service. What does it do? How does it help? How long before it helps? What does the life cycle look like? What guarantees do you offer, and for how long? That kind of thing.
Clear goals and objectives. What are you trying to do? What results do you need to grow or sustain your business? Figure these out first.
A basic marketing strategy. A good copywriter can help you develop one, but you really should have a marketing strategy before you commit to hiring marketers to help you implement it. Gotta have a plan, captain!
A distribution plan. A copywriter will write the landing page for you, but now you need to promote it. Have a plan for distributing the copy you both worked so hard on, or you won’t get results. And what’s the point of that?
Once you have these things in place, you’re ready to hire copywriting help.
Questions? Connect with me on LinkedIn or shoot me an email: joe at copywriterjoe dot com.
