Writing. Editing. Proofreading. Blogging. Social media management.

Obviously, content creation and marketing is a must for any online business today. Unfortunately, the cost of hiring these services can get expensive. For example, you might accidentally hire too many writers that aren’t effective enough. Ineffective writers can’t get you the return on investment (ROI) you need.

That’s why it’s smart to consider freelance writers to not only handle the writing, editing, and proofreading, but also to get content creation off your plate entirely—so you have time to focus on the other aspects of your business.

Hiring freelance writers is a great way to help you create quality content for your marketing efforts.

Why hire a freelance writer?

If you’re running a marketing team, you know that high-quality content is essential. But with the enormous demand for fresh, original, high-quality content, it can be overwhelming to keep up with. That’s why great marketers everywhere are turning to freelance writers—to help them stay on top of the content game and ensure their company’s success.

But how do you find the right writer? How do you make sure they deliver what you need in a timely fashion? And how do you build a relationship that lasts? In this blog post, I’ll explain through all the basics of hiring freelance writers—from getting started to building long-term relationships.

The importance of finding the right freelancer

While some businesses have full-time marketers who specialize in content marketing, many small businesses do not. Freelancers are especially needed if you don’t have a marketing team.

When you decide to invest in quality content marketing and hire a freelance writer, you need to make sure you get a return on your investment (ROI).

Choosing the right writer is essential to ensuring your marketing goals are met.

You have a lot of options: Choose wisely

The freelance content marketing industry has been growing rapidly. 90% of marketers using content marketing plan to continue investing the same amount in the channel in 2022. With this type of growth, the market has become saturated with hundreds of new writers and marketers. It’s difficult to find the right candidate with so many options.

Tips for finding the best freelancers

Hiring a content marketer should be easy—but it’s not.

Knowing what you want and knowing how to find it are two different things, and if you’ve ever been burned by a freelance writer who didn’t write “in your voice,” or just didn’t have the experience you needed, you know that finding the right person can be a real challenge.

So how do you know if a freelance content marketer is right for you? Start with these 4 questions:

1. Have they ever written about your industry before?
2. Do they understand your company’s mission, vision, and values?
3. Will they take the time to learn about your target demographic?
4. Are they willing to put in the work to make sure their writing is perfect for you?

If the answer is yes to all four of these questions, then you’ve probably got a winner on your hands! That doesn’t mean every freelancer will be a great fit—but these questions can help you weed through the writers.

Key qualities to look for

The best freelance writers are reliable, communicative, and innovative. They can adapt their tone as needed and work with minimal supervision. Lastly, they should be able to consistently deliver high-quality work on time, even in the face of tight deadlines.

Where to look

Ultimately, scrolling on Fiverr or Upwork for hours can waste your time. But there are a lot of freelancers hanging around online in these places:

• Facebook freelance writing groups
• In certain hashtags on LinkedIn, such as #freelancewriter (or YOU could post with those hashtags)
• Specialized slack channels

No matter what avenues you find your freelancers, make sure you have a streamlined process to manage them.

Develop a strategy before hiring freelance writers

Freelance content marketing is a great way to bring in fresh ideas and help you get your brand name out there. But before you hire someone, it’s important to have a strategy.

First, make sure your company has a clear mission and vision. Know what you want to accomplish. Once you know that, form a strategy around how to accomplish it. Are you looking for long-term followers? Do you want to build up an email list? Or do you just want people to go to your website?

Now that you’ve established those two things, it’s time to find a freelance writer who can deliver the content necessary for your strategy. It’s important that the writer knows what your goals are.

Plus, you’ll want to develop a strategy to quickly create and sign contracts, pay writers, and manage freelancers (for example, using a Project Management System).

How can you manage freelance writers?

The best way to manage a team of freelancers is by creating a consistent communication flow. You should also make sure that your writers have all the information they need for their assignments before assigning the work to them.

For example, use Asana or Monday.com to manage your freelance projects. Both of these platforms are intuitive and easy to use. Your freelance writers will have their own accounts, and they’ll be notified when you assign projects. You’ll be notified when they complete their projects. It’s a win-win!

To keep your team manageable, don’t hire more freelancers than you need. At the same time, you should have more than one. That way, you have a safety net if one of your writers has an emergency and suddenly can’t make a deadline.

Building long-term relationships with freelancers

The longer freelance writers stay with your organization, the better. For one, you don’t have to waste money looking for candidates, and you don’t miss deadlines in the interim. You’ll also avoid repetitive onboarding processes. Plus, the longer a freelance writer stays with you, the better they will know how to effectively market your business.

Here’s how to build healthy long-term relationships with freelancers:

1. Communicate: Freelancers have a lot of clients to complete projects for, so the earlier you can get their assignments to them, the better. Many freelancers implement rush fees for last-minute assignments.
2. Pay them in a timely manner: The less often you’re late with paying your freelancers, the more likely they will be to truly value you as a client. Oftentimes, they’ll even prioritize you over clients who often pay late.
3. Pay them well: If you start your freelancers out at super low rates, don’t be surprised if they’re all dropping your projects very quickly. To build long-term relationships, offer a valuable rate.
4. Reward loyal freelancers: If your freelancers aren’t asking already, they probably prefer to see increases in their rates. Especially after a year, it’s smart to compensate them more. Otherwise, your writers will likely start looking for clients elsewhere.
5. Express your gratitude: As a freelancer, sometimes we don’t know if our clients are happy with our work. Especially in an environment where sometimes, very little communication takes place, it can be hard to know if our clients are truly happy with us. Take a minute to validate your freelancers every now and then if you’re grateful for their work.

Building healthy, long-term relationships with freelancers will increase their loyalty to you, and make them more effective at marketing your business.

Looking for a trustworthy freelancer?

If you can’t deliver content fast enough on your own or don’t have the resources in-house, hiring freelance writers is a great way to make sure your company can keep up with demand for new content.

If you’re looking for a freelance content writer, feel free to reach out to me! I’ll reach out to you as soon as possible.