Six Criteria to Look For When Hiring a Copywriter
August 7th, 2007 Dina at Wordfeeder.com1. Experience. It’s great to have a seasoned, all-purpose copywriting pro working on your behalf. But it’s even better when you can find an industry match who knows the ins and outs of what you do. If you work in an area like pharmaceutical advertising, then you know that a stellar job involves mastering a library of terminology, having the AMA stylebook memorized (or at the very least handy), and maintaining a good handle on those little quirky legal issues that can get you in hot water if you’re not careful.
2. Project management skills. This is critical for any type of business, large or small. But it’s especially important when you’re an independent consultant or small business owner who’s just starting out and you aren’t quite ready to invest in an account or project manager. Choose a copywriter who’s smart, self-reliant, pro-active, solutions-oriented, and methodical in her approach. Your whole purpose in forming a support team was to get just that - support - so you can spend more time focusing on what you do best, and less time worrying and prodding people.
3. Willingness to dwell in the details. Marketing and copywriting professionals are a dime a dozen, but trust me when I tell you that serious, dwell-in-minutiae types are few and far between. And believe it or not, if you haven’t got a head for the details, then your copy’s going to fall short with little inconsistencies and errors that make you look unprofessional and snatch credibility away from your business.
4. Complementary personality. It feels great when we have interests in common with the people with whom we work. But that’s not nearly as important as finding a productivity partner whose strengths make up for the areas where you lack. For example, you may be a “big ideas” person, and there’s nothing better for driving a business. Now you need a practical planner/details person to tighten the nuts and bolts. A good copywriter should be able to make this happen with your marketing.
5. Perfect left- and right-brain fusion. When people hear that I write advertising copy for a living, they automatically assume I’m a “creative” type. It’s not bad to be known as artsy, and yet a true expert copywriter will be an even split. Writing is a skill which involves logic (sentence construction) just as much as it does creativity (vocabulary and clever wordplay). If your writer possesses only one of these skills and not the other, you’ll find that only half the job gets done.
Searching for the ideal copywriting expert to manage your online and print marketing? Contact Dina@Wordfeeder.com for a personalized project quote today.
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