The writing agency way or the freelance writer way?

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Now more than ever before, content is in great demand. Writers are being sort after left-right-centre. Many a great companies are not sparing a dime when it comes to their public relations.

Be it branding, marketing or B2B communication, writers are increasingly becoming an asset for companies and organizations.

Every company wants to present their content in a way that attracts the attention of more and more people to read them. From written content to visual content, there is definitely a constant flow of work or to-dos.

Let’s delve into content writing seeing that’s our forte.

Engaging the right team

With the seeming phase-off of written content by visual content, many businesses are suffering the ignorance syndrome. Many have immediately conformed to visual content as an alleged suitable replacement for written content.

Now, if you are in business and camping around this notion, you are in for some rude shock. Tonnes of written content are flowing into the search engines, and only avid players will be competing favourably for the space.

Visual content is a good and necessary development to the world of content. Written content on the other hand is a diehard King that is not getting ousted any time soon.

Truth is – written content is not getting obsolete any sooner than it is getting more valuable. But that’s not the matter of this post. So let’s dig in to the meat.

The barrier that comes in front of a company planning out its content writing bit is whether to hire a content writing agency or a freelance writer.

Both options carry their pros and cons – making it even harder for companies to make the call.

So let’s weigh in on the two and give them a fair trial.

Hiring a freelance writer

A freelance writer is a writer who takes on jobs and works remotely or on temporal location (project-centric) and is not a full-time employee of the company.

Before engaging them, it is important to know that they are flexible and they are not about to sign a contract for permanent employment.

Down to the perks of going with a freelance writer. First, you can be sure that you need not worry about providing them a continuous stream of work so as to retain them. You can always indulge them whenever you want as your budget dictates.

Secondly, you have an opportunity to change the writers based on the experience you get from working with them. This means, you don’t have to invest in their growth if you don’t have the budget for it – you can simply switch to better-tanned writers.

But every option has its detriment. For freelancers, you stand to lose if you are after growing your content with the audience.

This is because the freelancers you work with may not always be available when you want them; that leaves you with the burden of orienting the new freelancer to your kind of expectations.

In this type of hiring, you can hire the writer according to the demand but you need to manage a complete process which can be really draining.

In addition, freelancers can easily drop the balls on a project because they have no ties to anyone. This means that micro-managing them becomes a priority you cannot overlook.

Read: 3 Essentials for a Good SEO Content Writer

With that in mind, hiring a freelance writer cannot be a rushed process. Seek out for reference for good ones and check out their portfolio. You may opt for an interview if they are not to work remotely for some projects.

More importantly, stipulate clear terms and conditions of the arrangement you are getting into. It is important that both of you assent to something that works for you comfortably.

Hiring a content writing agency?

Going for a content writing agency means you need to get it write. With agencies, most if not all of the work is taken care of. No need to worry about investing on the writers or having to dismiss them.

Working with an agency lets you control your quality by having the opportunity to state your expectations and going away without having to worry too much about micro-managing.

However, not all writing agencies will give you that kind of freedom. Some will prefer to source writers for you and leave you to manage them, whilst they get a cut.

Others will opt that while they control the writer, they can allow you to interact with them and have you micro-manage them to some level.

With some, APIs and writing software have been very helpful in streamlining the process, allowing for all parties to meet at one point.

Read: 5 Reasons Digital Marketers are Looking for Content Writing Agencies

But even with that, it is important to know that there can be rainy days when you get disappointed. Good thing with most agencies is that they offer a money-back guarantee policy. Hiring an agency can be more financially costly as compared to hiring a freelance writer.

However, with fishing the right agency, you could experience more efficiency and effectiveness as compared to going with a freelancer.

Wrap

As we have noted, choosing between a content writing agency and a freelance writer is simply a matter of preference. It helps however, to consider the following as you come to making the decision:

• What do you intend to achieve with your content creation? Do you have the right resources to manage your own writers or would you need to hire?
• Also it is important to look at the long term. Does micro-managing help you manage quality and if so, will you be in a position to offer consistent management even with changing freelancers?
• Finally, if content writing was the life-line of your business, what would you rather choose?

With that, you can get started on what works for your business needs. I believe there is more content out there that can supplement this and give you a head start on where to start laboring.

A writing agency or a freelance writer? Don’t stress it, let us lift the bulk by helping you handpick your next creative team.