A big part of being an exceptional leader is knowing when it’s time to call on the experts. Are you a business owner or leading a marketing team and struggling to manage your copywriting in-house? Perhaps you’re lacking these specific skills and resources within your team?
This is a common struggle for many business owners and making a call on who to partner with can be overwhelming. Do you go for a larger established marketing agency you know of, or an individual content marketer running his or her own show?
As a freelance copywriter for my brand Craft ‘n Connect, we offer specialised services in this field and have a team of reliable writers we outsource to when there’s an overflow of work. Many projects involve other services such as graphic design, website development or SEO. In these cases, we would partner with other experts to deliver on specific projects.
With an advertising agency, you would get all services readily under one roof. Sounds convenient, doesn’t it? However, agencies come at a price and often need to account for an Account Manager (pun intended) to project manage and service you as a client.
What’s right for you?
Deciding on opting for a smaller copywriting business versus a large marketing firm can depend on multiple factors and what your needs are. These include your organisation size, amount of work required, budget, the extent of a project and how you like to operate your marketing for your business.
Freelance copywriters are a great choice if you have specific projects, campaigns, tasks or skillset you need to complete the work, compared to receiving full management of your entire marketing account. However, this does mean you may need to be more hands-on with project managing and building a creative team.
Here are a few perks of hiring a smaller consultancy or freelance copywriter for your content marketing needs:
- Lower costs.
This is due to freelancers having lower overheads and being able to offer a more competitive rate. Smaller businesses often can operate from a home office, co-working space and don’t have many employees, if any. - Hand-pick your specialists.
This goes for a graphic designer, web developer, photographer or copywriter whose specific style you like to be a fit for your brand or product. With a marketing agency, you often deal with the Account Manager rather than the individual creative themselves. You partner with the overarching brand as opposed to the individual talents or personalities of each creative that is delivering the output of work. - Flexibility.
Being a solo content marketer means there’s fewer staff meetings, paperwork, bureaucracy. This means more time can be spent focusing on clients and turning projects around quickly.
- Entrepreneur mindset, like you.
Being a business owner themselves mean they are driven and passionate in what they do, which will naturally flow through in their delivery and attitude towards their work. The requirement for creative entrepreneurs to wear many hats means they’ll have a good grasp on various sides of running a business and will bring that to the table.
- More tender love and care.
You will deal directly with the contact who will be carrying out the creative services. At a larger agency, unless you have a large budget, you may be competing with other bigger clients for time and service. Communication will usually pass through an Account Services contact before the creative. So, there are more hoops of communication and processes involved which may mean longer lead times.
There are many great benefits with opting for a freelance copywriter or smaller consultancy over a bigger advertising agency. It all comes down to what is the best fit for your business.
Craft ‘n Connect specialises in creative copywriting for digital channels. We thrive on helping businesses create an authentic and inspiring digital presence that will form a connection with their audiences. If you need help getting your words out, sharing your unique edge and what you stand for – let’s connect and see how we can help weave your next story for success.