How Hiring a Freelance Writer Can Boost Your Bottom Line

Content marketing, brand journalism, branded content – whatever you prefer to call it, there’s no debating its elevated status among marketing strategies. And there’s a good reason for it. Consumers read it because the purpose is to add value, not to sell products. And because consumers read it, it's effective at achieving its goals — whether it’s to increase awareness or to generate a sales lead.

Though I could find any number of stats to prove my point, if you work in any kind of marketing or communications function, I’m betting we’re on the same page about the impact of good content. One thing we may not be on the same page about is who should do it. Here are a few ways that hiring a freelance writer can boost your bottom line.

Freelance Writers Save You Money

If you’ve hired an experienced freelancer, you may be in disagreement already, but hear me out. If your writer is in-house, you’re paying a salary, benefits, PTO, and for infrastructure items like a computer, internet, phone service, and sometimes even daily coffee. These things add up. Paying a writer that’s focused on solely the project they’ve been hired for, using their own technology, drinking their own coffee can save you money and yield better results for your organization and its clients.

Freelance Writers Do It Better

This is a generalization, but it’s often true. Your junior-level communications employee may have the title “specialist” but they likely specialize in a broad variety of tasks and content writing may or may not be their strength. Freelance content writers are experienced writers and many also specialize in a certain niche — for me, it’s financial services, travel, and food writing. Once hired, this kind of specialized writer is ready to go, pulling from their expertise as a writer and from their knowledge of their defined niche to efficiently write engaging content.

Hiring Freelance Writers Frees Time for Full-Time Staff

Whether you’re at an agency or in a marketing or communications function, time is money. Unless your staff member is a knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark content writer, is it possible that their time could be put to better use? For junior staff members, this could be learning the ropes at your organization, learning account management, or sharpening their PR expertise. Your higher-paid senior staff members should be running programs, guiding marketing strategy, and onboarding new clients. Hiring full-time staff members is a (hopefully) long-term investment whereas hiring a freelance writer is a near-term investment, with potential for a longer-term relationship.

Though there are huge benefits to hiring a good freelance writer, I hear that good, reliable freelance talent can be hard to find. Fortunately, you know someone in the business.