Why Content Should Come From a Copywriter
Friday, February 12, 2010 9:18Over the years we have found that the expectations in a professional role always have some degree of writing. Proposals, specification documents and of course communication of emails to co-workers and clients. More and more companies today, and for the past several years, expect most employees in any type of management role and some production roles mainly design will need to write content for live projects that would normally and should come from professional copywriters.
What’s wrong here?
Well we can’t expect people are Jack’s or Jill’s of all trades, although very nice indeed. In our opinion aside from what is expected in each role we believe that content should ALWAYS be professionally written and come from a professional copywriter. Your professional copywriters will normally have communications training or some sort of professional writing course they took, where a project manager or designer likely has not. It’s really that simple.
Would you expect that your carpenter would also be doing your landscaping or plumbing? If so likely the quality of all three will not meet standards and you will be dissapointed.
So why is it that employers expect Project Managers and production teams to write content? Are we not managing the project well or designing the brand to meet standards of the client is not enough? Usually employees do wear multiple hats in a company, but this role particularly we feel is one that requires that type of professional copy writing.
A good friend and colleague of mine reminded me that we can’t be perfect and we can’t do EVERYTHING. We need to stick to what we do best and hire those who do it better. He is right. If you need a project manager hire someone for the skills of that role and get a copywriter to write the content you are planning to publish.
In our experience all of our clients were impressed we use a professional copywriter as they felt special that an extra step was taken and it made a world of difference our relationship as well as the quality of content. We of course charge our clients accordingly, so there is no reason not to get a professional in there. It is quality control, an extra set of eyes and it is being realistic with the expectations on ones role so they can do well.
*It doesn’t hurt to have a couple people in your pocket who are copywriters that you can give to your employer when you have this conversation too remember.
Leanne says:
March 7th, 2010 at 1:04 am
Thank you for this! Something I’ve been harping for quite some time now
nooc says:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, I might be a copywriter. I can never read a post or article without finding a half-dozen places I want to change the wording. Even your fine post above. (I’m sorry – it’s an illness – I can’t help myself!!)
nooc says:
August 4th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
And to rant a bit…
I think there are efficient and inefficient ways to utilize a copywriter. Even with a copywriter on the team, those in managerial or production roles sometimes misdirect their valuable time and energy into writing every possible concept, detail or thought down – crafting the wording of entire paragraphs that the copywriter will later scrap anyway – and then give it to the copywriter to “edit”.
To be over dramatic, I’ve never seen a page of text from a non-copywriter that I couldn’t pare down to a meaningful paragraph or a paragraph that I couldn’t reword into a meaningful sentence.
Rather include the copywriter in the project and design discussions from day one. Even the meetings you don’t think they “need” to be at. Maybe ESPECIALLY those meetings! The copywriter should themselves soon be able to determine which discussions/meetings are valuable to their process. Then let the copywriter provide the content they’ve divined to the decision-maker or stake-holders for review.
Something I believe to be mission-critical to good copywriting, that is rarely (read: never) on the radar of other team members, is the opportunity to absorb the “feel” and engage with the purpose of the project on a more emotional or intangible level. (Are your programmers just itching to do that?) This is what allows the copywriter to submit content for review with confidence. How are we supposed to frame wording or compose something compelling from a heartless list of details or specifics, handed to us as an afterthought?
That may not be the best approach in every situation but I believe it’s preferable (and more cost-effective) to start there and adapt if necessary.
nooc says:
August 4th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
And also never have blog settings that require your blog commentors to have to hit shift-enter to get a hard carriage-return.