5 Reasons to hire a copywriter

Bring in a professional writer to help your business thrive

So, it’s time to launch your company website. You want to put your best foot forward in the online world, so you’ve found a web designer to make sure it zings and you’ve chosen the platinum hosting service for all the additional bells and whistles that make the customer experience so satisfying. A brilliant graphic designer has brought your organisation’s logo to life and you’ve had a professional photographer show your products in their very best light. Now all you need to do is add a bit of text and you’re ready to go. And who knows more about who you are and what you do than the person who’s lived and breathed it for the past eighteen months? Do you really need to pay someone to write about the business you’ve built with your own two hands? 

The simple answer is yes. While it might look like an unnecessary extra expense, bypassing the professionals at this crucial stage can very quickly negate the serious money you’ve already spent – and the same goes for newsletters, blog content, email marketing, online advertising, and just about any written content you put out into the world. Here’s why.

First impressions matter

You’ve got around 0.2 seconds to capture the interest of a new visitor to your website. That’s a lot of pressure on literally every single element of your homepage, and you need to give your potential customers a reason to stay. If they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, you’ve lost them – and your competitors will thank you. Copywriters are skilled professionals with training and expertise in the area of building the content narrative that your customers are looking for. We know how to distil the key messages from the overall story and craft compelling content to capture hearts and minds.

SEO might be part science, part art, and part arcane dark magic, but it’s a critical component of writing for your online presence, and it’s a constantly moving target. ​

You need to be visible to be found

SEO might be part science, part art, and part arcane dark magic, but it’s a critical component of writing for your online presence, and it’s a constantly moving target. 75% of people will never look past the first page of a Google search, so if you’re not visible, you’re definitely losing customers. Gone are the days when you could keyword-stuff your homepage with the search term you wanted to rank for: now Google actively penalises that sort of carry on, and you need to be thinking strategically about what your ideal customer is looking for and how your website can best meet those needs. You can – and should – bring in an SEO expert or professional SEO tools to help identify the keywords you should target, but what you do with that information matters. Copywriters write SEO-focused content for a living, and if you’ve ever looked at an optimised piece of text and not even noticed that it’s kicking ass and bringing in customers and conversions – it’s because it’s our job to make it look easy and natural.

Customers have short attention spans

As the meteoric rise in short form video content demonstrates, we’re an easily distracted bunch. Krista Neher, writing for Forbes, stresses the importance of communicating in “short, quick soundbites to earn attention on mobile devices.” Copywriters are experts in getting to the heart of what makes your brand unique, and we know how to find the quickest way to communicate your USP in a way that stands out from the crowd. Remember that 0.2 second window for convincing a website visitor to stay? We’re trained in finding the right words to snag your future customer’s attention and give them a reason not to navigate away.

You’re too close to see the big picture

What you think might be essential information might not be what your customers are looking for. A great example is the About page. Businesses often take this at face value and use their About page to talk… about themselves. Which is great, and it’s certainly true that customers want the About page to tell them more about the brand. That helps build trust, absent the face-to-face interaction that you’d get in a brick-and-mortar store. But where About pages often fall short is in the kind of information they present. Your life story is only relevant to your brand if it’s… well, relevant to your brand. Copywriters have the distance and the expertise to determine what pieces of the puzzle go where – and how to arrange them in just the right way to draw your customers in.

You’re much less visible online when your website stays static

There aren’t enough hours in the day

Show of hands: who’s started a blog and ended up abandoning it within 6 months? Or set up an email list and never sent a single email? In big companies with dedicated marketing teams, posting regular content is part of the job, but in small teams – or for sole traders – it can be almost impossible to ringfence the time you need to keep actively producing content. And that’s a problem, because (a) neglected blogs or untended newsletters present the image of a company that doesn’t stay on top of their customer-facing activities and (b) it’s a missed opportunity to connect with customers and boost your sales. You’re much less visible online when your website stays static, for example, so you’re less discoverable when potential customers are ready to buy. Plus, email marketing has a ridiculously high ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, so that forgotten mailing list is actively holding back your conversion rate. Hiring a copywriter means that your team now includes someone whose job it is to stay on top of your content production, so that you can get on with the actual running of the business. Plus, we love this stuff. And since you likely don’t love it as much as we do, it’s kind of a no-brainer to bring us in to take it off your hands, right?

If you’re ready to look at how your business copy could be working harder for you, drop me a line. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to tailoring the perfect message, and I’ll put together a bespoke package that works for you and your company. Plus, you’ll probably be surprised by how affordable it actually is. And, since you already know the value of good website design and good graphics, doesn’t it make sense to bring in an expert when it comes to finding the words to tell your story?

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