Q 1. What is a freelance B2B copywriter?
A. The simple answer is that a freelance B2B copywriter is someone who writes B2B copy. But that answer isn’t all that helpful unless we define our terms. So here goes:
- Freelance means working on a contract basis for a variety of organizations. A freelancer is a person who sells their services by the hour, day or project rather than working as a salaried employee. Freelancers are self-employed, and have the freedom to pick the projects they want to work on and the organizations they want to work for. A common profession for freelancing is copywriting.
- B2B means business-to-business. In marketing, there are two primary buyers of products and services—consumers and businesses. For example, consumers buy computers for themselves. They buy desktops, laptops and tablets. Businesses also buy computers, including desktops, laptops and tablets. But they buy these computers for their business. A company that markets its products and services to consumers is said to be in the business-to-consumer market, or the B2C market. A business that markets its products and services to businesses is said to be in the business-to-business market, or the B2B market.
- Copywriter means someone who writes copy. In the world of marketing and advertising, “copy” is the words that are used to promote a product or service. In other words, the words that are used to advertise or market a product or service are called copy. A copywriter is someone who writes those words. Copywriting is the act of writing copy.
So, back to our question, “What is a B2B copywriter?” A B2B copywriter is someone who writes words that help a business market a product or service to another business. A B2B copywriter is someone who helps businesses sell their products and services to other businesses using the written (print and online) and spoken (radio, television and video) word. A business-to-business copywriter writes copy aimed at business buyers, whereas a business-to-consumer copywriter writes copy aimed at consumers.
Q 2. What does a freelance B2B copywriter do?
A. A freelance B2B copywriter writes promotional messages that businesses use to market their products and services to business buyers. The seller is a business. The buyer is a business.
A freelance B2B copywriter writes fives types of copy:
- Print: Words that appear on a sheet of paper, such as newspaper ads, brochures, catalogs, factsheets and product packaging
- Outdoor: Words that appear on billboards, bus shelters, sides of buses and in subways
- Online: Words that appear on the internet, including websites, landing pages, banner ads, pay-per-click ads, social media ads and e-commerce product pages
- Broadcast: Words that are heard rather than read, such as radio commercials and TV commercials
- Branding: Words that brand an organization, product, service or event, such as company names, names for products and services, slogans and taglines, and themes for conferences
B2B copywriters also write materials that can be delivered either in print or online, such as case studies, white papers, special reports and e-books.
Businesses typically hire B2B copywriters to help them generate leads. Leads are potential buyers. A B2B copywriter writes copy that attracts these leads to the business, typically through paid advertising, but also through content marketing (such as blog posts and articles). This means that some B2B copywriters also double as B2B content marketing writers. But there is a difference between the two. Content marketing writing is designed to inform or educate. Copywriting aims to sell something.
Q 3. Who hires freelance B2B copywriters?
A. There are two groups who hire freelance B2B copywriters—businesses and agencies.
Naturally, businesses hire B2B copywriters to write their B2B copy for them. The larger the business, the more likely they are to have a full-time copywriter on staff, working in the marketing department. The smaller the business, the more likely they are to hire freelance B2B copywriters, typically on a project-by-project basis.
Business-to-business market agencies also hire B2B copywriters. Again, the larger the agency, the more likely they are to hire their copywriters full time as salaried writers. And the smaller the agency, the more likely they are to hire freelance B2B copywriters, usually for projects or campaigns.
This will sound redundant, but the businesses that hire B2B copywriters are the businesses that need copy. Not all businesses do. Office cleaners, for example, market their services through salespeople and referrals. They are not big consumers of marketing services. Same goes for businesses that supply mulch and topsoil to landscape contractors. They rely on a a few salespeople to generate leads and closes sales. They don’t hire B2B copywriters.
But there are other businesses that need plenty of B2B copy written for them. These businesses included software firms, banks, insurance companies and retailers that target businesses. They hire B2B copywriters, and the agencies that have B2B copywriting expertise in-house.
Q 4. Where to hire a freelance B2B copywriter?
A. If you’re a business or a B2B marketing agency wanting to hire a full-time B2B copywriter, you can turn to the usual suspects, such as GlassDoor, Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn and other online job boards. But there are also specialty job boards for hiring marketing talent. Some of the more popular ones are Krop, FlexJobs and CrunchBoard.
If you are looking to hire a freelance B2B copywriter, check out some of the more popular job boards, including UpWork and Freelancer.
Q 5. How to hire a freelance B2B copywriter?
A. Your first step in hiring a freelance B2B copywriter is to review their portfolio, also known in the trade as their “book.” Two things matter in copywriting—ability to write, and ability to generate results. So ask prospective hires to show you their portfolio. Or, if you are at their website, review their copywriting portfolio on your own.
Review the freelance B2B copywriter’s portfolio:
- If you are hiring a B2B copywriter to write website copy, landing page copy, online product page copy or blog posts, expect to see live links to their existing work. At the very least, their portfolio should feature screenshots. The best way to make sure that your B2B copywriter can deliver the copy you want is to read copy that they have already had published online. This is especially important if you are hiring a copywriter to write strategic content for your blog. Read what they have written for other clients. Then decide if it meets your standards for effective copy.
- If you are hiring a business-to-business copywriter to craft print materials for you, such as print ads and brochures, look at the print samples in their portfolio. These samples will likely be in a PDF document or .jpeg image. One advantage of printed samples over online samples is hat print ads, brochures and other print marketing materials cost more to produce than their online equivalents. That means the copywriter’s clients likely paid more for the copy. Which means printed samples may represent the best copy that the copywriter can produce.
- Look for breadth and depth in a B2B copywriter’s portfolio. By breadth, I mean the writer has written in many mediums. A good portfolio contains print ads, direct mail, brochures, webpages, articles. Also look for depth. Look for the copywriter’s ability to write well researched, long-form copy.
- Look for experience in your industry or a similar industry if that is vital. This is not a deal-breaker. Good copywriters are quick studies, able to research an unfamiliar industry or sector and get up to speed quickly. But for some clients, they nedd their B2B copywriter to have experience writing for their industry. This is particularly true of industries that are highly regulates, such as banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals and atomic energy. So, by all means, if your copywriter must have industry experience, look for that in their portfolio.
Look for testimonials on their website
Unless they are constrained by vanity or the folks in legal, satisfied clients gladly give testimonials. So look on any B2B copywriter’s website for testimonials from happy clients. Testimonials are social proof that other clients have trusted the copywriter with their copywriting assignments, and been happy with the results. testimonials remove doubt and inspire confidence. They give you security knowing that the copywriter finishes projects and gives good customer service.
The most credible testimonial features the client’s full name, job title and company name, even a link to the client’s website, like this: Jane Doe, marketing manager, Acme Corporation. The least credible testimonials are attributed to someone with initials only, like this: A. B. Not very persuasive, eh?
Review their proposal
If you issued a request for proposals or posted your project on a job board like UpWork, review the proposals of the copywriters who applied for your project. Our friends over at UpWork say you should look for four things in any copywriter’s proposal:
- Mistakes. Look for grammatical errors or misspelled words in the cover letter or writing samples.
- Attention to detail. Quickly filter out proposals by inserting an obscure question or request (e.g., reference “blue” in your reply) within the initial project description. If the answer isn’t included in the proposal, it may be a sign the copywriter is not detailed enough.
- Skills Requirements. Make sure the copywriter matches the minimum skills requirements stated in your job post.
- Responsiveness. Faster responders may indicate a higher level of professionalism and organization.
Interview the most promising candidates
Create a shortlist of no more than three copywriters, then interview them by phone or video call. This is covered in the next question.
Q 6. How to interview a freelance B2B copywriter?
Before you hire a B2B copywriter, interview them by phone or video call (using Skype, Zoom, Google Hangouts or other online video platform). The big advantage of video calls over voice-only calls is that video lets you see the copywriter’s body language and facial expressions. Look for copywriters who are open, smile a lot (or often enough), look you in the eye, and are generally at ease. Here are some questions you can ask, or things you can discuss:
- Tell me how you organize, plan, and prioritize your work.
- Tell me about your experience writing the kind of copy that we want you to write for this project.
- Tell me about measurable results you have achieved for your clients with your copy.
- What are your strengths as a copywriter?
- Why do you think you are the best copywriter for this project?
- What experience do you have in my industry?
- What work have you done that’s most similar to our work?
Q 7. How to brief a freelance B2B copywriter?
If you ant to get the best work possible out of a freelance B2B copywriter, give them a writing brief. A writing brief is a document that describes the scope of your project, including what you want, when you want it, objectives and expectations. Your writing brief should contain answers to seven vital questions:
- Where are we selling? First, you need to discover if you are writing for an offline audience or an online audience. Then you need to drill down and discover what medium you are writing for, such as a print brochure, a direct mail sales letter, a Facebook ad, or a landing page. But you also need to discover where in the sales cycle you are selling.
- What are we selling? Naturally, you need to discover if what you are selling is a product or a service. But you need to go way beyond that. Good advertising always sells a solution to a problem. Your job is to find out what that problem is.
- Who are we selling it to? Yes, you have two main audiences—businesses and consumers. But you need to know a lot more than just that. You need to discover every relevant fact and insight about them, such as their gender, their age, their income level, where they live, and what they think is important.
- Why should they buy it? People buy for rational reasons and for emotional reasons. You need to discover both. You also need to discover every feature, and every benefit for every feature.
- Who is our competition? You face three main competitors. Inertia (the buyer doesn’t want to do anything). Your other products (your potential buyer is happier with buying one of your older models). Your marketplace competitors.
- What do we want the prospect to do? All good copy is designed to change behaviour. You want your reader to think something or feel something or do something. What is it?
- What is the single thing we must communicate or demonstrate? Effective copy is single-minded. It communicates a single sales proposition. You must discover the one thing that your copy absolutely has to communicate.
Your writing brief should also include:
- deadline for submitting the first draft of copy
- deadline for submitting the final draft of copy
- constraints, such as word count or design
- names and contact details for all important people on the project (such as art director, account director, marketing manager)
- tone of voice you want to achieve in the copy
- attachments
Accompanying your brief should be any documents or resources your copywriter needs to write effective copy for your project. These include such things as:
- keyword research
- marketing plans
- communication plans
- product literature
- data sheets
- product samples
- market research
- survey results
- testimonials
- case studies
- white papers
- previous copy of the kind you are wanting written
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