6 Big Reasons Why You Should Hire a Content Writer for Your Small Business

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Wondering whether hiring a content writer for your small business is a good idea?

It’s an established fact that content marketing is one of the best methods to launch, grow, and scale your business online. But when you’re a small business or a business that’s just starting out, it can be an overwhelming experience dealing with top-level marketing agencies.  An experienced content writer can often be the next best option when you want consistent quality on a budget.

In this article, I explore why small businesses should consider hiring a content writer and the many ways content writers can contribute to your business.

First, let’s explore why you should consider hiring a professional content writer.

6 Reasons Why You Should Hire a Content Writer for Your Small Business

Many business owners and entrepreneurs are exceptionally skilled in the art of selling face-to-face. But digital competence in content can leave even the best of them sweating bullets. But content marketing or the fine art of leveraging content to market your business isn’t a skill that should be left to chance. Here are some reasons why small businesses should look at hiring content writers for this purpose:

1. Creating Content Takes Time

84% of B2B marketers outsource their content creation because firstly, content takes so much time to create. The average expected length of qualitative blog posts ( the ones that get shared) as of today, is in the range of 2000 words and above (give or take). Not all posts need to be 2000 words though. There is space for short blog articles in the range of 500 words and above that appeal to readers who want short, quick, and actionable content.

Understandably, business owners and entrepreneurs simply won’t have the capacity to go it alone with content creation when there are so many other critical aspects to managing day-to-day business operations. It’s the same reason why you would outsource your call-centre or administration activities, for instance.

2. Content Needs to be Unique, Engaging and High-quality. Every single time.

Competition is rampant in the online space, so you have no choice but to deliver content that’s unique, distinct and positions your brand as the go-to expert. The content you create also has to be relevant, targeted to your specific audience, and engaging enough to captivate, retain, and convert prospects. Nobody will look at your content twice if it resembles everybody else’s.

3. Content Has to be Produced Consistently.

Every type of content you’re pushing out whether it’s your Twitter feed, a Facebook or blog post, needs to be authoritative, accurate in terms of facts, consistent in style, aligned to your brand voice, and regularly churned out. Consistency is critical to get traction organically in the digital space. Out of sight is simply, out of mind.

4. Content Writing Requires Specialist Expertise

Anybody who knows a language can write in it. But content writing is a profession similar to being a teacher, engineer, masseur, or pole dancer. There is learning involved and a level of expertise to reach.  The level of expertise, however,  can vary as there is no industry benchmark for this purpose.

A beginner writer would be able to write with some guidance. However, an expert digital content writer would know how to craft the type of headlines that search engines love to rank, how to optimize the content so that it gets preferred by search engines, and how to identify content gaps in competitor content that you can leverage to your advantage.

5. Hiring a Content Writer Helps You Get Insightful Third-party Perspective

Another aspect to consider is that outsourced content writers bring a fresh perspective to your content so you don’t end in up complete denial of what can sometimes be a very myopic view of consumer perception. You might think that your product on its own is enough to sell it, but your content writer can tell you that benefits speak louder than features.

6. Hiring a Content Writer for Your Small Business Can be a More Budget-friendly Option

Popular content writers can command high-prices as in every other profession. But small businesses can find that hiring content writers that have solid SEO (search engine optimization) skills, in general, is a more affordable option as compared to hiring a full service digital marketing agency. I talk about the ways content writers get paid, average pricing numbers, and how to hire content writers in more depth here.

The sheer level of complexity involved in marketing online and the multiple moving parts means that increasingly, businesses are reaching out to the specialists and experts to manage this critical component of marketing activity.

For a small business, this often translates to the budget-friendly option of hiring a content writer.

A Content Writer’s Skill-set. What Does a Content Writer Actually Do?

A content writer typically plans, creates, and edits content in a manner that attracts your “core” or ‘target’ audience. This is nothing like writing essays in college folks. It is a whole other different level of writing altogether.

I usually explain content writing is the bridge between businesses and consumers. As a business, you know your product. But a content writer has the skill to talk about the product in such a way that your consumers get it too.

While it is difficult to cover every possible skill that a content writer has or needs, for the purpose of this article I’m listing some of the most common and most useful skills:

• An understanding of what appeals to a ‘target’ reader, whatever the niche, and knowing how to develop content accordingly. The target reader here, for reference, would be someone the business has identified as the ideal persona or customer avatar that would most likely buy their product based on research.
• The ability to craft good main and sub-headlines and write content in a concise, easy-to-read manner. Content should also be organised in a lucid and logical fashion.
• An understanding of various types of voice, tone, and style and the ability to tailor each to match the target audience.
• Subject-matter expertise in the niche or in the absence of this, exceptional research skills.
• Knowledge of how to write content that complies with Google’s search engine algorithms, also called SEO (Search-engine-optimization). Google’s search engine ranks content based on specific criteria and this is the reason why some blog posts, for example, rank higher than others on google.
• Technical elements that are must-haves in search-engine friendly content (researching keywords, and H1, H2 headings, for example)
• An understanding of how to write content across multiple channels. For instance, the content on a Facebook post would be written differently from the content on a blog post.
• Content writers are also expected to have a solid grasp of whichever language they’re writing in and are expected to be fastidious with their grammar and proofreading.
• They also need to be able to articulate concepts in a manner that’s both easy-to-read and understand. This is especially helpful when you’re in a technological or highly technical form of business which needs to be explained in simple terms to the average end-user.
• Good communication skills, adaptability to business requirements, and consistency in meeting deadlines as agreed to by both parties.
• Content produced by the writer is expected to always be free from plagiarism as well as bad paraphrasing (which is a bit like copying but changing a few words here and there).

A Little Bit About Copy-writing and how it differs from Content Writing

Sometimes the terms copy-writing and content writing are used interchangeably but there is a fundamental difference between the two.

Copywriters write content with a specific mission in mind which to ‘convert’ a prospective buyer to a pre-determined action which is usually a lead or a sale, in most cases. As such the content here is direct, focused, highly creative, and written with the goal of ‘conversion’. Copy-writing is traditionally seen on sales pages, advertising creatives similar to what you see on Facebook and Google ads, billboard advertisements and the like.

While copy-writing is written for conversion, content writing is written more for creating authority, building sustainability, and generating visibility. Blog articles are the most common example of content writing.

A mixture of the two would be most ideal i.e. having a copywriter to hit the short-term goals and having a content-writer to support scaling of the business.

These days it is common to see writers who can do both and also see a mix of both styles on your blog content, for instance.

When and Where Can I Use Content Writing Services?

The short answer to the ‘when’ question is that a content writer can be of support at any stage of your business.

At the Start of Your Business

If you’re a new entrepreneur or at the beginning stages of setting up your online presence, you’ll need a writer to develop your promotional material in the form of website content and social media pages. Your website contains critical pages that talk about you as a brand, your services/offerings, your value/mission statement, and how customers can reach you.

Your social media pages like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Twitter will also need mini-versions of the same thing. You may need also need a resource to develop your brochures, sales literature, and other types of marketing collateral. You could use help developing sales/landing pages which are the pages that you’re using to sell a specific product or service.

For Growing and Scaling Your Business

As you start to grow you will need help with writing content in a consistent manner for your website and social media channels. For this purpose, you’ll need a writer who’s going to be with you as a long-term resource. Other places where you will need a content writing resource are the emails that you send to your subscribers and your newsletters which again are the digital content that you push out to your subscribers on a regular basis.

White Papers, Case Studies, and e-books are other marketing resources that you can send out to your subscribers to improve your positioning.

For Special Events

Every now and then you will need content written for the promotions of new products and services or launches. You’ll need content to promote them through your social media channels too.

Other Miscellaneous Activities

Content writers can pretty much do anything related to content depending on their niche expertise. Content writers can specialize in writing scripts and transcripts for your videos, creating e-books, course content, White Papers, Case Studies, press releases, Pitch decks, LinkedIn makeovers, and so on for your business. The sky is literally the limit here.

The key takeaway here is that the content you put out on the web is going to be there for a long, long time. Your business will continue to stay visible, relevant, and generate leads if your content is qualitative and can stand the test of time.

So there you have it, your complete guide to why you need a content writer for your business. Also read my in-depth guide on how to go about hiring a content writer here.  I hope you found this article useful for your business.

What is your biggest challenge when it comes to creating content for your business? Share in the comments section below together with your website URL if you have one! I read and am grateful for every comment.