3 Strategy Questions to Ask Your Freelance Copywriter

As an experienced freelance copywriter, I've handled countless questions from clients and prospective clients regarding what their marketing content should do and how it should do it. Some of these questions were best referred to other kinds of marketing specialists, while others had a direct impact on what kind of writing I deliver.

My job is more about implementing strategies than concocting them, but the most successful marketing writing always employs smart strategies aimed at achieving specific results. Here are three important strategy questions you should consider asking your copywriter (me, hopefully) whenever you're requesting marketing content.

1. "Who Else Will I Need on This Project?"

Some copywriters claim to do a little bit of everything, while others focus on what they know they can do especially well. I fall into the latter category. That's why, when a client starts asking me high-level strategy questions such as "What's my brand?" or "What marketing channels should I make use of?", I always point them toward the necessary marketing strategists, web developers, graphic designers, and social media specialists who can help them put those pieces of the puzzle of the puzzle together. After years of networking and project collaboration, I can help you connect with a skilled team of marketing pros and then interact with them to create the most effective marketing machine possible.

2. "Which Web Pages Should Hold What Content?"

Here's another question I would want to address in collaboration with a professional web designer, but it's definitely right down my alley. Once I have some idea about the proposed sitemap, layout, and user experience, I can point out where we'll need me to compose specific pain statements, benefit statements, product/service statements, and background information. This content needs to work hand-in-hand with the website's overall SEO and sales funnel strategies, so a certain amount of adjustment and compromise between the writer and the website provider is part of the process. Some pages may not require much in the way of written content at all, while others may be completely driven by the written message.

3. "What Tone Should I Employ?"

Once your marketing strategist has helped you flesh out your buyer persona, you'll find it much easier to figure out exactly who you want to receive and respond to your marketing message. At that point, we need to think about how tone and style will affect the written content. Do you need to reassure worried seniors, motivate entrepreneurs in a particular industry, or create something fun and engaging for kids? Are you primarily addressing residential consumers or business clients? What level of language best sells your product/service, professional qualifications, or vision and values? An experienced copywriter knows how to use many different voices to address many different audiences.

Now that you know what to ask your copywriter, all that remains is the asking. Contact me so we can discuss your marketing project in detail!

Marketing Technologies May Change, but the Message Remains the Same

I feel betrayed. Here we are in 2020, and I still don't have my flying car.

Years of Jetsons reruns somehow gave me an overblown expectation of what "future" transportation might offer. But even as I write this, self-driving cars continue to undergo thousands of miles of controlled driving tests, with computer brains that can learn how to cope with countless real-life traffic predicaments. Driverless cars have been a staple of science fiction stories for decades, so there's one example of a prediction that may actually come true when/if all the bugs are worked out.

Even when the futurists get it right, they may have wait a long time for their dreams to come true. For instance, you might understandably assume that some genius recently dreamed up the whole remote home automation thing. But just the other day I saw a clip from a Bell Laboratories promotional film about technologies for operating your oven or air conditioner via telephone. The date of the film? 1962.

Think about how today's technology has altered the marketing landscape in ways few businesses might have predicted. 20 years ago, YouTube and Twitter didn't exist. When Facebook first launched, it was just a way for Harvard students to interact online. Go back to the late 1990s, and you'd be hard pressed to find any blogs online, or anyone who knew what the word meant. Dial it back a few more years, and you've arrived at a world without a Word Wide Web. How did companies market themselves without these channels? The same way they always have, and always will -- by creating and distributing compelling content.

I sometimes wonder what kinds of writing services I'll be offering a few years from now. Will I still be writing blog articles and web page content for businesses, or will new developments make these strategies obsolete? Will I be writing content that gets beamed directly into people's brains? Will I be creating billboards that appear magically in the sky to anyone wearing the appropriate technology? Will I be putting scripted words into the mouths of holographic spokespeople who approach potential customers in the street? I can't possibly say -- and frankly, it doesn't matter.

There will always be a great new marketing method on the horizon, but we can't plan our marketing approaches around something that doesn't exist yet. All we can do is make intelligent use of the tools we have right now. Many business owners say, "We need to be on Facebook," or "We need to be on Twitter," but being is not doing. What matters is the message you deliver, not the delivery method.

Yes, you need to get your message out there via the tools your target audience relies on every day. But even as those tools change and evolve, the objective remains the same -- to motivate your audience to buy. That's why I'll always have work as marketing content writer, no matter what the future of marketing holds.

Let's face it -- even the flying car dealers of the future will need to get the word out!