If you have finally realized that you need a superstar copywriting team in order for your business to succeed, I want to congratulate you. Understanding how important it is to put together a talented copywriting team is a step in the right direction.
Poorly written marketing copy and website copy will silently destroy your business if you don’t do something about it. What you must do, is put together a team of talented copywriters. Copywriters know how to close in print, and a superstar copywriting team can help grow your business fast.
If you’ve become wise to the fact that hiring skilled copywriters can lead to increased sales, then you’re probably motivated to build a superstar copywriting team. My guess is that you want to build this team as soon as possible, so that your business can start seeing results as soon as possible, right?
If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner looking to scale your business, you’ll want talented copywriters in your corner. Your business is in the best possible position when you’ve secured the loyalty of talented, skilled individuals who specialize in particular skills. That’s why when you hire a copywriting team, you should look for individuals who specialize in copywriting. In other words, seek out the experts.
So how do you build a superstar copywriting team? And what’s the fastest and most effective way to put together this team? I’m going to give you some tips that you should read before you start putting together your copywriting team. However, I’m going to start by emphasizing some of the most important reasons why your business needs talented copywriters.
Why You Need To Hire a Copywriting Team
You can tell your customers why they should buy your product or service until you’re blue in the face, but only copywriters can do this the right way. A talented copywriter will understand your key message and your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and communicate it in a way that persuades the reader to take action. The best copywriters know how to speak your customers’ language, and can write copy using the lingo and emotional triggers that influence your target market. They’ll write copy that pushes all the right buttons.
It’s not uncommon for a business to pay a talented copywriter $5,000 for a project, and find that the copy they paid $5,000 for generated $100,000 in additional sales. That’s why hiring copywriters is typically a worthwhile investment for your business.
Copywriters understand that it’s their job to make you more money. It’s their job to write copy that results in more sales, more revenue, and more growth for your business.
Now, let’s get into some of my best tips for quickly building a superstar copywriting team.
Tip #1: You Get What You Pay For
The best copywriters charge high prices because they can. They have made a lot of businesses a lot of money with their skills, and they are well aware of their worth. If you can’t afford to hire the best-of-the-best, that’s okay, but don’t hire the cheapest copywriters either. Remember that you get what you pay for. Remember what your goals are. If your goal is to hire copywriters to write copy that converts, and your goal is to increase sales, don’t expect the $10/hour copywriters to achieve this for you.
SEO copywriters, for example, charge more money – but it’s worth the extra money. SEO (search engine optimization) is a specific skill that requires extra training. It requires knowledge of Google algorithms and SEO practices. Copywriters who are well-trained in SEO will write copy with strategic keyword placement, resulting in more search engine visibility, and therefore more views. More views means more potential buyers. The value of this is beyond any extra cost associated with it. That’s why paying extra for a copywriter who excels at SEO is worth the money.
Warren Buffet said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” When hiring copywriters, think about the value – not the price. The value you get is much more important than the price you pay.
Photo credits: Mark Reinstein / Shutterstock.com
Buffet also said, “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing” and believe me, it’s risky to hire a copywriter who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Tip #2: Ask About Their Research Practices Before Hiring
Ask any star copywriter, and they’ll tell you that doing proper research is integral to writing great sales copy. So, when you’re interviewing copywriting candidates, ask them what their research formula is.
Research skills are crucial for copywriters, because it’s their job to understand your target market and your ideal customer. It’s their job to learn the lingo, trends, and principle emotions of your ideal customer.
Superstar copywriters don’t just research your target market, though. They also research you, your business, your brand, and whatever it is that they’re selling. They seek to understand the product or service they are selling and its unique selling points, so that they can build a story around it and sell it to the best of their ability. Superstar copywriters will familiarize themselves with your industry, business, brand, product, target market and competitors.
Tip #3: Assign a Trial Project
Many of you probably don’t want to hire a copywriter without seeing what they can do first. Assign them a trial project so that you can see how they write. Think of this as their “audition” for a long-term copywriting job. Of course this trial project should be paid, since the copywriter will have to do research and spend time writing the copy.
Before you assign a trial project, figure out what your needs are. If what you really need is someone competent in direct-response copywriting for landing pages, then there’s no point assigning Facebook ad copy as the trial project. The trial project is most effective when it helps confirm that the copywriter possesses the specific skill you are looking for. So, it should be tailored to whatever your current needs are, instead of being random.
Tip #4: Have Each Team Member Focus on Their Unique Talent
One of the smartest things you can do when building a superstar copywriting team is honing in on each individual copywriter’s core talents. What I mean by this is, figuring out the specific talent or niche area of expertise each copywriter on your team is best used for. For example, perhaps one copywriter on your team is great at writing Facebook ads, while another copywriter on your team is great at writing email sales letters. If you focus their training, responsibilities and assignments on one or two specific types of copy, do you know what will happen? You’ll watch in awe as they excel within their areas of expertise. They’ll become masters at writing the specific type of copy you’ve encouraged them to focus on, and their copy will start to perform better and better.
It’s important to recognize which team members excel at which types of copywriting. Writing for social media, for example, is a special skill not every copywriter possesses. The restricted character limit on social media platforms such as Twitter, requires a talent to be able to write enticing, clickable content, within the character limit. By recognizing which copywriters on your team possess certain specific skills, and encouraging them to focus on what they’re gifted at, you’re well on your way to building a superstar copywriting team.
Tip #5: Hire a Copy Editor as Part of Your Copywriting Team
Some business owners make the mistake of thinking that if they hire expert copywriters with advanced skill sets, they won’t need to hire a copy editor. However, even if you trust your copywriters to produce high-quality copy, you still need a second pair of eyes on it. You need a star copy editor as part of your copywriting team. Below I’ve laid out some examples of the types of editing skills your copy editor should be able to implement:
Proofreading: Checking for grammar, spelling, sentence structure, punctuation and proper capitalization.
Why it’s important: This makes your copy look professional, and helps you establish credibility with your prospects. Proofreading is one of the most important types of editing.
Fact-Checking: Ensuring all facts are accurate, relevant, not outdated and not misrepresented.
Why it’s important: You can lose the respect of your audience if your facts or statistics aren’t accurate and up-to-date.
Editing for SEO: Double-check the copy for appropriate use of keywords, and edit the copy for search engine optimization.
Why it’s important: If you use SEO best practices, your copy will be ranked higher by search engines, and will therefore be seen by more people.
Substantive Editing: Assessing the piece of copy as a whole, ensuring the message is clear. Checking for any inconsistencies in language, tone, and style.
Why it’s important: Until you fully trust your copywriters, it’s important to check for clarity and consistency in their work.
Other types of editing include formatting and link-checking. As you can see, the role of an editor is quite complex, which is why this team member should focus solely on editing – not writing – the copy.
Tip #6: Send Them Through a Training Program
When it comes to training your copywriters, why take on the burden of training them yourself? One thing you can do, is take a master copywriter’s knowledge, and use it for training purposes. Have a master copywriter take what they know, and turn it into a very structured, systematic formula. This formula can help you train your other copywriters.
Make sure to have separate training for separate types of copy. For example, have separate training just on headlines. There should also be specified training for the hook, story messages, sales letters, Facebook ad writing, direct-response landing page copy, etc.
This way, you’ll end up with exactly what you need. You’ll have some copywriters who are very good at landing pages. Some who are great at Facebook ads. Others who are great at email sales letters. The list goes on. Each copywriter will excel within their niche areas of expertise that they’ve been trained on.
When you train copywriters on specific types of copy, what happens? You now have structure. This type of structure works. For example, if you provide advanced training on Facebook ads and product copy for one copywriter who seems to excel in these areas, don’t let them touch anything else. Have them focus entirely on this type of copy. Watch what happens. Copywriters will maximize their potential by narrowing their focus. As their leader, it’s your job to help them narrow their focus on the type of copy they’re best at writing.
You can also have an onboarding process where a training program is involved. Perhaps when you onboard copywriters, you’ll send them through a training program such as my 7-week High-Income Copywriter Certification Program. Once they’ve completed basic training, you can level-up their training to level 2 training, level 3 training, and keep escalating based on the competence of the copywriter.
Tip #7: Keep Upgrading Your Team’s Skill Stacks
You can upgrade the skills of the copywriters on your copywriting team with training programs, seminars, workshops and master classes that focus on relevant and up-to-date skills training. Copywriting is a modern skill that needs to be consistently upgraded and continuously exercised in order to stay current.
You can provide your copywriting team with copywriting exercises, designed for mastering the skill of copywriting. Check out these fantastic copywriting exercises for some ideas. These copywriting exercises could certainly help someone on your team become a better copywriter. You can also send your team members to a modern training program.
Ultimately, proper training allows you to spend less resources and time revising and critiquing the work of your copywriters. Level up their skills and keep them well-trained so that you get higher quality copy, less revisions, and more speed. You do not want that back-and-forth where you have to critique their work, and have them take a second go at it. You want them trained so well, that they get it right the first time, and revisions aren’t necessary.
Summary
Hiring a team of talented copywriters is crucial for the growth of your business. Poorly written marketing copy and website copy will silently destroy your business if you don’t do something about it.
Hiring skilled copywriters can lead to increased sales, because copywriters know how to close in print.
Here are 7 tips for hiring a superstar copywriting team:
Tip #1: You Get What You Pay For. (The value you get is more important than the price you pay.)
Tip #2: Ask About Their Research Practices Before Hiring. (The best copywriters are great at doing proper research on your industry, your company, your brand message, your target market, and your ideal customer.)
Tip #3: Assign a Trial Project. (Let copywriters audition before offering them the job.)
Tip #4: Have Each Team Member Focus on Their Unique Talent. (By narrowing their focus, copywriters will excel in their niche and make you more money.)
Tip #5: Hire a Copy Editor as Part of Your Copywriting Team. (Copy editors are integral to any copywriting team.)
Tip #6: Send Them Through a Training Program. (Let them learn from a master.)
Tip #7: Keep Upgrading Your Team’s Skill Stacks. (Have your copywriting team keep exercising their copywriting muscles by updating their skills.)
Enroll Your Copywriting Team in My 7-Week High-Income Copywriter Certification Program
If you’re motivated to make sure your copywriting team is well-trained and capable of closing in print, enroll your team members in my brand new copywriting training program. My 7-Week High-Income Copywriter Certification Program is valuable even for copywriters who think they already know what it is to be a copywriter. Anyone who enrolls in my program is likely to learn something new and develop better copywriting skills. It’s also a great program for any team members who you’re attempting to transition out of their current role and into a copywriting role. You can’t go wrong with a modern training program taught by a master copywriter.
