You open the document and your heart sinks. Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and typos galore. To make matters worse, the page is overflowing with financial inaccuracies and bad advice.
Your reputation is on the line here! You don’t expect your content writer to have the finance knowledge that you do, but this isn’t the first time you’ve been disappointed with their work.
You’re worried it won’t be the last.
If you’re not happy with your content writer’s work and your partner is sick to death of hearing about it, read on.
Write better briefs
First thing’s first, have you been briefing your content writer? I’m not talking about a title and a couple of keywords. I’m talking about a thorough brief outlining exactly what you’d like them to talk about.
If you’re having problems with your content writer, I’d recommend including the following in your brief:
- A working title
- A quick summary of the blog post’s purpose (who is it for and what do you want it to achieve)
- Recommended headings (this can be really helpful in defining the structure of the blog post)
- Links to helpful articles
If you care about SEO, you might also want to give your writer a list of recommended keywords, but if you’re simply looking for a well written article that’s genuinely helpful to the audience, I don’t think this is quite as important as the things I’ve listed above.
Give more detailed feedback
Have you been giving your content writer feedback?
You may have hired a content writer to reduce your workload and make your own life easier. The last thing you want to be doing is wasting time going back and forth, requesting regular changes and corrections. I know how you feel. You just wish it could be right the first time, so you can focus on what you do best.
Unfortunately, amendments play an important role in the content writing process. Even the most experienced writers get pushback from their clients. And by giving your writer detailed feedback, you’ll progress much faster than if you leave them to figure it out on their own.
Remember: content writers aren’t mind readers.
They won’t know you’re unhappy unless you tell them… or fire them. But please don’t fire them unless you’ve been giving them actionable feedback! For more on this, check out my guide on how to give your copywriter better feedback.
Reassess your budget
If you’ve been giving your content writer plenty of feedback but you’ve seen no improvements, the next step is to question whether you’re spending enough money to get the results you want.
Could it be that you’re expecting champagne content on a lemonade budget?
Many business owners underestimate just how much money they’ll need to spend to see results from their marketing efforts.
I’ve known new writers who charge just £50 a blog post get told off for forgetting to include keywords. Others have been chastised for mistaking the lifetime allowance for the Lifetime ISA.
£50 is nothing in the marketing world. With such a small budget, you’ll struggle to find someone who knows their way around ISAs and pensions.
If you want well written blog posts that aren’t ridden with spelling mistakes, I’d recommend paying at least £200 per 1,000 words.
If you want blog posts designed to rank well in the search engines and convert readers into customers, £400 per 1,000 words is still an absolute bargain.
When it come to copy, a high converting sales page can cost you thousands.
That’s right! Even if the page is only 200 words long.
If the thought of dropping this much money on one page makes your eyes water, consider how much money you’ll make from signing just one new client. And how many opportunities you could miss out on if the page misses the mark.
Look for a more experienced replacement
There’s no shortage of TikTok influencers promising to turn just about anyone into a six-figure content writer for just £297 a month. Have you noticed it always ends in a 7?
What these coaches don’t admit is that content writing takes a lot of practise, creativity and skill.
I’m sure there are exceptions but someone who’s been in the game for 6 months is unlikely to be as good as someone with 6 years of content writing experience under their belt.
If you’re unhappy with your content writer’s work and feedback hasn’t gotten you anywhere, a more experienced replacement could be the way forward.
Consider hiring a finance specialist
I have nothing against generalist content writers, but when it comes to writing about complicated topics such as a finance, I believe specialists tend to do it better.
Let’s imagine you hire a generalist who usually writes for law firms, online retailers and recruiters. They’ve never written about finance before but they insist they can write about any topic.
You pay them £250 for a 1,000 word article. They spend 3 hours researching, writing and editing it before sending it back to you.
Alternatively, you could pay a specialist a bit more than that and tap into years’ worth of knowledge and research.
When I write a blog post for financial planners, for example, I draw upon years of research. I’ve spent almost a decade writing about money, listening to finance podcasts, and reading books about the economy.
Finance content writers will also have a good understanding of the obstacles you face in your industry.
They’re unlikely to have the qualifications that you do, but when researching an article, they’ll be more likely to take questionable advice they read online with a pinch of salt.