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Should you trust that big writing project to a freelance writer or handle it in-house?
The answer is…it depends.
As someone who has been both an in-house writer and a freelance writer, I can look at the question from both sides.
Here are some disadvantages of using your own employees to work on your writing projects:
- If you add writing responsibilities to an existing employee’s workload, he or she will probably focus on their regular work first and attempt to do the writing in their spare time (which often means it never gets done).
- If writing is not a regular part of an employee’s job, they may not have the skills that it takes to write quality copy. Even if they do manage to write passable copy, it may take them much longer to complete.
- Many employees dread writing tasks. If your employees fall into this category, assigning writing tasks to them on top of their other responsibilities may cause hard feelings and even lower employee morale.
- Hiring a freelance writer brings a fresh perspective into your company’s marketing copy since everything about your company is likely to be new to the freelancer while for an employee it is all too familiar.
- Using a freelance writer is also a great way to expand an existing writing team and keep from overtaxing them during busy periods. A freelancer can step in when your regular team is overwhelmed and step away when they are not.
On the other hand, using in-house talent for writing projects can be justified if the following conditions exist:
- You already have skilled writers working for you and they have enough time on their hands to devote to new projects.
- Your writing project contains sensitive or confidential information (although you could have freelance writers sign a confidentiality agreement).
If you don’t already have someone in-house who is dedicated to your writing projects, it’s generally a good idea to use freelance talent for your writing projects. Even if you do have in-house dedicated writers you still may wish to involve freelance talent outside of your team.
Since in-house writing departments are frequently overburdened these days, a common compromise is to use freelancers to complete your writing projects, but have in-house writers check over the freelancer’s work.
Does your company use freelancers or in-house talent to complete your writing projects? Explain your choice.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Twitter Trackbacks for In-house or Freelance? : WritingThoughts [writingthoughts.com] on Topsy.com // Oct 11, 2010 at
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2 John Soares // Oct 11, 2010 at
Laura, I’ve stepped a bit outside my normal writing specialty to do a big project for a nonprofit. They do just what you suggest: have me do the writing, but they check it over carefully.
Smart way to do it.
3 Laura Spencer // Oct 12, 2010 at
Hi John!
First of all, congratulations on the nonprofit gig! What I’ve been finding is that many companies are paring down their writing departments (if they ever had one) and need freelancing help more than ever before.
4 John Soares // Oct 12, 2010 at
One more tidbit: the nonprofit found me through my website. Proof that having a website can pay off for writers!
5 Laura Spencer // Oct 12, 2010 at
Good job! Some freelancers underestimate the value of a website.
6 Matt Chandler // Oct 15, 2010 at
I’m always looking for good technical copywriters to provide content for my own clients. All to often the client thinks they are best placed to write material about their business (they’re the experts, after all?), but what many don’t realise is that writing for the web or for print is a skill. They don’t necessarily understand that good copy is all about engagement and conversion, not just to provide verbiage. Would you say this is true?
7 Laura Spencer // Oct 15, 2010 at
Hi Matt!
I think how a client responds varies depending on the client. While no doubt some clients are as you describe, many are relieved to have someone step in and help out (especially if they have more than they can handle).
As far as good copy being about engagement and conversion, I’m not sure how that applies to technical writing. That sounds more like a goal of marketing copywriting. Technical writing is more about making technically difficult material more understandable for the average person.
While I have both technical writing and copywriting as part of my skillset, not all writers do. There are two distinct types of writing.
8 Matt Chandler // Nov 4, 2010 at
Hi Laura,
earlier in my career I worked for Johnson & Johnson, and we used a lot of external agencies, including marketing, PR, copywriters, etc. In that industry (healthcare) there are some huge challenges when it comes to technical copywriting.
Whilst technical papers or even clinical trial reports are not intended ultimately for end-user “conversion” (i.e. not a marketing tool, strictly), they still have to be informative and pursuasive to whoever the reader might be. And yes – the worst person in the world (sometimes…!) to write that report is the person who generated the data or ran the trial, because they are too close to it, and too emotionally attached. That’s where the skill of the technical copywriter can really come in to its own!
9 Laura Spencer // Nov 4, 2010 at
Thanks Matt!
I can see what you’re saying, although I have always considered my copy writing skills to be separate.
Yes, technical materials need to be informative, definitely. Sometimes there is a need for them to be persuasive too, although I most often wrote for an audience that was employed by my employer’s client. (Whew, what a mouthful!) The materials I wrote instructed them on how to use our tools in their jobs. Something they most often wanted to do because they had to in order to keep working.
Medical writing in particular, with a possible consumer audience, needs to be persuasive. Following instructions could even be a matter of life and death.