Outsourcing your marketing writing

The other day, I was with my favorite opinionated marketers - John and Sean - at a client site. We were there to kick-off Phase 2 of a project we’ve been working on for the past couple of months.

Our clients had just told us that they have an offer out for their first full-time marketing person, and they’d chosen someone who doesn’t have tons of marketing experience, but who is a very good writer.

In my mind, there are few things more important in a marketing professional than the ability to think and write clearly. Yes, I know that there are plenty of great marketing minds who can’t or won’t or don’t write, but to me writing is a pretty darned fundamental skill. So I told them that I thought this was a great idea.

John chimed in to say that it was definitely the right thing to do, since dealing with an outside writer is often more trouble than it’s worth.

Wait just a darned minute there, John. (Yes, that it my foot kicking you under the table.) A lot of what I do is outside writing. If I look at my current project list, it includes:

• Finishing up a white paper
• Creating Web copy for some new market segments
• Writing a brochure
• Two ghosted contributed articles

Whaddaya mean, an outside writer is more trouble than they’re worth?

We talked about it afterwards, and John’s point - as always with John’s point, an entirely thoughtful, practical, and reasoned one - was that no one really knows your core messages and story better than those who are on the inside. In his experience, when he worked with outside writers, he spent all his time revising because they never quite got it right. I know I’ve seen the same thing happen myself.

And yet using outside writing can and does work.

I thought through my current projects to see why it’s working:

• The white paper: From the customer point of view, they wanted an outside voice, and someone who had time to research industry trends. That would be me. They also made some upfront time for me to meet with the right folks and get all my start up questions answered. They are also prompt and excellent reviewers. Under the pressure of an upcoming event, I was able to pull together a first round white paper that was good enough to go with. We’re now doing some technical beefing up. But they’ve got a white paper they never would have gotten to themselves. Chalk one up for the outside writer!
• Creating Web copy for a new service: This is a brand new client for me, and I knew next to nothing about them or their products. My doing this work is working out pretty well because this company has created some excellent positioning documents, including messaging for different segments, and different personas within each segment. (They are living, breathing Pragmatic Marketing practitioners - maybe the most disciplined ones I’ve ever worked with.) Drawing on these documents, and my overall knowledge of their segments, we’ve been able to get some good stuff written fast. One of the challenges: collapsing multiple personas into one story, without losing the message for any of them. They’ve asked me to do some additional, non-Website writing for them. So chalk another one up for the outsider.
• Writing a brochure: Given that a few months ago I had created the core positioning document for these folks, it was a pretty simple matter to use that as a guide for the brochure copy. The messages are being punched up and "marketing-ized". But in terms of being able to get copy written fast with minimal - and I do mean minimal - back and forth agonizing over the story, there’s nothing like being intimately familiar with the source material. Which is why when I start working with a new customer, I usually try to get them to work on making sure that they have their positioning house in order. Once that’s done, well….
• Two ghosted contributed articles: These are on topics related to product use, but really don’t have much to do (at least not directly) with the positioning of the product - other than to say that the articles are being placed in venues that are bulls-eye for our positioning. This project is going quite smoothly because I’ve worked with these guys for years, I know what questions to ask, and I know where to go for answers when I get in over my head, which is of course going to happen when a sociology major is writing for EE’s.

I’ve also done plenty of data sheets, customer profiles - you name it, if it’s the written marketing word, I’ve done it somewhere along the way. With both data sheets, customer profiles, and other pieces, I have a structured way of getting the input I need. If the customer lacks clarity around their positioning, it always comes out. I always try to make sure that it comes out early, through using my structured ways, rather than once Mr./Ms. Big gets their mitts on it and declares, "This is all wrong."

But if someone has a clear sense of their positioning, and this is made available to the writer, there’s no reason why the outside writer can’t do pretty much anything for you. An outside writer can also help you develop that positioning to begin with. I do it all the time - although sometimes I think the role is more midwife than writer, thank you.

But John, of course, still has a point. If you’re going to have a marketing person in-house, the right move is absolutely finding someone who can write.

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