If you’ve looked through any of our services pages, then you’ll know that there are a wide range of activities involved in any comprehensive content marketing strategy.
If you’ve read any of our other articles, you may have noticed that we often use the words consistency and regularity.
The best way to ensure that your marketing is working effectively is to ensure that your activities are regular and consistent. This is because great marketing requires a continual ‘drip feed’ effect. If you’re a small organisation, you may dream of making an immediate splash and gain lots of new customers, but the reality is that big impact marketing takes money and brand recognition to work. Small organisations need to build their foundations first and take the time to fully implement their marketing strategy to ensure success.
If you don’t have an in-house marketing department then it can be difficult to keep on top of your marketing activities and achieve this regular and consistent approach. This is where finding the right freelance support team can be invaluable. Rather than spending time stressing out about an ever-growing ‘to-do’ list, you can delegate your marketing tasks to an external marketing support team, leaving you to focus on more pressing tasks.
It’s a guaranteed way to ensure that those little tasks you’ve been meaning to get round to, get completed quickly and easily.
Freelance marketing support can be more flexible than you may think
At Gatekeeper Communications, we can work alongside your in-house team to support your activities and ensure that you are achieving everything you need to. It may surprise you that freelance marketing support is much more flexible than you might think. You simply pay for the services that you require. If you just need support for a project, then you can work with a freelancer or agency on a project basis. Alternatively, you could choose to work on a monthly retained contract (I.e. a set number of days per month) or on a consultancy basis.
This is beneficial for a number of reasons.
- It can be cheaper than paid employees. As freelance copywriters and PRs are self employed, you do not need to pay for national insurance, holiday pay, sick pay, or even a desk or phone
- You can scale up and down your external marketing and PR team as needed. It’s a great way of adding additional resource to your internal team when you’ve got specific campaigns underway.
- Freelance copywriters and freelance PRs can provide holiday cover for your business. If you know your small internal team want to take time off over the school holidays, why not ask a freelancer to provide some ad hoc cover, ensuring that workloads are not unmanageable when your employees return?
How to find the right freelance support for your UK business.
The first thing you need to consider is what services your business needs.
- Do you just need copywriting support, or would you prefer more strategic insights into your ongoing strategy?
- Do you need design support or web development guidance?
- Are you searching for dedicated SEO or PPC support?
- Perhaps you need videography or photography or graphic design
- Are you looking for a social media guru or someone who can coordinate all your event collateral?
- You may find that you are capable of project managing your plans, you just need someone available to help you carry out the leg work.
- Alternatively, you may need somebody to manage your marketing activities on your behalf; in which case, you may be looking for a dedicated freelance marketing consultant.
The great news is that we have connections with a hugely talented community of freelance creatives. Even if we do not have the exact skills you’re searching for right now, we can absolutely signpost you to some of the most talented people we know!
The next question to consider, is how do you find the right freelance support for your business? It can be easy to find cheap support services. Thanks to online sites such as Upwork, Peopleperhour or Fiverr it is easier than ever before to find cost-effective support, but it’s important to remember that when it comes to marketing (the public face of your business) then cheap isn’t always best.
Great marketing and brilliant copywriting are valuable skills. When used effectively, they can completely transform your business. It can change the ways that your audience perceive you and help you to increase sales, boost your public awareness as well as drive traffic to your website.
Your brand reputation is the most important thing that you have at your fingertips, so its essential you think carefully.
We recommend searching for recommendations on LinkedIn, talking to peers or searching for Google reviews and client case studies.
Here at Gatekeeper Communications, we’re always happy to share our portfolio so you can see the types of project we work on.
What should you ask your prospective freelance support?
If you think you’ve found the right external support, then you should do your due diligence first. You need to quantify that they are the right person to support your business needs. Always look at their website and social media channels, and if possible, try to look at some examples of that person’s client work. This will help to inform your decision-making processes.
Below is a list of questions that you should ask when you first contact your external support team;
What type of content do you specialise in?
Writing is a creative skill, and as such, has many variable factors. Your marketing support may require many different facets, and you may find that you need a team of freelance support to ensure that everyone is working towards their strengths. For example, some writers specialise in technical, web-based content. They may be a whizz at SEO techniques and writing for the web but may struggle at digital PR and placing editorial articles.
Please see free to search through our services and sector pages to learn more about what we can offer.
Do you have experience in my sector?
We believe that great marketing support comes from someone who understands what you do, and the context in which you work. This means your external team needs to understand your business and your sector.
Broadly speaking, whilst writing skills are transferable to any sector (as we discussed in our “how to write a great blog” post), technical knowledge is not. If you work in a profession which requires a lot of technical know-how, then don’t be afraid to ask for examples of previous work. You don’t want to waste precious time and money with someone who struggles to understand the basics of what you do – they’ll never be able to write convincingly on your behalf.
Do they know how to fully optimise your content for SEO purposes?
If you’re spending your hard-earned marketing budget on external support, then you need to feel confident that the resulting content will work effectively. If you’re looking for a blog copywriter will they be adapting their blog to suit your SEO requirements? Will they be making clear the relevant H1 and H2 tags? Will they be able to confidently write your meta description and ensure that your chosen keywords are seamlessly and naturally incorporated into the body copy? Will they know which internal pages to link to and which external links to avoid? Do they understand the search intent behind each keyword?
Do you need them to provide additional social media support to complement the blog activity? If so, will they provide you with separate content to post onto your individual social media platforms?
Great freelance copywriters should do all this, and much more.
Is their content properly laid-out?
When you see examples of their writing, pay attention to how it is formatted. Clearly, you want to ensure that there are no typos or grammatical errors, but you should also expect to see how the writer visualises the content.
Are there clear headings and subheadings? Are long paragraphs broken down into more digestible chunks? Have they suggested any pull-out quotes which can be repurposed for social media activity or break-away graphics? Is there a strong call to action which leads the reader to what you want them to do?
If the submitted content doesn’t have this, then you’ll have to spend valuable in-house resources making that it’s a finished piece. At Gatekeeper Communications, we believe that these activities aren’t “added extras”; they are part of the writing process and should always be included as part of the standard package.
How do they work?
This may be an important question. Whilst all good freelance marketeers will aim to become an external extension to your business, it’s important to remember that they are not directly employed by your business and as such, may have different working hours. You should establish what their processes are; when they are likely to be available, how they prefer to be contacted and how responsive they can be. For example, if you’re looking for an external press office, then you may wish to avoid using someone who combines freelance work with a full-time job role.
If you want your external marketing support to work cohesively with you, then you should set prior ground rules. For example, pre-determine how many sets of copy amends are included within the basic price (generally you should expect 1-2 sets of revisions) and confirm any payment deadlines.
This article should help you to identify how to find the right external marketing support for your needs.
At Gatekeeper Communications we believe that finding the right match is vital to ensure the success of your partnership. If you would like to find out if we would be the right fit for your marketing needs, please get in touch.
