It’s a common myth that hiring a freelance content writer will result in generic content. After all, they don’t know your business like you do, right? To be fair, neither does your bookkeeper, human resource manager, or many other skilled employees you hire for their knowledge and expertise. Great freelance writers make knowing your business their business and in doing so are able to craft content just for you. But they can’t do it alone.
Providing your freelance writers with a little information about your company, your customers, and your industry can go a long way to helping them write content that stands out from the crowd. We’ve compiled our top five tips for helping your freelance writer create customized, brand-consistent content.
1. Map the Customer Journey
A customer journey map is a visual representation of the path your customers take on their journey with your company. A full “cradle to grave” map includes the very first encounter a potential customer has with you and every engagement afterward, up until they make a purchase with you or choose a competitor.
As the customer travels along their journey, their relationship with your business changes, and the content you provide them should reflect that. Once you have mapped the customer journey, you can work with your freelance content writer to determine which type of content is most effective at each stage of the journey.
2. Create Multiple Customer Profiles
When you create a customer profile, you are describing your ideal customer. Unless you are a niche business with a very focused specialty, you should have more than one ideal customer. Differences in age, gender, and motivations should inform your marketing decisions. When you share multiple customer profiles with your freelance content writer, they are better suited to create content that targets each of your ideal customers.
3. Share Your Customer FAQs
If you hear the same questions over and over, you can bet the exact same questions are typed into Google regularly. Already have an FAQ page? Great. Addressing FAQs in a blog as well gives your website two opportunities to provide the answer.
In a blog post, you are able to answer a question more thoroughly and up the amount of time the customer spends viewing your page. Additionally, it increases the likelihood the customer will look to your company first the next time they have a question.
4. Supply Unique, High-Value Keywords
Choosing keywords that are relevant, unique, and able to be seamlessly integrated into your content is no small task. However, there are some amazing tools available to help you find the top, high-value keywords in your industry. Use them.
BuzzSumo can tell you what the most shared content is for any keyword phrase. Wordtracker will find the highest performing keywords for your topics or industry. Using these tools to determine which keywords to provide your freelance content writer can help them create content that is both customized and effective.
5. Give Guidelines, Then Step Back
Great content marketing writers are more than just amazing writers. A skilled content writer understands search engine optimization (SEO) and knows how to seamlessly integrate keywords that will improve your search rankings. They understand how to create meaningful content tailored to specific customer profiles across all stages of the customer journey map.
Simply put, a great freelance writer knows the most efficient and effective way to do their job. As long as you let them. Provide your freelance writers with clear, concise guidelines. Then step back and let them write.
Forget the myth. When you provide your freelance writer with a customer journey map, multiple customer profiles, frequently asked customer questions, and high-value keywords, they have everything they need to create unique content that is customized for your business and optimized for success.
