In the field of copywriting, especially when it comes to technical pieces and advertising copies, it is crucial: a) to write engagingly and correctly; b) to make sales through the text; c) to show high competence in things you describe.
The question is: what kind of expert has writing, technical and sales skills combined? An experienced copywriter. But there are a lot of people who think that a good knowledge of English is enough to write compelling business text. Thus, some companies hire specialists with English teacher qualifications as freelance or in-house copywriters and editors.
Yes, I agree that even a student can write an ordinary text. But if your main goal is to boost sales, marketing text should be written by an expert with practical copywriting experience and appropriate knowledge. This is especially true when it comes to generating content for the IT business and technical editing services.
Let’s figure out how to find a skilled writer to be absolutely confident that your materials won’t be spoiled by someone’s incompetence.
Benefits Of Hiring A Professional Copywriter: Essential Skills
Many people possess perfect English. Many are well-versed in marketing and technology. But not everyone combines these two valuable skills at the same time. What is the difference between a professional copywriter and a person who can write well (f.e., an English teacher)?
The answer is specific industry knowledge and the ability to create structured persuasive text. English teacher qualifications are not enough to create marketing materials that persuade users to buy. A good writer should be strong in the peculiarities of an industry he/she works within, follow trends, and keep up to date with market changes.
What’s more, a competent copywriter should also be a kind of a psychologist to understand the motives of human behavior, anticipate the reaction of users, and ably translate these observations into sales text. Critical thinking, creativity, pragmatism, and analytical skills are must-haves.
If you plan to launch a product and decide to run a massive advertising campaign, only a copywriter will masterfully realize this task. Why so?
The merits of copywriters:
- Know what types of words to use to generate sales and brand recognition.
- Continually improve their skills and knowledge base. Their vocabulary contains specific terms that allow them to explain difficult things in simple words so the target audience understands them and consumers’ loyalty increases.
- Are obsessed with structure, call-to-action, tone-of-voice.
- Can provide qualitative technical editing services with no risk of spoiling content due to incompetence.
- Use special tools to discover quick-win keywords and optimize copies with them to let your website get a TOP Google ranking. As a result, you will grab the attention of your potential customers first and foremost.
As you can see, the labor market sets a lot of copywriter requirements. As an employer looking for an exceptional master of the word, remember that these are the key determinants of hiring a good specialist capable of producing cutting-edge marketable content.
What About Non-Professional Writers?
If you still want to hire an English teacher or simply a native English speaker, you should understand that the requirements for this person will be much higher. They need to write quickly and qualitatively, meet all of your marketing and business goals and cover a wide range of new disciplines. It might be marketing, psychology, sales, IT, and so on.
Do you have enough free time to wait for an inexperienced copywriter to gain these skills?
Be ready not only to spend time while waiting for the results but also to get quite a different outcome than expected. If a person writes well, you will get a well-written copy. No more.
Do you not want to make a mistake when choosing a writer? A little hint: Invite a candidate to pass the copywriting skills test. 95% probability is that the practitioner will do the job quicker and more efficiently than a teacher. The teacher is still a specialist with a wide scientific profile while the copywriter is narrowly focused, with the specific set of skills and knowledge you need.
The English teacher qualifications will allow writing not marketing text, but merely an essay. Yes, it will be easy to read, but that’s it. However, an essay dramatically differs from an advertising copy or an IT blog post. The difference is business materials have a goal. A copywriter does not just produce the text but develops and implements a strategy to convert each visitor of your website into a paying customer.
What’s more, by hiring an English teacher or a native English speaker for technical editing services, you risk getting a batch of wrong corrections due to the lack of editor’s technical vocabulary.
At ReVerb, we faced such an issue many times when cooperating with IT companies and hi-tech startups. Many of our tech clients have previously experienced the poor editing support from non-professional copywriters and editors despite the fact they were native English guys.
They literally spoiled the content and main idea of our customers’ blog posts by replacing or changing specific terms (e.g. title of functions, components, modules, etc) related to the area of software development.
With competent technical writers and editors on board, we’re successfully providing over 450 IT companies all over the world with first-grade technical editing services.
What To Consider When Hiring A Copywriter
You’ve just opened a CV of a potential copywriter for your company. What is worth paying attention to?
– Portfolio. There should be at least a few samples in the copywriter’s portfolio that have benefited customers. Ask him/her to share results in numbers: a number of views, comments, filled forms, etc.
– SEO skills. Copywriters with knowledge of how to write SEO-copies can generate not only sales but also organic traffic to your website. Remember that one advertising copy pursues two goals at once:
1) making a sales pitch;
2) increasing your site positions on Google.
With no understanding of SEO basics, the writer will hardly achieve the second target which is crucial for your business growth.
– Ability to conduct research. An experienced copywriter has excellent research skills. To write a clever and deep article, a specialist needs to conduct thorough research of the topic assigned. Although each author, even an English teacher, can master the science of marketing and technical research, the time spent on this activity and research results may differ. Thus, always consider these two essential points:
1) the speed of the job;
2) the depth of issue studying.
– Expertise in your industry. A vivid example is a doctor of medical sciences who somehow prepared drafts about the diagnosis of a dangerous disease that are really useful for the audience. He can be forgiven for almost every writing mistake: lack of structure, poor text formatting, and even spelling and grammatical errors. Why? His text has enormous value for the target group. No person with a lack of expertise in medicine can share the same insights.
Thus, you need a copywriter who can dive deep into the topic he/she is competent at and produce expert-level texts. If you see in the portfolio works on the topics related to your business niche, you can easily evaluate the level of a candidate’s expertise. If a specialist has never encountered the proposed issue but you decide to cooperate with him/her, you will run a big risk.
– Literacy. Does it matter? Among all the benefits of hiring a professional copywriter, you’ll definitely mention literacy. However, is it a big deal that a text is perfectly written? In terms of common sense, yes. Text without mistakes is naturally correct and successful but you mistakenly think that it will generate a lot of sales.
It’s just a psychological trick our brain is trapped in. We automatically equate a well-written text with a highly-effective one. Things look so in theory but the practice proves the opposite. The typos or the slightest mistakes do not reduce the effectiveness of the advertising copy, as you read in the case of a doctor of medical sciences.
It’s much more important to take into account the content itself, how well it conveys the basic idea and whether it sells. Moreover, errors can even increase readers’ confidence. While reading, you start perceiving the author as an average human similar to yourself.
FYI: a hard-skilled copywriter does not always write correctly in terms of grammar, this is not a strict requirement, especially today when we have numerous editing services like Grammarly.
Don’t trust third-party services? Have the text checked by a professional editor (again, not an English teacher). That’s how quickly and easily you can solve the grammar issue. Finding an educated and competent copywriter with a technical background is a much more difficult task.
That’s why we recommend you define the level of knowledge of a copywriter by using a custom copywriting skills test according to your niche, instead of blind hiring a regular native English speaker or an English teacher.
Copywriting Skills Test: Check Your Candidates Wisely
Give a candidate some task that is related to your niche and is common for the daily job: rewrite headlines, produce an “elevator” speech, short post for your business page on social networks, or sales copy for the landing page.
When ready, check the work with these criteria:
- An eye for detail
- Research skills
- Depth of the material
- Vocabulary
- Curiosity
- Reaction to comment
The easiest way to check your candidate is via an online copywriting skills test.
You can find the most appropriate option among Mettl.com, Brainmeasures.com, Copyblogger.com.
Every Time You Doubt, Read This Article
Finally, let’s sum up, what are the English teacher requirements and what are your benefits from working with such a specialist?
1. Creates well-written text; they do not need additional editing.
2. Makes copies structured and consistent – your customers will easily understand what they need to do.
3. A teacher has a high level of English – this ensures that native English speaking customers clearly understand what you’re writing about.
The benefits of hiring a professional copywriter:
1. Is an expert so that the texts will be deep and informative. Knows how to bring value to readers.
2. Conducts comprehensive market research before starting to write.
3. Knows your audience and how to talk to it.
4. Has knowledge and experience in marketing, sales, psychology, technology, and your industry.
5. Performs tasks faster than an English teacher.
6. Can provide top-grade technical editing services.
7. Writes excellent advertising copies and tutorials because of sales and tech background.
Conclusion
We hope now you’ll have no difficulties when hiring a copywriter. All you need is to give a candidate a copywriting skills test, analyze his/her portfolio and writing competencies, and finally, choose a specialist who is more likely to produce flawless and compelling materials for your business.
