Over the last ten plus years, as I became an entrepreneur, a small business owner, and worked as Head of Marketing at a digital marketing agency, I’ve met MANY brilliant people. Other entrepreneurs and business owners, all of them with companies in need of marketing.
A funny conversation I’ve had regularly with many of them goes something like, “Oh, you’re a copywriter! That must make marketing your own business so much easier. No need to outsource copywriting!”
And I get why they think that. Copy is a pain in the arse to write, let alone write well enough to sell stuff. Content creation is an endless requirement. It’s all so expensive paying someone to write your website, pen your blog posts and emails, mastermind your lead magnets…
Must be great to be a copywriter, right? No need to outsource all your copywriting and content. You can just do it yourself!
Well, yes. I write a lot of my own stuff. Blog content, all me. Website copy, all me. But despite being a copywriter, I still outsource my copywriting for certain things or at certain times. Here are five reasons why outsourcing copy and content is the best decision you can make…
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#1 I Really Don’t Have Time For That Shit
Here’s the BIG reason to outsource copywriting, and it’s frequently the cause of a lot of clients coming to me, particularly when they need full websites writing or consistent, regular blog posts.
It’s not that they can’t write them or don’t know what to write about (although other clients struggle with both issues). No, it’s quite simply that they don’t have time for that shit.
And neither do I.
I have client work to do, my own marketing to create content for, all the other mundane stupidity that comes with running a business. Not to mention a boyfriend, his two kids, and my pooch all clamouring for attention, plus the need to have some semblance of social life in the midst of that when possible.
And you want me to find time for every single piece of copy my business needs? This happened when I needed to write a nurture sequence.
That’s not a small job.
Mapping out the damn thing takes long enough, then you have to figure out what goes in each email. Then you have to make sure you have relevant case studies written up to accompany the stupid thing. Then you have to add in extras like PDFs with results for people to look at.
And after all that, you still have to write all the emails, design them, upload them to your CRM, connect the signups on your website, tag that shit, and test to check the whole lot actually works.
Honestly, I’m exhausted just writing about the process, let alone trying to do it.
So I don’t.
My nurture sequence?
Outsourced.
Yes, I’m a copywriter, but I still have a finite amount of time to work. I can’t do every single thing.
And nor can you. Nor should you.
I use the same logic here as I do for cleaning my house. Yes, I could do it, but it would take me hours every week. Those hours could be spent working on other things or with the aforementioned boyfriend, kids, dog, or socialising.
It’s all about balance.
You work hard; you deserve a life outside of work. Cleaning, to me, is another form of work. So I choose to outsource that – I have a cleaner.
Writing nurture sequences is (for me at least) tantamount to cleaning in my business. It’s doable but thoroughly unpleasant. This brings me to…
#2 There’s Some Stuff I Just HATE Writing
After only a short time looking through my services, you’ll notice that email nurture sequences are simply not on the list. Nor are standard emails, newsletters, eShots, or any other variation of email-related marketing.
Why?
I detest writing them.
That’s not to say I can’t do it. On the contrary, I can and have, for multiple clients. I just know it’s something I find tedious, frustrating, and unenjoyable, so I don’t actively encourage people to ask me to do it 😂.
So why would I spend my time doing it?
Life is too short to spend time toiling away doing shit you hate.
This is doubly true if you run your own business. After all, why did you start your own company in the first place if not for freedom from doing tedious work you hate?
That freedom is quickly gained simply by outsourcing the stuff you hate to other people.
Even if you’re not a business owner, but working as part of a team, there will always be tasks that need doing, but you just can’t stand. In this case, you have two choices: delegate all that copy to another team member, or outsource it to a freelancer who will actually enjoy doing it.
#3 I Earn More In The Time Saved Than It Costs To Outsource…
Fun fact. When you’re running a business, you have a ‘thing’ that you’re really good at.
That’s how you make money.
Spending time doing anything other than that thing is – generally speaking – counterproductive.
I can spend hours and hours – a full day, potentially even longer – crafting a nurture sequence.
Or, I can spend that time completing client work, which I actually love to do.
Not only is the time spent more enjoyable when I’m doing client work, but it’s also more productive because I’m in my zone of genius and, crucially, more profitable.
No, I don’t mean that I earn more in that time than the nurture sequence will create in revenue (it would be a pretty poor nurture sequence if it couldn’t even generate a day’s worth of work). However, outsourcing the copywriting for my nurture sequence costs me around three hundred quid.
I do at least twice that figure in billable client work in a day.
Depending on what I’m working on, it could be three times as much or more.
When you’re considering outsourcing your own copy, consider this:
- How long would it take you to do it yourself?
- How much revenue could you generate in your business in that same about of time?
- If the answer to question two is higher than question one, outsourcing is more cost-effective, even if you enjoy doing it yourself.
#4 Procrastination Is A Real Bitch
The problem with having a task on my To-Do list that I don’t want to do is that I avoid it at all costs. I procrastinate the fuck out of these things, and consequently, they never get done.
This is hugely problematic when it comes to anything related to your marketing. Content creation is an endless task. You perpetually have to feed the machine. Yes, loads of it can be automated, you can repurpose a ton of it to get the maximum mileage out of it possible, but at the end of the day, you’re always going to need fresh new content.
If you hate writing emails or blog posts, you’re going to procrastinate on them.
That means they either won’t get done at all, or they will take you even longer to complete than they should. This only exacerbates the issue of not having enough time to do everything yourself and earning more in the time it would take you to do it than it would cost you to outsource it.
A few years ago, I’d had my nurture sequence on my list for – and I’m not even joking here – 18 months before I finally looked at it and thought, “You know what, I’m never going to write you. I hate you. I’m just going to avoid you forever, and then I’ll never have a new nurture sequence. That’s just dumb.”
And I had an epiphany: I’d just outsource the damn thing. Pay someone else to deal with it.
It was done and live in a few days.
And I was honestly kicking myself for not just doing that in the first place. It would have been live and making me money for 18 months if I had.
Sometimes I’m an absolute dumbass.
But we all are. We all think we’ll save a few quid doing things ourselves. But if we don’t actually do them, and more than that, do them in a timely fashion, it’s almost certainly costing you revenue.
I’ve not written a nurture sequence since. I learned my lesson.
#5 A Specialist Will Do A Better Job Than You Can…
Last but absolutely no means least, there’s the question of the quality of the job that gets done.
Do you want highly polished, engaging copy that converts?
Or do you just want to whack something up that will ‘do’?
Because the harsh truth is that, unless you’re a professional writer, you’re not going to write your copy to the standard that a professional copywriter can. I say this as a copywriter who outsources copy to other copywriters because they specialise in an area I’m not great at.
Blogs, articles, books, courses, lead magnets, crafting an entire website. The big thinking high-value content. That’s my jam.
Emails?
Yeah… not so much.
I hate doing them, so I don’t do them much, so I’ve not had a great deal of practice or put the time into learning how to do them exceptionally well (as I have other forms of copy).
Outsourcing copywriting for my nurture sequence to someone who actually specialises in nurture sequences was an absolute no-brainer.
Even though I’m a copywriter.
The moral of the story? Outsourcing your copywriting is good for your productivity, good for your mental health, good for your bottom line, and results in you having higher quality copy, more capable of delivering the results you need.
FYI, I’m a copywriter, so unless you need someone to write emails for you, drop me a line and let me know what’s currently doing your head in that I can take off your hands…
