How to Choose Your Copywriter

There are two branches to any craft: the technical and the creative. However, when you’re looking to hire someone, specifically a freelancer, you need to add one more branch: the craftsman.

When it comes to technicality, it is unlikely that you have enough insight to judge how much a piece follows a sane and foundational structure.  It is also unlikely that you can tell when a rule is broken intentionally. To be a judge, you’d have to be a professional or at least have some sort of understanding of the core principles.  

Which leads us to the creative side. Assuming you do have enough understanding, to discern creativity from mediocrity, you need trained eyes. Eyes that have seen enough to say, “I’ve seen this before,” and “show me something new.”  And that requires you to broaden your views and see as much as you can, if you wish to judge creativity.

But who has time for that? If you have to learn this much about the subject, then you might as well attempt the job yourself. The primary reason you’re searching for someone is to have them do the work. So, when all the candidates seem to be equally qualified, and you’re torn, what metric do you use?

When it comes to copywriters, it’s actually simple— follow your intuition. Part of the copywriter’s job is to build the connection between them and their audience. What they present reflects who they are and who they wish to attract. They understand what their audience wants and likes. So, if your gut is telling you that you like them, then you can assume that the copywriter is a good fit. Somewhere while you were perusing their website or portfolio, you got a peek at the person behind the craft. Copywriters offer more than just words; they uncover and reflect. And they do the same thing for themselves. So, if you feel compelled to hire them, it means that there is potential to form a connection.

However, what you might need is not limited to your inability to express through language, it might also extend to your voice and sense of direction. In the search for the heart of the copy, choose someone you can entrust it to.  You’ll be working with them, exchanging ideas; they will influence your creation, and good chemistry can create wonderful things.  So be aware of your needs. You might like a copywriter’s playful energy that mimics yours, but perhaps what you need is someone to contain your enthusiasm, not amplify it. You might not appreciate a copywriter’s complicated take on things, but perhaps what you need is someone to bring in more perspective. Great minds think alike, but also opposites attract. That’s what meeting the person behind the craft can help decide.

There are a lot of reasons why we choose one option over the other. When at first glance the options are equally appealing, we look into the smaller details. Sometimes we choose based on loyalty, sometimes it’s morality, and sometimes it’s just a hunch. So, the deeper you dive into the words of the copywriter, the more you get to know them, the more insight you’ll gain into what can offer someone specifically like you. Technicality and creativity are in abundance— copywriting looks beyond those things; it’s best you do the same.