In-House vs. Freelance Content Writer - Which Is Best for Your Digital Marketing Agency
Today, owning a website alone is not enough! You need to do more by having a content writer who will help you attract traffic, engage your audience, and convert them to sales leads. You can only do this by choosing the best content writer.
However, most digital marketing agencies ask this question, which is the best option, outsourcing in-house or freelance content writers?
The answer you give to this question can neither be true or false because both have their place and unique benefits and drawbacks. Yes, it is a critical query for every digital marketer because, after all, the decision you make impacts these four things in your digital branding:
The resources and time you put and spend on the content.
The cost of the content.
Your agency goals and adaptability.
The interests, information, and engaging level of the content to your audience.
Below, we take you through the advantages and drawbacks of both in-house and freelance content writers.
In-house content writer
In-house content writers refer to salaried content writers who either provide content full-time or part-time for your digital marketing agency. They have a scheduled outline of tasks from an organization. The following are the benefits of hiring in-house content writers for your digital marketing agency.
Advantages of hiring an in-house content writer
In-house content writers have regular writing hours, which is efficient for any changes and modifications that might need to be made to the content.
When you hire in-house writers, you maintain a steady writing voice for the entire content, a great advantage to your digital branding or brand recognition.
Reduces the chances of recruiting new content writers for the digital marketing agency; once you hire an excellent in-house writer, you maintain them through jobs and a content writer salary.
Disadvantages of hiring an in-house content writer
Like anything that has its benefits, there are limitations to hiring in-house content writers for your digital marketing agency, as highlighted below.
It is costly to hire in-house writers. The salaries for in-house content writers tend to be expensive as the agency must pay the writers regular salaries, which come with additional benefits like health covers and insurance. These benefits mean that the agency spends more money.
It’s time-wasting. Due to regular working hours, in-house content writers may be required to carry out intensive research outside their scope of work. This leads them to be overworked and burdened with extra work leading them to work overtime.
Lack of enough work to give in-house content writers often leads to a high turnover number of workers as they want a stable agency to hire them.
Reading through the pros and cons of in-house content writers, it's true and has been proven that digital business models are transforming and a big part of these transformations in the rise in hiring and preference for freelance content writers.
Freelance content writer
A freelance content writer works on a contract basis for several companies and is often considered self-employed. You get to see the content writer job description before hiring them.
Freelance content writers have the freedom to choose their projects and agencies they want to work for. There are many benefits as to why you would like to choose freelance content writers for your digital marketing.
Advantages of hiring freelance writers
Freelance writers have a lot of freedom. They are professionals who answer to themselves and give their best given the power to choose. The power to choose which company to work for offers writers an opportunity to decide how to do the job, at what time, what client to work for, among many decisions.
Hiring freelancers open your digital agency to a whole lot of universal opportunities. Unlike in-house writers, Freelance content writers are not limited, and so are you. Possibilities and opportunities are open at your disposal when it comes to hiring freelance writers. This allows you to target a specific content topic towards particular freelancers.
Fast Turnaround time. Hiring a freelance content writer saves you time. Besides, you communicate directly with your freelancer and don't need the message to go through a team leader. Your freelance can be contacted anytime, making any arrangements and sharing details, thus promptly receiving your content.
Freelance content writers are reliable working partners who will meet your future content needs. They are not after the content writer job. They understand that it is their role to write engaging, informative, and memorable content that will establish their client within the digital marketing industry and understand their purpose in extending the agency’s digital reach.
Freelancer content writers give you as an agency a personalized touch on your work. Besides, freelancers are often receptive to your feedback because it determines whether another buyer or agency will give them another job.
They have diverse knowledge and experience. Since they write for several companies, they have vast experience in topics and gain the experience that comes with it. Freelance writers deal with a variety of topics and will give you any content you need. They can provide you content ranging from blog posts for your magazine, articles, marketing content, white papers, case studies, name them.
The pros of freelancing writing can always be enticing. They work under their terms and have the power to choose. However, it also has its drawbacks.
Disadvantages of freelance content writers
Some jobs are not well compensating to the freelancer content writer. It is therefore challenging for the writers to trust an agency or organization to work with immediately. This could limit your chances of finding a good freelance content writer.
Lack of a working team or social interaction. Most of the time, the communication is between the client and the writer, which could get lonely.
From this article, you can see that both in-house and freelance services come with unique benefits. However, the benefits of hiring a freelancer content writer outweigh that of in-house writers.
Remember that it may not work out for your digital marketing agency. It takes the four critical items mentioned at the start. If you are a digital marketing agency and for the longest time haven't identified why you should hire a freelance content writer, you need not worry. The above benefits should give you the confidence to go for freelance writers.