Freelancers can be a valuable resource for any content marketing operation. They help maintain a healthy stream of content while taking some burden off of internal writers, editors, and designers.
But soliciting quality content from people outside of your organization takes work. Your freelancers aren’t going to have the same familiarity with your brand, your company voice, or your content marketing workflows. And these limitations can have serious consequences for your content. Unfortunately, many marketers fail to communicate well, and end up paying for content that doesn’t fill their needs.
3 Critical Things You’re Not Telling Your Freelancers by @lizkoneill
Here are three things you should be communicating to every freelancer before they start producing work for your organization.
1. Your Style Guidelines
To get content that makes sense for your brand, you must share your brand style guidelines with your freelancers. These guidelines should include details about your brand mission, values, voice, tone, and style.
The freelancer should understand your brand as he or she would understand a person: What is the perspective? What is the personality? How does the tone change when talking to different people? Your freelancers won’t be able to channel your brand’s essence if they don’t know what it is. Be clear and transparent, and provide examples to help them understand how these guidelines translate in content creation.
2. Your Workflow
Most people just give their freelancers a deadline and a budget and send them off to work. But granting them additional visibility into your content marketing workflow will enhance their experience with your company, which, in turn, will enhance the content they produce for you.
If a freelancer understands your workflow, he or she will understand who to talk to about editing and revisions, when they can expect edits, who will be publishing their content, where it will be published and promoted, how they can submit invoices, and when they can expect to be paid. Sharing your workflow is really about managing the freelancer’s expectations and avoiding potential pitfalls down the road.
3. Your Expectations
It’s important to share your expectations with the freelancer at the very beginning of the project. Our favorite way to do this is in a “welcome message” which includes:
- Budget and payment details
- The best way to submit invoices
- Brand guidelines
- Any other expectations you and your team have of the freelancer
Defining a seamless process for managing your freelancers will cut out confusion and allow freelancers—and you—to focus on what matters: creating a high volume of high quality content that drives revenue for your business.