Questions to answer before bringing on outside writers

Before bringing on a writing agency or freelancers, there’s some work you need to do.

I know, you’re looking for help because you’re too busy. But trust me, a strong foundation for an editorial process is worth the time and energy. As a former product and content marketer, I’ve seen too many of these initiatives fall apart due to insufficient foresight and poorly communicated expectations.

To give yourself and your writers the best chance of success, ask yourself the few dozen questions below before you start shopping around. (If even that sounds daunting, you’re probably not ready to take on external writers.)

You can probably answer many of these questions off the top of your head; others will take more work. The more you can document the answers, the better prepared your agency will be to support you—and the more likely you are to have internal alignment.

Validation

You don’t necessarily need to share this with prospective partners, but you should be darn sure of your answers.

• Why are you investing in writing? What is your theory of change that justifies the expense and effort?

• Is your company/team/product at the right stage to invest in content? Are you confident in your ICP and go-to-market strategy, or is there a real risk that everything will become obsolete in a matter of months?

• Do you have the capacity to engage with an agency, or is your plate too full to even give them what they’ll need to do great work?

Fundamentals

• What are your goals? Are you generating pipeline, closing sales, building your brand?

• Who is your audience? Is it aligned with your broader sales and marketing efforts?

• What kind of content do you need? Blog posts or marketing-page copy? Tutorials, guides, white pages? Thought leadership?

• What is your budget? Is this per piece, monthly, or otherwise defined?

Infrastructure

• Publishing

  • If a blog, do you have a CMS or blogging platform set up?

  • If web content, are you able to edit directly or will you need to set up a procedure for someone to post on your behalf?

  • Are you considering syndicating, translating, or printing your content? If so, do your workflows and timelines account for them?

• Graphics

  • Do you need graphics? Or will plain text and perhaps some screenshots be enough?

  • If so, do you have in-house resources? Do they know that you’ll be leaning on them?

  • If not, do you have a relationship with a graphics agency? Will they be able to provide the assets you need on your timeline? At what point in the content creation process will you brief them?

  • If you need new graphics support, how will you find it? Can you do the equivalent of this process for a writing agency to set you up to find a good graphics one? (Maybe ask for recommendations from the writing agencies you’re talking to, or marketing buddies at other companies.)

  • If you’re considering using AI to generate graphics, why are you OK with that but not AI-generated copy? (This isn’t meant as a trick question, but rather something you ought to have some conviction about. “I have money for words but not pictures” might be enough!)

• Distribution

  • How will people see the content?

  • Is SEO an important goal? If so, do you already have SEO support or will you need it? What is your comfort level in balancing SEO with human legibility? Do you need your writer to provide optimized titles, headers, and meta description?

  • Will new content be announced on social platforms or e-mail newsletters? Do you have a workflow for this distribution? Would you want your writer to create copy for social or the newsletter?

Process

• Volume

  • How much content will you need on an ongoing basis?

  • Are you looking to establish an editorial cadence? If so, do you have a few months’ worth of content ideas ready to go?

  • If you’ll be requesting support à la carte, how will you decide when it’s worth asking for? How much lead time will you be able to give your agency? (Agencies can’t keep staff waiting around for you to ask for content, so responding to one-off requests may take longer.)

• Ideas

  • How will you generate and capture new ideas? Do you have an internal process for other teams to submit?

  • How will you prioritize what to commission and publish?

  • Are you expecting the agency to help with content ideas once they’re up to speed?

• Briefing

  • How will you compile the information the writer will need to do the work?

  • Will you do it, or is it the job of someone else (say, a product marketer) to draft the brief?

  • Is there a sign-off process for the topic and the content of the brief? (Such a procedure goes a long way in avoiding a situation where someone kills or requires fundamental changes to a piece that’s nearly done.)

• Editing

  • Who will edit the pieces delivered to you? Do you prefer to have them previously edited externally, or do you want to do the first editorial pass yourself? (This is one difference between freelance and agency: typically, individuals send you their work directly, whereas agencies have an in-house review before sending.)

  • Will anyone else be involved in editing? How will you know who’s looped into which piece?

  • Do you want the writer involved in the editing process? If not, how will you give them feedback to improve for next time?

• Communication

  • How do you like to work? Chatty over Slack? Keep the questions to comments in Docs? Weekly meetings or fully async?

  • Do you like the give-and-take of editorial discussions, or are you firm in your perspective and prefer the writer to observe and adapt?

  • If others besides you will be communicating with writers, how will they know whom to address and when? How will you resolve any internal conflict before it confuses them?

Identity

While writers love fully formed style guides, we recognize that not everyone has them. The more guidance you can give, the less iteration we’ll have to do. (Bonus: any effort you put into documenting your company’s style can also be shared internally. Your colleagues probably want and need this guidance too.)

• Style

  • Do you have a style guide? Have you reviewed and updated it recently?

  • If not, what previous documents will give writers indications of your company’s tone, vocabulary, level of formality, etc.? Share your grammatical and typographical conventions (e.g., AP style, Oxford comma, capitalization, etc.)

  • Are there pieces from elsewhere, such as other companies, whose writing caliber and personality you aspire to?

  • What jargon is expected from your audience, and what should be avoided?

  • Are there specific writing choices to avoid, whether out of your personal bias or because the company has decided against them?

  • If they’re ghostwriting—writing under someone else’s name—what ought they know about the named author’s proclivities and quirks?

• Brand

  • What’s your company’s personality? What do you want people to remember and feel about you? (If you haven’t spent much time thinking through this, I’m a fan of the Brand Archetype framework to give some structure.)

  • What do people misunderstand about your company that can be cleared up in writing?

  • How has the brand evolved? What can today’s writers learn from past choices that are no longer in play?