Katarina Stamenković
Content marketing manager
Do you need a B2B SaaS copywriter but are unsure which hiring option is best for you – a content agency, in-house or freelance copywriter? Making the right decision can save you a lot of time and stress.
In this article, we’ll examine the pros and cons of each option to help you choose. Plus, we’ll review the most common hiring problems and what to do about them.
What is a B2B SaaS copywriter?
A B2B SaaS copywriter specializes in creating persuasive copy specifically tailored to the needs of SaaS companies that target other businesses instead of individual consumers. They can write copy for your blog post, landing page or email marketing.
The main goal of B2B SaaS copywriting is to drive conversions by encouraging readers to take action, such as purchasing a subscription plan or signing up for a free trial. But SaaS copywriters can also:
- Educate your audience
- Present you as an industry expert
- Help increase website visibility and traffic by writing optimized and engaging copy
B2B SaaS copywriter: Hiring options
Here we’ll discuss three hiring options:
- Content marketing agency
- In-house writer
- Freelance writer
The right option will depend on your content needs and budget, so you should first analyze your resources and what you want to achieve.
Content marketing agency
The first option is hiring a SaaS content marketing agency. A content agency comprises a team of professionals specializing in creating, managing and strategizing content for SaaS companies. They typically offer a range of services related to content creation, such as:
- Keyword research
- Content strategy
- SaaS content writing
- SEO optimization
- Content distribution
- Content performance analysis
Some even offer graphic design and video production. SaaS marketing agencies work closely with clients to understand their brand, target audience and marketing objectives.
Pros
Here are the benefits of hiring a content agency:
- Diverse skill set: Content agencies often have a team of professionals with different skills, including copywriters, editors, content strategists, SEO specialists and project managers. Such a team can ensure a holistic approach to your content creation, offering strategic guidance and providing results-driven content.
- Scalability and resources: Content agencies are typically well-equipped to handle varying content production requirements. Whether you need a few articles or entire digital marketing campaigns, agencies can allocate the right team members to meet your needs.
- Hiring responsibility: The agency takes care of the entire recruitment and training process – their writers are usually carefully evaluated and selected, ensuring you have access to the most competent copywriters without investing time and effort in finding suitable candidates, posting job ads, interviewing and testing them.
- Efficiency and timeliness: Agencies have established workflows and processes, allowing them to deliver content more efficiently and timely. They can manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring deadlines are met and your SaaS content strategy is on track.
- Consistency and quality: A SaaS blog writing company can provide consistent quality by employing quality control measures, including proofreading and editing and ensuring you’re happy with the results. This attention to detail helps maintain a high standard for your content.
- Experience and industry insights: Content agencies often have experience working with clients from multiple industries, which enables them to gain valuable insights about emerging trends and best practices. They can leverage this experience and expertise to create content.
- Project management: Working with a content agency provides peace of mind because you can rely on their project management skills. They will handle the coordination, communication and logistics of your content initiatives, allowing you to focus on other core aspects of your business.
Of course, these advantages can vary from agency to agency. That’s why you should:
- Ask for their portfolio of written work or samples.
- Check their case studies to see what they have achieved with content.
- Book a consultation call to check whether their communication style and values align with yours.
Cons
While hiring a content agency has many benefits, you should also consider potential drawbacks:
- Cost: Hiring a content agency can be more expensive than hiring a freelance copywriter because you also pay for project management skills, administrative expenses etc. However, content agencies often offer flexible pricing models, allowing you to select an option that aligns with your budget.
- Less control: When you work with a content agency, you’re entrusting the creative process and execution to an external team, which means less direct control compared to working with an in-house copywriter. This is a con for some and a benefit for others, but it also depends on the agency because you can decide how much control you want, e.g., you can approve the briefs before writing or only give feedback on the final draft.
In-house copywriter
Image source: Freepik
An in-house B2B SaaS copywriter is a copywriting professional employed directly by a B2B SaaS company to create copy for marketing purposes.
Pros
Here are the benefits of hiring an in-house copywriter:
- Direct collaboration and communication: An in-house copywriter allows for direct collaboration and immediate communication. They are readily available as they work for you, making it easier to discuss project details, provide feedback and align on creative direction. Of course, some content agencies also provide consistent communication, but it is primarily characteristic of in-house employees.
- Brand familiarity and cultural fit: An in-house copywriter works closely with your team, enabling them to gain a deep understanding of your brand voice, style, messaging, culture and values. This familiarity helps ensure consistency in your content that aligns with your brand identity.
- Deep industry knowledge and expertise: In-house copywriters can develop a deep understanding of your industry and target audience over time. They become immersed in your organization’s niche and stay updated on industry trends. This specialized knowledge allows them to create content that resonates with your buyer persona.
- Full availability: Hiring an in-house copywriter is an excellent option if you have consistent and frequent content needs. As in-house copywriters are dedicated solely to your organization’s content needs, they can prioritize the tasks you want and do them when you want.
- Greater control: Hiring an in-house copywriter gives you more control over content creation. You can provide direct guidance and oversee their work closely, ensuring it meets your expectations.
Cons
Here are the cons to keep in mind when considering hiring an in-house copywriter:
- Cost and overhead expenses: Hiring an in-house copywriter involves additional costs beyond the price you pay for their services. You’ll need to account for expenses such as benefits, vacation, training, equipment and office space if you don’t work remotely.
- Staffing challenges: Hiring an in-house copywriter means forming a candidate pool, recruiting, onboarding, managing and keeping an employee. Finding a suitable candidate with the necessary skills who is a cultural fit can be time-consuming and challenging. Also, if the copywriter leaves the company, it can disrupt the content-creation process and will require finding a replacement.
- Limited skill set: An in-house copywriter has expertise in B2B copywriting services but might not possess the same breadth of skills as a team in a content agency. They may lack expertise in SEO optimization for SaaS or content strategy, limiting their ability to handle diverse content needs or requiring additional outsourcing or resources.
- Creative stagnation: An in-house copywriter primarily focuses on your organization’s goals and brand. While working on the same project can ensure consistency, it may also limit exposure to diverse perspectives and fresh ideas, leading to creative stagnation and impacting the innovativeness of your content.
Freelance copywriter
Image source: Freepik
A freelance B2B SaaS copywriter works independently on a contract basis to create copy for B2B SaaS companies. They often offer services to multiple clients.
Pros
Here are the advantages of working with a freelance copywriter:
- Flexibility: Freelance copywriters offer flexibility regarding project scope and duration. You can hire them per project or work with them on multiple projects, allowing you to scale your content needs up or down as required.
- Cost savings: Hiring a freelancer is often the cheapest option because you don’t have to bear the costs of hiring a full-time employee or a SaaS SEO agency, making them a good choice for companies with limited budgets or those with project-based or temporary content needs.
- Fresh perspective and creativity: Freelancers often work with multiple clients across various industries, exposing them to diverse perspectives and creative approaches. This exposure helps them bring unique insights and innovative thinking to your content projects.
- Specialization: Freelance copywriters often specialize in specific industries, niches or writing styles to make them more competitive. This specialization can be beneficial when you need content that requires in-depth knowledge or a unique skill set.
- Diverse talent pool: Freelancers come from various backgrounds and experiences, offering a vast talent pool to choose from. This variety allows you to select the most suitable freelance copywriter for each project.
Cons
Here are the potential drawbacks of hiring a freelance copywriter:
- Availability: Freelancers often have multiple clients and projects, affecting their availability and workload. Their availability can also fluctuate due to personal circumstances or unforeseen events. If a freelancer becomes unavailable during a project or discontinues their freelance work, it can disrupt your content production and require finding a replacement quickly. Depending on their commitments, they may not always be able to accommodate your immediate content needs.
- Management: While freelancers can be highly professional and dependable, they work independently and, as a result, may need a bit of hand-holding or may not consistently deliver quality articles or meet deadlines.
- Limited control: As a client, you don’t have direct control over a freelancer’s work process compared to an in-house copywriter. While you can provide guidance and feedback, you may not have the same influence over their day-to-day activities.
- Limited skill set and resources: As with in-house copywriters, freelance copywriters primarily specialize in writing copy and often don’t have the same expertise or experience as a team in a content agency. If you don’t want to deal with strategy or SEO, you may need to hire multiple freelancers or consider alternatives.
- Hiring and management responsibility: It is your responsibility to find suitable candidates, post job ads, evaluate and interview them, but also train them and ensure deadlines are met, which can be challenging and time-consuming.
B2B SaaS copywriter: Hiring options comparison table
| Hiring option | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Content marketing agency |
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| In-house copywriter |
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| Freelance copywriter |
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Common problems when hiring a B2B SaaS copywriter and what to do about them
According to research, here are the most common problems arising when outsourcing writing and what to do about them:
- 🙁 49% report it’s difficult to find a writer with subject matter expertise or experience.
💡 Take the time to have a call or record a video or an audio message providing copywriters with your expert insights. Copywriters are, by profession, good researchers and know consumer psychology, so they’ll be able to present your insights in a compelling and easy-to-understand way.
- 🙁 42% report content quality wasn’t high enough.
💡 Take the time to evaluate writers’ work, give them short or paid assignments and provide them with enough resources and training to produce high-quality work. Or hire an agency with a proven track record of success and quality control measures.
- 🙁 36% report content requiring a lot of editing on their end.
💡 Communicate clearly your goals, preferences, target audience and brand voice, provide copywriters with detailed briefs and make sure they are responsive to feedback.
- 🙁 29% report content not delivering expected results.
💡 Copywriters cannot solely be responsible for the article ranking and receiving traffic – you have to optimize your SaaS blog for SEO or hire an agency, employee or freelancer to help you do it.
Hiring a B2B SaaS copywriter: How can Quoleady help?
If you want to hire a SaaS marketing agency with dedicated copywriters, we can help. Here are the top reasons to work with us:
- We source, evaluate and train the best copywriters, so you don’t have to.
- We provide our copywriters with detailed article briefs and they create a well-researched and optimized copy to generate leads.
- We have established writing guidelines and proofread every article to ensure consistent quality.
- We take the time to learn about your product and preferences, value your feedback and implement it.
- We are available Monday-Friday, 9 AM-6 PM, to answer any questions, provide advice or update you on progress in a shared Slack channel or email.
- We provide other services to complement copywriting, such as conducting SaaS keyword research, devising a SaaS content strategy, building SaaS backlinks or performing a SaaS content audit.
- We are flexible, allowing you to choose only one or more services and providing flexible pricing models.
Hop on a free call to find out if we’re a fit.
Conclusion
As you’ve seen, all options have their own set of pros and cons. Weigh the factors we mentioned with your needs, budget and goals in mind to make an informed decision.
If you want a team of SaaS marketing professionals and carefully selected copywriters that provide consistent quality without the managing burden, we can help. Book a free 30-minute call to discuss your needs and see if we’re a fit.
FAQs
What does a B2B SaaS writer do?
A B2B SaaS writer specializes in creating informative and compelling content for B2B SaaS companies. They can write blog posts, landing pages, email sequences etc.
What is the difference between an agency and an in-house copywriter?
The agency is responsible for managing an agency copywriter, they have writing guidelines and quality control measures, including a team of editors who proof their work and ensure consistent quality.
On the other hand, the company is responsible for finding its in-house copywriters, managing, training and keeping them, but if you have time and resources to do so, these copywriters can become well-versed in your brand voice and the preferences of your target audience.
Should I hire a freelancer or an agency?
Who you should hire depends on your specific needs. Hiring a freelancer can be a great choice if you need a budget-friendly option, have temporary content needs or want a writer with specific industry knowledge.
However, if you don’t have time to find and evaluate potential candidates or manage them, a content agency should be your go-to option. Their predefined processes will give you peace of mind and allow you to focus on your core SaaS business.
