Marketing your logistics company takes up all the time you have. You’ve put in place systems and procedures that regulate how things get done. You delegate functions and responsibilities to your staff, and, as a senior executive, you oversee the operation.
You hardly have time to consider promoting your business, gathering more customers and securing more sales. Without presenting your products and services to the outside world you will lose ground to the competition that is hungrily seeking to acquire your share of the market.
The perennial problem every Marketing Director faces is how to fit all that into the operating regime. For the small or medium-sized company, setting up an in-house marketing department is often out of the question. To outsource the work to an advertising agency can be costly too, and you will usually be required to commit financially to a term contract.
You could, of course, draw up promotional material in-house. That will achieve a result, because your staff would be qualified to write grammatical English without spelling, punctuation or typographical mistakes. (So long as the written material is styled appropriately and is thoroughly edited and proofread — and that’s not a simple task).
But there are consequences that flow from that arrangement:
- firstly, it is not an effective use of specialist staff that they are engaged in company matters outside their immediate specialisms;
- secondly, the opportunity costs of diverting specialist staff from their intended duties to undertake tasks of a different specialism are high.
You Need A Trained Specialist
You studied and trained to obtain your qualifications. You have put in a mountain of effort to acquire the knowledge and skills to market your company. It will have taken you years to gain sufficient experience to reach the position you now hold.
Copywriting too requires study, training and practise. It is a craft and a specialism.
Whoever seeks to be a copywriter must have a keen interest in words and writing — writing of a particular kind. Not the prose of a novelist or the reportage of the journalist.
In fact, to compile text for a business that is both promotional and informative is to combine the novel’s imaginative story-telling with the journal’s objective, accurate and credible fact-telling. It should also be striking in order to attract and retain the reader’s attention, and persuasive where the aim is to turn the reader into a purchaser.
That requires an ability to instill text with power and an understanding of the appropriate writing style for the assignment at hand, and for the particular business client.
Text for a website page that seeks to sell to the visitor differs from that in an informative email or newsletter.
Different again, is a white paper that describes a new product with objectivity and proof; or a case study recording a purchaser’s success story of how the company’s services helped overcome problems that had remained unresolved and had affected performance.
So, what is the solution?
The Freelance Copywriter Can Help Build Your Business
Supply chain and logistics businesses today, both large companies and small enterprises, are finding that hiring a good freelance copywriter provides a satisfactory solution to achieving effective business promotion — either to supplement an existing team or as a responsive, flexible and cost-effective means of preparing business material as and when required.
The independent copywriter offers a number of advantages over the in-house or agency alternatives:
- the freelancer gives a personal service and is approachable;
- the freelancer is responsive and offers a flexible service that can more easily be tailored to the particular needs of the client company;
- the freelancer offers exceptional value for money because he or she need be hired only when required, thus avoiding those overheads associated with fixed employment or the rigid terms advertising agencies seek.
- the freelancer offers a single point of contact when queries arise; and the solo entrepreneur possesses a business sense that will please you.
Treat the freelance copywriter as a guide who can lead you in the direction of marketing success. In the final analysis, it will by your message that will go out to the market. The freelance copywriter can craft that message on your behalf and will focus on furthering the interests of the company.
Nick Fielden Copywriter www.nickfielden.com.au