Content marketing is a critical part of any B2B business’s marketing and sales strategy. Excellent content can make the difference between engaging and capturing qualified leads or having a potential lead click out of your website and forget about your company forever.
Investing in content marketing is non-negotiable. But with 1.57 billion freelancers in the world, how do you ensure you’ll hire a writer who will write engaging content that drives results?
This article will dive into the following:
How to find good B2B freelance writers
What to pay a B2B freelance writer
What a B2B freelance writer should do for you
Let’s get started.
How to find good B2B freelance writers
I have good news. Even though there are millions of freelance writers, you don’t have to sort through millions of websites to find someone who will drive results. Here’s what to do instead.
1. Read bylined B2B content and contact the writers directly
Finding excellent B2B freelance content writers can be as simple as reading articles on the best industry blogs and taking note of the author's name. Some notable industry blogs include ShopifyPlus, Klaviyo, and HubSpot.
Once you have the writer's name, search for their portfolio or professional social media profiles. Find their contact information and send them a message. Writers love nothing more than when a new client pops into their email or slides into their DMs.
2. Scour Twitter and LinkedIn
Most of the best B2B freelance writers are highly active on Twitter and LinkedIn. You’ll see them posting daily about content strategy and SEO and offering free writing tips.
While follower count and likes are vanity metrics, they’re also good indicators that industry professionals consider them subject matter experts.
Take note of some of the B2B freelance writers you see pop up on social media over and over. Follow them. Read their posts. Decide whether or not you like their ideas. Contact the ones you like.
3. Ask an industry professional for a referral
90% of my client roster comes from referrals from other clients. If you aren’t sure where to start, call up one of your colleagues and ask them which writers have done a good job.
If you aren’t sure who to ask, put a call out on social media. People will come running with their referrals.
Trusted connections provide candid feedback about a writer's capabilities, professionalism, and reliability. They’ve done the vetting for you.
4. Ask another B2B writer for a referral
Now time for some bad news. The best B2B freelance writers are often in high demand. Sometimes it takes a month or two to squeeze into their schedule.
If you need immediate help and you don’t have time to wait for your first pick, don’t worry. All the freelance writers know each other. Okay, well, maybe we don’t know everyone. But we will know several other writers who will do a great job.
I have a handful of other professionals I recommend when I can’t take on new clients. Come ask me. I’ll tell ya who to hire.
What to pay a B2B freelance writer
It’s hard to know what to pay a freelance writer, especially since there are no hard and fast rules about rates.
You’ll come across freelance writers who’ll ask for $5, $100, $500, $1500, or $5000 for the exact same request.
The truth is—you get what you pay for.
It’s kinda like going to the hair salon. You can pop into an EZ-Kutz, pay the stylist (if you can call them that) $20, and come out with a hat on your head. Then, you’ll learn your lesson and end up paying the $350 for a nice cut and color anyway.
It’s the same with writers. Most writers have a good hold on industry rates. The writers who have been around longer and provide more value will charge more. Those who don’t know what they are doing will scramble for anything they can get. They will also give you garbage.
I wanted to dive into this topic a bit more, so I spent a summer researching the topic. I ended up with a 34-page report on what freelancers charge. The report is a good indication of what you’ll pay a writer for different types of content, across industries, and with varying levels of experience.
Here are some things to consider if you’re tempted to get grumpy about rates.
1. You’re paying for much more than words
When you hire a writer, you’re paying them for hours, research, subject matter expertise, SEO, interviews, and more.
Here’s a quick look at how freelancers rate different criteria when pricing content:
I personally factor all of these things into my prices.
2. Prices will vary depending on the type of content
Not all content is created equal. For example, it takes a lot longer to write an 800-word case study than an 800-word blog post.
Why? Because case study writing involves interviewing, client and customer management, and sometimes interpreting analytics to tell the right story. It’s more work.
Here’s a breakdown of median prices for different types of content:
3. You’ll pay more for experienced writers
When I first started writing, I charged basically nothing. It’s embarrassing when I look back on it. But I also didn’t know what I was doing. My view of freelance writing started and stopped with delivering copy.
Since then, my expertise has grown, and my services have evolved to provide a lot more value (we’ll talk about this more in a minute).
Anyway, according to my research, writers with over eight years of experience will charge upwards of $1-$2 per word for a long-form blog post. And it will be worth every penny.
What a $1/word freelance writer should do for you
So, you’ve officially decided that you’re ready to hire an expensive freelance writer. Yay! But being expensive isn’t the only qualification. There’s a reason these freelancers are expensive, and it’s important to know what you’re paying for. Here’s a rundown of what top-notch writers are doing behind the scenes.
1. Own processes and onboarding
If you’ve never worked with a freelance writer before, it’s normal not to know how to work with one.
And to be honest—micromanaging a freelancer shouldn’t fall on your shoulders. Ain’t nobody got time for babysitting someone who isn’t officially a team member.
When you speak with a freelancer, they should tell you how to work with them. They should make it so easy for you that all you have to do is give them a topic and publish the post. The expensive writer should do all the rest.
An excellent freelancer will outline their processes and expectations. They’ll provide you with a detailed content or copywriting brief that will take you 10-15 minutes to fill out. They’ll give you a contract to sign. They’ll make the revision process easy. And they’ll set up payment terms, provided your company doesn’t have a strict accounting process in place.
2. Research
The world is oversaturated with content, especially with how easy it is to create (bad) articles with AI writing tools.
Awesome writers understand that outstanding content requires a fair amount of research. Good writers typically work within a single niche and constantly keep up with industry news, reports, and trends. This is one thing you’re paying them for.
The best writers will dig deep and reference relevant and recent reports to back up their claims.
3. Offer perspective and analysis
Imagine how boring it would be to read an article that was claims and stats. Sheesh. What a nightmare.
Not only will writers add credible and interesting statistics to their pieces, but they will offer a detailed analysis of what these claims and stats mean, how they affect customers, and what business owners can do to get a competitive leg up based on this information.
The reader will always finish an article caring about what the writer said, learning something new, or thinking more deeply about a topic.
Offering interesting analysis and a unique perspective is something AI cannot do. It’s something bad writers don’t do. And that makes it worth its weight in gold when a writer pulls it off well.
4. Conduct interviews
Content writing has taken an interesting turn these past few years. More and more blog posts don’t look like traditional blog posts from previous years.
They look a little bit more like a business blogger married a journalist, and then they had a little writer baby who takes the best of both worlds to make content.
I’m not sure if that analogy worked, but excellent business article writing adopts many traits of journalism.
The best writers are interviewing subject matter experts to get “hot takes” and then infusing these quotes into the articles.
5. Provide subject matter expertise
Speaking of subject matter experts (SMEs), writers aren’t only interviewing SMEs, they ARE SMEs. Other writers will probably contact the writer you hired to ask them for quotes.
In today’s competitive digital marketing landscape, you can’t afford to hire a writer who doesn’t inherently and deeply understand your industry.
Now, I’m not saying a writer has to know every nuance of your software. That’s ridiculous. They’ll need to review your assets and demo your products. But they should have a hold on how the industry works and who the key players are.
6. Understand content marketing strategy
The best writers also have a good hold on content marketing strategy. In fact, if you’re struggling with your strategy and need a little help, pay your writer a bit more, and they’ll point you in the right direction.
A $1/word writer will ask you about your thought leadership and content marketing goals. In fact, that’s the first thing they’ll do. Why? Because how they approach an article, what they choose to emphasize, the language they use, how they position the article—everything—will depend on what your goals are.
For example, if your goals are to drive traffic to your site and capture leads, the writer will write and optimize with this top of mind. If your goal is to become a well-known media site, the writer will lean heavily into trends, pitch fresh ideas, push for quick publication, and emphasize the importance of distribution.
7. Implement search engine optimization (SEO)
If you want a full SEO strategy, you’ll have to pay an extra fee. SEO is complex, changes often, and requires a lot of work to get right.
But the best B2B freelance writers don’t only want to tell stories. That’s what The Times and The Washington Post are for. Yes, B2B and SaaS writers want to tell stories, but they also want to drive results that boost your company’s bottom line.
And this means doing everything in their power to make sure your content gets seen by your target audience. As such, you can count on your writer to implement B2B marketing and SEO best practices and optimize the crap out of your post so you rank for your target keyword.
Writers will manually review the top results in the SERPs and create their outlines based on what’s ranking and what’s missing from the conversation. They’ll write with search intent in mind. And, they’ll most likely use a paid on-page optimization tool to make sure the content ranks.
8. Hire third-party editing
Most writers are good editors, and most editors are good writers. But good writers who are good editors aren’t great at editing their own content.
It’s science. When your brain looks at something over and over and over, it starts to adapt and accept whatever is on the page. That’s why brilliant writers who only self-edit will publish content with the most obvious of mistakes. It’s not their fault! THEY ADAPTED!
Good writers get this, and they pay a hefty fee to third-party editors to make their content pretty. When you receive a draft, it will be polished and ready to go.
Hire an excellent B2B freelance writer
It can be challenging to find a high-quality freelance writer if you’re not sure what to look for.
When marketing managers and strategists at B2B companies are vetting freelance writers, don’t just ask them what their prices are. Ask them about their processes. Throw them a couple of content marketing and SEO strategy curveballs. Ask them what they think makes a good article.
If they give you acceptable answers, hire them on the spot. And don’t balk at their prices or ask them to match Upwork prices for their writing services.