Where, How and When to Hire a B2B Content Writer

If you have ever been in a business outside of the marketing industry that’s engaging in content marketing, I am sure you feel the frustration…

When you are in B2B, finding writers for your blog is neither an easy task nor too hard. However, when you are trying to find writers to create content that’s 10x times better than what’s out there, that’s really tough!

Why?

That’s what we will be discussing in this post, along with how and where to find and hire such writers. You can see when to proceed to this action in my previous post.

Forget what you know 

1. Content is a commodity and we just have to publish every week.

1. Publish articles consistently, share them on your social profiles and call it a day.

1. Throw a job ad, find a writer and pay max $50 per article.

Although when reading them it’s obvious that something is wrong with them, most companies have so many things to do, that they end up falling on one or more of the above.

So, one question begs to be answered: “what’s the goal?”

The goal is to produce amazing content *and* distribute it effectively; aka bring it in front of the right people to consume it.

As you will find out, the better content you produce the easier it is to distribute it and have people consume it and convert (in time).

Example: I am getting 10+ subscribers per post on WeeklyGrowth which is pretty good for a new, personal blog in a very competitive space with a pretty mild lead magnet (20+ SaaS directories). Also, most of my articles have an average read of over 70% (thanks SumoMe), so they are being consumed not just visited.

Also, the harder it will be for competitors to break through and compete with you with content.

Conversely if your competitors are producing average or below average content, you could blow them out with sporadic, but amazing content and a some solid ditribution.

To sum it up, amazing content is both an offensive strategy (getting market share, loyalty, branding etc) and a defensive one (harder for new competitors to break through and for existing ones to keep up).

So, in essence you are not looking for someone to go through a bunch of sources and write an article for you, but instead you are looking for a professional, knowledgeable expert in the filed that will convey his/her knowledge in a written or other format.

With this fresh and correct mindset let’s see below how and where to find this person who will produce this amazing content for you.

High Quality Venues

To get the right writers for your B2B SaaS, you need to go to the right places to find them. Keep in mind though that just because you posted a job listing on those sites doesn’t necessarily mean that all the writers there are great or the right fit for you.

Personally, I only know the following 2 kinds of places to hire high end writers:

• ProBlogger’s Job Board
• Industry authority sites that have a job board (i.e. in marketing Inbound, GrowthHackers etc)

Just make sure to keep your job listing short, with all the requirements that the prospective writer needs to meet and ideally a price range you are willing to pay per 100 words.

Headhunting Writers

This is my favorite process and in my experience it brings the best results, if done right.

As the title implies the overview is that you go out, read industry articles and blogs, find experts that have some traction and produce great content and pitch them to write for you.

There are many ways to find such experts who already produce content, including but not limited to:

– Buzzsumo
– Followerwonk
– Going to high authority industry publications and going through their authors list

Then simply input their contact info and a few notes about them in an excel and reach out to them.

Start by asking them to write one article for you and if you like what they wrote, it performed well and they shared it on their social network, as them to write more for you and eventually move into a contract for x articles per month at $xx for every 100 words.

However, things are not as easy as they look…

These people already write for authority publications and probably already have an audience (big or small). Why would they write for you?

Here is where negotiation skills and what you have to offer come into place.

Let me expand on this below…

What are you bringing to the table?

Usually it will be pretty expensive and hard to buy out experts and have them produce content for you just by throwing money at them. It’s doable, but rarely the best way to go.

You are better off getting creative and forming a deal that will benefit both of you…

For example, you can let them write blog posts for you under their name and featuring their articles on your weekly newsletter to your thousands or hundreds of thousands subscribers. These can be your blog subscribers or your clients/users.

These are *new* readers that might have never heard of that expert before. So, you are giving them exposure to a new audience for free (which is pretty compelling to them) and in return you can negotiate a better price for their articles and some exposure to their audience by having them share their articles on social media. Double win!

Conclusion

To wrap it up you don’t need a ton of writers, you just need to find a couple of these experts that are already writing for other publications and pitch them to write for you in exchange for money and exposure.

If you have knowledge in the space already, just hire a good writer to interview you and write the article you’d write, similarly to what Gary Vaynerchuk is doing.

Just remember to create amazing content consistently (even if sporadic) and get it in front of the right people, so they can consume it!

If you found this article useful, please share it with a friend.

Anything you’d add or any questions, let me know in the comments below.

Thanks!