Good Writers Will Lead Their Clients to Embrace Change
We need to examine the state of the writing industry, so I’m looking for input from people who both commission freelance writing / content writing / proofreading / copywriting projects, as well as from writers of all disciplines, experience levels (newbies to heavyweights), industry sectors and so forth.
Writing has undergone huge changes in recent years. The internet has commoditized it – as it has done with so many other creative disciplines since the turn of the millennium – and the concomitant sheer demand for information grows today by the hour, at the same rate that it did monthly in the 1990s.
There are internet resources that help connect service-seekers with service-providers (PPH, Elance, freelancer.com among others). These can be useful for businesses that are either start-ups (who have never retained ad agencies, PR consultancies etc.), or for brands who have elected to outsource such creative services on an ad hoc basis to cut costs. Some of these brands are inclined to cast about in guns-for-hire arenas like the aforementioned, in the belief they will uncover rare and cheap new copywriting talent.
While copywriters / PR consultants / freelance journalists that were used to charging retainer fees have obviously lost income streams from these changes, it’s important to ascertain how successful this method is, because if the new method is working for clients, then service providers need to cut their cloth accordingly. If the new method is not working, however, then it’s good news for creative service providers but only in the long term…
That’s because even if the small-change ad hoc commissioning of services isn’t working, any collateral damage to a client brand will arguably be offset by short-term cost savings. Even those businesses that are sufficiently aware of their brand equity to worry about it, can salve their consciences with the conviction that they’ve cut costs to preserve income streams and thence what often amounts to company survival. It’s expedient – shoring up payroll, basic running costs and contingency funds.
Some brands will survive, but as the cycle revives healthy cash flow – as it inevitably must – how many of these brands will either remember the disciplines of brand protection or if they do, will they believe they can now get by without decent creative marketing services? This will become even more notable in the digital media age where content writers are seemingly ten a penny but their technical expertise in manipulating SEO and adword values belies the fact they can’t write their own names, let along engaging copy and content. The deficit is particularly noticeable when proofreading jobs are commissioned.
In any eventuality, suppliers of creative services must learn to be more adaptive than ever before. But use caution…
Businesses that have lost brand equity or market share will likely feel driven to make up a lot of ground very quickly. Meanwhile, writers, marketers, designers and so forth might well have been starved of client love, retainer fee-comfort and realistic goal-setting. Unreasonable expectations will attract impossible-to-deliver promises and it isn’t hard to see the potential for massive derailments far and wide.
So, to clients / brands I say caveat emptor. To providers of creative services, I say caveat vendor: beware what you promise and be prepared – even in these straitened times – to let false opportunities pass you by. Be careful what you demand, and what you promise to deliver. Both will be harder, and will have been significantly redefined.
And on the subject of measuring the success of the new method of hunting for writers please respond to the blog or tweet using #infinitemonkeys. Most people will get this, but for followers who don’t use English as their first language, this is a reference to the saying that if you sit an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters they will ultimately produce the entire works of Shakespeare.