Here are 12 questions you need to ask when you are thing of hiring an advertising copywriter
1. Strategic ability - Is their strategic thought behind their creative processes or are they being creative purely for the sake of being creative?
2. Does their work embody ‘salesmanship in print’ or are they simply creative writers?
3. Do they have the ability to write in different styles so they can adapt their writing to suit a particular industry?
4. Does the copywriter have the ability to visualise and communicate a concept to the designer?
5. Market research - How will they ‘get to know’ your target market? Will it be guesswork? Will it be based on experience? or will they roll up their sleeves and interview your clients?
6. Experience - What experience do they have doing work for clients in your industry? And if they don’t have experience, do they have transferable experience eg if you’re an accounting firm and they have experience working with other professional services firms.
7. Street smarts - do they have ‘in the trenches’ wisdom or a team of graduates with no ‘racked up’ points.
8. Measurability - Can they quote ‘measurable’, in the bank account results for clients or are they talking in terms of the creative awards they have won?
9. Product understanding - how do they intend to get to know your company, your product and the image you want to project? How have they done this with previous clients?
10. Are their fees in line with the measurable results they have achieved for clients?
11. Capacity - do they have the capacity to handle all your work with a quick turnaround?
12. Portfolio - does their portfolio show creative that met the needs of the client’s market or was it ‘highly creative’ but not projecting an image conducive with the market it was pitching to? When reviewing portfolios don’t assess their work on the basis of “do I like it” but instead look at it on the basis of “if I was in this industry would it be a fit with the image that I was wanting to project?”