This is never more easily proven than in a content team, where bringing varied and unique skills to the table can prove incredibly beneficial to your output.

Ask anyone (except my mom) to paint a picture of the perfect sales and marketing content writer and they'll no doubt describe a creative director type who's called his ad copy writers into a room where they’re all force-fed energy drinks and are challenged to come up with two words to perfectly describe the latest laundry detergent. Thank you, Hollywood.

But what if I told you hiring a journalist might be a better choice? Or a PR writer? Or a researcher?

Having worked with all kinds of writers and, in fact, having been all kinds of writers over the span of my career, I put it to you that, in my current role, which is basically helping writers help businesses sell things, my idea of the ideal writing team doesn't include an ad copywriter at all.

Really? Well … what type of writers do you include, Andrea? Tell us! Tell us! Okay, reader, I will! I will tell you.

The journo

First up, I'd include a journalist. This is where I started my career in content many, many years ago so I can say, quite adamantly to those of you with your "Que?" faces on, that this writer type brings invaluable (and inherent) skills to the content table, including:
  • tenacity
  • respect for deadlines
  • neutrality, and
  • curiosity.

It doesn't hurt that they're almost always formally trained, either.

Journalists are all about:
  • simplifying the complex
  • finding the facts and presenting them in a clear and concise manner
  • leading with value
  • remaining objective and ethical, and
  • digging for days to get to the nub of the matter and the truth of the piece.

Even in a marketing set-up, a journalist will ensure your output is accurate, fact-based and objective, but that it also gets to the heart of the message. This is vital to creating content that resonates with your target audiences.

The public relations pro

This may not feel like too much of a stretch in that most PR consultants have to be able to write about and promote publication of (let's be honest, sometimes mundane) stories.

And they must do it in such a way that these stand out to a generally fatigued audience to succeed in the industry.

What these types of writers do extraordinarily well is:
  • quickly understanding the audience and messaging
  • finding various angles in a story, and
  • using those angles to sell in ways that are valuable, newsworthy and interesting.

They also understand the various mediums — print, TV, radio and online — and are mostly quite practised in reshaping their copy to suit the platform being targeted. PR writers are also brilliant at:
  • time management
  • deciphering crummy briefs, and
  • researching topics and hooks.

Having said all of that, one highly underrated value-add to having a PR writer on your team is their people skills. Unlike our other writers, PRs have generally mastered the art of informed schmoozing from a very early age, and this can play into your hand when it comes to convincing clients to trust your advice on content direction and strategy.

The creative

What creative writers must be good at is delivering short-form, punchy and clickable content.

They understand how to craft evocative calls-to-action and generally are able to make reading anything an enjoyable experience. These are the chaps you bring in when you’re short on grabby headlines, teaser copy, social media posts and web banners — they can take your 250-word landing page and distil the essence of it down to five simple, but attention-grabbing, words that compel readers to act.

In addition to being masters of short-form content, creatives are also:
  • able to write clear content that reflects the client's voice
  • mostly client-facing, able to discuss messaging, brand voice and target audiences
  • great at taking copy concepts and turning them into persuasive words, and
  • collaborators, brainstormers, and developers.

The researcher / technical writer

If we scrutinise this, we could say these are two different competencies, but both types of writers tend to love working with and delivering deep, long-form copy. And they do this very, very well.

You lean on your researcher when you need a writer who will:
  • learn your client’s industry back to front
  • understand your clients' product or service inside out
  • ingest your client’s messaging with ease, and
  • use research and critical thinking to take a long-form piece from good to great.

The researcher writer knows how to gather information and parse insight or meaning from it. Much like our journalist, they know how to verify facts and weed out misinformation.

Having one on your team proves most useful when writing in-depth articles, such as white papers and reports, as they are known for gathering the information needed to present well-researched and informed copy.

The UX guy

Last on the list, but only because it's a relatively badly acknowledged discipline, is the UX writer. For teams writing copy for websites or digital platforms, the UX writer plays a vital role. This is the person that brings emphatic design thinking to the table, ensuring you consider how the user feels in relation to what you want them to do.

It's the small details that matter and UX writers are the masters of small details.

An elegant, beautifully designed app or website will fail without clear instructions and easy-to-understand options. Users need to be guided and told what to do, nudged through the buyer’s journey and along the sales funnel with a sense of purpose and urgency. Our UX writers are primed to guide and nudge things along.

UX writers also play a significant role in preventing frustration for users and in making their journeys more seamless and enjoyable, helping businesses retain users in the long run by making your digital product more reputable, engaging, and profitable.

UX writers are also the owners of Microcopy, which is a crucial element of UX writing that distinguishes it from traditional copywriting. It refers to the small snippets of text that serve as helpful tips in various parts of a product, including:
  • application buttons
  • menu labels
  • error warnings
  • prompt messages
  • empty states, and
  • product usage instructions.

Microcopy is essentially copy that guides users on what actions to take, addresses their concerns, provides context and contributes to the overall brand and product narrative.

They're also pretty cool about:
  • making a customer respond in a specific way: they know which words to choose and where to place them to help the user take action
  • crafting words and phrases that appear on user interfaces to help people use a product, and
  • creating content for both new and existing users of digital products, even after the point of conversion.
Building a dream writing team involves embracing writers with unique skill sets who will all work in different ways and from different angles to take your writing to the next level. No longer can we rely on one field or speciality, and I think I’ve given you enough to explain why.

For more information, visit www.flowmesh.io.