Let's clarify something, shall we?
You may have content writers but probably not copywriters. And definitely not good copywriters.
What's the difference?
Content writers, many of them with English and journalism degrees, write to inform, educate and entertain.
Copywriters, many of them have barely passed high school English, write to generate revenue.
Here is an example for you...
Content writing is the equivalent of going to the lake and throwing fish feed into the water. It's all about feeding fish for the sake of feeding them.
Copywriting is the equivalent of going to the lake for the sole purpose of catching fish either for a slap-up dinner or for selling it at the market. You go to the lake with fish feed PLUS your fishing gear. It's all about catching fish, NOT merely feeding the fish. The bait is a means to the end.
In content writing, feeding the bait to the fish is the end. You feed the fish even if you starve, as so many companies do.
If you can't catch fish, you and your family starve.
In business, if you can't sell, you go bankrupt.
And there's the other side of the same coin...
...the dilemma of internal or external copywriters.
Just as it's in every profession, the best practitioners are not employees.
Copywriters, who practise "salesmanship in print", are really salespeople who sell in writing, as opposed to using manual labour grunt work.
Good copywriters can get as many clients as they want to without the extra burden of "gainful employment" and "professional managers" around their necks.
Monkeys on their backs or albatrosses around their necks - annoying burdens
And smart companies, having realised that it's getting harder and harder to get clients in the traditional way, a.k.a. field sales force, rely more and more on independent copywriters who are so good at getting clients that they never in a million lifetimes would even entertain the idea working in traditional 9-5 jobs Monday to Friday.
Do you need someone good to help you to get clients or do you prefer someone whom you can micromanage, who looks busy and warms a chair on your premises 9-5, Monday to Friday for a ridiculously low paycheque?
Have you noticed all those companies that employ armies of internal writers while their massive sales forces cold call day in day out to get clients?
Hm, lunacy on stilts.
Some people may argue that some great copywriters prefer employment because they are not entrepreneurial enough to run their own businesses.
Well, valid point.
But when you consider that an in-house copywriter makes about $50,000 a year and a freelancer makes about $250,000 or more (some over $1,000,000), for this 5-fold pay increase, any sane person instantly becomes entrepreneurial enough to give it a try.
And I don't know any good copywriters who, after tasting good money and freedom that come with self-employment, have decided to put their heads back into the corporate yoke and become overworked, underpaid and underappreciated cogs in the corporate cogwheel again.
Yes, there are anomalies in life like spontaneous human combustion, but I believe even that happens more often than a good copywriter's going back to gainful employment to "enjoy" a nice paycheque, paid vacation, medical plan, pension plan and a retirement party.
Just ask Richard Branson if he's interested in going back to what he did when he was 16: Editing a student magazine called Student. I doubt it but I may be wrong
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