Here’s a question I come across often:
“Where can I find a freelance writer with experience writing about ‘X’ industry?”
- “Where can I find a freelance writer with experience writing about long term care insurance?”
- “Where can I find a freelance writer with experience writing about the trucking industry?”
- “Where can I find a freelance writer with experience writing about ERP software?”
This frustrates the hell out of me.
The most important thing about a writer isn’t whether she has experience writing about your industry. Yes, I get that your industry might be super specific. It might be the kind of thing that takes forever to explain to people at dinner parties. But here’s the thing about (good) writers: we’re also really good at doing research. And we know how to find the right information for a freelance assignment, regardless of the subject matter.
Good writers are smart enough to understand what you do and write well about it. We are, by design, extraordinarily curious. You don’t have to worry about whether we have previous experience in your vertical. If we don’t, we’ll scour the internet for information about your products, your industry and your customers. We’ll interview your sales team, we’ll follow Quora topics related to your niche and we’ll set up Google alerts for your competitors’ keywords. We may use the word “writer” to identify ourselves on LinkedIn, but we’re also insanely nerdy researching fanatics.
We’re not writers because we love using words; we’re writers because we love acquiring knowledge. And when you assume we won’t be able to acquire enough knowledge about the trucking industry to write for your trucking industry blog, you’re making a faulty assumption. What’s more likely is that we’ll get so obsessed with the trucking industry, we’ll start emailing you every cool trucking-relating article we see, including a bunch of pretty riveting ones you’ve never read before.
You’re hiring a writer so you can communicate with your customers online. Hire someone curious. Hire someone who’ll go to great lengths to understand your audience. If she’s a good writer, the subject matter stuff will take care of itself.