If you run a search engine optimization firm, you no doubt realize the importance of content marketing to your clients’ success and your own. As Inbound Writer suggests, content marketing fuels sales, with 61% of web users saying they prefer to buy from companies that produce custom content on a regular basis. In other words, your web copywriting is essential to improving the bottom line of your company and those it serves.
Of course, producing great web copywriting is all about your writers. Their creativity drives online marketing in a way few imagined when Amazon, Google, and others were first getting started. Having a great writing team is the key to any web strategy and consulting marketing firm. The problem? Like all other employees, morale can strike a crippling blow to your writers and their web copywriting efforts.
How Does Morale Affect Productivity?
According to a recent study by Roberts Wesleyan College, low employee morale has a number of significant impacts on employers. Across the United States, reduced employee morale costs businesses $350 billion annually. Those costs are a result of 22 million disengaged employees. When your company’s morale takes a hit, employee productivity drops, turnover rates skyrocket, and a self-perpetuating cycle of conflict revs up in your office. In the case of your web copywriting team, this means less content with lower standards of quality.
How to Improve Writer Morale and Improve Your Firm’s Web Copywriting
- Make Your Team a Part of the Mission
- Offer Employee Appreciation Programs, Perks
- Realize That Writing is a Dynamic, Creative Process
For Business2Community.com, there are few things better for morale than helping your writing team see that what they do isn’t just a job. Rather, you need to share your mission with your team, and you need to show them how they fit into the grand scheme of things. Do you want to be the best web design and marketing firm in the United States? Tell them how they can help you accomplish that goal. Anything you can do to make them realize they are more than content factories will go a long way.
More often than not, your writing team’s low morale isn’t about the work. It’s safe to say that they love being able to write day in and day out. The problem starts when you don’t incentivize your writing team. Many marketing companies offer salesmen of the month awards and other programs to their non-writer staff. However, as Forbes suggests, you need to extend the same chances for appreciation and recognition to all members of your team, writers included.
There is an inherent disparity between your need to meet a quota for your clients’ content and the writing process. One is a static business need, while the other is a dynamic, creative process. If you want to improve writer morale and productivity, don’t try to stuff creative people into an overly restrictive box. They understand your need to fulfill your promises to your clients, but you need to meet them halfway to promote a creative work environment.
Do you work in web copywriting? How do you keep your team motivated? Let us know in the comments below. Read this for more.