There are many ways that we are decentralizing the modern workspace. Remote work is pushing leaders to delegate more responsibilities to team members. It’s also empowering employees to step up to the plate and own their new duties.
Meanwhile, automation streamlines workflows and eliminates the need to tend to countless mundane tasks. And, of course, outsourcing continues to be a significant factor for many businesses.
However, the idea of outsourcing a project or task has started to evolve in recent years. Particularly in the case of marketing and content creation, many companies are shifting away from the traditional ad agency approach.
Instead, they’re opting to use freelancers sourced from writer marketplaces. Here’s why.
The Drawbacks of a Traditional Ad Agency
Ad agencies and marketing agencies used to be the premier outsourcing option for any form of marketing. While similar, each kind of agency helps with different kinds of marketing activities. The former specializes in niche promotional work, such as direct marketing, advertising, and content creation. The latter tend to offer a more comprehensive marketing solution, including consulting, strategy sessions, and various other services and resources.
On the surface, both kinds of agencies are similar and helpful. They can enable a company to outsource the tricky business of promoting their brand, products, and services. But they also come with several downsides, such as:
- The expense: Public Enemy No. 1 for ad agencies is the enormous price tag that they always bring with them.
- A lack of focus: An ad agency will not always be able to give a project the attention it deserves as it juggles multiple clients’ needs simultaneously.
- Lack of industry experience: Some ad agencies have little inside knowledge of the industry their clients operate within.
These downsides aren’t just factors. In many cases, they can severely hamper the ability of agency writers and editors to meet the needs of clients effectively.
Fortunately, in recent years, an alternative to traditional ad and marketing agencies has come onto the scene: the writer marketplace.
What Is a Writer Marketplace?
The concept of a writer marketplace would never have been possible before the modern, tech-driven era. As things like the internet and smartphones have brought everyone together, the ability to communicate and collaborate has become more accessible.
The rapid rise in remote work is an excellent example of this impact. It’s estimated that 25% of the entire North American workforce will be remote by the end of 2022 — and the growth won’t stop there, either.
This ability to work from home, the coffee shop, or anywhere with a hotspot connection has enabled tens of millions of workers around the globe to leave their full-time employment and launch freelance careers.
This has led to astronomical growth in the number of freelancers available for hire, with 59 million individuals freelancing — either part-time or full-time — in the U.S. alone. One of the most common occupations amongst freelancers is writing and editing content — often with marketing purposes in mind.
Some freelance writers and editors have found work by directly contacting potential clients. However, many of them who lack the networking connections have flocked to websites created specifically to bring contractors and potential clients together. The name of these platforms? Writer marketplaces.
These are platforms that bring writers and clients together. Each typically creates an account. Once both parties are vetted and approved, clients can post jobs, which writers can then bid on.
The goal of a writer marketplace is to streamline the freelance writing and editing experience. This enables companies to tap into the contracting power of a freelance writer without the significant downsides and complexities of going through an outside agency.
The Benefits of a Writer Marketplace
Several benefits of a writer marketplace are easy to see. The ability to cut through the red tape and speed up the contracting process is an obvious plus.
Here are a few additional reasons that writer marketplaces are becoming a sought after alternative to the clunky, expensive, and outdated ad agency model
Key Advantages of Freelance Writers
When it comes to freelance writers, using a writer marketplace enables a company to tap into a few key advantages, such as:
- Sourcing expert writing with a proven track record: A freelancer can show off their individual portfolio. You don’t always know which employee will be doing the actual work with an ad agency.
- Getting targeted industry-specific knowledge: Many freelance writers specialize in niches where they have unique knowledge, such as tech blog writers or entertainment journalists.
- Accessing affordable, high-quality content: Freelancers on writer marketplaces allow a company to create small batches of content without committing to a big-budget agency.
Writer marketplaces facilitate the ability to work with individuals with proven writing history to produce targeted, high-quality content at an affordable price.
But the benefits don’t stop there. These decentralized contractor exchanges also make it possible to continue outsourcing marketing throughout the rest of the content creation process.
Key Advantages of Journalist Editors
No matter how good a writer is, most content needs to go under the scrutinizing eye of an editor. Fortunately, this responsibility doesn’t have to fall on a company’s marketing team. Instead, they can also utilize a freelance editor through a writer marketplace. This lets companies tap into several benefits, including:
- Detailed industry editorial knowledge: For instance, PowerPublish’s concierge editing teams offer specialized editing expertise in areas such as healthcare, legal, and tech industries.
- Helping develop writing talent: If you have a writer on an internal team, hiring a professional freelance editor can help them hone their writing talent.
- The affordability factor: As is the case with writers, the ability to access premier editorial talent for pennies on the dollar compared to an ad agency makes using a writer marketplace a no-brainer.
Along with these company-focused advantages, writer marketplaces can also benefit freelancers. They help them find consistent work, and many proactive platforms also offer a variety of freelancing resources.
From direct deposit for payments to blogs that help contractors learn more about the craft, writer marketplaces offer the ability for freelancers to tap into a variety of tools and a vibrant community that helps keep their small businesses thriving.
Writer Marketplaces Are the Future
Technology has made it possible for millions of freelance writers and editors to connect with the clients that they want to work for. It also enables those same companies to access high-quality content creation at a fraction of the traditional cost.
The benefits are too important to ignore — which is why when we collectively look back in a decade or two, chances are we’ll see that writer marketplaces weren’t just a passing fad. They were a natural evolution from the haphazard and expensive ad agency model to a modern, streamlined, 21st-century alternative.