As a busy B2B SaaS marketer, working with an external writer is an excellent way to meet content demands. But for the relationship to be successful, the writer needs a comprehensive introduction to your products and customers. Use a writer onboarding tool as a central hub to gather all the information your new writer needs.
If you don’t onboard external writers effectively, you could wind up in a cycle of endless revisions. Or you could get stuck with off-brand messaging that doesn’t get results. A writer onboarding tool helps ensure your B2B SaaS writer can hit the ground running.
In this article, we’ll explore the writer onboarding tool that we use with our customers at Uplift Content. This tool helps us gather the information our team needs to write about our customers’ products and services in an intelligent, compelling way.
This is the fifth post in a 7-part series on how to find your next B2B SaaS writer and work with them successfully.
Why you need to onboard your writer properly
Nearly 85% of B2B marketers outsource content creation. By adding an external writer to your roster, you benefit from the flexibility of being able to allocate extra support to projects as needed. And at the same time, you get to avoid the cost of another full-time team member.
Nonetheless, SaaS marketers often struggle to onboard external writers. And the process can easily become time consuming and frustrating. To avoid this, you need to invest time upfront to create a smooth long-term partnership. By setting a strong foundation, you’ll get better content with less hand-holding in a shorter amount of time. And a writer onboarding tool is key to creating this foundation.
“You wouldn’t welcome a new staff member to the team without sharing an employee manual, signing them up for orientation or introducing them around the office,” says this article by Medium.
Using a writer onboarding tool enables you to successfully onboard external writers. It also makes a good first impression with your customers by ensuring the content creation process gets off on the right foot. In this post, we’ll talk about a few specific ways the tool can help.
How an onboarding tool can help your team
1. Build brand affinity:
When your B2B SaaS writer understands your company and customers, they’ll be well equipped to help you create content that nurtures and converts leads into sales. An onboarding tool helps your writer learn essential information about your organization and audience.
2. Deepen industry knowledge:
The more well versed your writer is in your industry and the market’s need for your B2B SaaS products, the more effectively the writer can communicate your company’s value.
3. Fine tune the technical:
It’s important that your writer understands your tone and style because consistency in these areas is crucial when writing blogs, case studies, ebooks and white papers. Sharing this information with your writer will help improve the accuracy of their first draft, which translates into less editing for you.
Onboarding tool for writers: 3 steps
Our downloadable and customizable tool breaks down the onboarding process into 3 manageable steps:
Step 1 – Present your company:
Give your B2B SaaS writer a small reading list that includes key corporate documents and some background on your customers. Ask your writer to spend time on your website to learn how you present this information publicly. Also provide your marketing messages, buyer personas, and competitor and brand positioning information.
Step 2 – Introduce your products:
Ensure your writer has copies of your sales sheets. Brief them on any important technical information about your products, and explain your customers’ challenges and needs so your writer can create compelling content that resonates with your buyers.
Step 3 – Share your language:
Provide your SaaS writer with copies of your top blog posts, case studies, ebooks and white papers as well as the SEO terms you want to rank for in search. Ensure the writer is equipped with your editorial style guide and share a cheat sheet of the technical terms you use frequently in your content.
Get the writer onboarding tool
Set your writer up to finish strong on their first project by downloading our customizable onboarding tool.
Or check out our experienced SaaS content writers to get the expert help you need.
