Hiring a Copywriter: Job Description, Pay, & More

Digital marketing has taken center stage, making copywriters indispensable. A skilled copywriter who understands your brand can help you develop customer loyalty, drive traffic, increase conversions, and grow your business.

Read on to discover the skills and qualifications to look for when learning how to hire a copywriter, including their average salary and a few tailored interview questions you can ask.

Why Hire a Copywriter?

Copywriters are wordsmiths. They craft messages to inform, persuade, and inspire.

Your brand has a voice. To be effective, it needs to speak to your target audience and be consistent across all platforms. 68 percent of businesses surveyed by Marq reported brand consistency contributed to business growth of 10 percent or more.

Skilled copywriters craft or adopt your brand’s voice, projecting your company’s values and personality across ads, blogs, website pages, and other marketing and sales materials.

A copywriter can create a compelling narrative to help build your brand’s identity. They can engage prospects and guide them through a skillfully crafted funnel to convert them into buyers.

Some copywriters are skilled in SEO and can boost your online visibility and drive organic traffic by incorporating SEO best practices into your content.

What to Include in Your Copywriter Job Description

Learning how to hire a copywriter means learning how to attract a copywriter—and that starts with a well-written job description.

The specifics of your job description will depend on what your business needs from a copywriter. Are you looking for a copywriter who will be the primary writer on your marketing team and employ a range of skills, or are you adding a blog writer with SEO expertise to your writing team?

Copywriters create clear and engaging text for marketing and sales channels. These include eBooks, white papers, website pages, video scripts, online ads, emails, landing pages, blogs, and more.

Responsibilities you may list when you hire a copywriter include:

Write marketing and sales copy with an understanding of your business’s target audience and brand voice.
Test and improve copy to increase conversions.
Write original online content, including keyword research and implementing SEO best practices.
Edit, fact-check, and proofread their content before publication.
Collaborate with account managers, the marketing team, and creative staff to develop a campaign or product from concept to completion.
Pitch copy concepts to internal teams or clients.
Revise copy based on feedback.

Top Copywriter Skills

To attract the right candidate, you should highlight the specific duties of your position. In general, skills to look for when you hire a copywriter include:

Exceptional writing skills, including the ability to write fresh copy that connects with a target audience and drives action
Time management and ability to meet tight deadlines while maintaining work quality
Communication and interpersonal skills
Multitasking
Creativity
Strategic sales and marketing thinking
Research skills
An eye for detail
Teamwork
Up-to-date SEO knowledge
Ability (and willingness) to adapt content based on feedback or analytics
Industry expertise or a foundation of knowledge that will allow them to learn quickly

Copywriter Education and Qualifications

Not all copywriters have a college degree, and if they have a proven track record of success, it’s not essential. Many copywriters have a bachelor’s degree in communications, English, journalism, or a related field.

Some earned a bachelor’s degree or even worked in a different field and switched to copywriting. This specialized education and experience can benefit an employer looking for someone with relevant expertise.

Many copywriters work as ghostwriters or write for major brands, so you may need to ask them for their portfolio of work. Most of what they’ve written online won’t be associated with their name.

Copywriter Salary and Outlook

According to PayScale, the average annual salary for a copywriter is $57,294. Copywriters with a track record of delivering above-average success rates or a broader spectrum of experience earn more.

The demand for all types of writers is growing at about 4 percent yearly. However, this represents all writers and authors. With the demand for digital content rising, skilled copywriters are in demand.

Interview Questions to Hire a Copywriter

Here are a few example interview questions to help you identify the strongest candidates. Feel free to customize them to fit your business and hiring goals.

What makes you a good copywriter?
What strategies do you use to optimize for SEO?
What strategies do you employ to ensure a campaign will be impactful?
Walk me through a time your boss or colleague had negative feedback on your copy. How did you respond, and how did you resolve it?
What is the most challenging copywriting task you’ve tackled? How did you approach it?
What do you consider the role of AI in copywriting, if any?
What are the characteristics of a reliable reference source?
We want to expand our younger professional audience (25 to 35). What are a couple of strategies you would recommend to connect with them?
What is your greatest strength as a copywriter?
What skills would you like to develop to be a more effective copywriter?\

Check out an even bigger list of interview questions for a copywriter here.

How to Hire a Copywriter

Creative staff like copywriters bring more than education or technical skills to your business. They bring an innovative spark that can elevate and accelerate your brand.

If your team needs a skilled copywriter or other creative staff, Insight Global can help. Connect with us to learn more about our premium creative staffing services.