Ad agency owners always have full plates.

On any given day you’re finding new business, building relationships with current clients and managing day-to-day operations.

With so much responsibility, you need a team you can depend on to support your efforts.

Finding the right talent, therefore, becomes an essential part of agency success.

How to Hire the Best Copywriters

Like all hires, you’ll want your copywriters to have a great attitude, to be friendly and demonstrate a strong work ethic.

You’ll, of course, also want your copywriters to have exceptional portfolios.

However, these attributes are table stakes.

When it comes to finding the best copywriter for your agency, you need to dig deeper.

Below are the three steps you must take if you hope to find copywriters that can help take some of the pressure off of you and help your agency succeed.

1. Test Copywriters’ Spelling and Grammar Excellence

What?

Creativity and writing skills don’t top our list?

Nope.

We think the importance of being an excellent speller and knowing the rules of grammar can’t be overlooked.

Why?

MONEY.

If your agency produces something with a typo, the cost to fix it comes out of your pocket.

Not a big deal if the typo appears in a website. A huge deal if the typo appears in printed material, broadcast or packaging (see photo below).

How much would it cost you to re-print 10,000 brochures? Or 500,000 labels?

Typos simply should not happen.

Additionally, glaring grammatical errors (such as using “its” instead of “it’s” or “there” instead of “their”) make the agency and your clients look stupid.

You can try crossing your fingers and hope no one will notice.

But someone will.

Either on the client side or a busybody commenting online.

Small Mistakes Can Lose Big Accounts.

How can your ad agency avoid grammatical errors and typos if you don’t have a proofreader?

1. Get a proofreader. Not to sound flip, but proofreaders can make or break agencies. A proofreader may not be hugely billable, but one will earn back his or her pay by simply helping your agency to avoid mistakes. If you truly can’t hire one full-time, find a freelancer.

2. Put more eyeballs on every project. Make sure multiple people review the work before it leaves the door.

3. Have the CFO or accounting review the work. People who deal with numbers all day have excellent attention to detail.

To make sure copywriter candidates have the spelling and grammar chops your agency needs, review all of their work in their portfolio, resume and LinkedIn profile for typos or grammatical errors.

Then, test them before you consider hiring them. You can find plenty of tests online that will ensure they have a true understanding of the basics.

2. Ask References About the Copywriters’ Curiosity

I used to work with a copywriter.

I'll call him Ned.

Ned was a lazy copywriter.

What do I mean by this?

• He lifted lines from creative briefs and put them into his copy.

• He expected the account team to provide all the research instead of taking the initiative to research information himself.

• He didn't challenge himself to learn best practices for any type of writing outside of his comfort zone.

• He stopped concepting after the first couple of ideas.

• He complained about the clients or the account team when revisions came in.

Ned wasn't a bad person.

Or even a bad copywriter.

Just a lazy one.

He had no curiosity about the latest trends in the industry or how he could improve himself as a writer.

 His lack of curiosity brought down the entire agency:

• AEs didn’t like giving him projects because they knew they’d get mediocre work to share with clients.

• Art directors didn’t like working with him because they knew they’d have to carry the concepting load.

• Creative directors didn’t like working with him because they knew the work would be uninspired and they’d have to go through round after round of revisions trying to create copy with some sizzle and spark.

As part of any hiring process, you will naturally check references of anyone you’re considering.

But, when hiring for copywriters, ask references about the candidate’s sense of curiosity:

• Ask former creative directors how the copywriter brought unique solutions to particular problems.

• Ask former art directors how much of the concepting the copywriter did.

• Ask former account executives how much research the copywriter did for each project and how much handholding the writer needed.

During interviews with potential copywriters, ask them variations of questions you asked the references.

Then, ask questions that show their curiosity of the advertising business – with an emphasis on business. For example,

• What steps would you take in creating an email sequence?

• What social platforms would you recommend for (insert one of your clients) and why?

• What best practices do you follow for writing website copy that converts visitors?

• What’s the most important step a company can take in branding and why?

• What’s the latest business book you read and what was your biggest takeaway?

A curious copywriter will always bring the unexpected to his or her work.

This not only excites the entire agency.

It also excites your clients.

3. Show the Copywriter’s Portfolio to Your Spouse

Ad people look at ads differently than the rest of the world.

• We know clients were heavily involved if an ad has too many main points.

• We can determine who the target audience is.

• We understand what objective the ad was trying to meet.

• We can see the ad’s mandatory elements.

• We know if the ad’s part of a campaign.

• We realize when ad has been designed by committee.

• We can tell what ads might win awards.

We also look at details such as font selection, kerning and whether or not stock photography was used.

No one else looks at ads like this.

When considering potential copywriter hires, have your spouse or significant other look at their portfolios and have them answer these questions:

1. What do you think of the ad?

2. What do you think of the writing?

3. And, most importantly, would you consider buying the product or service based on this ad?

This outside perspective will help you to understand how the general population reacts to the copywriters’ work and if the work is truly effective.

Final Thought on Hiring Copywriters

Before committing to one copywriter, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Do we have enough work to keep a copywriter fully billable?

2. Will one copywriter be able to handle work in a variety of media for clients in different industries?

If you’re not sure, consider Copy Rocket as a solution. You’ll pay for copywriting only when you have billable projects and our team gives you access to copywriters with skills and experience in different media and verticals.

To see how Copy Rocket can support your agency, contact us today.