5 Benefits of Email Marketing for Small and Medium-Sized Business

by Mark Bloom | Jul 11, 2021 | Agency Advice

Why Do Businesses Need Email Marketing?

Email marketing benefits include reaching your customers directly

Small and medium-sized businesses need to take advantage of every opportunity to compete. Marketing helps you gain customers and grow. Traditional marketing isn’t an affordable option for many smaller businesses like yours. But you can opt for more modern, inexpensive and effective marketing methods like e-mail marketing.

Many businesses find customers online in this post-pandemic era. Using email marketing, businesses attract and capture customers more easily. Small and medium-sized businesses enjoy the following five benefits by adopting these marketing strategies:

1. It’s Easy to Use

All businesses must employ a reliable email marketing system. Then, all you need to do is write a single email. The system then broadcasts it to the email inboxes of all your e-mail subscribers. After all, the reason to capture email addresses is to use them in marketing and newsletter campaigns.

If you’re looking for an email marketing system, test VerticalResponse free plan for email marketing and enjoy 60 days with free support. With this system, you even have the option of A/B testing your emails. No matter which product you use, the goal of email marketing is to reach your prospects and customers to keep them engaged and interested in your products and services.

2. It Includes Effective Calls to Action

The calls to action you create in your marketing messages entice all your readers. Calls to action lead your subscribers and prospects directly to a product or service to purchase, a social media page with more information or a blog post you want them to read. All they have to do is simply click the link or button in the email.

When potential customers land on your website, they may have to wade through a number of pages before they get to what they want to purchase. They do their online search, read a review or two, and may even visit your competitors’ websites. Instead, increase your sales and keep your customers engaged with simple and effective calls to action that bring them directly to what they’re looking for.

3. It’s a Cost-Effective Marketing Method

Regardless of the size of your business, marketing is an expensive endeavor. You must allocate your resources efficiently to grow your customer base. Email marketing as a marketing strategy compares favorably to other marketing methods in terms of cost. Email marketing systems are not expensive to use. And you can expect an ROI of about $40 for every $1 you spend.

For a small and medium-sized business, the returns from email marketing come with small startup costs. That means you can get started right away instead of having to save up or borrow before you’re ready to begin. Plus, your business can spread its resources across other departments and activities at the same time. You don’t have to stop your processes just to market your products and services.

4. It Builds Stronger Relationships with Your Customers

Your business more easily connects with your customers through email marketing. Your words go directly to your customers’ email inboxes. You stay top-of-mind as their business of choice. You keep in touch with your prospects, too, providing updates about their favorite products and services.

Consistency is one of the major drivers of email marketing. You have to write emails to your customers on a regular basis, but you don’t have to write your emails every day. In fact, you shouldn’t write to your customers every day; it’s too much. A weekly or monthly email that your customers look forward to is enough to keep them engaged with your business.

To build a good relationship with your email readers, send them informational emails regularly. Don’t just promote your products. Send your customers emails that provide them with useful information for their daily life. Encourage your readers to connect with your social media pages to increase your credibility.

5. It Allows for Customer Feedback

Another benefit from email marketing is getting customer feedback easily and quickly. You can design polls to send to your customers. When your email readers reach the poll in your email, they answer your questions right then. You’ll receive their feedback as soon as they submit their responses.

Email marketing systems allow you to design a poll for your customers without needing a programmer. You get forms to make questionnaires, which ensures that your small and medium-sized business knows what your customers are thinking at various times during the year.

Conclusion

Different-sized businesses employ different marketing strategies for their growth. Email marketing is one of the most effective strategies for small and medium-sized businesses. This approach builds engagement and your relationship with your customers.

Email marketing allows you to communicate easily with your customers and prospects. It’s a cost-effective marketing method so it won’t break the bank. Do it yourself or contract the experts at Ray Access.

Being an Expert Isn’t Enough

by Mark Bloom | Jun 28, 2021 | Agency Advice

What Do You Mean, Being an Expert Isn’t Enough?

Being the expert isn't all it's cracked up to be

Consider Albert Einstein, one of the foremost authorities in advanced physics since Isaac Newton. You may think that his discoveries and calculations were the most difficult aspect of his work, and there’s no doubt his discoveries were groundbreaking. But if he couldn’t communicate his ideas to others, they would have remained undiscovered.

As a result, he developed analogies to explain his complex theories. Regarding how time worked in his theory of relativity, he famously said, “If you spend an hour with a loved one, it seems like just a second. But place your hand on a hot surface for a second, and it seems like an hour.” So it is with business.

How Is Business Like Albert Einstein?

Being an expert in your field isn’t enough to make your business successful. You need to be able to communicate your expertise in a way that your intended audience can understand. You have to be able to market your products or services the same way Einstein explained his theories. But this dilemma brings up a number of questions:

Who exactly is your intended audience?
What language do they speak (technical, slang, jargon, etc.)?
What do they want to know about you?
What’s important to them?
Why should they care about you?

The list goes on and on. It means that being an expert isn’t enough to reach your audience. You have to give them what they’re looking for, in a language and style they can understand. You have to help them understand why you and your business — your great idea or new theory — is so important to them.

How Can I Reach My Audience?

It’s a good question, for which there’s no easy answer. To increase your odds of being successful, stop being the expert and become the audience you’re trying to reach. If you can answer the above questions, you’re closer to your goal. You can also try creating one or more personas to get closer to your target audience.

At Ray Access, our writers and editors do the research to discover what your audience is seeking. We answer questions in your website content — questions your visitors are asking. We can do that because we’re not the expert; in other words, we’re not coming from the point of expertise. We are the conduits between you, the expert, and your audience by providing:

Instructive how-to blog posts
Informative website pages
Engaging content that’s clear and succinct
Meaningful newsletters readers want to open

How Can I Be More Like Albert Einstein?

Einstein’s theory of communication, his trick for explaining complex ideas, was to stop being an expert and boil down difficult topics to their essence. The idea that time can bend, speed up or slow down is mind-bending for most people. But creating the analogy about how people perceive time helps them come to grips with at least this one aspect of his theory.

Using analogies works on many levels, if you can find the right one. But you’re an expert in your field, not an expert in communication. That’s where Ray Access can help you, the expert. Once we understand what you’re trying to say, we can help you find that analogy or example or explanation that more clearly communicates your value in business. Contact us today!

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

4 Topics Your Clients Want

by Mark Bloom | Jun 15, 2021 | Blog Writing

Satisfy your clients with content topics for 2021

What Are the Content Topics for 2021?

When you plan content for your marketing or website clients, you have to realize you’re not writing for them. You’re writing for their customers. That content performs a marketing role, interesting and engaging customers. To that end, there are four content topics for 2021 that will work for your clients and their customers:

Classic problem-solving
Mistake prevention (often in the form of tips)
Goal orientation
Behavioral changes

High-quality content can hit these topics from different angles over the course of this year. Your clients will enjoy the new content because it’s bound to be successful in attracting new customers. Your clients’ customers will enjoy it because it’s what they’re seeking. These topics can provide a framework for your content strategy for each client.

1. Classic Problem-Solving

Of all the content topics for 2021, this one is the most popular. Many people go online looking for answers to problems. Imagine if a piece of content — a website page or blog post, for example — can clearly describe a real problem that your clients’ customers actually experience. And when the same content provides a viable solution, it connects the audience to the company.

The content creator needs to understand the clients’ customers to be able to know which problems they’re experiencing. And the solution, which likely involves the client’s products or services, has to be reasonable. Knowing what’s reasonable goes along with knowing the audience. For example:

One target market may not think twice about buying a yacht to solve a problem.
Another target market would balk at having to purchase an annual membership to a gym.

2. Mistake Prevention

Helping your clients’ customers avoid making mistakes can come in macro and micro instructions. The most common form of mistake prevention appears as how-to information and immediately useful tips. Again, the content provider needs to know what’s important to your clients’ customers. They must know what these customers are having problems with so they know which mistakes to address, such as:

How to best use a certain feature of the client’s product
When a service, from cleaning gutters to fine-tuning a carburetor, is recommended
Which product or service is best for their particular needs

If the client is perceived to be a reliable source of useful information, that generates a lot of trust and more than that: referrals. No one likes making mistakes, to the point that avoiding one becomes an emotional endeavor. If your content topics for 2021 can tap into that emotion, it creates a strong bond with your clients’ businesses.

3. Goal Orientation

Consumers want, ideally, a respected source that tells them how to reach their goals. Where do they go to learn the best brand of TV to buy for their needs, the cheapest way to gain new business or a foolproof plan to invest their savings? Whatever the goal, if your clients offer a solution, your content writers should be able to explain why it’s the:

Most cost-effective
Most efficient
Cheapest or
Best targeted

Consumers have a limitless list of goals so branch out beyond those goals that tie directly into your clients’ specific products and services. Good content writers can make it work. How else do you explain hair care products that make the consumer feel successful with the opposite sex? That’s an example of tying an indirect goal to a specific product.

4. Behavioral Changes

Of all the content topics for 2021, this one is the most difficult, yet empowering. It involves teaching new ways of doing a task — not just with a new tool, but with a new approach. It’s one thing to produce and sell a new fabric for cleaning a car, for example. But it’s another thing to start thinking of car cleanliness as part of a daily routine. Changing behaviors for better overall results is beneficial to consumers, but difficult to implement. Remember:

Even after seat belts became mandatory, it wasn’t until a massive, ongoing marketing campaign began to change drivers’ and passengers’ behavior.
Cigarette smoking is in decline only because of a change in social values and lots of advertising.

While there are still people who don’t use a computer or smart phone on a daily basis, it took market saturation for mobile phones to become accepted.

Ray Access offers expert writers, thorough researchers, and professional editors all in one package. When you subcontract Ray Access for your clients’ content needs, you can stop worrying. We ask the right questions, dig into authoritative sources and deliver effective, compelling copy. If you need additional content topics for 2021, contact Ray Access today.

The End of the Pandemic Business Strategies

by Mark Bloom | Jun 1, 2021 | Small Business Advice

How Can You Best Handle the End of the Pandemic?

Photo by Laura James from Pexels

The coronavirus that began spreading in early 2020 is still raging in parts of the world. If you run an international business, you still may be feeling the effects of the lockdowns, the uncertainties, and the downturn in the global economy. Here in the U.S., the vaccination rates have reduced the dangers of widespread infections, opening the economy to free commerce once again.

It’s been a long time coming. With the end of the pandemic in sight, you may wonder about the best strategy to take advantage of the public’s expansive spending mood. There are as many right answers as there are businesses. For example, you can:

Hold a grand sales event that includes both an indoor and an outdoor venue, if possible
Sponsor a “coming out” party for your customers, who are emerging from their homes
Host networking meetings and make the rounds, face-to-face again

What’s the Strategy for the Next Phase?

If you’re like most people, you crave some person-to-person contact. Masks are coming off for all those vaccinated, and the stores and restaurants are beginning to fill up. You could take a page from your pre-pandemic marketing plans to:

Ramp up your marketing budget
Plan for more active consumer spending
Renew your efforts to upgrade your website and online marketing efforts to support the in-person events
Remain flexible enough to adjust to changing conditions

No matter which path you plan to implement, one truth remains even more important than it was before we ever heard the word “coronavirus:” knowing your audience. Nearing the end of the COVID-19 crisis affected people in numerous ways. Many changed their spending habits as their priorities shifted. New markets emerged as others were destroyed. Do your research and know whom to target.

Can You Ignore Your Online Presence?

While you plan in-person events to celebrate the end of forced lockdowns, don’t forget to maintain your online marketing efforts. The pandemic changed the way people shop forever, and you need to have a strong online presence to stay in front of their searches.

Your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts drive traffic to your website. Your social media campaigns direct customers to your carefully crafted landing pages. But the content of your website, including those landing pages, is what clinches the deal. Revisit your marketing messages and your website content to align with the new realities here at the end of the pandemic. Consider:

How your previous customers view your business
How new customers will experience the image you’re presenting
What language you use to share with your audience
How your present your products and services to meet the new needs of the moment
How you can get new customers to “swipe right” to like your business

Getting consumers to like your business, products, services and messaging may be the next new thing — the end of the pandemic cycle, if you will. Make sure you’re connecting to your market. Hire Ray Access to get your messaging spot-on target. It’s an affordable, but oh-so-important step to attract customers as you maneuver a “new normal” and the end of the pandemic.

Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Writers?

by Mark Bloom | May 17, 2021 | Content Provider

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence, commonly referred to as AI, is a robotic or digital device that replicates a human activity. AI is a machine or program that can do a task that once was relegated to human power. But by this definition, you could argue that a water heater uses artificial intelligence, since it performs a task — heating water and keeping it hot — that once took a whole team of human servants.

So a better definition is that AI relies on intelligence, meaning it has the ability to learn and adapt. That makes AI well suited for iterative design, as long as it can study flaws and figure out ways to resolve them. That’s the key, as it turns out, for developing AI: building in an ability to get smarter with every task, finding ways to do things better, faster and more efficiently.

An AI content writer is coming!

Today, AI can regulate the temperature of your house, keep your car engine running smoothly and design a better toaster. In an ideal world, AI performs all the menial tasks of everyday life, freeing humans to pursue loftier goals. In reality, AI is already encroaching on human-dominated fields. There are AI chefs and AI architects. Is an AI content writer next?

Can an AI Content Writer Deliver the Goods?

We’re undeniably at the forefront of AI content writers. It’s already a reality, and AI is improving. AI programs can write fictional stories, although the quality of the results isn’t yet impressive. Certainly, no AI program has breached the NY Times best seller list or won a Pulitzer Prize. But AI has managed to generate shorter successes, such as:

SEO content
Social media posts
Fake news
Click-bait headlines

Due to these short-term accomplishments, companies with the resources to do so are exploring the possibilities of AI writing. Why? Once it works and performs consistently, an AI content writer would be capable of pumping out content faster and more cheaply than any human being could. AI-generated content could turn the tide of SEO and online marketing toward these companies.

How Does an AI Content Writer Work?

Programming AI to generate content isn’t simply a matter of lining up the proper ones and zeroes to slap the right words and phrases together to create meaningful sentences. Coders build their AI programs to learn how to write, just as you learn how to speak a foreign language. The steps are similar:

Learn the rules
Understand the goals
Review past successes (most likely by humans)
Practice, practice, practice

Assuming the program learns appropriately, AI may eventually succeed. It takes a huge amount of existing content and continuous practice to produce something new that simulates those past articles. Here’s an example of an AI-generated blog post about Asheville, NC. While AI writing’s obviously not yet fully functional, there’s no reason to think that, given sufficient resources, an AI content writer may be available someday. In the meantime, we can at least enjoy the setbacks, such as this series of AI-generated pickup lines:

“You have a lovely face. Can I put it on an air freshener? I want to keep your smell close to me always.”
“You’re looking good today. Want snacks?”
“Hey baby, are your schematics compatible with this protocol?”

What Can Human Writers Do?

Human content writers still have the advantage. So far. To stay ahead, however, you must press that advantage. Keep on top of the rules for search engines and SEO. Use your creativity in exciting new ways; it’s still a human strength.

Google is preparing ways to determine real articles from fake news, and human-authored content vs. AI content. Their guidelines follow the same principles that Ray Access has touted since we began writing website content: establishing expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (EAT). If you use these principles in your content writing, you’re closer to not only what Google wants to see, but what website visitors want to see. An it’s what an AI content writer will eventually strive for.

7 Questions to Ask Your Blog Writer

by Mark Bloom | May 3, 2021 | Blog Writing

How Do I Hire the Best Blog Writer?

You can likely find a blog writer in every city, town and hamlet, but how do you find the best blog writer for your business? The first tip to save time and money is not to hire a full-time employee. Then you’re on the hook for more than just the writer’s salary; plus you have to go through the hiring and onboarding process. If the writer doesn’t work out, you have to let that writer go, a chore in itself, and start the process from scratch.

So your best bet is to seek a freelance writer or blog writing service like Ray Access, where you can pay per hour or ever better: per blog post. But the question still remains: How do you hire the best blog writer? Fortunately, there are ways to discover if the writer or writers you’ve contacted have the chops to write your blog.

7 questions to ask to find the best blog writer

What Makes the Best Blog Writer?

Unless you’re an expert writer or an SEO expert, you may not be able to discern what makes a writer the best blog writer. Anyone who can string together several sentences doesn’t necessarily know how to write the best blog posts. So first, let’s review the purposes of having a blog attached to your business website:

Blog posts can be about any subject, as long as you’re able to connect it to your business or industry in some way.
Blog posts are often posted to social media platforms, so they’re a way to reach out to a new audience who may not have heard of your business.
Unlike website content, blog posts can be light and fun — they should entertain and engage readers, to interest them in your company.
Blog posts allow you to capture different keywords than are otherwise on your website.
Blog posts provide insight into your industry, tips into purchasing decisions or how-to information that’s not available anywhere else on your site.

The best blog writer can deliver on these counts. Find a blogger who can write in various styles, handle research tasks and incorporate keywords seamlessly. That may seem like a lot to ask, but for an experienced blog writer, these objectives are par for the course. The trick is finding the right writer or writers.

What Questions Should I Ask a Blog Writer?

To uncover whether a blog writer is a good fit for your business, ask the following seven questions and pay close attention to the responses:

How long have you been writing blog posts? This is self-evident. The longer a blog writer has been working in the field, the better the results. You pick up tricks along the way with experience.
What industries have you written for? It’s not as important to find a writer who’s written for your industry as it is to find one who’s written for a variety of industries. The former writer can delve deep into your industry, but a versatile blog writer has proven they have the ability to research and write compellingly for multiple industries. That’s valuable experience. Plus, a writer from outside the industry may bring new ideas.
Do you have samples to show? Every experienced writer should have samples of their work. When you review these samples, look for engaging writing from the first line. It shouldn’t be boring. Does the sample make its point without a lot of wasted words? Does it include keywords and a call to action?
What article lengths have you written? This question confirms that the writer can create short posts as well as long-form posts. The range, from 500 to 2000 words, requires different writing and research skills, and you want to be certain the writer you hire is up to the challenge.
How long does it take you to finish an assignment? The best blog writer can turn around an assignment within a week — even quicker if needed. It’s best to hire a blog writer who can plan out a schedule weeks or months in advance, but sometimes you may need something quickly to take advantage of recent news.
What do you charge? Some blog writers charge per word (such as two cents per word). Others charge by the hour, but this means every post may cost you something different, since you’re dependent on the speed of the writer. Ray Access charges per assignment. If you want a blog post with at least 500 words, we charge $75, regardless of how long it takes us.
Do you provide any related services? Some blog writers do keyword and market research. Some, like Ray Access, provide common-sense keywords (unless you have your own) and blog post ideas. We brainstorm and compile lists of blog post ideas well in advance and run it by our clients for approval well before we’re supposed to write the blog posts.

If you can use this list of questions to find the best blog writer for your business, we’ve done our job. But if you’d rather leave your blog writing in the hands of the experts who provided this advice, contact us today. We can answer all of the questions above to your satisfaction.

2021 Blogging Trends

by Mark Bloom | Apr 19, 2021 | Blog Writing

Why Is Ray Access Sharing 2021 Blogging Trends?

Ray Access works to stay on top of industry news. We’re always on the lookout for allies out in the real world, and when we find a tidbit, we share it with you. It feeds our mission:

To provide businesses with the best online content
for a reasonable price,
while educating business and agency owners
about the value and purpose of well-crafted content.

If you’ve been following Ray Access for any length of time, you know that high-quality content is our trademark, but helping small businesses and internet agencies is in our company DNA. We strive to make the internet a better place, one website at a time.

So we’re excited to share a recent find regarding the 2021 blogging trends. Did you know that 600 million blogs exist? Regardless of this astronomical number, it’s still not too late to start your own business blog. No one else has your unique perspective on your industry.

What Are the 2021 Blogging Trends?

The following infographic depicts the trends, originally published on the WebsiteSetup website. Whatever your interest in blogging, you’re sure to find something fascinating in these 2021 blogging trends.

As a reminder, blogging is a way to attract a new audience. It’s a marketing tool for drawing visitors to your website. A blog isn’t a promotional medium. Instead, it’s a way to share insights into your industry or company. Readers appreciate tips and advice that relate to your business. By sharing news and other information, you promote your trustworthiness. The blogging infographic:

2021 Blogging trends

Can You Write Your Own Blog?

Ray Access encourages its readers to write as much as you feel comfortable writing. If you can write your own blog, do it. Just make sure someone else reads it or edits it before you publish it. One small mistake may make you look unnecessarily foolish. Remember, you’re putting your words out to the world.

If you can’t write your own blog, consider Ray Access. We’re expert researchers, writers and editors who can turn your ideas into well-crafted articles you’ll be proud to publish on your website. We collaborate with you to help your business or agency attract new customers. Join our other satisfied blog clients. Contact us for answers to all your blog questions.

When Friends Become Clients … and Vice Versa

by Mark Bloom | Apr 5, 2021 | Small Business Advice

Friends and clients: How do you manage when they're both the same person?

Can’t I Just Separate Business from Pleasure?

Ray Access has been in business for more than seven years, and in that time, friends and clients have overlapped several times. Friends have become clients, and long-time clients have become friends. Additionally, some friends have worked for the company, and some of the long-time contract writers have become friends. It happens. But when it happens, you have to take precautions to ensure that neither relationship suffers.

It’s common for small businesses to lean on friends and acquaintances when they’re just starting out. You may value friends and clients differently, depending on what they were first to you, but that’s a nightmare scenario. You don’t want to lose a friend because of business, and you don’t want to lose a client — or a productive employee — for any reason.

Are Friends and Clients Mutually Exclusive?

The short answer is No. It’s perfectly copacetic to have friends as clients and vise versa. The trick is to maintain the lines between the two roles. Some examples include:

You can’t go out to dinner with a client-who’s-a-friend and just write off the entire meal if it wasn’t for business.
It’s not wise to give your friend-who’s-a-client a special deal that hurts your business.

The real threat to friends and clients involves money and trust. Just as finances can break up a marriage, so too can it ruin a friendship. You may find it impossible to confront friends who are clients about an overdue invoice. Similarly, friendship inspires a certain amount of trust. Destroy that trust, and you destroy the friendship and lose a client. If you expect more from your client or your client expects more from you, someone is going to end up being disappointed.

How Do I Avoid the Pitfalls with Friends and Clients?

There are a number of proven tips to maintain the friendship of your clients who started out as your friends. There are also some tips for keeping your clients happy, whether they’re friends or not. Friendships are relationships you enjoy. Clients are professional relationships. There are ways to nurture both, such as:

Be clear in your communications. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Make sure you’re understood and make sure you understand. Repeat everything back to your friend if you must. Don’t take for granted that the message you shared or the message you heard got through intact.
When in doubt, put it in writing. You may not need contracts for all your clients — and certainly not to maintain a friendship, but it’s not uncommon to put the terms of a business arrangement down on a page. More than anything, it can set deadlines and prevent misunderstandings.
Be proactive about problems and potential problems. Don’t make assumptions. When a problem or question pops up on your business radar, get it out in the open as soon as possible. Your friends and clients will appreciate your candor, and if there was something to the issue, you deal with it before it grows in scope.
Take your business seriously. If you take your business seriously, you do your work as a professional. Don’t miss deadlines just because your client is a friend. Similarly, don’t let a friend-who’s-a-client slide on a payment. It’s the first step to not getting paid at all. If your friends value your work, then they should pay on time.
Set definite boundaries. There’s a time for work and a time for play, but of course there may be overlap. It goes back to being clear. If you charge by the hour let your friends and clients know when you’ve started the clock — and when you’ve stopped it.

At certain times, you may question your decision to take on a friend as a client. If you feel taken advantage of, perhaps the friendship wasn’t as strong as you imagined. Talk it out — but do it at a time when you’re not feeling angry or threatened. A calm conversation can clear the air … or give you the gumption to pull the cord and let the relationship wane. There are many benefits to mixing friends and clients, but it takes some work too. Good luck.

How to Hire a Remote Team, Part 2

by Mark Bloom | Feb 22, 2021 | Small Business Advice

Why Do We Hire Remote Staff?

In Part 1 of this series, Ray Access outlined how we hire contract writers remotely, what we look for during those first few assignments and what we value in a remote worker. In this installment, you’ll learn a few more tips for hiring remote staff and gain an understanding on how to manage their work and expectations.

Look for the right person when hiring remote staff

But first, let us remind you what Ray Access is and why we hire remote staff. We are content specialists. We write website pages, blog posts, electronic newsletters and more for internet agencies and individual businesses. A remote business since its founding in 2014, we hire writers from around the English-speaking world. It doesn’t matter where they are, as long as they can deliver quality work.

What Else Do You Need to Know about Hiring Remote Staff?

Before you agree to add a remote worker to your staff, you still have to conduct a proper interview — whether by telephone, through an internet video call or by email. Rely on the typical interview questions as if you’re speaking with them personally. In the end, you take the same risks as if you were hiring in-person, since you don’t really know if the one you hire will work out or not.

When you interview by email, you really get a sense of their ability to communicate remotely. Without personal contact, hiring remote staff requires finesse and reading between the lines. One of the benefits — and drawbacks — of hiring and working remotely is not having to adhere to a 9-to-5 work schedule. That means much, if not most, of your communication is going to be through email.

How Can You Prove It’s a Good Match?

At Ray Access, once we and the candidate agree that a collaboration holds promise, we follow up with an assignment. We don’t make an offer of employment until we receive the first completed work, for which we provide a reasonable deadline and clear instructions. We pay for the job and can usually tell — by how the writer communicates and by the assignment itself — if the writer will work out with us.

While you may not be in the business of writing, find an assignment that gives you an opportunity to see how your remote candidates work. It also gives them a chance to prove themselves. It may be a detailed plan on how to approach a project, a project cost estimate or a short presentation. Provide directions and a deadline. Pay the candidates for the time needed to complete the project; it’s much less expensive than hiring the wrong person.

When you receive the submitted assignment, look for how well the candidates followed your directions. Review the body of the work for the quality and thoroughness of the work. Also, note if the assignment was handed in on time, early or late. If you’re deadline-driven business like Ray Access, adherence to a deadline is crucial.

How Do You Manage Expectations after Hiring Remote Staff?

We don’t expect our contract writers to nail that first assignment perfectly, so we provide coaching and guidance. We also have clear internal guidelines about how long it should take a new employee to get up to speed. If they still don’t get it after two or three more assignments, we usually let them go. No reason prolonging the stress on either side.

While giving your remote workers the occasional benefit of the doubt, remember that managing remote staff is a process. Give an occasional mulligan to an employee you trust. No one’s perfect 100 percent of the time. What you don’t want to see is the same mistake repeated over and over.

To manage your expectations, listen to your internal business instincts. Discuss the pros and cons of hiring remote staff with your partners, managers or even trusted employees. It’s easy to give too many chances to a remote worker, but you don’t want to let an improving remote worker go due to frustration.

Is Hiring Remote Staff a Balancing Act?

Managing a remote staff requires patience and compassion. You’re hiring someone to do a specific job. Since the new hire isn’t coming into the office every day, you need to make sure the work is getting done. You need a way to check, whether through an online project management tool, ongoing project reports or regular video meetings.

You want to pay for your staff’s best work while giving new-hires a chance to get up to speed, but don’t feel like you have to pick up the slack yourself. Track your employees’ work to assess their progress. To be able to sleep at night, learn to trust your remote staff, but develop a backup plan, such as setting earlier deadlines than needed.

You can save money by avoiding brick-and-mortar expenses, but as a trade-off, you need to maintain a level of authority over your business. Technology has its limitations, but you have to rely on it to grow your business. It’s a balancing act, for sure. But if your business can run with a remote workforce, you may find it’s worth the effort to build an infrastructure that supports hiring remote staff — and swift, efficient firing.

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