In this blog:

What do you need from your B2B copywriter?
Do you need a specialist or generalist?
What to look for in a B2B copywriter
Where to find a decent B2B copywriter online
How to evaluate whether a B2B copywriter is going to be a good fit
Should you run a paid trial with them?
How to set your copywriter up for success from day one
FAQs: How to hire a B2B copywriter

Hiring a B2B copywriter shouldn’t feel like a gamble, but for some teams, it definitely does.

Not because there’s a shortage of people out there who can write, but because B2B copywriting sits at the intersection of strategy, buyer psychology, and commercial reality.

When that intersection is missed, content can look fine on the surface, but in reality, it’s failing hard when it comes to supporting your lead generation, sales conversations, or long-term brand positioning.

This guide explains how to hire a B2B copywriter, what to look for, what to avoid, and how to make the relationship work commercially.

What does a B2B copywriter do?

A B2B copywriter develops messaging that aligns with buyer needs, supports pipeline conversations, and accelerates sales journeys.

They focus on clarity, conversion, and buyer intent across blogs, landing pages, emails, and sales collateral.

What do you need from your B2B copywriter?

Most disappointing copywriter hires aren’t about lack of talent.They happen because the writer is solving the wrong problem.

When expectations are vague, briefs become too generic, feedback gets subjective, and perfectly competent copy ends up being rewritten to death. That’s not a writing issue. It’s a clarity issue. But it can be fixed!

Before you look at any copywriter portfolios, get specific on four things:

1. What are you actually looking to produce?

B2B copywriting isn’t one skill; a landing page that needs to convert is a very different job from an insight-led article or a customer case study page.

Be explicit about whether you need:

A blog or long-form article
A gated asset or report
A landing page
Sales enablement content
An email sequence.

Writers flex things depending on the content format, so any ambiguity here leads to mismatch later.

2. What job does the content need to do?

Every B2B asset should earn its place. So establish whether this content is meant to:

Build awareness and credibility
Convert interest into leads
Support sales conversations
Reduce risk in the buying decision
Help customers adopt or better understand your product.

If you can’t describe this in a sentence, you’ll struggle to judge whether the copy is doing its job.

3. How complex is the subject matter?

Be honest about what you’re asking a writer to absorb.

Is this:

A relatively simple SaaS product?
A technical or regulated offering?
Something sold into multiple buying committees?
A long sales cycle with nuanced objections?

It’s not complexity that poses a problem for a B2B copywriter; it’s underestimating that complexity. And the more complex the context, the more valuable that specialist copywriting experience becomes.

4. What does the content approval process look like?

This is the one hiring teams often skip, and regret later. You need to clarify:

Who gives upfront input to the copywriter (e.g. subject matter expert)
Whose feedback is final?
Who’s signing it off?

If you can’t clearly articulate these four things, even an excellent B2B copywriter will struggle, and you’ll end up blaming the execution for what was really a lack of direction.

Do you need a specialist or generalist?

The difference between a specialist and a generalist B2B copywriter isn’t writing quality. It’s how much context they need before they can add value.

If you sell a complex, technical, or regulated product, a specialist B2B copywriter often pays for themselves pretty quickly. They can challenge assumptions more confidently, and simplify complexity without losing meaning.

Generalist B2B copywriters can work well when:

The product is relatively straightforward
Strong product marketing already exists internally
You need consistent, reliable output rather than something deeper and more strategic.

And this choice matters more than it used to, as ‘content marketing’ commonly represents a meaningful slice of marketing budgets. CMI research shows that for 24% of B2B marketers, content accounts for a quarter or more of total marketing spend. When the investment is that material, who you hire has a direct impact on return.

What to look for in a B2B copywriter (beyond ‘nice writing’)

A B2B copywriter is there to help you articulate value, reduce friction in the buying journey, and turn complex products into clear, usable messages that your business can scale. In fact, more than 41% of B2B marketers measure content success through sales outcomes, reinforcing that content is judged on commercial impact, not output alone.

You’re hiring someone to help you clarify what you’re really selling, say it in a way your buyers actually care about, move prospects from “Hmmm…interesting” to “Yes, send me the link”, and reduce the internal friction that slows content down.

That’s a tall order. And it’s why ‘good writing’ is only one of the things you’re looking out for, as a client.

B2B copywriter hiring checklist

A strong B2B copywriter should be able to do three things:

Understand your buyers, buying journey, and sales motion
Turn complexity into clarity without stripping out nuance
Write copy that has a clear job to do (convert, support the pipeline, drive adoption, etc.).

And look for copywriters who:

Ask sharp questions about buyers and objections early
Care about whether the copy actually delivers results.

Relatively recent HubSpot research shows that sales outcomes remain one of the most common ways marketers evaluate content success, reinforcing the fact that B2B content is expected to support revenue, not just traffic.

Where to find a decent B2B copywriter online

The truth is that there’s no single ‘best’ place to find a B2B copywriter. Different sources suit different needs, and the mistake most people make is assuming they’re interchangeable.

LinkedIn is often the strongest option if you’re looking for a specialist. You can see how writers position themselves, how they think publicly, and whether they understand your market — not just how polished their portfolio looks.
Word-of-mouth referrals are still one of the fastest ways to find someone reliable, especially if the recommendation comes from a business with a similar sales model or level of complexity to yours.
Professional membership organisations like ProCopywriters can be useful if you want a baseline level of professionalism and experience, though you’ll still need to assess strategic fit.
Agencies can work well if you need scale, account management, or delivery across multiple assets. The trade-off is that you’ve got less control over who’s actually writing your content and higher overhead costs.
Marketplaces like Upwork and Yuno Juno can also be used, but they require more rigorous screening. The quality gap is wider, and success depends heavily on how clearly you brief and evaluate candidates.

Wherever you look, the source matters less than how well the writer understands your buyers, your business model, and the job your content needs to do.

How to evaluate whether a B2B copywriter is going to be a good fit

Avoid generic questions. Instead, ask how they:

Research industries that are unfamiliar territory for them
Work with subject-matter experts
Balance writing persuasively with deploying SEO and AEO best practices
Handle negative or conflicting stakeholder feedback
Define whether the copy they’ve created has been successful.

Their answers will reveal how they think and how they deliver — not just how they write.

Should you have a paid trial period with them?

It’s something I’ve personally never arranged with a client, but a paid trial period can protect both sides and give you real insight into how the working relationship will really feel.

Good trial tasks could include:

A landing page section
A blog outline and sample introduction
A nurture email
A case study structure anaid opening draft.

As well as being able to see an example of some finished work, it also allows you to evaluate how the copywriter takes direction, interprets a brief, and reacts to any feedback.

Be cautious if the prospective B2B copywriter:

Relies heavily on buzzwords
Can’t explain why they’ve written something a certain way
Avoids writing about a product too deeply
Appears to have heavily relied on the use of generative AI or answer engine content
Promises guaranteed rankings or results.

AI has changed how content is produced, but it hasn’t removed the need for clear thinking. If anything, it’s made strategic judgment more valuable.

How to set your copywriter up for success from day one

Most B2B copy projects don’t fail because of writing quality. They fail because the inputs are vague, fragmented, or politically ‘filtered’.

The quality of your brief, access, and feedback process will shape the outcome far more than the number of revision rounds.

To set a copywriter up to deliver good work for you quickly, always make sure that you provide:

A clear brief with a single primary goal: Not a list of ‘nice-to-haves’, but one clear outcome that the content is meant to achieve.

Direct access to real, relevant brand or organisational insights: It could be customer service transcripts, customer case study materials, or a chat with a subject matter expert, i.e. It should extend beyond supplying an internal messaging deck!

Examples of what ‘good’ looks like for your brand: And clarity on why those examples work, so that expectations are shared.

A defined feedback and approval process: One final decision owner, consolidated comments, and clear deadlines.

Hiring a B2B copywriter is ultimately a commercial decision, not a creative one.

The right copywriter hire makes it easier for your audience to understand what you offer, easier for sales teams to have better conversations, and easier for marketing teams to ship content without endless rewrites and reworks. And that clarity compounds across the entire buying journey.

If you approach hiring a B2B copywriter with clear goals, realistic expectations, and defined ownership, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of finding a copywriting partner who strengthens your content operations, rather than introducing new friction.

And if what you need isn’t just execution, but strategic support across positioning, long-form assets, landing pages, and thought leadership, that’s where specialist B2B copywriting and content strategy really earns its value.

If you’re looking to hire a B2B copywriter, take a look at my services, and get in touch!

FAQS: Hiring a B2B copywriter

The cost of a B2B copywriter depends on experience, industry expertise, and asset type.
Specialist B2B copywriters typically charge more than generalists because they reduce onboarding time, handle complexity, and produce content that supports pipeline and revenue, not just visibility.
B2B copywriting focuses on persuasion and commercial outcomes, such as conversions, pipeline support, and sales enablement.
Content writing is usually more informational and SEO-led.
In B2B marketing, the two often overlap because most content plays a role in the buying journey.
Hire an in-house B2B copywriter if you need constant output and deep product immersion.
Hire a freelance B2B copywriter if you need specialist expertise, flexible capacity, or faster delivery without adding headcount.
Many teams use a hybrid approach.
A strong B2B copywriting brief includes the target audience, buying stage, primary goal, key proof points, common objections, examples of successful content, and a clear approval process.
Clear briefs reduce revisions and significantly improve content quality.
A good B2B copywriter understands your buyers, asks intelligent questions, simplifies complex ideas without dumbing them down, and can explain why copy is written a certain way.
They’ll focus on outcomes, not just tone, structure, or surface-level polish.

How to hire a B2B copywriter (without wasting time or budget)