You’ve waited a few days, and you finally received your copy.
You’re excited to get moving on with your project, open up the document, and realize that the tone is not correct, the keyword wasn’t used as you wanted it to, or the direction of the blog itself didn’t go the way you had hoped. You filled out the input form, so you know you had requested specifics for this piece, but you don’t feel the writer nailed it.
Now, you have to send it back for a revision.
You can feel a sense of annoyance creeping up as you click “Request Revision.” While you might think revisions are terrible, you are missing out on seeing the incredible value of requesting a revision.
Clicking that button has just improved your investment in your content.
How so?
Four Benefits of Requesting a Revision from Your Content Writer
Revisions are a good thing.
Let me say that one more time…revisions are a good thing.
It does delay your project another day or so, but you are investing in your writer, brand, and project by requesting a revision.
Let me show you how that is…
You are Not Revising It Yourself – Saving you the Time and Hassle
Yes, you could save a few days by revising it yourself.
But how much time did you save, really?
You outsourced your content for a reason – because you didn’t have the time to write it yourself. So, why are you revising it yourself?
Instead, you need to let the writer that crafted your content do the heavy lifting – that is why they offer revisions.
Take advantage of those free revisions and send your piece back. While you wait you can get started on ordering your social media posts and your email copy for the blog post you are waiting to launch, while our team fine-tunes things for you.
No matter what, you have saved yourself time. You are not spending 30 minutes, an hour, or maybe a few hours reworking your content. Instead, you have that done for you free of charge as part of your initial order fee.
You are Working with Your Writer to Get that Tone/Style/Niche Perfect – Which Pays for Itself in the Long Run
At Express Writers, we aim to have you work with the same writer, not just for this project but for all projects for that specific brand.
Every time writers work with you, they learn more about your preferences, nuances, preferential stylistic needs, etc. These are things embroidered in your mind, but your writer needs to learn them to continue using them in future content. If you don’t request a revision, how will your writer know what you prefer them to do on the next order?
What comes easy to us only sometimes translates well on paper. When you fill out an input form, what you see as a “casual” content tone might not be what a writer views as casual. When there is room for interpretation, there is room for something to be “off” slightly.
That is why there are revisions – so you can help the writer better understand what you meant in your input form.
You are Finetuning Your Wants and Needs (Some You May Not Have Realized You Had in the First Place)
When you complete an input form, you convey what you want right down to the preferred style/tone, but as we said before, what you may think is “casual” is not how the writer interprets it. Or, you might request that a blog be written more academically, only to realize that doesn’t jive with your tastes.
Revisions help you finetune what you actually want in your content because sometimes it takes seeing content that needs to be corrected to realize what you need to get it there and find what your style is.
Sometimes you think your style is more “encyclopedic,” only to realize it is not after you see what that type of content is. We don’t want you stuck with a piece of content that doesn’t suit your style, so we offer the opportunity to revise and refine.
You are Ensuring that the Final Product is Right – and Future Orders Will be Right from the Get-Go
When you have a project that was a home run, you can request that same writer on future projects. If you work alongside that writer via revisions to fine-tune your content, future orders will go much smoother. The writer might hit it out of the park the first go around on assignment #2 – even if the first assignment required a few rounds of revisions before it was right.
That is why we aim to have the same writer work on your same brand or projects – so that everything they’ve learned about your brand from those revisions is applied to future content.
Not only will the writer be more on point, but you will notice that turnaround times decrease. Your writer no longer needs as much time to create your content because once they see the title, topic, and keywords, they know what you intended for them to create, and they don’t have to spend as much time researching background information to create it.
You benefit from having an in-house writer without the hassle of managing them.
You’re working alongside them to fine-tune your content today so future orders are much easier and more efficient tomorrow.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Revisions
Simply requesting a revision is not enough. You want to ensure that when a project goes back, it returns to you right.
When you request a revision, here are a few tips for getting the most out of it:
- Be Specific About What’s Right and What’s Wrong: Saying “it is wrong” doesn’t point the writer in the right direction. So, be specific here. Let them know what was right and what parts specifically were wrong so they know a) what parts you do like to incorporate similar style into future pieces, and b) how to revise them and what to avoid in the future.
- Be Positive and Helpful: Positivity can go a long way. You are working with this writer side-by-side to create your expertly crafted content. So, keep the feedback positive. You can always give constructive feedback, but as long as you keep it positive, it helps foster a strong relationship with your writer.
- Record a Loom: Video revision requests are fantastic! Not only does it add a tone to the feedback, but you can go over the video, share your screen and the document and talk about what you need to be corrected. Not only does it help put it into perspective for the writer, but saves you the hassle of writing out the revision request. A 1-minute video could save you 30 minutes writing it all out.
- Leave Feedback in the Doc: If video recording isn’t your style, consider opening the doc and leaving comments inside instead. You can comment on specific sections of the document you want to be changed so the writer can revise based directly on that rather than a large revision note where they have to find the sections in the document you may be referring to.
Some Tips for Avoiding Unnecessary Revisions
Sometimes, revisions aren’t necessary, but there is a communication breakdown between what is in the input form and what the writer creates. These can be avoided, in 90% of their cases, by implementing these tips:
- Fill Out the Input Form Entirely: Input forms might seem tedious, but each question is there to pull as much information out of you as possible so that our writer has everything they need to get it right the first time. So, do your best to complete each field. If you are unsure, you can always leave a note you are unsure about and let the writer decide. The more specific you are with your preferences, tone, style, and the do’s and don’ts for your content, the easier it is for the writer to write to your expectations.
- Know Your Topic (or Get a Professional to Help Define it): If you aren’t sure what topic or keywords to use, we highly recommend using our content strategy service. Our writers are not strategists, so they cannot research keywords or create topics on the fly. Instead, we leave that to our in-house strategists trained to find high-volume, low-competition keywords, then create click-worthy headlines that hit high on the AMV scale.
- Read Your Topic Research before Approving: If you order topic research, there will be a lot of information in the spreadsheet when it comes your way. Make sure to review it carefully. You’re not just approving a topic and keyword – an explanation section goes over everything included in your blog post or web page. Make sure all the details there align with what you want in your content and your brand’s style. We often get revisions because the information was added that shouldn’t be, but it was in an approved content strategy – so the writer was just following what they were told. It is always best to review it thoroughly and ensure every component is correct before approval. If it’s not? Just ask for a revision from the strategist so that it doesn’t go to the writer with information you don’t want included.
- Don’t Forget Examples: In our input forms, we ask for examples of content you love. Why? Because nothing helps a writer nail a preferred style or tone more than a physical example to review.
- Request an Outline First: If you need clarification on the direction you want for your blog, ask the writer to submit an outline before the actual content. The writer will draft the title, subheaders, and some information they plan to include, then you can see if the blog is following your desired style and the information you wanted to see included. This also saves you from having an entire piece rewritten – and the writer from having to scrap something at 2,000 words versus a few lines for an outline.
Have We Removed the Stigma of Revisions Yet?
Revisions somewhere along the road in content land got a bad rap, and we don’t know why.
To us, revisions are great! They are an opportunity to get your content right and mean that you are training your writer to work on your content in the future without any hiccups.
We all have an idea of the perfect piece of content in our head, but no one else knows what that is – revisions help us bring that vision to life with the help of a writer so that you get the content you had intended to receive the day you placed your order.
At Express Writers, all of our content orders include two free rounds of revisions up to 14 days past delivery. Don’t be afraid to click that button and request a revision. Instead, embrace it and think of the time, money, and hassle you just saved yourself – and the long-term investment you just made in a team of writers that will continue to provide you with great content.
Order your next piece of content with Express Writers and see for yourself the power of revisions and providing your writer with feedback. Not only does it help you get the content you want, but it also helps you ensure you’ll get that content again the next time you order with us!
