2. 4 reasons to fire your copywriter

2) When the copywriter's work just isn't good enough

As with any profession, not all copywriters have the same level of skill. Some are excellent, some do decent work and some aren't good at all.

Here are some reasons for firing a copywriter that were submitted by a business relations coordinator who recently had a bad experience:

• When the writing is stale and I feel like I could have done better myself.
• When I feel like it's something that was grabbed off an old brochure that we did years ago. I don't want regurgitated material. No cut/paste.
• When the material I receive is painfully far from reaching the intended audience.

This sounds to me like lazy copywriting, when the final text reads like a first draft, and the writing clearly isn't addressed to the needs and interests of the website's audience.

3) When copywriters don't deliver the content that is asked for

Here is one unhappy editor's experience with a freelance copywriter she hired:

"Several months ago, we contracted with a highly recommended writer to write a monthly e-newsletter about a specific brand of computer products. I sent him all the usual resources, as well as our HTML templates, and then sat back with the highest of hopes. I was disappointed. When he submitted off-style copy (lots of exclamation points, improper noun caps, fragmented sentences), I sent him a tracked-changes version of all the corrections and very politely corrected him on individual points. I knew he could write like a grownup because his emails to the person who hired him were letter-perfect. The next month he submitted the same drivel, and I wrote a slightly less polite response albeit with the same multiple-page set of corrections."

In this instance, the editor seems to have given the copywriter ample briefing and background, but the copywriter simply failed to deliver.

The reason may have been that the copywriter wasn't able to write in the way that was required by the client. Or perhaps the issue was more closely related to reason No. 4...