However, creating a team of content marketing writers who'll get content right, and get it right every time, is no easy task. You'll need a team of multi-talented, hardworking, and dedicated writers who all want the best for your brand.

They will soon live and love your brand. This team of writers will want to see you engage with your audience, generate leads, and acquire customers.

So, if you’re building your team, this is who you’ll need to hire:

Content strategists

Having a solid content strategy in place is key. Without one, all of that beautifully crafted content will be for nothing. A content strategist is a person who looks at your current efforts and makes suggestions on how you can tweak your content to reach your goals.

This is the person who does all of the research before content creation kicks off. They might create personas, write a style guide, and give guidance to the writers before they start on a project.

This is usually a very senior person on the team. They’ve been around the block and seen a thing or two. They've very likely progressed from their junior and mid-level days of being a writer.

The difficult truth is that writers can’t just be writers forever. Even Ann Patchett co-owns a bookstore, and John Green vlogs. At some point, writers will need to diversify their skill set. Does one of your writers have a propensity for social media?

They could consider becoming a social media strategist. Does one enjoy numbers and have a keen sense of curiosity? Maybe they could become a data scientist. And if one enjoys big-picture strategic thinking, branching out into content strategy could be the right move for them. And you’ll definitely need one of these content strategists in your team.

Writers

The writers in your content marketing team are the people who’re coming up with the creative and relevant ideas to create engaging content that leads to you meeting your goals. Their writing is always informative, interesting, and entertaining. They can craft product descriptions about stoves that are the best things you’ve read all week.

An added bonus is if your writers have some SEO skills. They’re Google Analytics certified. They know what metrics and dimensions are. They’re able to tell what type of content is working and what isn’t getting clicks. They can write meta descriptions. They know how and where to seamlessly insert long-tail keywords into their pieces of writing.

Editors

No writer can edit their own work. There comes a point where the words stop making sense. Every team of writers needs an equally talented team of editors behind them. Editors will be able to take the content that’s been created and make it even better.

There are two stages to editing – the editor who will make suggestions to make that piece of content really sing, and copy editors who will sniff out every error, grammatical and spelling, and find factual mistakes or missing information.

Every senior writer should be able to edit the work of their more junior colleagues. It’ll not only lessen the workload of others but allow them to build their skill set and, very possibly, improve their own writing.

A team leader

This is the person who coordinates all of your content marketing efforts. They are the person who knows who wrote what and where that one blog post is. They have already identified your next hire for the content marketing team. They always have an idea for that upcoming social media post. They are that rare combination of creativity and organisation.

They’re good at managing not only a plethora of Google Docs but also a team of people. The individuals who make up a team with different personalities and priorities. The people who have their own wants and needs. The writers who all need to be managed according to their specific strengths and weaknesses. The ideal team leader does all of this and makes it look effortless.

Word of warning: don’t hire the sexy option

Yes, the Rogerwilco content team is filled with attractive people, but they were hired because of their writing talent and enthusiasm for the job. They were hired because they knew how to write quality copy. It’s that simple.

There are going to be people who wow in interviews because of their wealth of knowledge on a variety of subjects, but if you need a certain position filled, you need to hire the perfect person for that position.

That other person might do very well in another position, but that might not help you right now. And that’s what counts. Keep that other person on file for when you have a need for that specific position. Hire the right writer now.

For more information, visit www.rogerwilco.co.za. You can also follow Rogerwilco on Facebook or on Twitter.