5 Steps to Increase Your Income By Reducing Revision Requests
Earlier this week, I wrote about why I think that the endless revision cycle is a fish tale that keeps journalists away from content marketing. However, it does happen. Each time I have finished a project that had multiple revision cycles, I realized that in most cases that there were steps I could have taken at the beginning of the project that would have most likely reduced frustration on all sides.
Here are five steps to reduce revisions and the number of revision cycles:
- Make sure that you are clear on the client’s expectations and the scope of the project. Have all parties who will be reviewing the document participate in the kickoff call. If members of the client’s team are not clear about the direction among themselves, ask them to come to an agreement on the deliverable and let you know what direction they decide. Try to stay out differences among the client team if at all possible.
- Write an outline. I have found this to be an essential step in reducing the revisions and increasing my client satisfaction. At the end of the kickoff call, tell the client that you will write up an outline of the deliverable and have it to them to review shortly. If you are working with an agency that doesn’t have this as part of their process, ask if you can do an outline for your projects. This allows the client to see where you are headed before you get hours deep into it, so you can make any necessary course corrections at the beginning.
- Ask any questions that you have before you begin writing. Don’t write a single word until you are clear on the direction. If you have to schedule another call with the client for clarification, do it. The client would much rather take the time up front that receiving a document that isn’t what they were expecting.
- Since tone can often be hard to capture, ask the client for samples of the tone and style that they are looking for. Either from past deliverables or if they are just starting, from other companies with content they admire. I also find it helpful to see examples that they do not like. If the client has multiple examples on their website, ask them to send you links to the content that is particularly effective. Don’t just emulate content on their website without checking since brands often hire a writer because they are not thrilled with their current content and you don’t just want to automatically give them more of the same.
- Write a clause about revision cycles in your contract. One way to reduce endless revision cycles is to ask for a clause in your contract stating the number of revision cycles that will be included in your fee and stating an additional charge for each additional cycle. I have found that the mere inclusion of this clause encourages clients to be more concise in their revision cycle and wrap the project up more quickly.
What tips do you have for reducing the number of revision cycles in content marketing projects? Have any of the above tips worked for you?
Love your comment on tone (#4), Jennifer. It’s so easy to get that wrong by making assumptions, and it’s something that’s probably not on every writer’s project management checklist. I’ll be adding it to mine right now—thanks!
I’m glad you found it helpful. I find tone the hardest thing to nail and the most important. If a client doesn’t like the tone, they most likely will be dissatisfied with the whole piece but sometimes can’t pinpoint why. I’m adding tone in content marketing to my blog ideas list so look for a whole post on this to come.
Hi Jennifer, I’m in firefox on mac and next to the boxes above for name, email, website… all I see are asterisks. FYI. Maybe some coding needs help? Also under post comment I see two boxes but no words next to them.
On revisions. I generally include up 2 rounds of revisions. I sometimes do up to 1 round for a very small project. I actually have not had a client take me up on the 2 rounds yet. Everything has been to their liking prior to getting to that point! I have not worked a lot with agencies where a project may drag on with endless revisions. This is just based on my own clients and when I draw up the contract.
[…] Decrease Revisions – Everytime your client has changes, it adds time to the project which decreases your hourly rate for the project. If you can reduce revisions, then you reduce the amount of time it takes and you increase your hourly rate. My best tips for reducing revisions is to create an outline and have everyone who will be signing off on the content to look at both the content and first draft. Read this post for other ways to reduce revisions. […]
[…] proceeded to explain to my potential client about the three different ways I actively work to reduce revisions. I think it is super important to have this discussion up front. It shows that you have experience […]