---
title: Should we hire someone to edit our B2B copy?
description: You opened the draft to sign it off and ended up rewriting half of it. Here are six signs it’s time to bring in a B2B copy editor.
image: https://b2bcopywriter.uk/hubfs/Should%20we%20hire%20someone%20to%20edit%20our%20b2b%20copy_.png
---

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Mike Sharkey Nov 13, 2026, 6:46:11 AM

# Should we hire someone to edit our B2B copy?

You opened the draft to sign it off and ended up rewriting half of it. Here are six signs it’s time to bring in a B2B copy editor.

![Should we hire someone to hire our b2b copy? (yes)](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/hubfs/Should%20we%20hire%20someone%20to%20edit%20our%20b2b%20copy_.png)

**TL;DR**

Hire someone to edit your B2B copy when drafts regularly stall at sign-off, need substantial rewrites or go out with claims and messaging your team hasn’t checked. Start with one project or a batch of drafts. If the same problems come back every week and your team lacks time to fix them, consider ongoing editorial support. If drafts keep waiting for a decision, agree who makes that decision first.

Photo by[Attila Lénert](https://unsplash.com/@attilalenert?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on[Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/rusty-industrial-pipes-and-valves-in-a-factory-6uJTDNz6n0k?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

\*\*\*

In this post

1. [Six signs your B2B team needs an editor](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/should-we-hire-someone-to-edit-b2b-copy#six-signs-your-b2b-team-needs-an-editor)
2. [How to test whether you need a B2B copy editor](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/should-we-hire-someone-to-edit-b2b-copy#how-to-test-whether-you-need-a-b2b-copy-editor)

I once worked somewhere that had a daily sign-off meeting. The head of marketing was extremely hands-on, so everything needed their thumbs up before it went out. It was so painful. Like, it was the most painful meeting I’ve ever had to attend every single day in my entire life.

But it *did* make the repeat offenders easy to spot. Sometimes it was a design issue. Sometimes it was a claim we couldn’t back up or a turn of phrase we’d agreed to stop using. But the same old comments came up on different pieces of work time and time again.

And you can now add “It’s our first LLM draft” to that list.

Now, a first draft is handy, but somebody still has to check if it’s accurate, if it sounds like you and if it’s gonna make a reader give a shit. But when you add it to the drafts coming from Product, the founder and anyone else with a half-baked idea and some tokens to burn it with, you can see how a head of marketing ends up spending half their time in the comments of a GDoc.

In their November 2026 report, the Content Marketing Institute found 54% of those surveyed said maintaining content quality control was one of their biggest challenges [when using AI to create content](https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research). In a separate September 2026 survey of 301 marketers, Ahrefs found that 66% trusted AI-generated writing [only if a human reviewed it first](https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-ai-content-creation/).

If you’re wondering whether to pay someone to do that work, I suggest you look at the problems your team keeps having to fix. Here are six I’ve seen a lot.

## **Six signs your B2B team needs an editor**

### **6. The proof falls apart when someone clicks the link**

I’ve read plenty of drafts where a stat looks perfectly reasonable. There’s a link to a familiar publication, the number seems plausible and it makes the point rather nicely. Then you click through. The article cites another article, which cites a survey you can’t find, and what looked like a credible proof point turns out to be a load of old bollocks.

Sometimes the original study exists and the problem is what we’ve asked it to prove. A survey of US consumers from five years ago might tell you something about US consumers five years ago. But you’ll need to do a bit more digging if you want to say something about B2B buyers today.

The same applies to product claims. I’m a big fan of hyperbole, and I’ll happily argue for a line that has even some small, single, solitary semblance of spark in it...

But I also want to be able to ask someone in Product whether the thing we make really does what we’re about to say it does. Our job is then to find the most interesting way of saying what we can back up.

### **5. Sales decks are out in the wild**

Sales teams are awesome, man. They spend their days hearing what customers are worried about and which claims get challenged when someone has the temerity to ask them a follow-up question. All of that should feed back into marketing, which should turn it into something Sales can use. Somehow, this magical, glorious feedback loop rarely materialises.

So [sales reps go off-script and tweak the deck](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/why-sales-teams-ignore-marketing-messaging). Fair enough. They have a call in twenty minutes and an objection the approved marketing deck barely acknowledges. A line that worked for one rep gets passed around, and before long there’s a claim in a deck that nobody in Marketing or Product has seen.

I’ve listened to call recordings, sat in on conversations and talked to reps afterwards to understand what they were hearing. Once you’ve heard the same objection a few times, you can write a proper answer to it, check the evidence and give the team something they can say with conviction and a straight face. You might also discover that the thing buyers keep asking for belongs in a conversation with Product.

An editor can make sense of all that and carry the most useful bits back into the deck, the website or the next brief.

### **4. The website is still selling last year’s product**

I worked with an HR software company that had updated its positioning. One landing page was still making the old argument. The job’s hard, the software makes it easy. It sounded reasonable enough, but the new positioning came from a more interesting observation. The people buying the software have a complicated job, and they want tools built with that complexity in mind.

Once you make that change, it works its way down the page. You talk about different problems, make a more credible promise and explain what the product does in a way that recognises how the buyer works. I’d spent enough time with the new messaging to spot where the first draft was still making the old argument, and I could apply the same thinking to subsequent pages.

That’s what I mean by an editorial through line. You’ve put a bunch of time into working out what your company should say. Now you need someone to apply it to the landing page, the ad and the five words that end up on the button. If you don't, you'll end up with a message that's drifting all over the place and lots of confused prospects pulling their very best WTF?! faces. 

![Message drift assessment](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Product%20images/Message%20drift%20assessment.png?width=781&height=516&name=Message%20drift%20assessment.png)Is your message drifiting? Find out by how much (and how much it might be costing you) with this free [messaging diagnostic tool](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/messaging-drift-score).

### **3. Everything sounds like everyone else**

Everyone’s got a content engine, but is any of it any good?\*

I used to work with a digital marketing manager on account-based marketing campaigns. We’d have these gigantic spreadsheets of ads for different audiences and industries, with a product-led set and another that started with the buyer’s problem. He always gave me a wildcard set, too. That was where I could try a film reference or an idea that would have sounded borderline psychotic if I’d led with it in the briefing call.

The interesting part was going back to the 'sensible' ads afterwards. They were doing their job, but once I’d written the wildcards I could see how dry they were. A little of what we’d tried in that last set made the others more interesting without asking them to do a different job. I still use that exercise, whether I’m writing six words for an ad or trying to make an argument worth following over six pages.

I’d give the competent AI draft the same read. Could a competitor put their logo on it and publish it as is? If so, an editor has somewhere to start. Go back to the brief and find the thing your team knows that never made it into the draft. The objection you keep hearing on calls. The bit of the job everyone in your category pretends is easy. Give that a proper place in the piece and see what happens to the sentences around it.

That’s where I’d start when [your AI content sounds like everyone else’s](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/ai-content-problem). Give our robot overlords their clear headings, by all means, but then read it as somebody with six other tabs open and see if you’ve given them a reason to stay on yours.

*\*No, dear reader, it is not…*

### **2. Twelve things are waiting for your thumbs up**

When drafts come in from all over the business, someone has to work out what can go today, what needs a proper edit and what can wait. That work often lands with whoever has the final say. Which, if you’re reading this, is probably you.

So you open a draft to give it a thumbs up and end up rewriting the first two sections. Do that often enough and you’ve got a [content review gap](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/content-control). There’s more copy coming in than your team has time to read properly and fix, so the work spills into sign-off.

> Too much content, not enough time? Understand your real editorial capacity with this [content review gap calculator.](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/content-review-gap-calculator)

Give an editor some of that queue and they can do the rewrites, check the copy against your messaging and flag the calls that need your judgement. If a claim needs checking with Product, you’ll know which claim and why. It makes sign-off easier. It helps restore order to the universe. It's generally a much better situation for everyone.

![Jared v3](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Jared%20v3.png?width=738&height=370&name=Jared%20v3.png)

### **1. Someone needs to ask why anybody should give a shit**

I may be biased, but the main reason to hire a copywriter is because copywriters are cool. They’re well read. They’re well watched. They have an opinion on many, many things and they quite often like to share said opinions at length. This is good for any marketing team, trust me.

In my 15 years doing this I’ve worked with writers who could pull something out of an obscure film, a science fiction novel or a conversation they’d had with a customer (or down the pub) and find a much better idea than the one in the brief. If I’m having a conversation with a client or stakeholder about a creative idea, I absolutely, *positively* have to have a copywriter in room

It’s the person I want looking at a draft before we spend an afternoon polishing it. They can ask who it’s for, what we’re asking that person to do and why they’d bother. Sometimes the answer is a better angle. Sometimes it’s taking the one interesting thing out of 1,500 words and using it to answer a question customers keep asking. And sometimes the answer is to spend that afternoon on a piece that’s got a better chance of doing something for the business.

## **How to test whether you need a B2B copy editor**

Pull up the drafts and review threads from last week. For each piece, write down what sent it back or held it up. Look for the repeat offenders. Maybe someone keeps asking for a source. Maybe the promise changes in round three because nobody agreed to it in the brief. Maybe the strongest point is buried four paragraphs down and the same person keeps digging it out in the comments.

| **What keeps happening** | **What to try** |
| --- | --- |
| The reader, promise or next step changes during review | Agree those three things in the brief before anyone writes. |
| Claims need checking or whole sections keep coming back for a rewrite | Give an editor one live batch of drafts. |
| A launch or website rewrite has filled the queue | Bring someone in for that project. |
| The queue fills up again every week | Give someone recurring time and responsibility for editing. |
| Finished drafts wait for an approval decision | Agree who makes the call and when. |

 

If you try a batch with an editor, compare it with a recent batch of similar work. Look at how long the drafts sat in review, how many times they came back and how much rewriting the person signing them off still had to do. Read what went out, too. Is the claim easier to defend? Is there a reason to keep reading? Would Sales use it?

If you’re deciding what to pay for, start there.

You’ll learn more from getting some drafts out the door than you will from another meeting where everyone’s asking you why they’re still stuck in review.

Is your content doing enough?

Send me one piece. Free, honest notes. No pitch. 

[Get a free review](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/contact)

![Mike Sharkey](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/hubfs/Mike%20Sharkey%20B2B%20copywriter.png)

Mike Sharkey

B2B copywriter and editorial partner

Helping B2B SaaS companies keep their story clear as they scale. A decade writing for Meta, Google Cloud, enterprise tech and AI infrastructure. Senior thinking without the overhead.

[Connect on LinkedIn →](https://www.linkedin.com/in/b2bcopywriter/)

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### On the blog

- [Case studies that move deals →](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/how-to-write-b2b-case-studies-that-really-move-deals)
- [Why sales cycles run long →](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/sales-cycle-messaging-clarity)
- [When your story stops keeping up →](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/post-launch-messaging-alignment)
- [Why B2B content sounds the same →](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/ai-b2b-content-sounds-the-same)

## More from the B2Blog

![The Content Review Gap Calculator](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/hubfs/Content%20Review%20Gap%20Calculator.png)

Calculator

### [The Content Review Gap Calculator: how much AI content goes out unchecked?](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/content-review-gap-calculator)

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AI

### [The AI vanilla killer: why editorial judgement is more important than ever](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/blog/ai-b2b-content-sounds-the-same)

![The Messaging Drift Score diagnostic](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/hubfs/Free%20Messaging%20Drift%20Score%20diagnostic%20tool%20(1).png)

Diagnostic

### [The Messaging Drift Score: is your story keeping up with your product?](https://b2bcopywriter.uk/messaging-drift-score)

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