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Yep, same. They're not good with niche content.

this is not just you or pepper. i've seen that it is hard to scale quality content with an outsourced model. unless you're hiring a top notch agency like animals or a top writer, the underpaid writers at these content shops don't care about the end user and dont put their heart and soul into getting something really world class. needless to say, a lot of context is lost unless the writers have been with the company for sometime or have personally experienced the product space

and Pepper has no communication mechanism in place. Comments or talking via the portal is not optimised. I think the writers do a decent job but the editors are the ones who need to make the writing fit into the brief given. Wo 100% nahi ho raha hai.

@Aniruddh Jain it's not even scale. These are simple pieces for the common man.

Right, I usually add feedback as comments on the content docs directly.

I do that too. But the to and fro is ridiculous. Id rather write it myself

Yep lol

@Ketan Pandit 2 things: 1. My experience with pepper hasnt been great either (tried a pilot project at hubilo). 2. I understand your frustration. i have been where you are trying to work with peppercontent, and couple of other writing agencies as well. but what Aniruddh said might have sounded quite obvious or unhelpful but it hit home based on my experience as well. i would encourage you to rethink how you are looking at the need for content from external writers from such agencies. when you say ‘simple pieces for the common man’, I am not entirely sure how valid that hypothesis is. either these pieces are product descriptions for sites like swiggy/flipkart/dunzo (or other fmcg/b2c products where it is standerdized). if it so, please ignore rest of my comment. it is a clear lack of quality + lack of ownership/communication problem from pepper. But if you are looking at writing for any niche/segment or market i would definitely question the need to work with an external agency of writers unless they have native US/Europe speakers/writers with more experience in the specific industry than any in house person from any team in your startup.

The need is the same as everyone - we want to do more than we have time or people. The thing with PC is its supposed to be a marketplace and unless the assignments are done arbitrarily on the back end, there is no reason a generalist should get assigned (they ask for specific questions, briefs, content structures) and they charge differently for writer experience. Now with all these checkboxes, by the time Ive come to “complete order” window, the thinking work is done. All the writer has to do is elaborate on the brief, maintain structure. Even that is not being done. And this is for the top tier of writers. The reason Native US / Europe writers are better is because they bloody put in the effort into research. The writers from Pepper I've come across, couldn't give two hoots. It reflects in the end product.

Totally agreed with @Aniruddh Jain A lot of this problem with quality content is there because most of the writers (freelancers or otherwise) don't understand content marketing at all. Freelancers who work with content writing agencies are good writers but they don't know how to research and strategise, not at all aware with the structure of the content, SEO and most importantly what is the overall content strategy company is following. Good agencies like animalz work really well on content strategy first. Also from what I have observed with their team structure it feels if the content strategist also work as content manager/ custodian for the client. This might be one of the reason for superior quality of content because when managers act as custodians they take the outcome more seriously. Tl;DR Freelance writers working with such agencies don't understand content marketing at all, hence they cant deliver quality content to you 🙂

also note: Animalz charges $6000 for a pilot with 3 blog posts and 1 landing page. ( i may be quoting lesser than what they quoted 4 years back; can’t recall). So i am not surprised honestly when we pay peanuts or lesser and expect to get content for enterprise/smbs in US/Europe. itna me itnaich milega! 🙂. Doesn’t take away anything from the case about lack of quality but if we ignore how poorly we pay writers, we are trying to hit a nail upside down

@Tej Touche!

@Tej thats true. i was just debating this point with someone else on another thread on this platform regarding underpaying writers. our companies still dont get it sadly.

the fact that it is a debate that writers should be paid better to expect better, is a reflection of how far we are in understanding storytelling and how important and valuable content is to move/inspire people

Initially - my experience with Pepper was pretty good. (First 4-5 content pieces). But post that the quality kept declining. Haven't used their services after that.

Hello everyone, one thing that helps when you're working with an agency is having an outline (or a framework) that writers can replicate. I lead iScribblers, a content writing agency. Two reasons why we are able to maintain quality are sharing detailed outlines before writing the whole piece and having a replicable framework in place. Sure each client has different requirements and a customized template for each client.

^#shameless-plug

very unhappy with pepper not the right solution for a b2b tech saas at all unless you’re hosting low quality, click bait pieces (which is a strat that can work from an seo point of view, but it is a gamble and not worth the risk imo)

Yeah similar experience with Pepper. Still using it until i build an internal team of content folks.