Content marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular and effective ways for a business to market itself.
Recent research from HubSpot found that 82% of marketers currently invest money and time into content marketing. If content creation isn’t for you, or you’re not getting the best results, don’t give up!
Now might be the perfect time to think about outsourcing this work to a content marketing agency in Tulsa.
In this article, you’ll learn about outsourced content marketing, why it’s beneficial, and how to do it.
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What is outsourced content marketing?
To outsource content marketing means that you let another person or business take over this part of your marketing strategy.
With that said, outsourcing content marketing doesn’t necessarily mean hiring a company outside of your country.
Instead, outsourcing content for a business owner means that this business gets its content from a source outside of the company.
4 signs it’s time for outsourced content marketing
Are you unsure about outsourced content marketing? That’s totally understandable. Before you spend your marketing budget on outsourcing content creation, it’s good to know if you need it.
1. You have no spare time.
Content creation is often a time-consuming and thought-intensive task. You need to think of a topic, write, and go back over your writing.
Depending on how involved you are with your business, you might not have the time to dedicate to all the steps needed to execute a content strategy.
Fortunately, you take all of the content creation processes off your plate when you outsource content marketing.
2. You’re not a writer.
I remember how daunting the writing process felt for me the first several times I opened a Word document.
If you’re not a writer but want to write, I encourage you to keep putting your content out there.
That said, I also understand that some people flat-out don’t want to take part in the content creation process.
With outsourced content marketing, you don’t have to spend time on content-related tasks that you don’t want to do.
3. Your company’s current content isn’t getting good results.
There are also companies that have active, in-house writers churning out content regularly.
Unfortunately, as I learned in my early days, what I thought what high-quality content wasn’t even close. Your business might be going through that process, too.
If this is happening to your business, your content isn’t leading to leads, new customers, or traffic. At this point, many smart business owners stop wasting time, energy, and money on content that isn’t getting results.
There’s no more waiting or getting frustrated at a lack of results with quality outsourced content marketing. Instead, you get to sit back and let a marketing agency handle the content process.
4. Your business doesn’t have the budget to hire a content team.
Recently, there have been a lot of companies downgrading budgets and workers getting laid off. Right now, your business might lack the funding to form a large-scale content marketing strategy.
Now is a great time for outsourced content marketing. By outsourcing content writing, your business doesn’t have to spend a small fortune hiring a marketing team.
Beneficial reasons to outsource content writing
There are so many benefits of content outsourcing. Here’s a closer look at why you should consider outsourcing your content marketing.
Saving a lot of time
As mentioned earlier, forming a content marketing strategy takes time. When you hire a content marketing agency, you don’t have to spend any time on content-related work.
Outsourced content marketing lets you and your employees have more time to focus on sales and other aspects of a business.
Not worrying about a lack of motivation
It’s rare for anyone creating content to always feel motivated to write. As I can attest, just like any other job, it’s easy to feel unmotivated or burned out.
By outsourcing your content marketing, you can avoid putting content off because you don’t want to write it!
Plus, working with a content marketing agency brings flexibility to how you manage your company. For example, you can outsource your content strategy until you feel motivated to write again.
Some companies also create their own content while also publishing outsourced content. This strategy is a great way to ramp up your company’s content output.
Cost-efficient
It’s also possible that your business isn’t able to financially support an entire content marketing team. Since working with a marketing agency is often cheaper than paying the wages and benefits for full-time employees.
When you save money with outsourced content marketing, you can always put funds back to eventually hire an in-house team.
Faster and easier than hiring full-time writers
Did you know it takes the average company 41 days to find a new employee? And that’s for an average position. If you need mid or top-level employees, it often takes months. Add this time to the time it takes for a content campaign to get rolling, and you could spend up to six months before things get underway.
Things get rolling much faster when outsourcing your content. In a matter of a few days or a week, your business can have content that’s ready to go live! Plus, you save the time and work it takes to correspond with, interview, and hire potential writers.
Getting new ideas
If you’re currently taking on your company’s content marketing efforts, you’ve probably dealt with a lack of inspiration or the dreaded writer’s block. Each day you struggle to come up with ideas could be a day that your competitors are publishing posts left and right.
You don’t have to rack your brain to come up with topics with outsourced content marketing. Most marketing agencies can either come up with fresh ideas or create content based on your topics.
Gaining more traffic
One of the main benefits of content marketing done well is that it brings in more traffic. When a company has a lot of traffic coming its way, that often increases revenue for this business.
Engaging readers
But many business owners have trouble understanding how to create content that engages audiences. Outsourced writers provide all the engagement while business owners focus on other important matters.
Receiving high-quality content
It’s understandable for many business owners to feel unsure about whether or not they’re creating high-quality or optimized content. When you have a content production company in your corner, your company can have blog and social media posts whenever it needs them.
When you partner with a high-quality marketing agency, you should also get content made with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. This type of content typically ranks well on search engines, bringing your business more traffic.
How to outsource content creation
Are you confused about outsourced content marketing? Let me make things easy and walk you through each step of the content outsourcing process.
Determining your company’s content goals
Before you start working with external writers and marketers, it’s smart to know what your company looks to gain from content marketing. Your company might be looking for more brand awareness, an increased amount of customers, or more revenue.
Or if you’re not sure what you need, that’s okay! A company providing outsourced content marketing meets your business where it’s at right now – even if that means it has no topics or content.
Researching content writing services
Your next step in the content marketing strategy outsourcing process is to choose a business to work with. The first thing I’d recommend doing is checking out the content these companies have available.
Almost every digital marketing company has a blog or pages dedicated to what they know. If this content looks well-written, you’re off to a good start. Should you come across content with lots of spelling and grammatical errors, those aren’t good signs!
I’d also recommend looking at the portfolios of these businesses. A quality content agency should have at least a few examples of its work. While you’re looking for a company to partner with, don’t be afraid to ask for examples. Most companies have folders dedicated to examples of their work.
Choosing a content writing agency
It’s now time for the exciting part, which is officially choosing a company to work with and getting started! I covered what to look for in a content development partner. Now, it’s time to set up an initial meeting or otherwise get to know your marketing partner and vice versa.
In my opinion, every quality content production company should research their clients before they start writing a single word for them.
Creating a style guide or instructions for writers
This step is up to you, but some companies have style guides they want any new writer to follow. This guide lets people know how to copy your company’s writing style.
A writer’s guide might include things like:
- What audiences your company targets
- Competitors or other companies to avoid mentioning
- Keywords your company wants to rank for
Trust me, as someone who helps companies as an outsourced content marketing provider – I’m used to seeing a style guide when writing for clients. But it all depends on how much control your company wants over the writing process.
I’d at least make sure you have a list of competing companies for a content marketer to work with. This way, there’s less time and effort wasted on back-and-forth if a writer accidentally mentions a competitor.
With that said, it’s perfectly fine if you don’t have a style guide for writers to follow. Most content creators love having a little creative wiggle room to work with.
Keeping an eye on your results over time
Whether we’re talking about blog writing or social media posts, it’s essential to track how your content performs over time. Not all businesses do this, and they’re typically the ones with content marketing-related problems.
Many social media platforms also have their own in-platform analytical data for users. Checking over this data regularly lets you know if your social media marketing is clicking with an audience.
However, you can’t always expect the outsourced content marketing provider to also be the one that tracks it. Some companies offer this service, some don’t.
You don’t have to spend a fortune (or any money at all) to achieve these goals. You can use free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console for starters.
Choose Content Marketing Life for outsourced content marketing
Many companies don’t have the time or resources to produce content. Content Marketing Life solves your worries, concerns, and deadlines with world-class content. We can create new website content, social media posts, and emails.
Do you already have web pages of content? Great, our Content Clean-Up service ensures your brand’s content is:
- Researched adequately to reflect subject matter expertise
- Optimized through expert-level search engine optimization (SEO) to soar to the top of Google’s rankings
- Fact-checked for complete accuracy
- Structured for easy readability and engagement
To wrap things up, freelance writers and marketing agencies can outsource content to make your life a lot easier. In a short period, these writers can create relevant content when your business needs it. More often than not, outsourcing your content is also less expensive than hiring a team of multiple writers.
Alex Eagleton is a copywriter and digital marketer passionate about helping companies connect with customers. Throughout the past decade, he’s worked with companies including Referral Rock, Connecteam, and Ramsey Solutions. He’s a versatile writer who understands how to align with companies, truly matching their voices and tones.
When he’s not writing, he enjoys spending time with his dogs, reading, and playing guitar.
You can reach him by emailing alex@contentmarketinglife.com.