Essential Content Outsourcing Tips to Help you Scale up Branded Content

Intro

“Content isn’t king, it’s the kingdom.” - Lee Odden.

Slaying the challenges in creating quality content at scale can be daunting. Though outsourcing is a cost-effective option, you want to ensure that content marketing outcomes align with planned business objectives.

37% of small organizations, 54% of medium-sized organizations, and 75% of large organizations report outsourcing part of their content marketing efforts.

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Eighty-four percent of B2B marketers say they outsource content marketing.

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There're numerous hurdles on the road to integrating an outsourced content team with your brand. Finding a content equilibrium that fetches long-term and consistent audience growth and loyalty is no piece of cake. But not impossible to achieve either.

In this article, let's learn how to set yourself up for sure-shot content outsourcing success.

Ready? Let’s go.

What is Content Outsourcing?

Most businesses today are producing content. But not all of them have the resources to hire a specialist team to create such content. In such a scenario, they hire a freelancer or an external content agency to produce and publish branded content. This process is known as content outsourcing.

I know what you’re thinking…

Why Should I Outsource Content Marketing?

Let’s face it: content marketing isn’t your core expertise. But it’s the best way to turn your business into a reputed brand.

“To succeed with content marketing, you need a professional or a team of experts to do it for you,” said Leo Ye, Co-founder, and CEO of Cubo Virtual Office.

Here are some of the advantages of outsourcing content to a third party:

1. The truth is that content marketing is a marathon. To be successful, you need to publish lots of content regularly. And you need to ensure top-notch quality as well. A specialist content writer or a team can devote ample time to research and produce great content for your business.

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2. Outsourcing content marketing helps save time and gives you the bandwidth to think through your content marketing strategy. By reviewing periodic content performance reports, you can focus on being the captain of your ship.

3. Content outsourcing is a cost-effective option when you compare it with in-house content marketing resources. When you outsource content marketing to an external team, you don’t have to worry about employee benefits, paid leaves, equipment, training, etc. Since you pay for the required services only, you save significant money.

4. Getting expert content marketing help brings new ideas to the table. With a team of experienced writers, it’s easy for you to publish content that’s distinctive and impactful.

5. With content outsourcing, you have the opportunity to try out different content types. Outsourcing allows you to choose a freelancer or an agency that specializes in one content format like blogging or videos or infographics, etc.

6. You must remember that the content marketing landscape is very competitive. Going fast can help you get rich dividends. The good news is that content outsourcing helps you pace up your content publishing and distribution efforts. Delegating content to an external team helps you make your marketing agile and result-driven.

Now that you have a good idea of the benefits of outsourcing content marketing, let’s take a look at some of the options you have.

Agency Vs. Freelancers

Matter of fact…

Hiring an agency, a single freelancer, or a group of freelancers depends on individual business needs and goals. It also depends on other factors like your budget and the scope of services you need.

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1. Budget

Most small businesses have a lesser budget for promoting their business. They should work with a few experienced freelancers.

Freelancers are usually less expensive than an agency. They offer decent expertise at half the monthly cost of a content marketing agency.

Bigger, more established businesses are better off working with full-fledged content agencies. The upside of hiring an agency is that you can hold them responsible for the content quality and the business outcomes.

2. Flexibility

One of the advantages of hiring freelancers for content marketing is their flexibility.

“Depending on your content creation needs, you can hire a full-time freelancer or a part-time one,” said Antoine Boquen, CEO and Co-Founder of HR management software, Horizons.

Plus, you can fully control the work a freelancer produces.

Working with agencies is process-driven and slightly less flexible. Also, most agencies work with multiple clients at once, making it harder for them to send you prompt replies to queries.

3. Hiring Time

If you’re hiring a freelancer, it’s as quick as a few DMs on LinkedIn and a couple of video calls. For a small business owner, hiring a freelancer is the simplest way to start content outsourcing.

Getting an agency to come on board and start working for you is much more complex. First and foremost, it will take considerable time for you to choose the best-fit content marketing agency.

4. Scope of Services

Before outsourcing, you must list the services you need for your business. Let’s take a look at some examples:

1. Blog writing services
2. Long form content such as ebooks and white papers
3. Search engine optimization
4. Content strategy
5. Content distribution and promotion
6. Graphic design
7. Digital PR and outreach
8. Social media content creation

If you’re looking for all such services, then an agency is probably the best option for your business. But if you’re looking to focus on two-three such services, then the ideal way is to find a couple of experienced freelancers. Freelancers can offer you personalized and collaborative content marketing services.

Aim at Hiring Quality Resources

Think cheap, and you’ll end up messing it up. Yes, that’s right. Low-priced freelance content marketers and agencies are a dime a dozen. Make sure you stay away from such content partners.

Here’s my point.

• Whether you decide to hire a freelancer or an agency, it’s better to choose content marketing resources who have niche experience and expertise. Plus, they should be able to produce great content at scale, and not paraphrahsed, semi-plagiarized material Google can see through in a second.
• Visit their respective websites to learn more about them, their portfolio, and their client list.

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Hiring an agency may take some more effort.

• You need to review the metrics they promise. Also, learn about the process they follow and if it will fit your business needs.
• Ask them for case studies to see how well they faired with previous clients.
• A simple way is to look for befitting content marketing resources on a platform like LinkedIn.

Get them Onboard

When you hire an agency or a content freelancer, you need to align them with your content marketing goals.

Let me elaborate…

1. Work on Developing Your Key Audience Personas

Ensure you work with your content marketing partner to develop well-defined audience personas. Personas are the life and soul of branded content marketing.

Audience personas help content creators to know who they’re communicating with. Hence, they’re able to build deeper connections with them.

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“Personas help content creators to know the likes, dislikes, and preferences of your ideal customers,” said Adam Fard, Founder & Head of Design at Adam Fard UX Agency.

2. Align Your Brand Voice

You must remember that successful content marketing is about aligning it with a unique brand voice.

• Have brainstorming sessions with your agency or the freelancer to create a documented brand voice strategy.
• Your content team should have a succinct idea of using branded content assets across content marketing collateral.
• Circulate your brand guidelines with your content creators to ensure voice consistency across branded content.

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A distinct content voice representing your brand values adds personality to branded content and builds a loyal content audience.

3. Document the Deliverables

Look for content types and topics that will work best for your business.

• Do you wish to focus on blog posts or videos? Do you see yourself publishing more news-type content or how-to articles?
• The right way is to focus on a few platforms where your target audience is most active. Discover and define your most important content marketing channels.

Based on the content types and publishing frequencies, you can draw up a simple deliverables document.

4. Enlist the Key Metrics to Track

Deciding what you’re tracking is a vital part of any content outsourcing partnership.

“The idea of outsourcing content is to achieve business outcomes,” said Gerrid Smith, Director of E-commerce at Joy Organics.

Depending on your platform focus and content marketing objectives, you can define the metrics that matter most to your business.

• Set goals for performance indicators such as views, engagement, leads, and sales.
• Give your content partner ample time to immerse themselves in your brand voice.
• Pre-define content quality benchmarks and create a rating system, so your team has a fair idea of how to fulfill your expectations.

Final Thoughts

Content outsourcing is a terrific way to put your business growth in auto-pilot mode. It’s a proven strategy to promote your business without breaking the bank.

It doesn’t matter if you hire freelancers or an agency to create marketing content for your business. What matters most is that you hire resources that help you achieve your business goals by publishing path-breaking content. So make sure you hire experienced content marketers who focus on producing quality content aligned with your brand guidelines.