All businesses need a strong online presence to attract customers. After all, the Internet has become one of the most powerful informational and advertising platforms in the world. Whether you work within a large corporation or run a small business, digital marketing and content creation should be at the top of your priority list.
When you outline your overall marketing strategy, ask yourself: Why outsource content creation, or should I handle it internally? To answer this question, first consider the cost of hiring and training new employees versus partnering with a content creation agency. Then, think about the quality of content you’ll receive from an internal team or an outside agency—and how quickly they’ll be able to deliver.
Cost of hiring additional content writers vs. outsourcing content creation
Content writing is a talent that not everyone possesses. And talent costs money. So it’s important to set aside a portion of your marketing budget for content creation. Fortunately, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to hire an internal team to handle your content—you can outsource it to a content marketing agency!
Before you determine whether to outsource content creation or handle it internally, it’s important to understand the factors that will affect your costs. Then, you can finalize your budget and make the final decision of hiring content writers versus outsourcing content creation.
What factors can affect the cost of outsourcing content creation?
There are several factors that affect the cost of outsourcing content creation. Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your content marketing strategy that can help you determine an appropriate budget:
- What types of content do you need? This might include web content for new landing pages, blog writing, or social media posts.
- How much content do you need? In other words, do you have existing content that you can build off of? Are you completely revamping your website? Or are you starting from scratch?
- How much content will you need moving forward? You want to scale content marketing so you can consistently create high quality content for your audience. In your particular case, does that mean your content creator will provide new blog and social media content on a continuing schedule?
Additionally, the platforms that you use could affect the cost. For example, some website programs are easier to use than others. If your website is built on a user-friendly interface that your content creator or marketing team can easily add to, you’ll save time and money instead of having them struggle through a difficult platform.
What is the typical difference between the costs of outsourcing content creation and hiring additional content creators?
Some large businesses have the budget to hire full-time employees like a content marketing manager and several content creators. This can be a good way to ensure that your content marketing strategy keeps a consistent and uniform voice. However, not all businesses have the overhead to accommodate so many additional full-time salaries and benefits. In those cases, outsourcing content marketing is a fantastic option.
Outsourcing your content to a professional marketing agency has some huge advantages. First, you only pay for the content that you need instead of having to cover all of an employee’s expenses. Second, you can hire specialists to create the unique content you need. A blog writing expert or a social media master can really hone in on your target audience and produce high quality content to boost your lead generation and sales.
Most content creation companies will charge either per project or per hour. So when you outline your content marketing strategy, determine which will work best for your business. If you have a large project, it might be best to request a flat rate. And if you have a few smaller web content jobs, an hourly fee might suit you better.
What should you consider when determining the costs of outsourcing content creation?
Determining the costs of outsourcing content creation is one of the biggest marketing challenges that every company faces. You have to consider the current state of your social media and website to get an idea of how much help you need. Then you have to look ahead to forecast how much work you’ll need over the next months and years.
Budget, of course, is another large factor to consider. When you set aside marketing dollars for outsourcing content creation, remember that it’s an investment. Quality content should increase your inbound marketing and overall sales. Just figure out your target return on investment (ROI) and track this metric throughout each content marketing campaign.
Flexibility of internal vs. outsourced content creators
You know that you need a constant stream of quality content to gain and keep a competitive edge. What you might not be aware of is that your content marketing strategy needs to be flexible. In fact, flexibility is key to effective content creation.
Why is flexibility important for content creation?
Digital marketing is constantly changing and evolving. Global events, new technology, and social trends can change your target audience’s preferences. In order to attract their business, you need to be able to pivot. If your content marketing strategy isn’t flexible, you could lose your competitive advantage to other businesses who are able to quickly adapt.
Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that your content creators always have to come up with brand new ideas. Repurposing content will always be a great digital marketing method. It just means that your content development team needs to keep a close eye on new trends and be prepared to be flexible. In fact, flexibility should be a core competency for your entire marketing team.
What are the most important features of flexible content creation?
Flexible content creation features both determination and creativity. Your marketing team needs to proactively seek out trends that affect your return on investment. This requires a “nose to the grindstone” work ethic since you never really know when your content marketing strategy will have to adjust.
Additionally, your team will have to innovate new ways to appeal to your target audience. When new communication methods or social media platforms pop up, your content marketing manager and their staff will need to adapt evergreen content and create new content to accommodate the new marketing methods.
How should you compare the flexibility of outsourced vs. internal content creation?
Employing a full content creation team might sound like the safe bet. After all, you’ll have employees that can both keep up with current trends and create high quality content, right?
Well, maybe not. One of the many benefits of outsourcing content creation is that the research is already done for you. Professional content companies constantly monitor technology advancements and social trends. They know the best way to reach your target audience. In other words, outsourcing creative content often allows for more flexibility.
Quality of outsourced content vs. internally created content
Should you partner with a content marketing agency or create your content internally? This is a huge decision that can directly affect your bottom line. The first step in making this decision is knowing what to look for in high quality content so you can identify great content when you see it.
What should you look for in high quality content?
High quality content is more than just grammatically correct writing that’s enjoyable to read. It has to efficiently and effectively communicate your message to your target audience. Here are a few elements of high quality content to look out for:
- It achieves your marketing goals. In other words, you’re happy with your ROI!
- It increases your search engine optimization (SEO). You get more traffic to your website, and therefore more leads and sales.
- Your social media engagement increases. High quality social media posts lead people to react to your content and hopefully visit your website.
Anyone can write an average blog or Facebook post. But when that content increases your lead generation and revenue, you know it’s high quality.
What are the most efficient ways of creating high quality content?
Great content needs to attract and engage your target audience. However, your content marketing team doesn’t need to constantly reinvent the wheel. The most effective content marketing is efficient!
One of the most efficient ways to create high quality content is to design a template. Design an outline for your web content, social media campaigns, and any other digital marketing efforts like videos or webinars. Each time you produce new content, drop it into your template. And voila! You can efficiently create excellent content on a consistent schedule.
Another way to increase your content creation efficiency is to identify a handful of sources that you can link to. In many industries, customers want to read metrics and data. So find the thought leaders that relate to your industry. It’ll save you time on research for each piece of content!
What should you consider when comparing the quality of outsourced and internally created content?
Chances are, you’ll get high quality content whether you have an internal team or if you partner with a content marketing agency. However, an agency might have a team dedicated to researching data to include in your content. In addition, they might have a team of graphic designers or video engineers.
In other words, when you outsource content marketing to a professional agency, you’ll get more than well written blogs and social media posts. You’ll get high quality content in a wide variety of media.
Speed of outsourcing content creation vs. creating content internally
Sure, quality content is flexible and efficient. However, your content production speed is also a factor in determining whether you should outsource your content or create it internally.
Speed is crucial to successful content marketing. You can’t just publish a few blogs or boost an occasional social media post. You need a consistent stream of content on a variety of platforms. When you partner with the right content marketing agency, they’ll be able to deliver excellent content at astounding speed.
What are the advantages of outsourcing content creation in terms of speed?
Content marketing agencies are able to give your digital marketing strategy the time and resources it needs to be successful. They’re staffed with specialists across the digital marketing field, so you’ll benefit from their expertise without having to train new employees or cope with a learning curve.
Why is outsourced content often faster than internally created content?
When you outsource your content creation, you’ll get a dedicated team of experts ready to handle your account. You won’t have to wait for an employee’s workload to accommodate the next project—your agency can dive into your content right away.
Because agencies are fully staffed, they can simultaneously work on projects like blog writing, new landing pages, and social media campaigns. Conversely, if your internal team handles your content, they might only be able to work on one aspect of your strategy at a time.
In other words, outsourcing content creation is often just faster than creating content internally.
Why is speed important in content creation?
Customers research and purchase goods and services online. Companies with the strongest online presence often win consumers’ business. And a large part of creating and maintaining a strong online presence is high quality content delivered frequently. In some industries, this means daily!
Posting on social media several times a week and posting new blogs at least once a month requires a lot of high quality content delivered quickly. So speed up your process by partnering with a great content marketing agency!
Become Elite in your field by outsourcing content creation
Your business needs scalable and high quality content delivered quickly. And Elite Editing can help every step of the way, from helping you design a content marketing strategy all the way through creating each piece of content.
Visit our website to learn how we can take your content to the next level.
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