Top 7 Reasons to Outsource Your Content Creation

With 89 percent of B2B marketers using content, it’s no wonder that companies are increasingly moving content creation in-house. It makes sense, as in-house content creation can potentially streamline their overall marketing operations.

But most small-to-medium-sized businesses simply don’t have the resources to hire in-house content staff, instead relying on one or two people to execute every marketing directive – leaving little room for effective content creation. Luckily, though, outsourcing content to an agency can actually end up being much more beneficial than doing it in-house. Here’s why:

#1 – Outsourcing Saves You Time and Money

Arguably, the number one reason why a business outsources any task is to save time and money. Content creation is time-consuming, and it’s taking marketers longer and longer to create valuable blog posts that stand out from the crowd and have a positive impact. An effective blog is now taking over six hours to create in many cases:

A small, overworked marketing team simply cannot create the amount of high-quality blog posts needed to be effective when they have other marketing strategies to execute. And the problem only gets worse when you consider adding content like infographics, video and ebooks into your plans.

Working with a content agency allows your team to dictate exactly what content is needed for your brand while freeing you from the burden of having to create it. A good agency has a team of professional content creators and project managers that will ensure you get exactly what your brand needs to accomplish your goals, all while doing it at a cheaper price than hiring in-house staff.

#2 – Getting Help With Strategy, Promotion, SEO, etc.

Outsourcing content doesn’t have to stop at creation. While there are many freelancers out there who will write content for you, a good agency will be equipped to go several steps further. Need some help with your content strategy? Not sure what the best ways to promote your content would be? Want to make sure your content is optimized for SEO? A good agency can help you plan, execute and monitor the success of all of these tasks and more, including:

• Content design
• Social audience targeting
• Social strategy
• Email strategy and segmentation
• AdWords campaigns

Outsourcing every aspect of your content marketing to a good agency allows your in-house team to get more done without having to hire more marketers, creators and designers in-house.

#3 – Scalability

Content marketing isn’t always constant. Rushing to hire more content creators in the middle of a big campaign only to find yourself needing to make layoffs when things calm down simply isn’t good business. Outsourcing your content creation to an agency allows you to scale your volume up or down as much and as often as you’d like without needing to worry about personnel changes.

#4 – Additional Points of View and Expertise

In-house content teams challenge each other to be creative every day, but eventually you may find that your ideas and approaches have become stagnant – especially if the team is only comprised of one or two people. Outsourcing presents the opportunity for many different people to inject their unique perspectives and expertise into your campaigns. The most effective content is authoritative, and the best content agencies have staff that can produce expert content in many different niches and from many points of view. Outsourced content creators can also give your brand a wider variety of tone and style, allowing you to use more humor or other creative elements to spice up your content.

#5 – Avoid Burnout

In-house marketers and content creators are at a high risk of burnout. Large workloads, missed milestones, creative exhaustion and the constant emergence of new techniques to keep up with can quickly lead to fatigue and cynicism. When outsourcing your content creation, however, you let the content agency handle all those challenges themselves. If you’re not getting the results you want, it’s much easier to switch out content providers than your own employees.

#6 – Quality Standardization

Good agencies keep up with best practices for content and have a team of editors that ensure consistency of quality. They’ll also maintain your standards when it comes to branding, SEO, distribution, readability and other factors. Doing this requires potentially time-consuming quality checks and revisions that your in-house team may not have the resources to consistently perform.

#7 – Additional Content Types

Most marketers these days can write a decent blog post, but what happens when you need to expand your content efforts? SMBs can rarely afford to bring in a staff that can handle any content type that needs to be created. Outsourcing to a professional agency, however, ensures your content strategy can expand to include:

• Case studies
• eBooks
• Audio and podcasts
• Video and webinars
• White papers
• Press releases
• Memes
• Infographics

Stay Focused on Your Goals

Outsourcing your content creation allows you to stay focused on the big picture and avoid getting bogged down in details. While you’ll still be driving the whole process, a good content agency will advise and strategize with you throughout every step, ensuring you get exactly what you need to accomplish your overall marketing goals. Small-to-medium-sized businesses that need to ramp up their content should strongly consider working with an agency rather than immediately pushing for an expansion of their in-house marketing department – even if only to test the waters of marketing expansion before plunging into hiring.