Most content marketers and publishers eventually realize they need more content than they can create. In order to market and make money online, you have to build this set of content channels. However, you don’t have enough content to pump through it. Maybe it is cost—you can’t afford to hire people to do what you need. Maybe it is finding the right people. Either way, you look at ways to outsource content creation.
Steps to Outsourcing Content Creation
Content creation is an essential aspect of any successful marketing strategy. But it can also take a lot of time and resources, which can be a problem for small businesses or those that don’t have content teams. This is where outsourcing content creation can be a valuable solution.
By partnering with a professional content creation service or freelancer, businesses can benefit from high-quality content without sacrificing their time and energy. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of outsourcing content creation and provide a step-by-step guide on how to effectively outsource this critical aspect of your marketing strategy. Whether you’re new to outsourcing or an experienced marketer, you’ll find valuable insights and actionable tips to help you achieve your content marketing goals.
Bloggers
Generally, bloggers have two primary goals: bulk content and specific content. Regardless of your content marketing goal, they tend to fall into one of these two categories.
Bulk Content is where you don’t care as much about what it says as you do about having decent new posts produced regularly. They can be topic specific; however, if you are more interested in volume – you have a voracious blog to feed.
Specific Content is where you need content produced to meet specific goals in quality, subject matter, style, design, etc. Volume is important, however, more important is the specifics of what you need. Specific content usually requires a solution that finds knowledgeable partners to produce that content or a partner willing to train their staff to produce it.
News & Reviews
News and/or review websites also fall into general and specific categories, and the same basic rules apply. General is “don’t care” content; it just needs to fill space and be adequately written. Specific needs to be focused on the subject or product, well written, and real.
E-commerce Content
When looking for someone to create e-commerce content, there are several important criteria to consider. Here are three key factors to look for:
Relevant experience: Make sure the content creator has experience writing specifically for e-commerce websites and understands the unique challenges and considerations involved in writing product descriptions, category pages, and other e-commerce content. You’ll want to look for someone who has a strong understanding of the customer journey, product placement, and online buying behavior.
Strong writing skills: Of course, you’ll want someone who has strong writing skills, but it’s also important to look for someone who can write in a style that is consistent with your brand and appeals to your target audience. You may want to ask for writing samples or request a brief test piece to see how they handle writing for your specific niche.
Availability and reliability: E-commerce content creation can require a fast turnaround time, so you’ll want to find someone who is reliable and can meet your deadlines. Make sure to discuss your timeline and workload upfront so you can ensure that the content creator has the time and capacity to meet your needs. Additionally, you may want to look for someone who is responsive to your feedback and open to making revisions to ensure the content is exactly what you’re looking for.
Think of Niche Blogs For Outsourcing Content Creation
You either need bulk, or you need focus and quality. Try using small blogs and content as well. Using small niche blogs for content marketing has several benefits, including:
Targeted audience: Small niche blogs often have a specific focus and a dedicated following of readers who are interested in that particular subject. By writing content for these blogs, you can reach a highly targeted audience who is already interested in the topics you cover, making it easier to engage and convert them into customers.
Established authority: Small niche blogs often have a reputation as go-to sources of information in their respective fields. By publishing content on these blogs, you can associate your brand with the blog’s established authority, which can help build your credibility and reputation.
Improved search engine rankings: By publishing high-quality, relevant content on a small niche blog, you can improve your search engine rankings for keywords related to your industry. This can help drive organic traffic to your website, which can result in increased exposure and leads.
Cost-effective: Working with small niche blogs can be more cost-effective compared to other forms of advertising, such as paid search or social media advertising. By leveraging the established audience and authority of the blog, you can reach your target audience at a lower cost than other forms of advertising.
Increased brand exposure: By appearing on multiple blogs, you can increase your brand’s exposure and reach a wider audience. This can help you build a stronger brand presence and drive traffic to your website, which can result in increased sales and conversions.
Overall, using small niche blogs for content marketing can be a valuable strategy for reaching a targeted audience, building credibility and authority, and improving your search engine rankings, all while being cost-effective.
The Cost Factor
The cost of your outside-supported content production will be a great challenge unless you have a realistic idea of what it will cost you. There are no shortcuts in this, and you are going to pay for the performance you ask for.
Sources For Content
Here are your choices and an approximation of what you can expect in a very general sense. The specifics will depend on what you want to be created.
Local Temp Labor entails hiring locally for either a basic, part-time, or full-time content marketing project. Expect to pay between $13 and $50 an hour depending upon the talent you can find. This gives you the advantage of managing them directly, assuming you have space and the time-bandwidth to do it. You have to provide everything here: space, computers, desks, chairs, everything.
Crowd Sourcing – this involves posting tasks on a crowd-sourcing website and the price you are willing to pay. It sounds like a great idea, except it isn’t. You never get consistent quality or content. You never know if each piece will be done or not. So you will get some cheap content, and maybe that is ok, but not if you run a real business. For any real business,, crowdsourcing is a waste of time.
General Outsourcing:Partner With Staff By The Hour – this may look cost-effective, and many times it is, however, the downside is controlling productivity. If you leave them waiting on you, you are still paying for hours. If you give them confusing directions, your productivity, and that means your cost per piece, will suffer. In short, paying by the hour means you need a partner that already does exactly what you want, and knows how to manage it for you; otherwise you are wasting your money.
General Outsourcing Partner With Staff By The Month – this is useful in specific circumstances. You can acquire remote staff and pay a fixed budgetary amount per month. You don’t have to manage them, because they will be there when you need them. This sometimes works very effectively, except if your business needs productivity, you have all the problems of hourly staff.
Specialist Content Marketing Outsourcing Partner With Fixed Cost Per Piece This is generally the best model, and one that allows you tight financial controls, because when you send them work, they will come back at a fixed price.
A Syndicated Content Supplier: There are syndicated content suppliers out there in the marketplace, and some of them, such as news content, are even free. An RSS feed is the simplest form of syndicated content. The problem is that all syndicated content is going to multiple websites, meaning it is all duplicate content. Search engines penalize websites that publish duplicate content. So the basic law of SEO is no duplication of content.
A Stock Image Supplier – a stock image supplier like Corbis is, in fact, a content supplier. With them, you are outsourcing your photography to them. Stock images are a great way to add content for a fixed cost. However, always read the fine print to see if their permitted uses include your use.
Affiliate Content Source – many e-commerce publishers offer affiliate content through sites like LinkShare. Affiliate content supports those e-commerce companies’ content marketing strategies to build traffic and increase sales. However, once again, ALL affiliate content is duplicate content by its very nature.
Link Exchange Source – these are a bag full of crazy. There are many link exchange networks out there, most of which are trojan horses in disguise. They may very well work for you, and help you build traffic and be able to afford better content, however you really don’t know where those links will be going over time – what they were when you inserted them can be totally different months or years later. Use with extreme caution.
Other: well, you can always just steal content, which many people do with content marketing. Remember what I said about duplicate content? Plus, you risk having your website delisted by search engines and facing copyright lawsuits. It’s not a wise approach.
Final Thoughts On Outsourcing Content Creation
Outsourcing content creation can be a game-changer for your marketing program. By partnering with experienced content creators, you can focus on other critical aspects of your business while still getting the high-quality content you need to drive results. Whether you work with a content creation agency, hire a freelancer, or utilize a combination of both, the key is finding the best approach for your business.
Remember, outsourcing content creation is an investment, so take the time to research and select the right partner to ensure that you get the best return on your investment. We hope this post has provided you with valuable insights and actionable tips on how to jumpstart your marketing program through outsourcing content creation. Happy outsourcing!
