By now, it’s well known that content marketing has exploded across the Web as 93 percent of companies are using articles, videos, podcasts and social media to increase brand awareness and rise to the top of Google’s search engine rankings.
But how many of these companies are actually producing their own creative content? According to CMI, an overwhelming 72 percent of large B2B companies rely on a mix of outsourced and in-house content to address branding needs, along with 61 percent of B2C companies. In both reports, 70 percent of companies cite a lack of time as their top challenge.
Here are some of the most important reasons why you should outsource your content to a team of trained professionals:
Build a solid content foundation: Approach your content strategy as you would when building a house. Unless you are a trained contractor, you probably wouldn’t know the first place to start when building a home for your family. Strong content creation involves a lot of planning and requires a successful launch in order to get your project off the ground. Then, your content needs to be honed in the right direction in order to remain successful.
Help your SEO- don’t hurt it: Google is more strict than ever when it comes to its SEO policies, and making a mistake can get you blacklisted from the search results entirely—even if the mistake is unintentional. For instance, you might think it’s a great idea to buy links from an SEO firm, or join a link directory. Or you might try and stuff your article with keywords. Build your site’s blog or website content the safe and natural way, by trusting a staff of writers who know the ins and outs of the SEO game and will boost the number of visitors without causing any problems.
You have the experts—but can they write? Put it this way: have you ever seen Derek Jeter write press releases for the New York Yankees? Your CEO might be the best in his or her industry, and your company brass might be second-to-none. So the best way to utilize the voice of your executive is to have a ghostwriter extract ideas via interviews and craft cleverly written articles that can effectively convey his or her most important ideas.
You lack the resources of a major enterprise: If you are a small business, your staff might not have the resources and industry expertise needed to establish itself as a thought leader. But you definitely have enough ideas to feed to a creative team who can then flesh your ideas out with industry news, white papers, case studies and videos. Outsourcing your content can extend the reach of your voice by providing you with more resources at a fraction of the price it would cost to hire in-house experts full time.
You are on a budget: Everyone wants an in-staff news room. But the reality is that most businesses will go through peaks and valleys in terms of productivity. Outsourcing your creative content will let you scale as needed so that when you need more content, it will be available—and when you don’t you will not waste any resources.
Ultimately, your words will act as a direct extension of your brand name. Take the time to focus on your content, and it will pay dividends as your blog or website will act as a virtual library for cutting-edge industry information. But make a mistake, and it can ruin your reputation. When you outsource you do not have to worry about the burden of creating content—you just need to tell your writers exactly what you want.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
