Should You Outsource Your Content Marketing?

Content marketing is known for its effectiveness and for attracting qualified leads to professional sites. Instead of interrupting consumers with advertising, you get to know them through content tailored to their needs and answering their questions. However, although it is extremely effective, it still requires a lot of time and specific skills. Outsource all or part of your content marketing often emerges as one of the best solutions.

What should be outsourced?

I come across a lot of companies that produce content without actually getting results. The causes of Content Marketing failure can be numerous. Lack of strategy, inconsistent content, lack of SEO knowledge, lack of presence on social networks, lack of lead tracking, etc. Subcontracting already makes it possible to identify the causes of failure, analyze what works and provide precise solutions, without trial and error.

For a business, taking a fresh look at what’s available can help steer the campaign back in the right direction. As a general rule, companies’ internal marketing teams are small and already involved in numerous missions. Supporting content creation internally becomes an additional burden, difficult to manage and the presence of a specialized external partner is essential for success. They will be able to reassure and train your teams and implement an effective content strategy.

Content marketing requires several skills:

• Writing on the web
• Narration
• SEO
• Graphics
• Strategy
• Analyze
• Community management

So the outsourcing part of your content is very different from one company to another. It depends on the strengths already in place, the stage you are in and your goals.

Outsource your content strategy

The true backbone of your content marketing, strategy is the guarantee, not of success, but structured and quantifiable efforts. Without strategy, without objective and without objectives what will you analyze?

If the results are incorrect, we always can improve the strategy and above all analyze what didn’t work. We can do this because we know what goal has been set and what means have been put in place to achieve it.

The content strategy will help answer the main questions:

• What kind of content?
• For whom?
• On which platform(s)?
• What means of sharing?
• What themes?
• What regularity?
• How to gain loyalty?
• Which CTAs to apply?
• …

If you turn to a consultant, he will have the task of collecting all the information provided by the internal brand specialist to build a content marketing and storytelling strategy. Without a working relationship between the external consultant and the brand specialist, producing consistent content will be nearly impossible.

Therefore, it is the brand specialist’s responsibility to communicate with them as much as possible throughout the partnership. It is not possible for the consultant to achieve objectives and produce a valid strategy without knowledge of the brand, current customers and their questions.

Furthermore, in addition to the internal brand specialist, the consultant also deals with sellers and all employees in direct contact with customers. This allows you to get feedback on the most common questions asked by customers and prospects.

Outsource content creation

The consultant you choose does not necessarily have to be a specialist in your sector as you will be the one to guide him through the topics. I support customers in various sectors and this has allowed me to write in very different areas:

• Marketing and Communications;
• Human Resources and Digital Human Resources;
• Cinema and Shows;
• Cultural;
• Health and Sports;
• Associative and Humanitarian;
• Religious,…

Obviously I don’t have in-depth knowledge of each of these areas. It is the close collaboration with each of the organizations I have worked for that has allowed me to produce this diverse content.

Depending on the needs, I had to create white papers, studies or blog articles. Well-produced content, designed to attract readers and address their problems, has great potential to generate leads and sales.

Outsource SEO

If you are able to produce content and implement a coherent strategy, don’t neglect SEO. In fact, even if there are many ways to attract new readers to your site (Adwords advertising, social networks, links, etc.), it is true that the efforts dedicated to SEO pay off in the medium and long term.

Additionally, appearing in the top search results for keywords in your industry lends credibility to your business. The SEO consultant takes your articles, analyzes the structure of your site and the technical aspects surrounding it to provide the best user experience. The analysis of keywords and semantics surrounding your business and products will provide Google with quality content allowing it to position you correctly in the SERPs (search results).

SEO requires rigor and time. Deadlines are due:

• the time needed for the SEO strategy and changes to your site;
• the time limit imposed by Google to visit your site, assign it a trust score and analyze how you maintain your site;
• to your business sector and its competition;
• to the financial efforts you have put into it.

You can’t improvise as an SEO expert, it’s really a profession and the experience of a good consultant will always be useful.

Outsource certain types of content

Some companies manage all the aspects seen above very well and use consultants only for certain types of content. So they outsource certain graphic or video work.

A motion design infographic or video they allow you to quickly understand complex concepts or processes much quicker than a long blog article

Sure, it takes time and a certain number of skills (analysis, synthesis, graphics and videos) but the impact is even greater. The subcontracting of this type of work certainly seems more evident than those mentioned above, but it is good to remember that elements of Content Marketing remain.

Conclusion

So yes, Content Marketing is extremely effectiveespecially if combined with a good dose of Marketing automationbut all this takes time and requires different and varied skills. Outsourcing all or part of your content marketing means ensuring long-term support and, above all, results that meet your expectations.

For several years I have supported various companies in very different sectors. If you are thinking of creating a company blog, if you want to enhance your content, analyze it to understand the difficulties you encounter and for all the cases that I would not have imagined here, contact me. I will be happy to accompany you.