With the ever-growingarray of online outlets that require your brand to create platform-specific content, your in-house team may find it challenging to keep up with the relentless demand. The time and effort that go into creating an effective contentmarketing program can leave you throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what—if anything—sticks, or worse, ignoring channels that are vital to your audience.

This competitive environment has prompted many brands to rethink their approach to content marketing. Is it time to outsource content creation?

What’s Wrong With In-House Content?

Producing content in-house gives you greater control and can infuse your online presence with authenticity. However, staffing limitations and quality issues often emerge.

Staffing and Time Limitations

A marketing team’s responsibilities are nearly endless, and content creation may detract from other important tasks. Shrinking team sizes is another challenge, with 28.7% of marketing professionals saying they outsource some tasks because their teams are too small.

It’s wise to be strategic about what your marketing team focuses on. For instance, team members could spend more time planning in-person events, an initiative that produced the best marketing results for 48% of organizations in 2023.

Content Performance

With an average ROI of 277%, your content marketing strategy can consistently drive business growth. However, many in-house teams fall short of this performance threshold. In fact, more than half of enterprise marketers describe their efforts as moderately successful.

Internal teams can fail to meet expectations for many reasons:

• Lack of planning and oversight is common. Only 37% of B2B marketing teams have a documented content development plan, and a worrying 61% of teams don’t have generative AI guidelines.
• Without proper writing, editing, and content development expertise, content marketing can disappoint.
• Generating new ideas can be challenging, resulting in campaigns that don’t stand out.
• Busy teams often struggle with deadlines. Publishing fresh content is often crucial for online visibility, and a lack of consistency can hurt your marketing efforts.
• Crafting content that drives engagement requires skill. Internal teams can fail to connect with your audience due to inadequate content distribution or generic writing.

Digital content creation is becoming increasingly challenging, with new formats and channels emerging and users having higher expectations. Skills, expertise, and strategic intent are more important than ever as the world of digital marketing continues to evolve.

On top of all this, Google’s frequent algorithm updates mean your team must keep up with the latest SEO best practices. The rise of advanced analytics introduces a new layer of complexity that internal teams can fail to leverage if they don’t have the right skills.

Generative AI is also transforming content marketing. Experts are reporting a shift toward a more increasingly challenging in content creation, and teams with the right mix of expertise and strategy are seeing the best results.

Is It Time to Outsource Content Creation?

For the 46% of organizations that outsourced some marketing tasks in 2023, this decision saved time and improved marketing ROI.

Save Time by Outsourcing Marketing

Outsourcing content marketing allows a third party to assume some or all of your content creation responsibilities. This can eliminate a demanding and time-consuming task from your already-full plate of responsibilities. Furthermore, if you choose a content creator with an integrated content marketing platform, the remaining steps in your content development process are dramatically simplified.

Better Marketing ROI

For organizations that outsource content creation, marketing costs are typically lower and content ROI higher:

• The average cost of an employee is more than $43 an hour, with salary representing around 70%. Outsourcing is usually more affordable than maintaining a full-time team with wages, benefits, and resources.
• Outsourcing content creation means better content quality. High-value content will do a better job of engaging your audience and driving conversions.
• An outsourced marketing service can use its expertise to identify the best channels to reach your audience, which leads to faster results and a more strategic investment of your marketing dollars.
• You’ll also have access to a multidisciplinary team of experts who can address several aspects of your content marketing strategy, help you experiment with new initiatives, and take your content efforts in new directions.
• Flexibility is another benefit of outsourcing. Most outsourcing partners offer customized plans that give you control over marketing costs as you pick and choose which services you need and upgrade your plan as required for scalability.
• Outsourced marketing services excel at crafting high-quality content that aligns with your customer’s buying journey. Their expertise will give you a competitive edge, leading to lower marketing costs as your market shares increase.
• Measuring content performance is a trait 78% of the most successful organizations share. Implementing analytics solutions with a small team can be challenging, but the right outsourcing partner can help you leverage new technologies. 

Content Marketing Outsourcing Done Right

Did you know that content marketing ranks as the top method for generating demand? To get the full effects of content marketing, it’s important to outsource to the right partner.

Outsource Content Creation to the Right Partner

Since outsourcing is time-intensive in the set-up phase, it’s important to take the time to research all your options.

Look for a professional company that offers writers with industry expertise that will build a solid, consistent team of writers to create your content. Even if your company’s subject is very niche, an experienced partner will find a writer who can undertake the research needed to create expert content.

Editing is an essential part of the writing process. The right outsourcing partner should have a robust editing team to fact-check and enhance your content.

Don’t overlook accountability. Your outsourcing partner should report to you regularly with measurable results.

Should You Outsource Everything?

Outsourcing content creation is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Companies can and should pick and choose which aspects of content marketing will remain in-house and which can benefit from a fresh pair of eyes.

For example, the more complex the content asset is, the more likely it is to be better served by keeping it in-house. Long-form blog posts with images, videos, and quotes may be better served by an internal marketing team. If the content is highly specialized and requires in-depth industry knowledge, it might be best to let your in-house team develop it.

Not all long-form content needs to be kept in-house. White papers and thought leadership pieces are good candidates for outsourcing since these formats lend themselves to creativity. As long as your content marketing partner understands the goals and message, an outside resource can craft a compelling and memorable piece that reflects well on your brand.

Here are some aspects of the content creation process that you can outsource:

• Ideation, which can be done in coordination with an in-house team that is familiar with customer questions and pain points.
• Research, a time-consuming process.
• Deciding on content format, including identifying the most effective content types based on audience research.
• Structuring content, including outlining pieces.
• Content creation, or the process of writing content with marketing strategies in mind.
• Revisions, which can be minimized by creating branding documents with the outsourcing partner to reduce back-and-forth emails.
• Refinement of the content creation process, such as utilizing an outsourcing partner’s technological tools to streamline your content creation process

Setting Clear Goals with Your Content Outsourcing Partner

Establishing clear expectations from the start will create a foundation for a successful relationship where your marketing partner delivers results that help you grow.

What Are the Goals of Your Content Marketing Strategy?

The content marketing industry is experiencing a shift. More organizations are emphasizing ROI and being more intentional with their spending, with budget cuts in areas that fail to deliver in terms of ROI.

Rather than eliminating the initiatives that fail to perform well, letting a third-party partner take over can yield the results you were hoping to achieve in the first place.

The right outsourcing partner can help you achieve multiple goals. For 81% of B2C marketers, content is about creating awareness, while 77% publish content to build credibility and trust, and 71% of organizations leverage content to educate their audience.

If you’re unsure of your content’s primary objectives, your third-party vendor can help you create a new content development plan and work with you to identify or update your goals.

Which Content Formats Do You Need?

Content format is just as important as messaging. Ideally, it should align with your audience’s preferences and reflect the content types and channels with the best ROI.

For 61% of organizations, a lack of resources hinders content creation. Outsourcing solves this problem and allows you to explore new types of content.

Short articles, case studies, and long-form content rank among the top-performing formats. Differentiate your brand by exploring other content types, such as infographics, white papers, e-books, and research reports. Your new content partner can help you select the right formats.

Branding and Voice Considerations

Case studies perform well in the B2B space, with 62% of buyers citing a need for reliable information as being central to their journey.

This need for reliable content also exists in B2C markets, with 71% of consumers preferring self-directed research. This trend gives brands with a reputation for trust and expertise an advantage. Besides standing out from the competition, establishing credibility early in the content discovery journey makes users more likely to pick your brand when it’s time to make a purchase.

Conveying trustworthiness and authority – or any other differentiator – requires the right voice.

An effective outsourcing partner should have strategies in place to understand your needs and expectations regarding voice and tone and a team that consistently implements your preferred tone when developing content.

Loss of authenticity is a possible risk linked to content outsourcing with a voice that isn’t your own. You can eliminate this risk by choosing the right partner and working closely with them to establish clear brand voice guidelines.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

Effective content speaks to your target audience directly. A piece of content can’t become a successful touch point unless it addresses pain points and provides value to your readers.

Gaining insights into your target audience allows you to align your content creation efforts with their needs and expectations. When outsourcing content, you should pick a partner who can develop content for the audience you have identified and, ideally, has a proven track record of helping organizations succeed in similar niches.

If you don’t possess advanced knowledge of your audience, look for a vendor that can perform market research on your behalf and create an updated content development plan that targets your audience with more precision.

Outsource Content Creation to Tempesta Media

High-quality content is more important than ever for visibility and competitiveness. In fact, content marketing has a conversion rate that is six times higher compared to other forms of advertising—when it’s done right.

However, for many organizations, staffing limitations and content performance issues can prevent them from leveraging the full potential of content marketing.

Outsourcing content creation is an effective solution. With the help of the right partner, your content can consistently engage and convert, resulting in better marketing ROI and creating a path to becoming a recognized thought leader in your field.

As a full-service, cost-effective solution, Tempesta Media delivers measurable results in content writing, distribution, and engagement. Our results-driven process has unlocked a 372% increase in total leads in under 18 months for one of our customers, while another saw a 514% increase in website users.

Contact us today to find out how we can maximize your time and content marketing efforts, or take our free marketing assessment to get started.