Creating a content marketing strategy can be hard and overwhelming. Outsource content marketing to help you manage it effectively.

Crafting amazing content is not enough. There are many more steps in this process, beginning with editing and SEO optimization and finishing with posting, promoting and repurposing your articles.

According to HubSpot research, 78% of companies have 1 to 3 content marketing specialists on the team. Despite this capable team, it’s still very difficult to create an effective content marketing program. In fact, every second a B2B company decides to outsource content marketing.

Why? Managing content requires a lot more than creating and publishing it.

What does managing content involve?

Imagine your content marketing is a cake, and the marketer is the baker. Asking the baker to grind flour will be a waste of time and resources. Considering that customers usually need that cake to attract their audience within a very short time, you risk having a nice pile of flour at the time the party starts.

The team will need to manage the whole content lifecycle:

• Strategy: In this stage, you create a roadmap for your content. Define the main topic clusters, pillar pages and particular topics you will cover.
• Planning: Here, you create an editorial calendar, define the publication dates, people responsible for producing the content and the deadlines.
• Production and design: This is the stage where you actively create your content.
• Publication and distribution: In this stage, you tackle publication, promotion and distribution.
• Analysis and maintenance: This is one of the underestimated stages. Many marketers just define whether the content is performing well without taking any further actions. We recommend promoting and reusing the content your audience has the most interest in and improving content that’s not popular.

You can get much higher results from your content if you not only publish it on different platforms but also reuse it to create new types of content from your best-performing articles in the maintenance stage. If you outsource content marketing, your partner can help you achieve this.

What formats should you focus on creating?

Every topic you add to your content plan can become:

• A blog article.
• Social media post.
• Email campaign.
• Infographic.
• Podcast.
• Event.
• Video.

You might think that putting the same information in different formats and on different platforms would annoy your audience, but don’t forget that customers usually have their favorite channels. They may read emails but ignore videos or follow you on LinkedIn but avoid Twitter.

It’s almost impossible to put the attention, time and effort required in every stage if the same in-house employees are managing everything. That’s where you can start thinking about whether outsourcing content marketing services is a good idea. The answer is yes, but if you want to manage your content more efficiently, it’s better to delegate only separate stages to your partner.

At what stage should you outsource content marketing to gain more control over its performance?

The purpose of a content marketing partner is to help you streamline and manage YOUR program, and there are certain stages that are best left in house to ensure your program stays in your control:

• Strategy stage: This step is very important and defines your long-term plan for content creation. It requires deep expertise and insights. You should definitely use consultancy from outside the company to create a strong strategy, but it’s better to keep the core of it in house.
• Planning: If you are in charge of the whole content marketing program, you know your resources best. Keep in mind that it’s not only the budget but also the people who can share their expertise and experience in your core topics.
• Production: If you want to be in control of your content, this is the stage where outsourcing makes the most sense. Many marketers make a mistake trying to produce the content themselves or delegating it to their colleagues from other departments who have the expertise in the industry but don’t know much about marketing or content creation. As a result, you spend your time creating content instead of making it bring value to your company’s goals. Your partner can take care of production so you can focus on your core competencies.
• Distribution: Here, you will need to publish and promote your content. If you have your channels set, you can easily delegate it or automate it to a content management system.
• Maintenance: At this stage, you will need to analyze the performance of your content and decide whether you want to use or update it further, so it’s better to perform this stage yourself.

Conclusion

We recommend that you outsource content marketing production itself and keep managing your content in the other stages to control the performance and adjust your strategy accordingly. At Tempesta Media, we can handle your content production.

With our vetted writers, who are experts in your industry, we can craft quality content at scale, allowing you to streamline and grow your program without sacrificing your valuable time and effort. To learn more about how we can help, contact us today.