6 Tips to Outsource Content Marketing Effortlessly

Author: Avdhoot Vadghule

Published On: 03-05-22

Last Updated on: 05-12-23

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

If you wonder why content marketing should be one of your main focuses, consider the prime example of Dominos. This renowned pizza company generates more than half of its sales through digital promotions. 

With a staggering 91% of businesses using content marketing, it’s the best opportunity for entrepreneurs to leverage on this strategy. 

After all, staying relevant on the internet is the best way to generate leads.

So, what do most companies or professionals do? Do you think they spend endless hours researching, creating, and planning content? Absolutely not! These wise folks outsource.

In fact, 84% B2B companies outsource content marketing to create focused and relevant content. The benefit — they have one less thing to worry about. By now, you might agree content marketing is quite time-consuming.

Hence, if you want to create the best content strategy, this blog has all the relevant info.

6 Tips to Outsource Content Marketing

If you’re looking for tips and tricks to create the perfect workflow for outsourcing your content requirements, then we’ve done the legwork for you. These six tips will equip you with all the relevant knowledge before choosing a content marketing agency.

Decide What You Want to Outsource

To create a concrete content marketing plan, it’s vital to have clarity. So, start with identifying the issues in your current content marketing workflow.

Generally, teams face challenges like:

• Lack of technical skills
• Improper planning of distribution
• Irrelevant selection of content types
• Lack of original and relevant content

Over 50% of companies admit that they are still unable to create content that generates quality leads. This is where outsourcing can help!

If you’re stuck in limbo about producing demand-generating content, then think of the kind of content you want to outsource—blogs, newsletters, social media, or white papers. In other words, create a custom content marketing funnel for your brand. 

Here are a few steps to follow:

• If you have a team, analyze their current skills.
• Make a list of tasks that you cannot complete in-house. 
• Finalize the type of content that resonates with your brand philosophy. 
• Hire the right content marketing agency. 

Once you have sorted these aspects, define the relevant channel(s) for your marketing needs. So, for example, a graphic designing company needs a strong social media presence. Hence, they should outsource content marketing for social media platforms. On the contrary, a SaaS product company needs more technical blogs. 

In a nutshell: Assess your current content team, define relevant content for your brand and allot a well-defined budget.

Create a Style Guide for Your Brand

A brand style guide defines your business philosophy — look, feel, and voice. A rulebook like this can cane benefits of content marketing when you outsource it.

When outsourcing content from professional agencies like WrittenlyHub, a style guide can prove beneficial. 

If you’ve never created a style guide before, here are a few pointers to keep in mind:

• Brand Story: This section conveys your brand’s principles and core ethics. It’s a description of your journey from the start and the values that have guided this journey.
• Logo: Why do you think people can recognize Apple in the blink of an eye? Because the apple stands out. Your logo is the opportunity to set yourself apart from the crowd. 
• Color Palette: Present your core brand colors in the style guide. These colors work in tandem to highlight blogs, social media, and other content.
• Fonts: Fonts are crucial to branding. Your typeface reflects your brand’s personality. So, select suitable fonts for visual and textual elements.  

Example: Zendesk is an excellent brand that tells its story and aces the content marketing game.

The Zendesk style guide portrays elegance, story, and brand voice in a simple yet effective way.

In a nutshell, the Zendesk philosophy combines design and consumer relationship in a subtle manner. They have redefined logo design with respect to human emotions. 

In addition, the smart wordplay accentuates their style guide. For instance, they term their logo-marks as ‘relationshapes.’ Overall, the smart designs, color palette, and brand philosophy are clearly evident from their style guide.   

In a nutshell: Your style rulebook will simplify the process of outsourcing relevant content as the team connects quickly with the brand philosophy.

Prepare a Hiring and Review Process

It is vital to review the expertise of individuals or agencies swiftly. To simplify this step, focus on two major parameters:

• Technical knowledge and expertise
• Specialized writers

SEO is, and will always remain, an important factor in the content marketing funnel. Nearly 70% of businesses bank on SEO for driving sales. So, technical knowledge of SEO, PPC, and keyword research is mandatory to review.

At the same time, specialized writers can contribute to your content goals immensely. Such writers have domain-specific knowledge that elevates your brand’s content.

A hiring and review process should focus on crucial factors. Here’s a quick outline of the points you should address before hiring a freelancer or content marketing agency:

• Proven work portfolio
• Variety of writers
• In-house editors
• Experience in the content industry
• Up-to-date with modern content marketing tools

A company like WrittenlyHub ticks all the above boxes. So, depending on your budget, try to discuss all these points before finalizing your outsourced vendor. In a nutshell: A review process gives you a clear idea about a freelancer or agency’s service and expectations.

Build a Team of Qualified Editors

An editor or content manager proves useful in delivering hyper-relevant content. Such a professional not only understands your brand voice, but brings out the best of the content team to adhere to this voice.

Recruit a team of editors to deliver and reshape content according to specific requirements. Content editors can also design a style guide for your brand.

This way, you can edit and modify the content created by an outsourced writer. Hiring an in-house editor proves effective on the long-run to maintain your brand’s consistency.

Thus, if you are a company that wants to deliver high-quality content, editors can channelize your communication goals.  In a nutshell: A team of proficient editors can produce content that connects with your target audience. This way, you can manage and rectify potential mistakes from writers. Overall, qualified editors ensure your final content is delivered as its best version.

Establish Editorial and Approval Process

Content marketing is a long-draw process made up of several workflows. You plan, think, create, edit, and publish a piece of content.  

So, when you venture out to outsource content marketing, be sure to define the overall process. An editorial and approval process is the bridge between created and published content.

Generally, content marketing agencies have a well-defined review process, like this:

• Writer-side proofreading: Before submitting, a writer proofreads and checks the content for any errors.
• Editor review: The editor reviews and suggests major changes in the content, if required.
• In-house approval: The editor studies the final draft and passes it on to the SEO analyst or manager.
• Client approval: After the last review, the content is finalized and sent to the client for approval.  

Such a well-established process helps in segregating content marketing tasks as it ensures well-defined roles and a channelized workflow. Also, an editorial and approval process minimizes the need for revisions, effectively saving time.

You can use this checklist as a client and provide the outsourcing team with a clear brand structure.

For Writers

• Outline followed
• Create optimized draft

For Editors

• Feedback on structure
• In-depth content feedback
• Optimization feedback

For Content Strategist

• Initial Review
• Optimization
• Publish

In a nutshell: Establish a clear editorial and approval process to increase the marketing output. For outsourcing, it’s beneficial to discuss such a process with the content team.

Follow a Content Calendar

Blogs, tweets, LinkedIn posts, newsletters, videos — there’s so much content you can create. But the process can be equally overwhelming. The best way to keep track of all your content marketing efforts is—to create a content calendar.

A content calendar distributes tasks to the content creation and editorial teams. Here’s a list of points you can include in your calendar:

• Topic
• Publishing channel
• Content-type
• Time and date
• Expected Arrival
• Allocation

Moreover, such a template can ease the whole content marketing process. A content calendar, portrays a clear picture, similar to any industrial process. Such a template makes planning efficient and clear.

Benefits of a Content Calendar

Amongst several benefits of creating a content calendar, the following ones are highly beneficial.

• Enables better brainstorming
• Keeps your team and content partner organized
• Helps to stay consistent in content delivery
• Eases collaboration
• Facilitates easy social media marketing
• Contributes to swift performance tracking

In most cases, creating a content calendar requires a certain level of expertise. Hence, to minimize your efforts, contacting specialized content marketing agencies proves profitable.In a nutshell: Create or outsource the creation of a content calendar. Next, follow the timetable to maximize the benefits of content marketing.

Why Outsourcing Content is a Good Idea?

It is now apparent that content marketing is time-consuming. From creation to publishing, the process involves many parameters and technicalities.

When you outsource your content needs, all or most of your digital requirements are well-covered. Further, you can benefit from the following aspects.

• You get a chance to interact and brainstorm with content marketing experts
• There is one less activity to worry about
• Reliable agencies cover all SEO parameters
• You can pay greater attention to offline tasks
• Online marketing runs simultaneously without any hassle

SEO and content marketing are the top contributors in generating the highest ROI—going as high as 30%. It’s undoubtedly profitable to invest in such marketing channels and outsource your content marketing needs. 

Summing Up

The godfather of modern marketing, Seth Godin, explains the importance of content creation in simple words – ‘Content marketing is the only marketing left.’ Basically, Google is the new corporate space and content is your company’s face. 

However, you do not need to do it all yourself. This is the perfect time when ‘outsourcing’ proves to be a wise decision.Outsourcing makes more sense to businesses as they save time and effort in creating specialized content. If you run a business, agencies like WrittenlyHub can develop customized content marketing strategies.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are content marketing services?

Content marketing services encompass a range of activities focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a target audience. These services aim to attract and engage potential customers, build brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales through strategic use of various types of content.

2. What does a content marketing company do?

A content marketing company specializes in creating and executing content strategies tailored to a business’s goals. They handle everything from researching and writing content to optimizing it for search engines and distributing it across the right channels to reach the target audience effectively.

3. Why is content marketing important?

Content marketing is essential as it helps build trust and connection with your audience. It offers valuable information that helps consumers make informed decisions, thereby establishing your brand as a credible authority in your field. This trust-building leads to higher engagement, more conversions, and customer loyalty.

4. How does content marketing work?

Content marketing works by creating and sharing relevant, valuable content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. The goal is to establish expertise, promote brand awareness, and keep your business top of mind when it’s time to buy what you sell.

5. What does content marketing include?

Content marketing includes a variety of formats like blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, ebooks, newsletters, and social media content. It’s about using these different forms of content to tell your brand’s story, educate your audience, and engage with them in a meaningful way.