Should you Outsource your Content Marketing or Hire a Writer?

What’s a typical Monday morning like at your startup?

Chances are, it’s all-hands-on-deck; catching up on a backlog of emails, setting priorities for the week ahead, and delegating tasks amongst your small, cross-functional team.

If you’re launching your small business solo… well, then there’s even more on your plate!

Where on your current ‘to do’ list do blogging, and other content marketing jobs, sit?

Don’t worry, we know it’s often quite near the bottom. No-one’s judging around here. When you’re just getting started, there are many other tasks that trump the need for content curation.

However, content marketing has been proven to have real business value. So, you should try to scope out a content strategy that will work for you, and where your company is at today.

The easiest way to crack on with content creation, without falling behind on other priorities? Get someone else to do it!

But who should this someone be: should you outsource your content marketing, or hire a writer to do it in-house?

As with all things in life, both of these approaches have inherent advantages and drawbacks; whichever way you choose to proceed will depend on your business, and what you want to achieve through your content.

We’re sorry we can’t answer this one for you, but we can help by outlining the pros and cons of each… ‍

Why should you outsource your content creation?‍

There is absolutely no shortage of agencies or freelancers, ready and willing to take on your content creation tasks. In fact, it can be somewhat overwhelming to choose a writer.

And that’s because the demand for hired writers is huge at the moment; many small businesses are opting to outsource their writing tasks, to save resources and lean on other’s expert skills. After all, if you’re not confident in your writing ability, why would you stress yourself out by trying?

Delegating your content marketing to a highly specialised, dedicated team of professionals brings peace of mind in a number of ways:

✅ It’s one less thing for you to work on

✅ They can apply their writing expertise to add value to your content — you don’t need to worry about learning all the technical aspects of writing in an SEO or conversion-friendly way

✅ If you hire an agency, you’ll have access to a wide range of writing styles, specialisms and backgrounds, so you can brief a host of different projects, all into one place

✅ It all sort of happens by magic; you brief the work, then a few days later voila the content appears!

✅ You can even brief a team of content specialists to review, maintain and manage your entire content marketing strategy, across several platform; so you don’t have to.

Even if you’re somewhat of a control freak — and which business owner isn’t, at least a little bit? — once you’ve established a happy relationship with your outsourced content team, the benefits of letting someone else take the burden are easy to see.

Most importantly, you’ll have scope to grow your outsourced content approach almost overnight, should you want to. It’s easy to find more writers for hire; far easier than recruiting another member of your team.

Nevertheless, there are some crucial watch-outs when it comes to outsourcing marketing work…

Outsourcing content: the potential pitfalls

When choosing the right agency or individual to take on your content marketing work, you should definitely consider their costs.

Just because it’s a cheap solution, doesn’t mean it’s the best one! Lowly paid writers have to churn out far more content, just to maintain a minimum hourly wage. Rushed writing = poor content = a waste of your marketing money. So bear that in mind.

Equally, if you assume they will deliver top quality writing, simply because they have a hefty price tag, that isn’t always a safe bet.

Hone in on writing teams who come highly recommended, with client reviews displayed on their websites. And ask to have a chat, either via email or telephone, before any work is briefed.

Speaking of briefings… a well thought-out writer’s brief will save you heaps of time in the long-run. Whilst a great outsourced copywriter can work with any brief, it’s down to you to fully understand — and be able to convey — what you want and why you want it.

Remember, when you’re outsourcing, the individual creating your content isn’t in your office, living and breathing your brand’s ethos. It’s your responsibility to share your vision with them.

All sound a bit too much to handle right now?

Feeling it might be easier to hire a writer for in-house?

Well, perhaps. Let’s see if it works for you.

The benefits of hiring a writer…

Some of the biggest businesses in the world have started moving some previously outsourced marketing functions back in-house.

Unilever, Proctor and Gamble and Apple all famously control at least a portion of their marketing activities from within their four walls.

And why? Well, for many reasons:

✅ In-House teams should truly understand the business values, vision and culture — and can communicate this seamlessly in the content they produce

✅ It’s often easier to oversee and review content that’s created in-house; leaving you feeling more in control (something that’s very important when you’re launching your beloved business!)

All sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well as we said before…

In-house content teams have their drawbacks too

Office politics and startup stress levels can seriously detract from the creative process; causing your content machine to sloowww riiiight dowwwn. And maybe even stop all-together.

Also, it’s much harder to flex your marketing budget when you’ve hired a new employee, with the view of content creation. Want to put your outsourced copy agency on hold for a bit? No worries. Suddenly feel you can’t afford a full-time member of the team? Not so great.

Remember: there is no right or wrong approach. It’s whatever’s good for you.

Introducing the mystery third option: a happy medium between the two!

Productized copywriting services offer a solution that’s akin to a remote in-house writer.

For an affordable monthly fee, you’ll get unlimited content from dedicated team of writing specialists, who you know by name, and who feel like part of the team. They can share your values — especially if they are part of an energetic, young startup like yourself!

But — importantly — they don’t carry any risk of tricky office politics, and can be producing top quality content for your business — quickly and affordably — whilst you’re focusing on other ways to move your business forward.

Copywriting services — like Scribly.io — may be just the ticket for small businesses, who want some control over their content, but none of the burden of writing it themselves.

Go ahead and drop us a message; let’s chat!

Originally published at https://www.scribly.io.