Have you ever left the office after a particularly long day and stood outside for a moment just to feel fresh air on your face? Your job has you stretched way too thin. You’re juggling more marketing campaigns than you can effectively track. And your content to-do list is about as long as Shakespeare’s complete collection of plays.
Exhausted, you marinate in the soft glow of the parking lot lights and wait for your restless mind to slow down before the commute home. Your attention wanders to the dusky sky above, and that’s when a despairing soliloquy trails from your lips …
To outsource content marketing, or not to outsource: That is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler to suffer
the cost and risk of hiring a content marketing agency.
Or to take arms against a sea of internal content marketing troubles …
OK—this is a tad dramatic. You’ve probably never delivered a Shakespearean monologue as a way to express your work woes. But the struggle is real. As content marketing becomes increasingly competitive, small and midsize companies are getting crushed under the pressure to perform with limited time and resources. And this has marketing leaders seriously questioning their approach.
Obviously, the answer isn’t to discard content marketing altogether because content marketing is king. You also can’t do it halfway. For content marketing to work, you must go all in, and that means full-time hours, the right resources, expertise and—of course—some darn good writing skills.
To make matters worse, you have the eyes of your E-team poised like Hamlet’s sword—ready to cut the marketing budget if you can’t effectively illustrate the value of your efforts. They want metrics that tell a triumphant story.
If this sounds like your current predicament, table the drama and take a step back from the situation. It may be a more effective use of your marketing budget to outsource content marketing to an expert; a team that has the time, resources and marketing expertise to consistently deliver high-quality content. You know … the kind of content that engages your target audiences and produces the results your executive team expects.
Instead of cursing the sky, ponder the following considerations. They may just align some stars for you.
The basic skills holding up a solid content marketing strategy include:
If you lack even one of the above, your content marketing strategy is weakened. Lack more than one and you’re as doomed as Polonius, Laertes, Claudius, Ophelia … basically any of the characters in Hamlet (such a morbid play).
By outsourcing your content marketing to specialists, you benefit from decades of marketing expertise, proven strategies, and a fleet of professional writers—each with their own areas of expertise.
When you’re too close to something, it becomes difficult to see the bigger picture. Your ideas go stale. You stop innovating. You cease to be creative. And that’s when you need fresh perspective. To get it, you can either hire a new addition to your marketing team (or several depending on what you lack above) or outsource to a content marketing agency. The former is expensive, especially when you consider the cost of training, salary and benefits.
The latter certainly isn’t cheap. But it will allow you to focus your budget strictly on marketing without having to share with overhead costs. Plus, you’ll gain more than just one person’s perspective. Partnering with an agency means working with an entire team of creatives who have a ton of ideas to keep your content calendar full.
If your organization is in the middle of a growth spurt or planning to expand, now is the perfect time to consider outsourcing your content marketing to a professional agency. Odds are, the size of your organization isn’t the only thing changing. So will responsibilities, department dynamics and business processes. Things could get crazy and the extra support may help ensure a smooth transition, especially outward facing. Also, if business has been good enough to bring about growth, there’s probably more flex in the budget for resources like a content marketing partner.
Your organization’s creative input is something that should never be stifled. In a healthy relationship with a content marketing agency, the brand is encouraged to be involved in as much of the creative process as they choose. Nobody knows your product or service better than you. The same goes for your target audience. Your voice is an important part of creating authenticity and generating truly powerful content collateral that establishes your brand as a thought leader. If giving up control has kept you from considering a content marketing partner —fear not.
Word to the wise: You get what you pay for when it comes to content. Don’t let price be your deciding factor. Focus instead on the reputation of the content marketing agency, the value it promises to bring to the table, the character of the individuals you’ll be working with directly, and the agency’s track record. It’s not about the “I,” it’s about the “ROI.”
Your content marketing doesn’t need to be like a Shakespearean tragedy. Consider outsourcing all or some of the work to a content marketing partner. These relationships are entirely customizable and might be just what you need to rid your life of unnecessary stress and refocus your attention on the tasks for which you are best suited.
Discover how working with Kuno Creative can help your organization realize the benefits of outsourcing content marketing. Contact us today.
