Content marketing is essential for every brand. Whether you’re the owner of an online store or the brick-and-mortar kind, you’ll need to have an effective content marketing plan to increase brand recognition and site traffic.
While it is possible to “do-it-yourself” in some cases, content marketing is a huge endeavor that will require time, effort, and specific expertise and skills. One of the common mistakes business owners make is trying to do it all to save money. The only problem with this approach is that you have other aspects of the business that need your attention.
If you’re going to dedicate your time to content marketing tasks, not only will you find yourself short on time, but you’ll also most probably come up short on the results of your efforts.
To avoid this mistake, it’s best to consider outsourcing your content marketing to independent contractors or freelancers. Here are 8 aspects of content marketing you may consider outsourcing for starters.
Research
Producing high-quality content requires excellent research, which we all know is time-consuming. You need to have a dedicated person to find out about the latest trends related to your product and niche as well as what your competitors are doing.
The result of this in-depth research will serve as topics for your blog as well as other campaigns. It therefore needs to be factual, informative, and offer a lot of value. The good news is there are freelancers who specialize in research and can help you with this task.
Copywriting
If you want to see people flock to your website, it needs to have good copy. Each page should cleverly and creatively present your brand’s voice to your audience. This can be done for you in great detail by a skilled copywriter.
It’s not easy to come up with ideas and put them into the right words that will complement the different parts of your website. Hiring a good copywriter is therefore a good investment. Not only will this save you a lot of time and money, but it will also save you from stress.
Content Writing
Having a competent writer working alongside you is one of the most important skills/tasks you can outsource. Not everyone is gifted with the ability to combine words together into one big work of art.
While we can dismiss that everyone can write simply by putting into words what he or she feels, it takes more than that to be considered a good writer. You need to have someone who knows how to craft a powerful opening statement and an engaging and thought-provoking narrative throughout.
If you’re looking to take your content marketing strategy to the next level, this is one of its aspects that you need to outsource. If you’re planning to intensify your content marketing strategy anytime soon, you should even hire more than one. Depending on your channels – social media, newsletters, etc. – you can hire one expert for each.
Editing
There’s a reason why there are makers and checkers in production. In the same way, there are editors for writers because a writer would be biased to his own beliefs if you let him edit his own article.
It’s good to have a meticulous editor to take care of all the proof-reading and editing especially when you are already producing multiple articles per week. You need someone who’s not only good with grammar but also with a bit of marketing experience so he or she can advise what kind of content presentation works.
Content marketing, as the name implies, centers on content. To continue to produce great content, you need to have skilled writers and editors working with you.
Social Media
Social media is a huge part of our lives. Over the years, social media has transformed from a platform where everyone can socialize to a marketing machine that generates millions of dollars in sales for various companies.
It’s difficult to imagine a brand that is not on social media because the opportunities for growth are just too valuable to pass up. Suffice to say that if you want your business to grow big fast, you need to have a great social media presence.
There are a ton of social media managers and specialists in the freelance market you can choose from to help you in this department.
These independent contractors know how to use social media to your brand’s advantage and can certainly help boost your traffic and engagement through tactics that grab people’s attention. And this is something that you definitely need in a noisy world like social media.
Graphics
Which one would draw your attention more, a link to a blog post or an image preview with captions that points to a blog post? You most probably will pick the second option. That’s what others would choose, too, because most people are highly visual. We get drawn to color and interesting images. We have short attention spans, which is why graphics is essential and will always be part of content marketing.
If you’re going to survive in the online world, you need to have a creative graphic artist to create attention-grabbing images for your brand, store content, social media posts, and more. It’s one way of standing out and getting noticed.
By hiring an excellent graphic designer, you are improving your chances of getting noticed. That’s one step closer to getting clicked. This is the starting point of a lasting relationship with potential customers, all the more reason to invest in this aspect of your content marketing.
PPC
Paid ads have also become a necessity these days. This is especially true for small business owners who are trying to introduce their brand to the world. By feeding ads to a more targeted audience, brands are able to grow their traffic much faster.
Creating PPC campaigns requires specific skill and expertise. While you can do your own research and familiarize yourself with the task, you’ll still be gaining more if you outsource it to a PPC specialist.
A PPC specialist is a worthy investment. Not only will you get more people to see your ads and eventually start following you, you’ll also get your money back because each click will surely be high quality.
Lead Generation
No content marketing endeavor will ever be complete without lead generation. As with any other online project, traffic and engagement are the primary goals. While content quality and social media are at the forefront, they would not be as successful without lead generation.
Businesses need to always be on the lookout for potential customers and this is what lead generation specialists can bring. From setting up a newsletter or email campaign to preparing lead magnets like Ebooks and site memberships, lead generation experts work to attract new customers to your brand, helping your business achieve steady growth in the process.
Conclusion
It’s natural for business owners to feel the need to do it all, either to save money or because of perfectionism. But most of the time, getting help from others who are considered experts in specific tasks is the better option.
Yes, you will spend quite a bit to hire all of these freelancers, but the return on investment will surely be worth it. More importantly, outsourcing will allow you to concentrate on the more important parts of your business. You can only do so much as a business owner. Your business has a better chance of growing with experts working with you.
Author bio: Connor Gillivan is a serial eCommerce entrepreneur and an expert in online hiring, eCommerce, and bootstrapping businesses. With his first eCommerce business, he sold over $20 million worth of product and managed over 60 freelance workers. He is now the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of FreeeUp.com, the hands-on hiring marketplace connecting hundreds of online business owners with reliable, pre-vetted remote workers. He is an avid writer on his own site, ConnorGillivan.com, and his business advice can also be found in top publications such as WebRetailer.com. He currently lives in Denver, Colorado.