While content marketing is a relatively recent phenomenon, its benefits are well-established: it costs about half as much as traditional or outbound marketing, and generates up to thrice as many leads. Naturally, most creative and digital marketing agencies have content teams at the core of their operations, and outsourcing content may seem like a foreign notion, or worse, a tacit admission of uncertainty in their own content creating capabilities.
On the contrary, however, the ability to outsource judiciously can reveal an agency’s expertise in the field. Even competent agencies can gain a number of advantages by outsourcing content, such as the ability to scale efforts rapidly, access to specialized knowledge and skills, and cost-effective means of improving productivity or turnaround times—all without sacrificing creative leadership or quality. We’ve assembled a few ideas for agencies to expand their arsenal with outsourced content.
Scaling Projects
Outsourcing content allows you to scale output much more rapidly than would be possible through adjusting an in-house team. Outsourced content can be engaged to capitalize on busy seasons, emerging trends, or for making quick headway in new platforms or channels—and thus edging out the competition. Should the need for such extra talent pass, disengaging from outsource providers is much simpler and less harrowing than downsizing an in-house team.
Tapping Specialist Talent
Content comes in many forms, but not all clients will want work done in all of them. Images, design and copy for web, social and e-mail are mainstays and staffing these with in-house workers is a good call. But when it comes to more niche services like content for video, apps, or even games, keeping a full-time specialist may not be as economical.
Outsourcing content is also a good option for industries that have restrictive knowledge requirements. Providers that specialize in content production for niche fields can ensure your content is sound and accurate, while keeping the creative direction in your agency’s hands.
Virtual Offices
Creative agencies might also use outsourcing to keep virtual offices to expand production capabilities at low cost—offshore virtual offices can be especially competitive where finances are concerned. The expanded capacity enabled by these extensions can be used to reach more industries or platforms, as described above, or might be used to keep operations running while your main staff is on downtime, allowing you to improve turnaround times and take ease the pressure under tight deadlines.
Long-term arrangements of this sort can be especially compelling, letting you assemble a team with the specific skills and knowledge you require, while allowing you the same managerial control as a regular team. The freedom to set creative direction, process workflows, updates and confidentiality remain in your control, and as time goes on, your virtual team can will grow increasingly competent and comfortable in your agency’s style.
Expanding Perspectives
Finally, outsourced content presents you with the opportunity to showcase a different perspective. If two content marketers from the same team can come up with different approaches to a single brief, imagine the possibilities that a different team’s perspective might present. By taking the best of your own in-house content and that of a quality provider, you can effectively expand the variety of your agency’s output—one voice, in other words, but one that hits more notes.
And if the prospect of outsourcing still has you on the fence, consider that the Digital Outsourcing Survey Report found that around half of creative agencies outsource part of their work. Tapping external resources is fair game, and your competitors could already be in on it.
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