A Step-By-Step Guide to Outsourcing Content Marketing

Quality content marketing is not an easy thing to master.  Social media marketing, blogging, email marketing…these are hugely powerful marketing channels when they are done effectively, but they can be difficult and time consuming to get right.  That’s why many business owners quickly come to the realisation that they cannot do everything by themselves.  Perhaps you have decided that getting some expert help to boost your marketing would be a good idea, but you are now wondering what the next step should be. How do you choose who to outsource your marketing to?  How do you ensure it will work and that it will be money well spent?  Well, my handy step-by-step guide is a good place to start!

Step 1: Choose your Partner Carefully

Notice I say ‘partner’ and not ‘supplier’.  Choosing the person or agency to help you with your content marketing is not like picking a tiler for your new bathroom.  Of course, things like reviews and personal recommendations are great, but you need to find someone who understands you, your business and the way you work.  To some extent, they are going to be representing your business online, and you need to be sure they are on your wavelength.

Step 2: Know your Goals

If you don’t know what you are trying to do, you won’t know if your efforts are working!  And if you don’t know what you want, it makes it very difficult to tell your content marketing partner what you need them to do. Are you trying to increase web traffic? Or perhaps improve your conversion rates?  Is it simply an opportunity to create brand awareness?  It could be a combination of all of these things, or something completely different.  The key is, establish what’s important to your business so your outsourced content marketer can help you meet your goals.

Step 3: Decide how the work will flow

Who will come up with the themes or title ideas?  How many rounds of feedback will there be?  Who will be involved in approving the content?  If you can figure out this and assign accountability early on, the whole process will be infinitely easier on everyone involved.

Step 4: Create the Content, Distribute and Promote it effectively

The next step is to create the content.  Your outsourced content marketer will be researching and creating the content for you, but you will still need to be involved.  You know your business better than everyone, and a successful content marketing scheme will rely on your involvement.  You will also need to approve the places the content is distributed, and any budget required for promotion.

Step 5: Analyse the results then adjust and repeat

By using measurement tools such as Google Analytics you will understand how your content is performing based on the metrics for the goals you set up in step 2.  Once you know what’s worked and what hasn’t, you can adjust and then repeat as needed!

Conclusion

Out-sourcing your content marketing to a qualified freelancer can be a fantastic investment. As long as you are prepared for a bit of work in the initial stages, you should soon be able to sit back and enjoy the results.

If you’d like some support kick-starting your content marketing campaign get in touch for a free consultation.