History will remember the 2010s for its significant trends – those that remain popular (the rise of the Marvel and DC universes, hipster fashion, social media) and those we’d like to forget all about (planking, anyone?).
In marketing circles, the decade marked a giant leap in the evolution of content marketing. Much of the shift can be traced back to Google’s Zero Moment of Truth study, which found that 88% of consumers research products and services before purchasing. This study amplified the need for better search engine optimization (SEO) across brands of all sizes and, of course, more content to fuel those SEO efforts.
Fast forward to 2023, and content marketing has cemented its role as a cornerstone of B2B marketing strategy. According to CMI’s research, some 71% of B2B marketers say content became more important to their organization (compared to the previous year), and year-over-year investments in content increased, as well.
Alongside the rise in the importance of content came the need for brands to create more of it. That means adding more production capabilities and resources – and more content creators with specialty skills. As brands juggle these demands, how do marketers continue to expand their content without exceeding their budgets?
For consideration: In-house content creation vs. outsourcing
Along with the challenges of a changing content marketing landscape comes a need to revisit how teams are built. This includes the marketing space, where budgets are extra sensitive to return-on-investment (ROI) analysis.
To lower marketing overhead, many companies opt for a “jack-of-all-trades” approach for hiring, which can leave a talent gap for craftspeople in many areas, including content creation.
The scales are tipping in favor of outsourcing content production. But the jury is still out.
Savvy marketers love in-house content production for the unparalleled control it gives them over all stages of the process. In-house teams:
- receive in-depth training on products and solutions
- get regular updates as products evolve
- live and breathe the brand voice more deeply and consistently
- are embedded in company culture and can rapidly shift alongside business goals.
However, those same teams come with high salaries, benefits, and other costs that many businesses don’t want to shoulder in today’s economic environment. Further, in-house resources are fairly static and often limited to skills available within their team, making it difficult to adapt to specialized content needs or new content formats.
Switching to an outsourced approach opens up new possibilities:
- Need an article on a niche technology? Find an expert writer.
- Need an infographic designed in a specific style? Look for a specialized designer.
- Need a series of sales enablement videos? Hire a video creator.
When done right, outsourcing your content production frees up internal marketing resources to focus on other growth areas while ensuring content production stays on track. It allows brands to scale content creation up or down, depending on needs and provides the flexibility to produce a wider variety of content types while keeping fixed costs low. That makes it easier to fuel all marketing programs that need content…..Read More
Yet, B2B marketing executives tend to get nervous when the topic of content outsourcing gets floated by management. At ClearVoice, we’ve heard all the objections, including:
- “Industry experts” who haven’t been adequately vetted
- disappearing freelancers who need to be replaced with no notice
- time and focus lost to editing and rewriting lackluster content
- lack of collaboration between the in-house team and outsourced resources.