Should Your Business Write Its Own Marketing Content?
As a small business, one of the most important questions you’ll need to consider when developing content marketing campaigns is one of logistics. Will you create your content in-house or will you outsource? There are pros and cons to each approach, but many companies focus on the simple fact that they know their brand better than anyone else, and choose to keep things in-house. This is sound logic, but in terms of your business, it may be a mistake.
While you may be the expert on your business, you’re likely not an expert on SEO or even on content marketing in general, and in a crowded marketplace that can put you at a disadvantage.
Instead, by outsourcing your content creation, you can lend your brand insights to industry experts who can create unique articles to promote your brand – and that’s just the beginning of what marketing professionals have to offer.
A Matter Of Manpower
When small businesses choose to keep content creation in-house, many assume they’ll be able to tackle it as a side project spread across a few employees. What this overlooks is just how much work it takes to do content marketing well.
Large companies that do their own marketing via in-house agencies have exactly that – entire agencies committed to the work. Even as a small business, you’ll need to have full-time staff committed to content development. If you can’t provide that, along with the necessary technical training to make sure staff are prepared to tackle the task, you’re better off outsourcing.
SEO Expertise
Speaking of technical training, it’s important to understand that it takes more than just being a good writer to produce strong content marketing material. Rather, SEO writing requires a combination of traditional writing skills and technical insight, and the standards are constantly changing.
It’s this technical aspect that is often a barrier for small businesses. In contrast, when you outsource your content writing and backlink development to an outside agency, you can be confident that your campaigns are in keeping with the latest technical standards.
photo/ William Iven
Campaign Considerations
Another factor that many small businesses overlook when thinking about the work involved in content marketing is that for this work to matter, your company will need to evaluate and track a lot of data. You’ll need to identify key terms that you hope to rank for, identify and evaluate your competitors’ efforts, and track how new content and backlinks influence your site’s ranking and authority measurements. Do you know how to do that? Outside marketing agencies do, and they have the skills to help you craft an effective marketing strategy and track and interpret campaign analytics to ensure your campaigns have the desired results.
There are multiple ways to approach the content marketing process and many small businesses choose to split the difference, creating onsite content in-house and outsourcing their backlink program, for example.
At the end of the day, every company is different, and the right choice for your business will depend on staffing, existing skills and knowledge, budget, and a range of other factors that will determine the best path forward for your business.
Author: Anna Johansson
