How to Simplify Content Marketing for Small Businesses

Marketing agencies and partners work hard to offer services to their clients, but doing it all yourself can seem a daunting task. You may dream of the day when you can hire employees for content writing, recruiting and other functions within your company. Instead, save money by taking advantage of the gig economy. Hiring writers to do content marketing for small businesses (or the small businesses you service) can free you to work on other tasks that better deserve your attention.

Right now, you’re probably thinking that that probably sounds easier than it really is. That is only half true. Sure, there are a lot of people who can string a sentence together and mistakenly believe they can write for hire. However, there are also writers who have spent years honing their craft. Once you find them, you’ve hit gold.

Effects of Outsourcing Content Marketing

Freeing up your schedule to work on other aspects of your business and the services you offer sounds great. But what are some of the other benefits you can get from outsourcing content marketing for small businesses?

Easier To Scale

As your company grows or as your profitability fluctuates each month, you may scale your marketing efforts up and down. Outsourcing or partner marketing makes this easier. Content creation companies have enough writers at the ready to take advantage of those fluctuations, as well as any spikes in your overall growth. Entrepreneur.com notes that you never have to worry about how those fluctuations may affect staffing, allowing you to focus more on your business and take risks.

Maintaining a Calendar

When you write for yourself, the business gets in the way of content and content gets in the way of business. To do one always means sacrificing the other. Outsourcing marketing ensures you get your content on time to keep up with your editorial calendar. It is always best to post regularly and consistently. When building a following, it helps you audience to know when to check your blog for updates.

Better Technology

It takes more than a word processor and the internet to run a content writing business. A good company also relies on productivity software and other tools. The owners purchase these at a cheaper rate because it serves multiple clients. It would prove far less economical for you to buy such tools on your own. These may include social media management apps, stock photography subscriptions and plagiarism checkers.

Greater Expertise

You may well be a great writer, but ultimately, someone who can dedicate themselves to this task can do a better job. Not only do these professionals know how to write, but they understand industry practices, especially after working for multiple clients. The same is true of other areas of content marketing for small businesses. These include newsletter creations, social media management, graphic design and community management.

Ongoing Optimization

Entrepreneur.com notes that continued optimization is another related benefit. Good content marketing companies have experience working with various SEO experts, editors, strategists and other professionals. Their writers do as well. This keeps them on the cutting edge of industry updates when it comes to content marketing. They can then apply this awareness to your work even when you do not specifically request it.

More Efficiency

Hiring in-house writers cost a lot of money when you factor in benefits, salaries, sick days and vacation time. Hiring an agency passes on the human resources aspect to another company. It is also cheaper than hiring no one at all if you consider the value of your time. If you can bring in even $100 per hour in revenue, it would not make sense to spend time on tasks that you can pay the equivalent of $20 per hour for others to do.

How To Find High-Quality Writers

So, how do you go about getting your hands on these exceptional content creators? What’s the secret to hiring an agency focused on content marketing for small businesses without sacrificing the quality?

Define the Budget

Yes, we did mention earlier that your budget can fluctuate. However, having at least a bare minimum is important. As of 2017, the average company spent 11% of revenue on marketing. Note that this includes all forms of marketing, not just content marketing. You can then break up the budget even smaller to better allocate percentages or dollar amounts to specific tasks.

Identify Needs

What kind of content do you need? If you do not have a lot of experience in this area, then you may have a tough time answering this on your own. Do some research. See what kind of content your competitors produce. Ask some questions on Quora and snoop around in public forums. You may also consider scheduling a free consultation with an agency to see what options you should keep in mind.

Select Activities

What will you outsource and what will you keep in-house? In the beginning, you may find it too costly to outsource everything. This forces you to make important decisions about what tasks you are better at or prefer. Hold onto those and outsource the rest later. If this is the stage that you’re at in business, look for an agency that offers à la carte services.

Work With an Agency

When hiring services for content marketing for small businesses, it is possible to hire individual freelancers. This is often the most cost-effective option. However, you would need to assess that individual person. You may also run into many of the issues that arise when you have staff, such as that person going on vacation or having a family emergency. Hiring an agency resolves these issues. While it may sometimes cost a little more, the time you save makes up for it.

Provide a Guide

When you write for your business, you may not think much about the voice of your brand. This comes naturally to you as the person behind the business. However, when you outsource this to writers, they need a guide. Otherwise, no matter how amazing the writing is, it may fail to hit the mark for you. Provide samples, style guides and specific requests whenever possible.

Encourage Guest Blogging

Another great way to get quality content is to provide exposure for writers and industry experts on your blog. Naturally, you don’t want to open up your website to competitors. However, you may find people or brands providing complementary products and services that could contribute free and valuable content. For example, if you own a café, a coffee brand may want to write about the health benefits of coffee or share some delicious recipes.

What should you do?

At Boostability, we believe that content marketing for small businesses relies heavily on the skills of great writers and strategists. Because of this, we invest a lot of our time in creating and curating content for our clients. In fact, content writing is part of all of white label SEO services.

Want to learn more about our program and how partner marketing can help to improve your business? Visit our White Label SEO Marketing Ultimate Guide for a deep dive into what this partnership looks like, how it can benefit your business, and what you need to watch for!