Consider this before outsourcing your content creation

I have a problem with outsourcing content creation.

Let me clarify. I have a problem with outsourcing content creation for the following reasons:

1.) Nobody here is a decent writer

Poor excuse. I’m talking from my own experience. Firstly, who says that content creation is all about writing? Secondly, writing is a learned technique. There’s a plethora of excellent materials online and offline (they’re called books) that will help you, or a colleague become a better writer.

Write what you think. Leave it alone for one day. Then edit. That’s the brief I work to each and every time I create a blog article.

2.) We don’t have the time

You make the time. Really, you do. You figure out the inefficiencies in your daily work diary and you make the time. Swop an internal meeting for a 45 minute writing session. You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

3.) We don’t know where to start

An easy one. It’s called your customer. Don’t expect customers to call and say ‘I wish you would blog about…’. That doesn’t happen (at least for 99% of businesses). Customers do call and ask questions. Customers do call and ask for more information. What a fine place to start your career as a writer? Answer the questions.

4.) We’ve run out of ideas

I see this one a lot. 20 blog articles in (including the obligatory ’10 great reasons to use our business’) and the wheels come off.  If you can’t see beyond 20 article headlines, there’s some groundwork to be done and that starts far beyond the content creation agenda. Take a walk in your customer’s shoes. Think upstream from the product you’re looking to sell and start creating problems that your customer may not (yet) know exist.

5.) It’s not working for us

Define working. 9/10 marketers will point to a humble graph line in Analytics. Traffic is stagnating. The creation of content is not impacting traffic figures. That’s a scary place to be making informed decisions on what’s best for your customers. We could enter a quality vs quantity debate until I’m blue in the face. I’ll leave that for another day.

6.) Just because…

This one really does happen. ‘We can’t create content in-house just because… well, we can’t’. It’s the ‘we’re lacking imagination in this field so let’s throw it out to the experts’ solution. I don’t want to sound too harsh (I do really, I’m just being nice…) but you’re in business. Business is about communicating your craft in a way that is worthy of my time and money. You’re looking to get me to buy something. If you can’t do that, we have a problem.

7.) The boss says so

What basis was the decision made? Was it on the back of a review of competitor’s websites and she was alarmed by the big flashing ‘we are blogging’ sign on their homepages? I bet it was. Content creation can be an enormously rewarding and culture cultivating marketing practice. To simply pass the buck to an agency? It’s showing a lack of trust in your staff. A lack of confidence in your people. That’s not a good place to be.

I’ll stop there. 7 concerning reasons to outsource content is enough for the time being.

I do advocate in-house management of content creation. I do believe that the process of content creation should be led from within the business. For me, it shapes how I view your brand. Nobody should know your brand better than you. The content you share should not be viewed as a campaign or a tactic. It’s an open door to your business process, thinking and belief. It’s pretty immense when you consider it shapes the way I perceive your business.

If you’re sat on the fence umm-ing and ahh-ing about how best to create content for your business you do need to seek outside help. Experienced practitioners in brand strategy, not copywriters vying for your business. Thinkers not doers. People that will get to know your business. People that will let you see what content strategy is really about rather than offering  you a list of potential blog headlines for the next few months.

I strongly believe that you should exhaust all internal avenues to create content before looking for outside assistance.

I know there are great content creators out there. I also know that great content can be created within your own business environment. Sometimes you simply need a push in the right direction.


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Ian Rhodes

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First employee of an ecommerce startup back in 1998. I've been using building and growing ecommerce brands ever since (including my own). Get weekly growth lessons from my own work delivered to your inbox below.

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