It’s the great debate in content marketing – do you keep it in-house or outsource? According to Ascend2’s 2015 Content Marketing Trends Summary report, only 15 percent of marketers say in-house content creation is the most effective way to build resources for their websites.
The remaining 85 percent of businesses either outsource to content marketing agencies exclusively (10 percent), or do a combination of both approaches (75 percent).
Why do most companies struggle to successfully create content in house? Over half (53 percent) say resourcing stands in the way. If you don’t have a team dedicated to creating assets for your website, it will naturally be difficult to execute an effective strategy.
Quantity isn’t the name of the game, but consistency is.
If you want to make an impact on your customers and search crawlers you need to be there providing answers on an ongoing basis. Quality is, of course, the most important factor in whether people stay on your website, and visit it again and eventually convert.
However, if you only write (really great) posts a couple of times a year, it’s going to be hard to stay at the top of search results page or incentivize people to return to your website if there’s nothing new there. Not to mention that consumers expect diversity when they visit your domain and check out your blog. Without a team that can produce and publish multimedia content formats (written, video, graphics), you’re not going to be as influential as companies that have a full library of marketing assets.
Without a plan, you plan to fail.
Strategy is the other stumbling block, according the survey. Around 42 percent admitted they lack a good strategy, and that’s the biggest challenge they face. This is a common pain point that’s surfacing in content marketing conversations: Companies don’t have solid plans to back up their production, and they end up with a lot of content that doesn’t track toward specific goals.
Last year, the Content Marketing Institute reported that the fastest way to generate results is to document a content strategy, so every team member is working toward the same goals. Check out our video for more tips on how to overcome this challenge, whether you’re working on your strategy in -house or with an external team of content writers.
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When companies outsource even a portion of their marketing content duties, they can guarantee those projects will be completed on-schedule, no matter how busy their internal teams are. Plus, it allows in-house team members to work on projects that require their personal touch and attention, while graphic designers, video producers and journalists supplement their efforts with expertly created assets.
Want to learn more about when in-house content marketing strategies don’t cut it? Here’s a blog post about four common signs you’re ad-hoc approach isn’t cutting it.
