When considering content production, you must weigh the pros and cons of outsourcing it or doing it in-house to make the best decision for your real estate business.
Hiring an in-house content production team refers to hiring and training employees to produce content internally within a company, rather than outsourcing content production to an external agency or freelancers. In-house content production can offer more control over quality and timeliness, as well as greater alignment with a company’s overall brand identity. You can have one or more writers working for you, but they will all be in your office. You might have a staff editor or leading writer.
Outsourcing is when you rely on an outside agency, such as a content marketing company, to help create, edit, and deliver your content. By outsourcing your content, you can save time and ensure that your content is high quality.
Content creation and marketing is a difficult task that requires focus on many technical details to be successful.
Content Outsourcing
Content outsourcing is a way of having content created or edited by someone who is not employed by the company that needs the content. When you create content yourself, you are the only one responsible for the quality of the content. When you outsource content creation, you are trusting someone else to produce high-quality content for your content marketing channels.
Reasons Why Outsourcing is a Better Idea for Content
Outsourcing content production and marketing is a win-win situation for any company for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that it allows companies to focus on their core competencies. The list of benefits that outsourcing brings to the table includes:
1. High-Quality Content
As a buyer, you should always look for the highest quality content. These content production companies typically hire writers who are well-trained and have a lot of experience in creating content.
These companies produce great content regularly because they have a strong work ethic and are dedicated to writing as an art form.
2. Delivery on Time
Outsourced content agencies are usually stricter about meeting deadlines than in-house or freelance writers.
The quality of a company’s content is determined by the level of professionalism of its employees. The client’s needs should be the priority, so the content must be delivered on time to meet those needs.
3. A Wide Range of Expertise
When you are standing too close to the trees, it is hard to see the forest. This is especially true for businesses that have a content department that focuses on a single angle.
When you hire an external agency, you’re able to get a different perspective on the field. An in-house department has a much narrower worldview than an expert who can enhance the content they produce.
4. Publish More Content on a More Frequent Schedule
If you can only write so much as one person, that limit would be reached if you were working full-time on content marketing.
Putting together high-quality content takes time. If you can write a 500-word post without too much effort, you can likely find the time in your daily schedule to do so.
This type of content will not have a positive effect on your viewers or help your content marketing goals.
Superficial content is being penalized by Google.
Good content takes time to research, create, and publicize. Even if you are only publishing one blog post a week, it is important that the post is well-researched and comprehensive.
If you want to be able to publish content more frequently without worrying about the quality of the writing suffering, you will need to have more writers on staff. This is when outsourcing can help you the most by allowing you to get as much content as you need or as your budget permits.
5. Cheaper Than Hiring a Full-Time Writer
Outsourcing content creation allows you more time to focus on strategy, brainstorming, marketing, and trying new things. It also nets you a higher content marketing ROI!
Content production can be very cost-effective when outsourced. If you employ a full-time writer, this will be a significant expense for your business each year.
The average salary for a full-time content writer in the United States is approximately $65,000. You also have to consider the cost of IT and other equipment, training, and other overhead costs associated with having another employee on staff.
When you outsource content, you are only paying for the content that you order and not for anything else. You don’t have to worry about providing medical insurance or replacing your writer’s laptop if it breaks.
Content that is outsourced is usually less expensive for businesses because it is written by individuals or agencies that calculate these costs into their overall rates.
6. Outsourcing is a More Flexible Option
Hiring freelance writers can be more flexible as you can hire more writers as needed to produce more content. If you think the quality of a particular writer’s work has decreased, or if you want to try a different writing style, you can ask someone else to do the writing for you.
There will be times of the year when it is not advantageous to invest in content creation and other times when it is wise to produce a large quantity of content.
Outsourcing your production allows you to change the amount you produce based on your needs, so you can increase or decrease your production as your business grows.
7. You Can Benefit From Fresh Ideas and Varied Viewpoints
It is beneficial to introduce new talent and ideas to your content marketing plan with writers who have different perspectives.
Content producers who have worked for multiple clients can bring the experience and knowledge they have gained from each one to their new projects.
They can help you keep up with current content marketing trends or predict future trends in your industry. If you can’t think of any new content topics, they can give you some ideas.
When you are writing about something every day it is easy to lose interest in it and this will be evident in your writing. When you use a pool of other writers, you never lose your inspiration and you always have new ideas.
8. You Can Produce and Publish Content Faster and More Efficiently
One of the advantages of outsourcing is that it is usually quicker and more efficient than trying to do everything yourself.
Content marketing agencies that are good at what they do will have a team of content producers who are qualified to produce content for you under even the tightest deadlines.
If there’s something going on in your industry that you want to comment on, it’s probably time-sensitive.
You can save time by outsourcing the job instead of trying to do it yourself while also managing other important tasks.
As freelance writers are paid by the word or article, they have an incentive to work quickly and efficiently.
A salaried writer who is not working on a contract basis will not be motivated to improve their efficiency as they will receive the same pay regardless of how much content they produce.
Reasons You Should Invest in Outsourced Content
Simply put, outsourced content is better. Content that is published by a company on its own website or social media platforms (in-house content) can reach a wide audience, but it is limited compared to the potential audience that can be reached by influencer marketing. Outsourcing your content creation can have many benefits, including the way the content is created.
Outsourced content is usually more thoroughly researched and directed at a specific audience than in-house content.
Teetering on the edge of doing it or not?
Content agencies spend a lot of time learning how to best appeal to and engage various demographics to be able to cater to any company that wants their services. Outsourced content usually results in a number of benefits to a business such as:
Wider Reach
Content agencies can help you create a content marketing plan that covers all the major aspects of content creation and distribution.
An agency can target a company’s audience and establish a rapport with them in order to spread the message effectively.
Expert Opinions in Clear Language
Communication can be a major problem for some companies. The message must be clear and concise to avoid misunderstandings and reach a wider audience.
At times, simplifying the complex jargon into more understandable words and phrases is all that is needed. Other times, a complete re-imagining of an analogy is required.
This is done by content agencies who specialize in creating material that can be easily understood by the reader.
Independent Production
Frequent checking on a department’s progress can be time-consuming for managers in medium to large companies.
An agency’s dedicated content team is usually very self-sufficient and doesn’t require much supervision. This allows you to have more time to dedicate to other tasks.
Cost Effective
The main concern for a business is always the bottom line. Outsourcing content can help you save money both in the short and long-term. This is something that major corporations can do in order to have a dedicated department for content.
Many small to medium-sized businesses cannot afford to have a content department and still make a profit.
Hiring a professional company to manage your content will remove the need to maintain a long-term content department.
Outsourcing your content allows you to have full control over what ideas are being communicated in your content.
Given that content agencies need to provide a niche for their clients, the agency will have a team of writers who can write on a variety of topics. This gives the agency the peace of mind that they will always have a writer who is knowledgeable and experienced enough to produce quality content.
The best content agencies only hire writers who can demonstrate their writing skills, to make sure that all the content is of the highest quality.
There are too many benefits to content marketing to ignore, but not everyone has the time or resources to write and produce their own content in-house.
The advantages of outsourcing typically outweigh the disadvantages.
A writer or content marketing agency can help you produce better quality content, save you time and money, and help you achieve your business goals.
