There’s more to content creation than just copywriting. It’s a much larger process, and it’s one that most professionals just don’t have the time to keep up with on their own. Any marketer or business owner who has ever tried to juggle the entire process and still focus on his or her business can relate.
The goal of outsourcing is to create a workflow structure that becomes automated. In a perfect scenario, outsourcing creates an “assembly line” business structure wherein every person gets his or her part of the job done and sends the project up the line. Content creation can work the exact same way as building a car, only with the added benefit of being able to collaborate in ways that were unheard of before the advent of the Internet. Here are a few things to consider when deciding how to outsource your content creation.
1. Three Distinct Branches
There are three main parts of content creation: copy creation, multimedia, and advertising. Some “experts” will break it down further, but I lump things into these three broad categories for a reason. This is the best way to get the most work done in one place. It breaks down like this:
Copy creation – This encompasses everything from writing articles and press releases to ad headlines and tweets. If you can find one copywriting company to handle all of it, you’ll be at a real advantage because everyone involved in the process will become expertly familiar with your brand and your processes.
Call me biased, but I do believe that this is the single most important branch of content creation. Nothing else means anything unless you have good, persuasive, engagement-worthy copy to work with.
Multimedia – This covers things like videos, podcasts, even proprietary photography. These things often point to your copy and are the first thing that gets the reader’s attention. This is why custom multimedia content is often more effective than stock media, and these days, most of it is comparatively cheap to produce, even if you outsource it.
Advertising – This often incorporates elements of the previous two in that advertising almost always has a visual element mixed with copy.
Advertising experts often also deal with analytics and other numbers, making sure that engagement and ROI justify what you’re spending to advertise. In some cases, you’ll want to handle the numbers end of things in-house. It all depends on how efficient the advertising company is and how thorough a job it does.
2. Workflow Process Organization
While there are some companies out there that can offer all three of the above services, they are few and far between. It may seem like an ideal situation, but, in reality, it doesn’t guarantee seamless production any more than working with multiple entities will.
The Internet is an amazing tool for organizing teams that are sprawled out over numerous corporate or even geographic lines. There are numerous software solutions out there that help keep everything tied together.
With that in mind, my recommendation is to find companies who specialize in each of these areas and distribute the workflow according to each one’s area of expertise. In most basic of terms, and for the majority of projects, you’ll begin with copy creation, then create multimedia, then develop advertising around the rest of the content.
In some cases, you’ll find you need to flip-flop those processes a little. I had one client whose copy creation was contingent upon the information in the podcasts he was producing. In that instance, the multimedia had to be produced ahead of the copy. The point is that you need to develop a workflow process that works within the natural flow of your project.
3. Selecting the Right Team
It is vitally important that lines of communication between all entities involved remain wide open. Every company you hire should have specific go-to people who deal with you directly and who interact with the leaders of the other companies or freelancers on your team.
Since I brought up freelancers, I think it’s also important to have someone on your own team who coordinates with freelancers and represents them in collaborative meetings. In some cases, I would even say to invite them. Sometimes they provide the best feedback.
4. Competent Management
Good management is what ties the entire process together, and that is likely where you come in if you’re the one reading this and taking notes. Either you or someone you designate needs to keep on top of things and make sure that the processes are being completed adequately and in the correct sequence.
You might want to consider designating a manager for each branch and making sure that individual is an expert in whatever part of the process he or she is overseeing. After all, the entire project is a reflection of your brand, and the only way to spot weak links is to have someone in charge who knows how.
5. Crunching the Numbers
It’s important to keep close tabs on the effectiveness of your outsourcing machine and identify where issues originate. Sometimes it means a simple tweak to workflow processes; other times it can mean replacing one or more major components to the engine to get the content (and the money) flowing freely.
Obviously, there are many things within each of these components to consider and deal with, but these give you the right framework to build an outsourcing system that will ultimately prove worthwhile and profitable.