If you’ve finally decided that Outsourcing Your Content Marketing is the most efficient use of your time, or maybe your project has just grown to the point where there’s just more tasks than time in the day, because you and I both know that the truth of the matter is, creating content is time-consuming.
Even if you’re a fast writer or you’ve got someone on your team who churns out quality content like a robot, it will still take some time. If you’re not willing to spend all your energy creating content, then how about you leave it to the experts?
Outsourcing Your Content Marketing is a great solution to help get your content marketing strategy moving along and fast. Of course, the downside is outsourcing can get quite costly. But if it’s an investment you’re willing to make, here are some tips to help you in your journey to Outsourcing Your Content Marketing successfully.
Choose the right freelancer
There are plenty of freelancing platforms you can use to look for the best writers. The general consensus is that when it comes to freelancing, you get what you pay for. So, if you pay peanuts, you’re most probably going to receive work that won’t ever meet your standards.
Remember that you’re Outsourcing Your Content Marketing to free up more of your time so you’re able to work ON your business, not IN it. So, if you’re only outsourcing to the cheapest writers you can find, you’ll still be spending time on editing the content and may find you’re totally re-writing it anyways…which isn’t actually saving you time or money.
Another issue with looking for the cheapest writers is they’re usually the outsourcers that “ghost” you the most. If you’re outsourcing multiple tasks that are all dependent on the completion of the other tasks in your project and your content marketing writer disappears on you, it can stall your entire project!
Provide clear instructions
Have you ever heard the saying Garbage In, Garbage out? It’s a computer science term Oxford defines as…
Used to express the idea that in computing and other spheres, incorrect or poor quality input will always produce faulty output (often abbreviated as GIGO). The saying is recorded from the mid 20th century.
If you’re giving vague instructions…garbage in, then you’re going to get a piece of work that’s also going to look vaguely like what you were expecting…(garbage out).
Being specific Setting the right instructions will help your freelancer submit jobs that will meet your expectations. This once again will save you time and money if done properly the first time.
If you’re having a hard time trying to create project descriptions or briefs that attracts the top talent and gets you great results! Feel free to check out my Outsourcing My Business templates pack. I’ve created a set of 50 project description templates for the most commonly outsourced online business tasks.
Treat your freelancers with respect
Just because you’re paying someone to help you out, doesn’t mean you can treat them like slaves. This means paying them fair rates and setting appropriate deadlines for various projects.
Every time I outsource a task to a freelancer, my train of thought is always…
“Will I be adding this individual to my rolodex?”
Freelancers are a dime a dozen, good freelancers are a little harder to find while outstanding freelancers are the ones who get the repeat private gig offers. Those are the freelancers who are growing a client base. If you can find one of those freelancers, whose strengths are in your particular niche and their writing style matches yours…jackpot!
As a general rule of thumb, if your serious about building your business online and have decided to use content marketing, then you should be seriously be taking steps to outsourcing your content marketing, than you should be looking at building a team of content writers. While a team makes it sound big, understand that the freelancers your going to be adding to your team simply means that they are an individual who has been vetted by you to write the type of content in a particular style and this is not just for freelancers but every person you come in contact with, is this. If treat someone like gold then gold you will get. If you look down upon and ridicule, then you’ll end up having to retrain By forming and nurturing relationships with your outsourcers,
Have an editorial calendar
An editorial calendar will you help you manage and streamline your content marketing activities. Without it, you’ll be all over the place. You wouldn’t know which content types to assign to which freelancers, and you’ll find it hard to keep track of content that’s already been published and what hasn’t been yet.
Provide timely feedback
Freelancers thrive on feedback. Just make sure, however, that you provide constructive criticism. You don’t want to go all in and destroy a freelancer’s morale. It’s not going to help either of you. Helping your talented freelancers to improve and create content that fits your requirements will help your business in the long run.
Build long-term relationships
When you find good freelancers, make it a point to build long-term working relationships with them. They’ll be more loyal to your brand, and they’ll be more motivated to continue creating high-quality content. One of the very first content writers I hired years ago is an American living in Japan. While he no longer writes content as a freelancer, he’s still a friend of mine to this day and we occasional communicate on good ole FB!