I’d like to start this article off by apologizing to any business owners who may be taken a bit aback by the title. I’ve been involved in a number of small / startup companies, and I cringed just a little myself as I typed those words. It’s not just that outsourcing has become a bit of a dirty word in the media in recent years, with so many jobs having been outsourced / offshored. We’re talking about a completely different definition of the word “outsourcing” here, the one that’s becoming a fairly standard business practice, that is, delegating a business process to a third party or an external agency.
But what I think is actually harder to accept is the idea of hiring someone else to write your website content. There’s always a sort of a DIY mindset in businesses from the onset, and that’s totally understandable. When you’re trying to get things off the ground, it makes perfect sense that you’re going to be doing it yourself as much as possible. Eventually, though, you’re going to simply have more responsibilities on your plate than you can manage. So we all come to accept the idea that sooner or later, we’re going to need to hire employees, or else outsource work that we just plain don’t have the time for.
But, wait...website content? Most of us expect that, unless we’re trained in programming, we’ll have to hire someone to do website development, and the same goes for the graphic design elements. Writing content for the website, on the other hand, seems like a job that’s a perfect fit for the owner of the company. After all, who knows your business better than you do? On further reflection though, that might not always be the wisest choice. Let’s consider some of the advantages of outsourcing your content writing.
Outsourcing Frees Up Your Valuable Time
For most startup or growing businesses, resources in general are always at a premium. Until you’re really turning a significant profit, funds and materials tend to be consistently in short supply. But when I talk to owners of small businesses, the common theme seems to be that there is one commodity that no one can find enough of, and that’s time. Most people trying to get a startup going wear more hats than Bartholomew Cubbins. And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you’ve got more pressing demands on your time than writing content for your website. Between refining and perfecting your product or service offerings, developing and nurturing client relationships, and managing your production operation and employees, it’s a wonder that you find any time at all to sleep!
The trend in the business world these days is to outsource processes that aren’t in your core competencies. The idea behind it is that it leaves you more time to focus on, and develop, your core competencies, that is to say, the processes that directly relate to what you’re selling. So, unless content writing is what you’re selling, why spend valuable time when you can hire professional writers?
A Team That Multitasks
I know that you already multitask, as evidenced by the analogy of the guy who wears too many hats, in the section above. But I’m not talking about the sort of juggling act in which you try to work on too many things at the same time. Eventually, you’re going to reach a point of diminishing return, and are going to do a less than optimal job on at least some of those tasks.
My point here is that if you outsource your website content writing to an agency, they’ll assign a team of writers, always ready to go, to handle your workload. And that’s valuable for at least a couple of reasons. The first is that you get a group with diverse talents. You’ll want that because, ideally, you’re going to want to have multiple types of content on your website. We tend to associate content with blogging, but there are other forms of writing you’ll need as well. This includes the copy for the web pages themselves, and also, if you’re embarking on an inbound marketing campaign, eBooks and whitepapers as content offers to prospective customers. Outsourcing to an agency means that you’ll have a number of writers who can work on different projects concurrently, and that’s going to help you keep your blogging and marketing scheduling on track.
A Fresh Perspective on the Subject Matter
I have no doubt that you’re the most qualified person to talk about your offerings. You may never find a salesperson who can deliver the pitch the way you can either, for that matter. But writing blogs and other content for your website is not quite the same as making a sales pitch. For starters, you can’t give the same rap every time when you write a blog article. If your website and blog are part of your inbound marketing strategy, and I hope they are, you should know by now that you need to keep a steady stream of content which is not only valuable to your target audience, but is also fresh and original. Having an additional set of eyes (actually multiple additional sets, since you’ll be working with a full team) will help keep a fresh perspective on your topics and content.
Keeping It All Aligned With Your Marketing Strategy
Perhaps the most important point to consider is that your website content isn’t simply a work of art. It should be part of an integrated marketing strategy, designed to produce a specific result: to get more traffic to your website, and, ultimately, to produce more closed sales. So, we’re advocates of not only outsourcing content writing for your website, but, more specifically, to outsource not just to any outside writers, but to an inbound marketing agency. They’ll work with you to understand your business, develop the profiles of your prospective customers, known as buyer personas, and construct a marketing plan that will help you get more business. All the content for your website will be written in alignment with that strategy.
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