Should You Outsource Content Creation?
If you’ve been following us for any length of time you know that we love content creation and we truly believe that creating great quality content should be the backbone of the marketing strategy for virtually every business.
One of the questions we most frequently get asked is should I outsource my content creation or do I need to create it all myself.
While the answer isn’t a simple yes or no, generally speaking, if you want to outsource content creation you should.
There are however a few things you should keep in mind before you decide to make that decision.
Let’s start by diving into the pros and cons of outsourcing your content creation.
The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Content Creation
Like most decisions in business, the choice on whether or not to outsource your content creation can feel like a bit of a double-edged sword. To help you decide whether this is the right call for your particular situation, let’s not be taking a look at some of the benefits and detriments of outsourcing your content.
Pros
Just like adding a team member to help you with anything else, the biggest benefit to outsourcing your content creation is that the creation process uses less of your time.
Instead of you need to work more hours to create more content, you can rely on a writer (or team of writers) making content creation via an outsourced team extremely scalable.
At the end of the day, if we have already implemented a successful content creation strategy, more (as long as it’s the same quality) is almost always better.
Cons
Unfortunately, the decision to outsource your content creation isn’t all upside.
Anytime you have someone doing a bit of the work you were doing before, you have a cost increase (most entrepreneurs treat their time as free).
Generally speaking, you can expect to pay $35 or more per article that you’re going to have written for you. Additionally, it can take using a few different writers to find one that resonates with your style.
Lastly, you will have less control over the overall quality and voice of the articles that are written and outsourced.
After all, what’s the point in rewriting the entire article, if you’re already paying someone to write it the first time.
Keep in mind, none of these things is a dealbreaker. There are a variety of different ways that we can use to balance out these factors and make outsourcing their content an overall positive experience.
Additionally, the cost of paying someone to write the content (we tend to average about $35 as mentioned above) is not that much different than what it cost you in terms of time and resources to write the post for yourself.
If you’d like a full breakdown of what it costs to create a piece of content when writing it yourself, you’ll want to check out this article, where we break down all of the hidden costs of content creation.
It’s important to note that while we do write some of our content, in virtually every instance (except for here at brandcreators.com), we strike a balance between the content we create ourselves and conduct that we use external writers to help us create.
How Much Does it Cost to Outsource Content Creation?
When it comes to thinking about the true cost of outsourcing your content, there are a few different factors that we need to keep in mind.
The first is the cost of paying the writer to create the content.
While this cost will vary based on the quality of the writer and the length of the article, for most pieces of content that we create..it comes in between 30 and $40.
The cost of the creation itself isn’t the only thing we need to consider.
Depending on the quality of the writer and their overall grasp of the subject, you can expect to spend at least a few minutes editing the article for grammar and doing other cleanups.
While you may not be paying someone else to do this, at least up front, it does involve a good bit of your time.
Additionally, having a well-written and published article doesn’t do us any good if it’s not published on the website.
If you have everything in order and have a little bit of experience publishing content, this process will take between 10 and 15 minutes.
This means, in addition to the money laid out to have the piece written, you need to account for about a half-hour of either your time or pay someone else to do the editing and posting of the article.
On average, a written, polished, and published article will typically cost us between 45 and $50.
It’s important to keep in mind that while this cost seems high it actually falls into the middle range of what it costs to create a piece of content that you have written by yourself when you factor in things like the cost of your time.
How Do You Decide What to Outsource?
Not we have an understanding of the costs of outsourcing or content creation, it’s time to move on to the question of how do we decide what to outsource.
As mentioned above, we typically use a hybrid model. This means we write some of the articles and we outsource others.
Generally speaking, the best way to go about choosing which pieces of content to outsource and which pieces you will reserve to write yourself comes down to the overall importance of that piece of content.
For example, we write all of the articles@braincreators.com, because we want to make sure that they have our voice and can take advantage of all of our information.
This becomes much less important if we’re writing answer-style posts, such as “can chickens eat cherries” because we don’t have unique information on that topic and someone can do the research just as fast as we can and arrive at a similar quality article.
Instead, focus your time on creating pillar-style posts or writing and improving your lead magnets, and feel free to outsource many of the answer-style posts that come into your blog.
Obviously, as the business owner, you can choose to write any pieces of content want to outsource don’t, but if you’re going to take advantage of the outsourcing process, it’s best to focus those efforts around content that you would not be particularly talented at creating.
Where Do You Outsource Content Creation?
While there are a ton of different websites that allow us to get in contact with freelancers, we typically like to start in one of two places.
FreeUp
If you’re looking for a dedicated person to write content just for you or you are considering bringing on a full-time writer based on the conversation above, my suggestion would be to look at Freeup. They’re an excellent source for finding help with just about anything to do with marketing for your business.
They allow you to select your specific freelancer based on a variety of factors including location, their grasp of English, and a variety of other factors.
Instead of selecting a freelancer for yourself, Freeup takes a look at the requirements that you have submitted and only presents you with the options that they believe will be the best match for your particular project.
This is a great way of getting around having to find a writer that is qualified, but it comes with the caveat that freeup freelancers will typically cost more than other alternatives.
iWriter
If you don’t need someone for more than a few articles a week or you’d like a lower-cost option, iWriter is another of our favorites.
We typically like to select their elite-level writers which means a 1500 word article will cost somewhere between 30 and $35.
The upside to using something like iWriter is that we have a variety of different options that allow us to find the writer that is best for us or to try a variety of different writers to see who is the best fit for each particular situation.
It’s important to keep in mind that many of the freelancers on this site are not native English speakers but they do have an excellent understanding of the English language and tend to write in an easily understandable way.
Feel free to try out a few different writers on this service, as well as experimenting with different levels (we use either elite or elite plus, but have had success with every package they offer), to find the balance of cost and skill that makes the most sense for your situation.
FINAL THOUGHT
Understanding whether or not you should and when to outsource your content creation is not as simple as saying yes you should or no you shouldn’t.
That being said, if you take just a few minutes to think through the process and use the article above as a guide, you’ll be able to determine which pieces of content you should outsource and you’ll be well on your way to making sure that when you do, you get a great article back.
