When you outsource content, are you reaping the full value of what your content outsourcing agency provides?
Content has become a cornerstone of digital marketing and online visibility. Yet more than a third of marketers struggle to consistently create great content. The option to outsource content to an agency via white label content creation gives marketers a lifeline so they can focus on strategy, analytics, and client relations.
To maximize the value of the relationship with your trusted content partner, it’s important to understand the myriad of ways an agency can help — including off-the-menu and a la carte services.
Consider these ways to leverage your content writing agency to its fullest potential:
1. Blog and Article Writing
When most of our clients think of outsourced content, blog and article writing are top of mind. Blogging remains one of the most widely used forms of content marketing. It’s highly effective in connecting with target audiences, ranking in search, and converting leads into customers.
When you outsource blog content, your content writer doesn’t just write. They use their industry expertise and SEO knowledge to craft ready-to-publish blogs and articles in your brand voice, along with:
- Conducting research on topics from trusted sources
- Adding images and “eye candy” to brighten up your content
- Inserting relevant internal and external links to improve content quality
- Connecting your topic to your desired end goal
- Performing competitor research to make your content more valuable
- Optimizing the content with strategically placed keywords
- Proofreading the content for error-free publishing
Outsourcing blog writing gives marketers more time to focus on revenue-generating activities while ensuring their blogs maintain the highest quality standards. It also means leaning on the writer’s SEO expertise to receive a blog article that gets results.
2. Ebooks
Ebooks are a favorite lead magnet for marketers, helping them target audiences with specific interests. While formatted in a visually appealing manner, the writing portion shares similarities to blog post writing.
Your content agency can be a valuable resource in generating ebooks for marketing purposes. Professional writers ensure the content is not only well-written but also well-researched, fact-checked, error-free, and aligns with your brand voice and business objectives.
Many content agencies also offer design services to complement the writing. Create a well-rounded asset that’s ready to publish and promote upon delivery.
3. Case Studies
Case studies rank in the top five highest-performing content formats. They dive into the specific experiences of customers who have used your product or service and the outcomes they received. These can be more potent than online reviews or testimonials because they’re more detailed and put your product or service into greater context for the reader.
Outsourcing case studies to a content agency is a little more collaborative than a blog article. Companies can provide their own data or recorded interviews with the customer to your writing team. Your content writers will then use these resources to formulate the case study using the same brand and quality standards for all your content writing.
Here’s our case study interview discussion guide and template to get you started.
4. White Papers
White papers are meticulous documents that require a keen eye to detail, a high level of research, and a commitment not to overpromote. Entrusting this task to a specialized content creator ensures you get a professional, informative white paper that meets your goals.
Outsourcing white paper writing gives you access to fresh ideas and perspectives. Your writing team handles the heavy lifting to find facts, data, and studies to support the content. Wordsmiths also have the innate ability to inject creativity into even the driest topics and bring your content to life. This infusion of new ideas not only captivates readers but also presents information in unique angles your competitors may not have considered.
5. Web Pages and Landing Pages
Skilled web page writers have a deep understanding of SEO and can effectively use keywords and phrases that will optimize the website’s visibility on search engines. Tapping into this specialized knowledge allows businesses to save time and allocate resources more efficiently compared to writing web page copy in-house. As a result, businesses can improve their productivity and content quality without spreading internal resources too thin.
Outside expertise can contribute significantly to engaging and persuasive web page content, especially when that expertise extends beyond writing. Having a background in SEO, digital marketing, and sales means getting web page or landing page copy and microcopy designed for specific audiences and conversions.
6. Email Newsletters
Outsourced content marketing can take your strategy one step further by providing supplementary content. For example, email is a great tool to promote your new blog article, case study, or white paper and can help you start getting engagement fast. Your content writing team can draft promotional email copy that’s ready to share with your audience.
Likewise, you can outsource your email writing needs even if it’s not tied to another piece of content. Email newsletters help you stay in touch with your audience and keep the conversation fresh.
7. Promotional Content
Promotional content gives you a jumpstart on sharing your content with your audience. Once your agency has written your blog post, ebook, case study, or white paper, they’re in the best position to write accompanying social media posts, email newsletter copy, and other promotional copy.
For example, our promotional content includes a meta description, multiple variations of social media copy, and email headlines and copy. We also go to Quora to find relevant user questions our clients’ content can answer and formulate a response.
Adding promotional copy to your bread-and-butter content puts you one step closer to results. You’ll save time, grow your content’s reach, and check multiple boxes off your to-do list.
8. Lead Magnets
Blogs can do so much more than inform and educate. Ultimately, they can turn readers into leads, and eventually paying customers. To do this, your blog needs an easy way to capture your readers’ contact information — enter the lead magnet, or as we call it, the content upgrade.
Content upgrades serve as extensions of your blog articles. It might be a cheat sheet, quick-start guide, checklist, or anything else that’s valuable enough for the reader to share their email address in exchange for the content.
These content upgrades are the new-and-improved (and lemon scented!) lead magnets because they’re directly related to the blog your audience is reading. Rather than taking a generalized approach, like most lead magnets do, readers are presented with something more compelling and relevant to their needs at that moment.
As a result, you’re more likely to capture more and better quality leads from the blog article compared to lead magnets shared across the board.
9. Infographics
Creating infographics takes a two-pronged approach: you need a copywriter to create the content and a designer to make it visually appealing. Many content agencies are capable of handling both so your asset looks cohesive and professional.
As with other types of quality content, infographics require research, fact-checking, organization, and attention to detail. Your content team can deliver on all points, along with a polishing phase before delivery to ensure flawless copy.
10. Content Outlines
For some marketers, the hardest part of outsourcing content creation is getting started. You have an idea and want to run with it, but time and budget constraints or competing priorities send your content marketing to dead ends. Whether or not you outsource content creation, you may find value in outsourcing SEO services, such as keyword research, topic ideation, and content outline preparation.
Requesting an outline for a topic is a great way to get “unstuck.” Your content writing team can flesh out your thoughts into a compelling blog article, ebook, case study, white paper, or other type of content. You can see how an idea might develop before you invest significant time and resources into it.
Once you have an approved outline, the next phase of outsourcing your content writing and content is easier. Your writer has already handled the research and organization, so they can easily jump into the heavy writing to bring your ideas to life.
11. Topic Ideation
Need help coming up with topics to talk about? The industry experts on your outsourced content marketing team can help you identify trending topics to beef up your strategy. Whether you have an idea, a keyword, or nothing at all, let your outsourced writers do the brainstorming and present you with some sample headlines.
12. Challenge Reads
If you’ve poured your heart and soul into your content and want to ensure perfection before it’s published, hand it to your content team for a challenge read.
Challenge reads use a fine-tooth comb to surface inaccurate or outdated information, grammar or spelling errors, and disruptions to flow and style. This process ensures the content aligns with your brand voice and provides the most value to your target audience.
It also searches for opportunities to strengthen the content, from adding unique stats and sources to offering deeper insights that better connect the dots. Making your content as good as it can possibly be allows you to get more from your efforts and investment.
13. Content Improvements
If you’ve run a content audit and identified underperforming pieces, your team of writers and editors can improve existing content and give it new purpose. Leverage your writing team to update facts and stats, pull new information, cite the latest research, and make your content more appealing to read. Your team can even improve content another content marketing agency or freelance writer created for you!
Outsource Content for Maximum Impact — Get in Touch
When you outsource content writing, consider the full spectrum of capabilities and benefits. Having an entire team of professional writers, editors, and account managers on your side means addressing all of your content writing needs, from ideation to publishing.
At Content Pros, we manage the entire process on your behalf so you can focus on business growth. Get in touch today to see how our content writing services can make your job easier.
