Struggling to manage your entire B2B content marketing strategy in-house? Looking to raise your game in 2017?
You don’t have to do it all alone – and by seeking out the right kind of help, you might just find yourself saving money, time and a whole lot of hassle.
Here are 5 reasons outsourcing your B2B content marketing could be the best decision you make this year.
1. It Gives the Focus You Need to Succeed
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and again, and again, and again): successful B2B content marketing is all about strategy. You need a clear set of goals, you need to know precisely what success looks like, you need a carefully laid out roadmap that aligns with your customer journey. You need to know how every single piece of content fits into the chain, with clear and well thought-out calls-to-action guiding your audience to the next step along the way.
If you’re new to content marketing – or even if you aren’t – doing this properly means a significant investment of time and resources. It means being highly disciplined and sticking to a content marketing calendar and timelines. Getting someone on board who specialises in this stuff means that you can’t lose focus or let your grand goals drift away. It means this stuff will get done, no matter how busy you are.
2. It Helps You Stay Within Budget
Trying to do everything yourself can quickly become a false economy, especially if you’re a rookie. It’s all too common for a company to allocate a certain amount of time and money to creating top quality content, before quickly realising that they have seriously underestimated how much they need to spend to get their B2B content marketing drive off the ground.
You might find that a particular approach wasn’t right for your audience and you have to start again from scratch. You might find that you need to shell out on better equipment to make your podcast or video as professional as you need it to be. Or you might find yourself frustrated over the mounting opportunity costs of writing, editing and tweaking your weekly blog post, or trying to get your head around eBook design – when a professional writer or designer could complete the work in a fraction of the time.
In these cases, seeking out a B2B digital marketing agency who can price things up for you and take care of the details can be a godsend. It means that you can agree on a budget, know what you’re getting for the fee, and breathe a big old sigh of relief.
3. You Don’t Have the Right Skills In-House
Creating great B2B content marketing takes a specific set of skills. You need to be a storyteller, rather than a salesperson. You need to have a feel for intuitive design and an understanding just what it is that keeps people reading, listening, watching – and then engaging with your brand in the way you want them to next.
You might well have someone in your company who totally gets this and can oversee your content marketing efforts with great success. If so, fantastic. But if you don’t, and if you’re not willing to ask for help from people who do this for a living, you will have a very steep learning curve ahead.
4. It Creates Better ROI
These days, an average startup spends up to 75% of their marketing budget on digital marketing, including content creation. That’s a serious commitment – and a big risk to take if you’re banking on a particular outcome and don’t get it absolutely right. Of course, you do always need to have a degree of flexibility and a learning-evaluating-improving approach to content marketing. But you also need to know that you’re best placed to get the results you need. Working with an experienced content marketing agency or specialist with a great track record is a much faster route to success than trial and error!
See more about the ROI of a B2B content marketing strategy and planning in this article.
5. You Can Learn from the Experts
Working with the right B2B content marketing team that really knows their onions won’t just help you create the content you need for a particular project. It also gives you an inside view of what a successful content marketing strategy looks like. It will bring issues and considerations to your attention that you might never have thought about before. With any luck, it will inspire you to try out new ideas or spot new avenues for connecting with your audience.
These kinds of insights are incredibly valuable to take back into your own organisation. If you really want to get the most out of your outsourced B2B content, don’t just look at your agency as a supplier, think of them almost as a mentor, too. That’s where the real value lies.
Want to learn more about what it takes to create great content? Download the B2B Content Creation Masterclass below.
