June 6, 2017

Why should marketers partner with content marketing experts for great results?

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Marketing teams in India are increasingly taking the content marketing plunge and ramping up efforts to engage with customers. As they dive in though, the one big question many are asking themselves is, “Should we outsource our brand’s digital content needs?” After all, marketing teams know the product/service best.

But the question remains:

Even if there are content marketing specialists internally – and we believe this role will be among the hottest jobs in marketing – they will need the right infrastructure and tools to help them meet their goals. Hence, it might be best to start your content marketing journey by evaluating whether you should outsource your content marketing. Even if you have started out and are discovering roadblocks, you may find this evaluation is what you need to make some headway.

This piece in B2C has some questions you should figure out the answers to before deciding on your route to content marketing.

Here are some clear benefits to partnering with a specialist content marketing outfit for your consideration:

Skills, Budgets & People

Content creation is a specialised skill- much like content planning & content distribution. Some organisations may feel it is too early to populate marketing teams with internal content specialists. However, the talent gap will only increase as more marketing plans include content marketing as a necessary critical layer. In these cases, specialist outfits can add the much-needed boost needed to achieve consumer engagement. Even in companies where there are 2-3 content specialists, content marketing platforms and advisory services can work to achieve scale and consistency.

Writing is an Art

Most people can talk, but few can communicate effectively. You need relevant expertise from content strategists and creators, and this expertise is unlikely to be found in your advertising agency. Most advertising agencies put the brand at the centre of the conversation. Content marketing companies, however, have pioneered the revolution to put the consumer at the centre of the conversation.

 

The ‘conversation’ itself may be a starter, with the brand leveraging a trending dialogue.

For instance, the Indian government recently announced the names of the first 20 smart cities in India, a huge opportunity for enterprise technology firms. But did any of these companies take this opportunity to ride the buzz created by this announcement? That would be a perfect example of a conversation at the centre of a potential engagement. Creating a story from mere data, working with experienced experts who can bring a piece of content to life, and catalysing consumer-centric thinking — these are some of the advantages that a content marketing company can bring to your brand.

Scaling Content

Outsourcing content marketing needs also allows you to rapidly deploy scale and pull back when you need to. A specialist content organization can build content strategy, align your content and marketing team to a range of content creators (across several price and quality points), and add tremendous width and range to your engagement efforts.

For instance, imagine an airline wanting to create several hundred pieces of content titled ‘48 hours in XYZ’ for all the cities they fly to. With a content marketing agency and the right deployment of smart tools, marketers can potentially procure several hundred pieces of relevant content in under 24 hours.

Time Versus Returns

Some believe that content marketing can be managed by hiring a couple of journalists in the marketing team. After all, journalists create great content, right? Wrong. This is as flawed an idea as hiring interns to manage a brand’s social feeds. A newsroom in a reputed media brand isn’t just about writers, but about skilled copy editors, fact checkers, and editors.Even one missing step can dismantle the whole magic trick.

 

Consistently creating great content outcomes takes time and the right resources. While we completely second the thought of hiring content specialists within a brand team, what is more important is to arm them with the right resources and tools to improve the brand’s content engagement. Working with an outsourced content marketing company can make a huge difference.

The End of The Road Syndrome

Recently, one of my colleagues met a marketer who expressed a ‘temporary interest’ in content marketing. We were told that there was a limit to the amount of content that could be created for a brand. After all, how often can a fairness cream brand talk about complexion and beauty tips? A content marketing company will see this challenge from a very different lens. A lens that throws light on the fact that a fairness cream is less about complexion and pigmentation and more about the ‘hope’ and ‘confidence’ it’s trying to inspire. When you look at it that way, you realise there is no dearth of content marketing ideas. Given the TG is rather young, themes can revolve around issues such as dating, job interview tips, smart dressing, and more. Content allows for infinite engagement and content companies can help brands navigate this bottomless pit of opportunity.

Workflow Management

Content marketing companies don’t just provide content but can manage your brand’s entire content marketing workflow. This is done by (1) outlining the objective of content engagement, (2) drawing up a nuanced content calendar, (3) procuring and/or aggregating content, (4) creating commissioned content, (5) curating and re-purposing content (6) deploying analytics-based tools to measure engagement, (7) ensuring constant optimisation, and so on.

Content marketing is thus achieved in collaboration with the brand team. Strategy is designed, and content is efficiently created or procured, scientifically distributed, and then optimised, helping transform the marketing function itself into a potential profit centre.