There are conflicts in the field about whether having an outsourced content development department is the best approach for new companies and startups within technical fields. One camp says that all of the talent should stay in house, and that everyone who is on the project should be hired with the company in order to protect intellectual property. Another camp argues that outsourcing allows quickly ramping up content marketing and achieving corporate goals faster.
In fact, there are several companies that you’re familiar with today that had their start with outsourced talent. Basecamp, Github, and Mindspark are examples of companies who have used outsourced talent to get themselves off of the ground. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247462
An outsourced content development team acts much like your in-house team, but also has specialized skills and experience that your startup may lack. Let’s talk a little bit about a few of the advantages that you’ll receive from outsourcing your technical content marketing to experienced professional marketers:
- Scale
By outsourcing your content marketing, you’re getting a dedicated team of domain experts who are contractually obliged to making your company look good. Having that firepower on your side means that you can produce content at scale as opposed to piecemeal production that does not fit into a rigorous editorial calendar schedule
- Lack of politics
This is a big one. When you outsource your technical content marketing, the people involved in the process will be most interested in making your company look good rather than making themselves look good. They’re not going to stall on getting information for an infographic, or slack off on interviewing experts for quality pieces. When you outsource your technical content marketing, there should be no worries about whether the pieces will get done. After all, their contract is on the line!
- Subject matter expertise
When you outsource your technical content marketing, you are pulling in the experience of people who have worked with several other companies and you’re able to tap into their experience through your writer’s writing. That experience makes the text bolder and more robust, and in fact makes it more compelling for the reader.
When you hire experienced technical content marketers, you’re also able to tap into their knowledge of SEO, the buyer’s journey, buyer’s personas, A/B testing, and other aspects of online marketing that you may not be familiar with. At Syptus, we have devoted many years to learning both technical fields and the craft of marketing to technical audiences.
- Saving time
There are misconceptions about how long it takes for a writer to come up with a compelling, readable blog post, infographic, whitepaper, or slide deck. Everyone has the ability to cobble something together, of course, but will that piece of marketing collateral be effective? Do you want your first draft to be what represents your company? You might not have the time to really drill down and do it right.
Think about outsourcing technical content much like you’d think about hiring an accountant to handle your money and a lawyer to handle your legal matters. Since they have the experience on their side, they can help you take your business to the next level and save you time in the process.
Your business is the most important thing, and you want to be able to pull it together for your people. Would you rather have to learn online marketing through a trial by fire, or make it easy on yourself by hiring a team who already knows the ropes?
Takeaway: Why Outsource to Experts?
- No politics with internal departments
- Internal consultants might not have the time for regular blog production
- Quality content production also requires knowledge of SEO, personas, user journeys, etc.
