No matter if your company wants to create a new website or relaunch the existing one, publish a new brochure or fill a blog as well as social media channels, one thing is always needed: Content. Because, besides a web design that is responsive and visible, good content with added value plays the main role. The focus should be on the user: They should be well provided with authentic and trustworthy content, stay on the site for as long as possible, and find all the information they need and which motivates them to make a purchase decision. In short, you should ensure an optimal user experience and a successful customer journey.
Produce texts in-house or outsource writing processes?
This is the first question for every marketer. But that, of course, depends on whether you can fall back on the necessary know-how in your company, or whether you need to build up that knowledge.
One thing is certain: Convincing website content, peppered with good SEO texts, is now the be-all and end-all for companies of all kinds. So it’s no accident that, according to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, expenditure on content creation in the B2B sector is rising and more than half of all companies outsource the creation itself.
Often companies start off without a content strategy that captures the goals and target audience. Consequently, their texts can lack the necessary focus, so it would be better to let professionals get to work. Because experienced copywriters have mastered the necessary tools, they can inspire online readers with a wide variety of text types – from press articles, blog posts and landing page texts, to product and category descriptions for an online shop, to texts for e-books and white papers. Of course, every copywriter has his or her favourite subject area. Depending on how specific the desired texts should be, you can choose specialised project partners to fit your needs.
What challenges do marketers face in content creation?
On the one hand, many companies are not in a position to produce excellent content themselves and on the other hand, they often lack the timeto do so at the required frequency. This is because very few non-writing professionals think about ideas that can be published on a continuous basis and the need for regularity is extremely important here.
Do you ever ask yourself why you consume certain content on the net but leave the rest on the sidelines because you click away, annoyed? The answer is because your valuable content is content that gives you exactly the answers you need, when you need them. Accurate content marketing, therefore, meets the pain points of the users and has online endurance through quality, but good texts don’t simply fall from the sky.
In addition to other online services such as web design or search engine optimisation, it is becoming more and more popular to leave the copywriting to professionals and outsource the content creation. For clients, however, this often proves to be a difficult undertaking: Who do they get to write their texts? And how much of a headache is the search for the right creative partner?
Basically, it will always depend on the portfolio of the respective provider and on the individual author’s writing talent. By utilising a provider’s pool of creatives, you can get in touch with people with whom you can work successfully, who understand your needs, and with whom you can build a successful communication path. The result is texts that convey important facts and emotions, awaken the desire to read and attract the attention of the preferred target group with an appropriate tonality and the right portion of wordplay. Engagement often depends on the subtleties that differentiate true text value from meaningless text passages that leave the reader none the wiser, clicking away, annoyed. See? It’s not that easy to find the right author.
This is what makes professional copywriters so special:
The potential of external content creation – a brief overview
The advantage of freelancers: Direct exchange
Manageable structures are associated with low costs. Freelancers usually do not have to maintain large offices. You don’t have to pay any placement costs, the freelancers issue invoices themselves and – unlike with agencies – you as the client can communicate with them yourself during the implementation because no one else is involved in the project.
The advantage of platforms: Scalable capacities
Clients are spoilt for choice with this time-saving and scalable model. On a platform, a wide variety of authors with a wide variety of topic experience are waiting to tap the keys for your company texts. These authors write content according to your budget, at the quality level and in the language you need.
The advantage of agencies: Secure processing with quality guarantee
Clients receive services from a single source and are in contact with a single person who accompanies them through to project completion. He or she will certainly also ensure that the copywriter writing for you has the appropriate specialist area and portfolio and, in the event of dissatisfaction, can fall back on another permanent employee or freelancer.
The advantage of in-house copywriting: Face-to-face communication
Setting up your own editorial department is a long-term investment. The coordination of content with your writing professionals is much easier on-site than via e-mail, chat or telephone.
Would you like to combine the advantages of a comprehensive agency service with those of a platform?
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It’s not the price
…but how your price it. Because if we are honest, budget limitations are the reality. For many companies or clients, however, fixed prices are too difficult and they fear that the delivered content will be too short. Of course, quality always counts more than quantity, but the wordcount of an article is not irrelevant. If you want to have a good chance of playing at the top of the search results, it is becoming more and more important to achieve the text length required for a certain topic and to be able to satisfy the user with holistic contributions. You can easily control this by selecting a payment per word and defining the desired text length for each of your articles in the briefing. The clearer your briefing, the more likely it is that the content delivered will be a hit. To achieve this, the following points should be communicated:
Your potential text partners put to the test
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The freelancermarket is booming now the desire for flexible and self-determined work is growing. Particularly in the online industry, it is easy to find suitable freelancers who enjoy time-limited projects on challenging topics. Since they have often already worked freelance for many other companies, they bring a wealth of experience with them. Freelancers usually calculate their workload on an hourly or word-by-word basis and are less expensive than an editorial staff or an agency. They are particularly suitable for project-based collaboration and, after a while, can even feel connected to the company like a business partner as the collegial relationship develops. Nevertheless, using freelancers in this manner means that you still need to find the right author and network, have enough time to coordinate and check the delivered texts, as well as maintain responsibility for the subsequent uploading of the finished content into the company’s system and the processing of invoices.
If you choose to use an agency, you will quickly find that you are dealing with all-rounders. The copywriters working there are usually experienced with customer requests as well as with the expectations of Google & Co. for unique content. They integrate all projects as well as guidelines around keywords and WDF*IDF without any problems. The fact that agency bosses know which copywriters are particularly suitable for what projects also gives you a bit more securitythan you would have if you had chosen an author on your own. In their search for expert, specialised and reliable writers, many clients, therefore, rely on agency services. Flexibility varies from agency to agency. Companies should always keep in mind that they are not the only customers and that an agency does not have an infinite number of resources. In terms of costs, this is not a cheap option. In addition to a monthly fee, there are often costs for planning, promotion or analysis. In addition, the agency landscape is not transparent, since each will present itself as the best and recommendations will, therefore, be a helpful starting point for the selection.
Whoever you choose, the time expenditure is, in principle, relatively high for the client, since agencies would like to clarify all expectations and preferences during the initial consultancy process. The goal, however, is to deliver content that is tailored to the needs of different channels and prevent the results from deviating from the expectations of both the client and their corporate identity. To this end, regular meetings or telephone conferences are scheduled and detailed briefings are expected, in which you should also communicate the goals of your content strategy to the agency as precisely as possible. To ensure that the workflow on the way to the finished text is as transparent as possible for your company, it is best for you to set rules.
Do it yourself – that will sound particularly tempting if you’re a smaller company or start-up, especially since your own employees will know your corporate culture and customers better than anyone else. However, if you are inexperienced in writing and not trained for it, the research and formulation effort with subsequent quality assurance is far too high. In addition, your working time is far too valuable for this and this approach is not actually cheaper since internal text production is often not particularly efficient. On the contrary, the forced, pressurised writing process can be quite exhausting. After all, you can’t concentrate on your actual business and core competencies if you’re struggling with content.
That’s why, rather than entrusting the topic of content marketing to someone from your company or marketing department, it’s a good idea to apportion the appropriate resources and hire dedicated, qualified, in-house copywriters.
Of course, this requires an intensive induction of the new team member and a permanent job is always associated with higher fixed costs, as well as the risk of whether the selected candidate is really suitable for the job. However, this gives you the opportunity to add real expertise to your company with copywriters who can bring your topics and themes to light again and again. In the case of spontaneous events that need to be communicated to the outside world, you can react more spontaneously with your own copywriter. And as your editorial staff only writes for your company, you can rely on unique, top quality content. Ideally, the result will be journalistically-valuable articles that can enrich your communications enormously – ideally over a number of years and with a constantly growing understanding of the company’s products, services and specific target group. Of course, there is always a risk of operational blindness and text production is only scalable to a limited extent. But if you just need a strong slogan or a tip for important correspondence, your in-house copywriter can help you. The main advantage of this model is the close cooperation and the fact that permanent copywriting staff quickly internalise the company’s goals.
If you choose a copywriter platform, you have a lot of control in your hands and can make new decisions from project to project. You can process your orders intuitively and easily via a platform – with an order entry screen, a programming interface and the option of a final quality check. The financial framework for text orders via a platform is clearly defined in advance and you are spared any administrative effort. You also don’t have to deal with the issue of invoicing or employer contributions.
Basically, people who like writing can register and pick out the jobs they prefer to write about – in principle, at any time of the day or night. They are not bound to any office hours, which is particularly practical for clients who need texts at short notice and are under time pressure. It’s also easy for clients to commission content in different languages, as a large number of foreign-language authors are available via the platform.
You can control the linguistic and content quality of your desired text via the price you are prepared to pay. Even if you need a large number of texts, there are no extra costs. After all, the high scalability thanks to the large author pool is the characteristic feature par excellence for a copywriter platform.
If it’s your first job and you’re in a hurry, collaboration can be difficult – at least at the start – because not every preferred author is ready to start when you are. This challenge can be easily solved by involving several copywriters at the same time, allowing a client to put together their own author team. Therefore, a project can be spread across a number of players and a dedicated team increases the chance that one of the authors will be able to do the job at short notice. If you have already successfully completed assignments with a copywriter via a platform and are satisfied with the result, you can also contact them for your next assignment, putting you even closer to your next text. This often results in good, long-term cooperation, which can be easily maintained via the respective platform. Whether a text ultimately meets your expectations and the tonality of your company depends strongly on the personality and know-how behind your chosen copywriter – and, of course, on how good the briefing is, which is what all texts are based on. The platform can also act as a kind of mediator. Your contact can step in if there are problems in the communication between author and client, while inappropriate and unreliable behaviour and procedures are immediately sanctioned.
Expertise meets formulation talent: The pluses of external content creation
As we have found, companies with content outsourcing save time and money. With a view to your content strategy and subsequent production, internal and external resources can of course also be linked. For example, you can develop ideas yourself on the basis of your market observation, generate initial drafts and then leave the detailed concept to a writing professional. If you process your text orders via a platform, you can decide at short notice on a case-by-case basis what you want to outsource and where internal know-how or your own capacities might be sufficient.
What all copywriters – regardless of whether they are self-employed or permanent employees – have in common is that they are well-trained word artists. Since tastes are different, there is a suitable author for every client within a large pool of talent. After all, the decisive factor for a successful collaboration is that the chemistry is right.
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