Who should create your content?
Unless you’ve lived under a rock these past years, you’ve heard it – content is king. But should you create the crown jewel of your marketing efforts yourself or let someone else do it? Here’s my two cents from a content specialist’s point of view.
Content creation is a bit like making coffee.
Sure, you can probably brew a decent cup yourself, but a pro can tailor a basic cup o’ Joe to match anyone’s deepest desires. Even those of the hipster in this picture.
I returned from an agency to in-house marketing a while ago. And boy, I had forgotten how much of the work is invisible to us at the agency.
Seeing first-hand just how much work goes into content planning and creation even before a brief lands on my desk was a good reminder: Content creation can be very fruitful, but it’s also very labour intensive.
So, who should do the work – you, your subject matter experts, or an agency? Here’s my take as a content specialist who has worked on both sides of the table.
Do you have time to create quality content?
Here’s another familiar phrase: Time is money. If you are thinking about hiring a content marketing agency or a content creator, you should be asking yourself: What do you or your professionals want to spend time on?
There are a wealth of reasons to have your subject matter experts create content:
Advise, tips & tricks, and opinions sound more genuine and reliable coming from a real person, rather than “Mark the Marketer” or worse yet “Company Group Oy”.
Creating content gets your experts engaged in marketing and can help them see the value in it, especially if you report the results to them after publishing their piece!
It helps them build a personal brand and in so doing supports your company’s brand, too.
The thing is, they need to have time to create content.
An actual image of me spending time pondering the right word choices.
While working at a marketing agency, I helped professionals in various fields write articles and blogs. Their most common reason for not doing it themselves was lack of time. Writing a blog tends to be low priority, when there’s a customer calling, a Teams meeting waiting, and a billion e-mails to answer.
It takes me anywhere from 2-10 hours to create an article or blog. More, if there is background material like interviews or research to shift through. And I write every day, for a living.
If you can help your experts make time for content creation, great! However, they will likely still need time from you (or your team, if you have one): editing drafts, making sure important keywords are included, writing meta descriptions, and so on.
Hiring a professional content creator can help you and your experts save time and focus on caring for customers, for example. On the other hand, it can mean you will have to spend some time finding the right person for the job – whether you’re looking to add talent to your team or outsource content creation to an agency. Speaking of which – what is the better choice?
To recruit or not to recruit: that is the question
Are you a lonely rider, traversing your company’s vast marketing landscape all on your own? Maybe it’s the other way around and you have a stable full of marketing unicorns at your disposal. The resources you have obviously affect the choice on whether to outsource content creation or keep it in-house.
Is your situation with marketing resources more comparable to a desert than a lush rainforest?
If you are a one-person marketing team juggling everything on your own: first off, go you! Second, you might already have an agency or two to help you out, at least occasionally.
And if you do, you likely know that working with an agency or several takes some effort. There’s meetings to schedule, information to share and briefs to create. So, what are the reasons to hire a content specialist if you already work with an agency?
Well, there’s a benefit to bringing someone on board who can immerse themselves in just your business and organization. It’s easier for an in-house content specialist to keep an ear to the ground for possible hot topics and themes. Given time, they will become familiar with your experts, too. That way, they will probably have an easier time getting hold of them for any future content needs. And if content creation is not your particular passion, you might also be able to hand over the reigns of working with possible content marketing agencies to your content person, and focus on something more to your liking.
Who’s on your crew? Are you ridin’ solo or do you have a lot of talent on your team?
But should a content specialist be the first person you hire if you’re just starting to build your marketing team? It depends. What’s your business and what are your targets? Even if it sounds like I’m tooting my own horn I would vouch for a content specialist to be among the first ones you add to your team. Building a solid foundation of content on your evergreen topics will help you get results in the long run.
If you already have a marketing team, the question is simpler. You probably know if your team has the content creation skills and passion needed – or if they don’t. If you already have marketers on your team who focus on social media, Google Ads, automation, events and so on, adding a content specialist to your stable can make for a winning team. There are benefits to having your other talents involved early on in content creation: you’ll be able to change tactics faster, avoid information blockages and much more.
What are your content needs?
We’ve covered how much time content creation takes and who you have at your disposal to do the job, but what should they actually spend that time on?
Your content needs depend on what kind of business you run and the kinds of audiences you’re trying to reach, for example. A complex technical B2B company will probably need masses of deep-diving text content. On the other hand, a consumer-oriented brand for teenagers will probably do better by focusing on social media, influencer marketing and video content. A skilled content specialist can help you with all of these needs.
Those youngsters and their crazy TikTok dances!
Seriously though, who you’re trying to reach affects the kind of channels you should use and as a result the kind of content you need to create. Think about it.
So, should you hire and agency or recruit a content specialist? Now that you’ve considered how much time you and yours actually have to spend on content planning, creation and distribution AND what your audience is looking for, you probably have a hunch already. My point here is: whatever you decide, consider the previous questions first. Then go get yourself a content professional, either way.
So what do you think, which is the better choice for you and why? Tell me in the comments below or connect with me on LinkedIn!
