11 Reasons Why Outsourcing Content Creation is a Bad Idea

This is a work of satire. All the puns, entendre, and sarcasm found in the piece is purely intentional.

Lo and behold!

Address the elephant in the room.

Readers may have a short attention span.

So, here goes…“Why would you hire a content writing service instead of creating content for your brand in-house?”

It’s a bad idea through and through.

Wouldn’t outsourcing content creation (although many agree it is more effective) make it seem like you’re treating your company like a stepchild? And you want only the best for your company, don’t you?

So, strictly keeping your content creation in-house is an excellent way to proceed – even if it means doing a lukewarm job!

11 Reasons Why Outsourcing Content Creation is a Bad Idea

Here are the top 11 reasons why outsourcing content creation is unnecessary.

#1 You Don’t Want More Time to Work on Future Business Strategies and Operations

Creating content is often a laborious task, and better left to introverts who’d rather spend a day with their nose in a research paper than say hello to their neighbour.

Just think about it. Who has time to: 

• research what to write
• the actual writing and rewriting
• editing the first draft
• optimizing for search engines
• finding the right publication channels
• publishing

Safe to say, content creation for a niche where customers are usually subject matter experts is a full-time job. 

So, with the limited number of hours in a day for unlimited tasks, brands that don’t outsource content creation struggle to focus on core business activities. 

No wonder 64% of B2B marketers outsource content creation.

But why go through the trouble and hire a content writing service when you’ve cracked the code on strategies and operations forever? 

#2 You Don’t Want to Publish Content Frequently

If you adore slower turnarounds, you should not outsource content creation. 

Creating high-quality long-form content for inbound lead generation (a top choice for B2B marketers) requires blood, sweat, and tears – unless you are happy to just spin out 500-word posts off the top of your head. 

You can do this every day, as long as you’re okay with low impact.  And not ranking well on Google. 

But what happens when those 500-word posts don’t work? Crafting and posting original long-form content frequently will be near impossible with your twenty other core tasks. So, what do you do? 

You outsource content creation to a team of professionals who dedicate their entire day/week to creating long-form content, such as blogs, articles, case studies, etc., tailored to your needs.  

60% of brands find it impossible to create content consistently, which affects its frequency – a problem outsourcing content creation can solve. It is the only way to scale and publish content without dropping quality levels. 

But do you need it? So, what if frequently publishing content can help you nurture leads significantly?

#3 You Want to Pay More for Content Creation

Investing in a full-fledged in-house content team means you don’t get to save on employee benefits like medical insurance, paid leave, etc. You must also provide specialised training to employees on your own dime. 

On the other hand, outsourcing content creation needs you to do none of this. A reliable content partner will aid you with strategy and experiment with different points of view, and be ready for work on any day you want.  

Add to this, where the average annual salary of a single full-time content writer in the USA is around $65,000 plus training and benefits; outsourcing entitles you to a team of expert creators at a fraction of this cost. 

A solid single long-form content piece can cost you $100. Say you post five such pieces per week (20 every month), which is more than what most companies do; you only end up paying $24,000 annually.  

This is because you only pay for the content, not the overheads, thus achieving an optimal content marketing ROI. 

But none of this matters if you feel like you never spend enough on marketing.

#4 You Can Succeed with Low Brand Visibility

It’s great if you can consistently and frequently produce top-notch content. But is that enough to generate interest in your brand? Not unless you publish on the right platforms and with SEO best practices.

Content outsourcing services offer mastery in generating organic traffic by employing creative tactics that award you with higher visibility. Some of these include:

• Using the right CTAs to propel action.
• Creating compelling posts to generate backlinks.
• Optimising content by inserting keywords and phrases to rank high on search engines. 

But you don’t have to hire a content writing agency for this. Your marketing team probably knows all the content creation hacks to grow brand visibility that drives organic traffic to your website, don’t they? 

#5 You Don’t Believe in Creating a Wide Range of Content

Of course, there is much more to content creation than blog posts. 

First, there’s the maze of social media – a potential gold mine for content creation. Then, there are e-books, emails, infographics, open forums, and many other formats. 

Did you know that other than blogs, video content is binged by countless B2B clients? Unfortunately, 80% of marketers find these short videos the hardest to produce. 
If you find creating high-quality video content underwhelming, it’s better not to hire content outsourcing services – they’ll probably one-up you and not feel the pressure.

#6 You Want to Stay Away from Hiring Experts 

Content outsourcing services have experienced content creators on their payroll. These professionals aren’t just writers, but marketers with diverse backgrounds and powerful ideas. 

For example, suppose you run a corporate gifting business and want to share content about the importance of forging long-lasting B2B relationships through personalised gifting. In such a case, you can search for a content creator who has studied human psychology or has worked in corporate gifting.

But this is only possible when you know how to choose worthy content writers. 

By partnering with a content writing service, you can access a pool of content creators who can help you explore the intent of your business in a much deeper way. 

But if you’re worried, content experts will teach you a thing or two about your client psyche – stay away from outsourcing content creation at all costs.

#7 You’re Okay with Potential Burnouts

Researching the pain points of your target audience, creating and updating content strategy, and staying up to date with the latest trends while creating content can lead to burnout. 

As days pass, your in-house team or writer will find it more and more challenging to remain excited about producing content. The result? Uninspired, poorly researched content. And this may lead to a face loss or, worse, low brand visibility and decreased lead generation. 

Instead, you can outsource the actual act of content creation and keep control of the more exciting aspects of content strategy. 

Doing this will keep your team excited about putting out engaging content and avoid potential burnouts. (Unless you believe that burnouts are proof that employees are working hard?)

#8 You Don’t Want to Maintain a Strong Content Marketing Strategy     

A content marketing firm has extensive industry knowledge. They know exactly what kind of content works well across which format and platform. As a result, they can help strengthen or refurbish your overall content strategy – unless it’s perfect.

They often have the complete toolkit to evaluate your content’s performance and the skills to improve it. These can involve writing better quality blogs, building backlinks through widely shareable content, or creating content bundles.     

Based on their analysis of your content, they can suggest repairs to your content marketing strategy or create a new one altogether.

#9 You Don’t Wish to Establish Content Best Practises

Certain best practises can help you create quality content repeatedly, no matter the format. These are the same as Standard Operating Procedures or SOPs in other industries. For example:

• Using perfect grammar, punctuation, expressions, and spelling.
• Creating content style guides for each client.
• keyword insertions
• Including images
• Linking correctly
• Formatting for search engines (H1, H2, H3)
• Going long (applicable for B2B textual content) 
• Writing compelling headlines and CTAs

The checklist for editing is even longer.

When you outsource content creation, you will get your hands on standard best practises customised to your needs. This is critical to maintaining your brand’s reputation and garnering a steady following. 

Ignore this entirely if your rivals fashion their best practises after you!

#10 Diverse Points of View (POVs) Make You Unhappy

Sure, you know what to convey through content. But you may not be the only one! 

When you hire a content creation company, you allow newer and often more experienced perspectives to blend in with your prevalent narrative.

These hired hands are on top of any emerging content marketing trends within your industry and offer a fresh perspective to topics you wish to or are already writing about. Legit content firms also rotate clientele among their writers, ensuring a constant onslaught of fresh ideas and writing styles across formats.

However, if it’s your POV or no POV, you’re right not to outsource content creation.   

#11 You Want to Run Out of a Steady Supply of Content 

While you may not run out of good writers, you can quickly run out of good content ideas. This is when a content partner can help.  

From picking topics with appropriate intent to writing highly compelling marketing copy, they do it all too well. 

After all, your organic traffic will take a hit if you repeatedly publish content on similar topics. You need fresh ideas that add value to readers and establish your brand as a thought authority. This is only possible when you can access a steady supply of content topics. Typically, a content creation company can help with this.  

But, if you’d rather run out of ideas and publish drab content, stay away from content outsourcing. 

Should You Outsource Content Creation?

Are these your reasons for not outsourcing content creation? Au contraire, your competitors have the following excuses to outsource this activity.

After considering these pointers, it does become challenging to see why you might debate whether outsourcing content creation is a good idea or not. 

Or, perhaps reducing marketing ROIs and increasing lead generation is not a top priority for you – yet.

About the Author: