One of the first places that people start to outsource in their business is with their content marketing. Marketing is one of the most necessary parts of a successful business. The problem is, many entrepreneurs can’t stand marketing, or they just don’t feel like it’s their area of expertise. Getting a little bit of assistance can be a brilliant way to amplify your marketing efforts without adding more to your plate.
I get a ton of questions about outsourcing.
- How do I start outsourcing?
- Who is right to help me?
- How do I know when I’m ready to outsource work?
Let me warn you; outsourcing can get really addicting in the best possible way! It’s fun to start delegating the things that aren’t your strong suit. Outsourcing content marketing allows you to spend more time in the revenue-generating areas of your business and your zones of genius.
Before you start outsourcing your marketing and content, you need to answer one fundamental question:
What phase of business are you in?
There are three phases of business that affect what game plan to follow when outsourcing your content and marketing.
If Your Have a New(er) Business
A new business is a business that has been around for six months to two years. There’s a lot in their business that they’re still figuring out in terms of strategy and systems. It’s a bit tricky to hire somebody to come in and help when you still feel like you’re figuring out the early components of your business.
If You Have an Intermediate Business
These businesses have been around for anywhere from a year and a half to five years. They’re in their groove when it comes to their content and marketing, as well as acquiring customers and new leads.
Where they struggle is with the sheer number of opportunities available. It’s going to be challenging to take advantage of all these opportunities without some help.
If You Have an Advanced Business
These are your six-figure plus business owners, the ones who’ve been in the game for at least three years. They have a really good handle on what they want to talk about in their content and marketing. They have proven sales systems in their business that they can rely on to drive revenue. These business owners are fully committed to stepping into their role as the CEO and handing over the reins of the day to day to other people.
Depending on where you are in your business, your guide to outsourcing your content and marketing will differ. Find your business-level below.
The Beginner Business' Guide To Outsourcing Content And Marketing
For the new business owner, one of the best places to start with outsourcing is to hire your first virtual assistant (VA). This VA can do some of your marketing and content legwork, allowing you to focus on creating that core piece of content.
My two biggest tips for when you’re starting to outsource when you’re in this stage of business are:
- Document each step. You want to make sure that you have a really well-documented content and marketing workflow. This will help any new VA know what to do and how to do it.
- Hire experts for the core pieces of your content and marketing workflow. You may want to hire experts to come in and help you set up some templates and systems that you can use. Think about having a web designer set up your website and blog or hiring a graphic designer to create your Canva templates or Newsletter design.
At this stage, you’re still the one primarily responsible for creating that core piece of content.
Here is what your workflow might look like if you’re just starting outsourcing:
- Create a blog post, social media posts, and newsletter.
- Add all completed documents to your Google Drive folder.
- Have your VA create images based on the title of the blog post.
- Approve images from the VA.
- Your VA schedules and formats blog post, newsletter, and social media posts.
- Rinse and repeat.
The Intermediate Business Owners Guide To Outsourcing Their Content Marketing
At this stage in business, you’ve likely had a virtual assistant for a while. You’re now ready for more. You’re starting to realize that you need more support in the copy and design side of things – and maybe even a video editor or a podcast editor.
You are in the stage of outsourcing when you might be looking to add a more experienced virtual assistant, a designer, or a copywriter to your team.
My two biggest tips for moving from beginner business outsourcing to intermediate business outsourcing are:
- Hire a strategist. One of the best things that you can do is hire a savvy marketing strategist to help you identify opportunities to take your marketing to the next level.
- Be obsessed with your sales system, aka your sales funnel. You’ve been in business for a while. You know that to be successful, your content has to be a revenue driver. Your VA can do some of the legwork here and help by collecting the data for you. Then, it’s your job to evaluate and analyze the data and use it to make informed decisions.
You’re the chief operator of your business. It’s your job to communicate with your team where you want this business to go. You’re the visionary, you’re in the driver’s seat. You don’t need to be doing all of the work. You just need to steer the ship.
Here's a sample workflow for the intermediate outsourcing their content and marketing:
- Write the blog post and upload it to your Google Drive. At this stage of business, you are still the chief content creator.
- Assign the content to your copywriter to edit the blog post and create your social media copy and newsletter blurb.
- Your designer creates the images and the content upgrades to go along with that blog post.
- You approve everything and send it to your VA for editing, formatting, posting, scheduling to social media, and planning any newsletters for that week.
- At the end of the month, your virtual assistant collects the data from your marketing and sends you the report.
- Rinse and repeat using the data sent by your VA to improve performance.
The Advanced Business Owners Guide To Outsourcing Their Content And Marketing
You’ve been at this for a while, and you’re truly ready to step into your CEO role. You’re still the subject matter expert, but you don’t need to be the one taking those ideas and turning them into stellar pieces of content.
At this stage of business, you might be looking for a chief marketing operator, CMO, or a content marketing integrator. This is the person who is going to take your ideas and turn them into great pieces of content with the help of your creative team.
My two biggest tips for advancing from the intermediate outsourcing stage to the advanced stage are:
- Come up with a method of capturing and communicating your subject matter expertise and ideas. There is a tool called content interviews that can help you create a process to pull the content and ideas from your head and turn them into other pieces of content. You can also do Facebook Lives or Instagram lives and use these as the basis for your pieces of content.
- Become obsessed with your numbers. At this stage in business, your marketing is a huge revenue driver. You know that if you stop showing up, those leads might dry up. Your primary responsibility is to keep a high-level view on all of the numbers and plan strategies.
Here is a sample workflow for the advanced business owner’s content marketing, outsourcing:
- Come up with your monthly marketing strategy or quarterly marketing strategy.
- Create content interviews on the topics identified in the editorial calendar to get the raw content needed to produce individual content pieces.
- Assign the blog posts to a writer.
- Assign the accompanying content, including newsletters, social media copy, and content upgrades, to a writer.
- Editing, revisions, and approval from VA, CMO, or editor
- Have a designer create all designs and creative materials.
- Get approval from the client/CEO.
- Scheduling blog posts, social media, and newsletters.
- Measurement and performance reports.
- Rinse and repeat.
I will mention that, because I have an agency, we work with a lot of clients in this capacity. The advanced business workflow is very similar to the content marketing workflow that we find works best for our clients. I come in as their chief marketing officer and content marketing integrator and help them come up with a flow of content and make sure that it’s being produced consistently. I then delegate the creation of the content to our team of writers and designers and oversee the process.
If you want even more ideas of what you can start outsourcing, make sure to download my marketing outsourcing idea guide.
This guide offers you 50 things that you can start outsourcing in your business and exactly what stage of business you should be at to begin outsourcing that particular marketing task.
