Outsource content marketing or bring it in house: which is the best choice for your business?

As a business owner starting with They Ask, You Answer, you face a difficult choice: should you invest in an in-house content manager or is it better to outsource your content?

On the one hand, you do feel like starting up with a freelancer quickly and flexibly. On the other hand, you wonder if this is the best choice in the long run.

At Buzzlytics, we regularly have conversations with business owners who are at the same point as you. They too must make the choice between hiring someone for what is often a brand new role within the company, or hiring a content agency or freelancer.

In this article, we will discuss in detail the pros and cons of outsourcing versus bringing content marketing in-house. By the end, you'll have a clear picture of what both options entail and be able to make an informed decision.

If you want to outsource your content, you have several options.

One possible option is a freelancer. You can find these through LinkedIn or Google, but there are also websites that link freelancers seeking jobs with clients seeking freelancers. There is even a special platform for copywriters and clients looking for a copywriter: Word Artists.

Would you rather work with an agency than a freelancer? Even then, you have plenty of choices. Google on "best content agency" and you will automatically come across lists of different agencies to choose from.

"What about AI?", I hear you ask. "Can I have ChatGPT write my content too?" Although tools like ChatGPT are rapidly improving, they have serious limitations that mean a human editor is still always needed to control ChatGPT's output. A combination of a good writer and AI is the best option.

When you start working with a freelancer or an agency, you don't have to go through a whole recruitment process first. You can usually get started relatively quickly. And that's nice, because the sooner you start, the sooner you'll start seeing results.

The best freelance writers often do have a waiting list that can go up to a few months, but if you can't wait, you can always look for someone else.

If you partner with a freelancer or agency, you can usually get started relatively quickly.

Need a lot of content and want to publish it as quickly as possible? Writers at an agency or a few freelancers can work on multiple pieces of content at once, making it easy to scale up.

Although even a salaried content manager always works on several pieces of content simultaneously, he has a maximum of 40 hours per week available. So with an in-house content manager, you run into limitations faster if you want to scale up.

Moreover, with freelancers or with an agency, you are not dependent on one person, which makes you less vulnerable.

Are you not completely satisfied with the qualities of an outside writer? Then you can get rid of him again relatively easily. Moreover, you have invested little in them (both in terms of time and financial resources).

Terminating a working relationship with one's own content manager, even during the probationary period, does have a few more feet and consequences.

You're probably a lot more expensive if you outsource your content.

Below I explain this.

A while ago, I asked on LinkedIn what the freelancer writers in my network would charge for 12 blogs of 1,000 to 2,500 words per month.

The outcome was that most would charge between 4,200 and 9,000 euros a month for this - more than the salary of a full-time content manager.

Moreover, in the freelancer's example, we assume that he writes three articles per week.

But an in-house content manager does much more than that. He also writes all kinds of other content (web copy, emails, social media posts, buyer guides, etc.) and, in addition to writing, is involved in such things as leading brainstorming sessions, maintaining content planning, conducting interviews with content experts, and updating older blog posts.

If you want to fairly compare the cost of an in-house content manager with the cost of an agency or freelancer, you have to include all these tasks in your comparison. And then you will quickly end up much more expensive than with an in-house content manager.

In our article on the cost of a content manager, we discuss in detail the cost of outsourcing vs. the cost of an in-house content manager.

If you want to fairly compare the cost of an in-house content manager with the cost of an agency or freelancer, you need to include all of a content manager's duties in your comparison.

When you enter into a contract with an agency, it lays out a number of things, including:

• What kind of content you want written
• How many pieces of content are delivered per month
• how many rounds of revision you get
• and so on

Then, if you want something that is not in the contract, you often have to be very patient and pay extra. Agencies have more clients besides you, so they can't shift gears as easily as an in-house content manager.

They Ask, You Answer requires you to publish a minimum of three articles per week and for those articles to meet a certain standard of quality.

This means, among other things, that the content:

• must be based on interviews with subject matter experts
• must have more depth than agency writers are used to
• must be structured and written in a specific way

Even experienced content writers have to flip a switch when they start writing TAYA content. I myself had more than a decade of experience before joining Buzzlytics, but even I had to - and still have to - learn a lot about how to write effective TAYA content.

Writers at agencies will mostly limit themselves to desk research, reusing what they have written before for other clients.

Of course, you can teach them to write the way you want them to write, but the reason you hire outside writers is precisely so they can get started quickly. If they need a familiarization period, you might as well hire a content manager as far as this point is concerned.

For outside writers, your company is one of many companies they write for.

They don't sit in on internal meetings, don't work in your office, and aren't in your WhatsApp group. So they don't know your company, products and services inside out. As a result, they may have trouble creating content that truly resonates with your ideal client.

An in-house content manager is closer to the fire and thus knows exactly what is going on within your company.

To give an example, at Buzzlytics we have a meeting with the revenue team (marketing and sales) every Monday and a 15-minute Daily Huddle every day. So I know exactly what my colleagues are working on and what their struggles are with specific customers.

This helps me determine what content to write to make my colleagues' jobs easier. In fact, the idea for the article you're reading now came directly from such a weekly consultation.

An added benefit is that an internal content manager picks up much more about the corporate culture and word choice of various content creators on whose behalf he writes. So he can more easily write (ghostwrite) on behalf of someone else.

Finally, an outside writer will never gain as much knowledge of your industry and products or services as someone who works with it on a daily basis. It's easier for a content manager who only writes for your company to quickly build in-depth knowledge of your products and services.

This does not mean that your content manager also has to know everything about your offerings; he has his content expert colleagues within your company for that. But the knowledge he has accumulated does help him immensely when writing new articles.

In addition, an in-house content manager gets better at writing according to TAYA quality standards much faster than someone who has to switch constantly.

Also read: Should a content manager have knowledge of my industry?

We don't call the person who takes responsibility for your content marketing a content manager and not a content writer for nothing. After all, a content manager does much more than just write.

For example, he works with your sales and customer service teams to find out what content they need and develop a content strategy.

He also ensures that every content idea actually sees the light of day - either by interviewing your content experts (SME's) or by coaching the BUSINSME your team to write content.

Furthermore, he helps sales close deals faster by teaching your sales team how to leverage published content for assignment selling.

Also read: The 9 tasks of a successful content manager

Does sales need a piece of content on a particular topic as a matter of urgency? You don't need an external agency to do that. But with an in-house content manager, this is not a problem. He will readily rearrange his schedule to meet sales' needs.

Your content manager writes only for your business. This allows him to write the three articles a week you need to get traction in search results AND be available quickly for an assignment that comes up in between.

Suppose you are going to do TAYA Mastery with outside content writers. These individuals are coached and trained in writing TAYA content at your expense, but you don't know how long they will continue to write for your company. When they leave, they take the knowledge and skills they gained at your expense with them and another company benefits.

And if you still want to hire your own content manager later, they will have to be trained again, too, with all the costs that come with that.

Of course: an in-house content manager can also leave, but our experience is that a content manager in whose knowledge and skills are invested (as in the TAYA Mastery track) is more loyal and stays longer.

Whether they charge a price per word or a price per article: with content agencies and freelancers, you pay for the amount of work that goes into an article. This means that costs can fluctuate greatly.

With an in-house content manager, you know exactly where you stand each month in terms of costs. Whether you have a 1,000-word blog written or one of 3,000, the pay remains the same.

With an in-house content manager, you know exactly where you stand each month in terms of costs.

Although an in-house content manager is a better investment in the long run than a freelance writer or an agency, you do spend more time and money on an in-house content manager in the short term. The main cost is hiring and onboarding the content manager.

We mentioned above as one of the advantages of working with an agency or freelancers that you can scale up almost indefinitely. With an in-house content manager, of course, this is not possible. That person has a maximum of 40 hours per week available in which to do his work. So there is a clear limit to the number of articles he can write.

There is always a risk of hiring the wrong person for this role.

This is especially common when companies hire a content manager before starting TAYA. This content manager often has his own ideas about how he wants to approach content marketing, and it is difficult to adjust this.

Therefore, we always recommend that you only hire a content manager once you have decided that you are going to implement TAYA. You can then mention in your job description that the content manager is expected to work with TAYA.

Another risk, of course, is that a content manager gets sick. If no inventory of articles has been built up by then, your content marketing is at a standstill. If you work with outside writers, there is always someone who can take over quickly.

Also read: What is the right time to get started They Ask, You Answer?

If you hire a content manager before you start TAYA, you run the risk of hiring the wrong person.

Like any employee, a content manager can eventually suffer from corporate blindness.

This may involve the familiar forms of corporate blindness such as ingrained patterns, practices and mindsets, but an employed content manager may also at some point suffer from the so-called "curse of knowledge.

Indeed, as he works at your company for a while and has interviewed many content experts, certain subject matter may have become so self-evident to him that it is difficult for him to empathize with someone who does not yet have that knowledge.

Good outside writers for whom the subject matter is new are more likely to ask "dumb" questions that consumers will also ask.

Also read: Should a content manager have knowledge of my industry?

Ultimately, the choice between having your own content manager and outsourcing your content revolves around one question: which best fits your company's situation and your long-term goals?

Do you want to be able to scale up quickly, do you need flexibility and is cost less important to you? Then outsourcing may be attractive.

Do you want maximum control over the quality of your content, quick turnaround and no financial surprises? Then an in-house content manager is the best choice.

Have you decided after this article that you want to hire a content manager? The They Ask, You Answer coaches at Buzzlytics have "hired" dozens of content managers at our clients over the past few years and can help you do the same. With their knowledge and experience, you'll avoid hiring the wrong person.

But even if you have come to the conclusion that you want to outsource your content, we are happy to think with you about how to achieve the best possible result despite the limitations of outsourcing.

Schedule a consultation today with one of our certified They Ask, You Answer consultants to discuss the various options available.