5 Reasons You Need a Partner for Your B2B Content Marketing Program

For some companies, “outsourcing” a content marketing program carries a negative connotation. It brings up anxiety and visions of rogue freelancers writing content you can never use or blog posts that don’t fit your brand’s voice or style at all. However, when you use high quality partners who are good at what they do, your content marketing efforts can finally take off.

But think about this alternative anxiety instead: according to the 2015 B2B Content Marketing Trends report from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, the top two challenges, by over half of respondents, was in producing engaging and producing it consistently.

Training, finding the right talent, measurement, were all areas of concern as well.

While working with an outside partner or agency isn’t a possibility (or a benefit) for every B2B company, there are certain scenarios (five of which are described below) in which it may be a good idea.

You Aren’t a Good Writer or Editor

This is the number one reason why working with an external partner is a good idea for companies. If the people responsible for your content marketing aren’t good writers or editors, they need to find someone who is. If there isn’t anyone up to the task (or has the bandwidth) to do it within your company, and you don’t want to spend the time onboarding a new employee, consider working with a writer or marketing agency that has experience in your industry.

For many B2B companies, good industry knowledge can be hard to find, but if you go with a freelancer or agency that specializes in B2B or your area, they should be able to begin creating content much faster for you (and at a higher quality) than you might get when trying to train a new employee or teach existing employees the style of writing know-how or style that your content needs.

There Isn’t a Set Strategy In Place Yet

If you know you need content, but have no idea where to start, many content marketing experts can help you get on the right track. Many consultants often craft an overall strategy with their clients before getting started on initiatives, including the types of content, promotion, lead generation tie-in, and more. Having an outside resource that has experience creating a clear B2B content marketing strategy is critical to your content’s success.

Content Marketing Institute recommends that all B2B content strategy should include: well-defined targets, a deep contextual understanding of what your target audience wants, clear conversion goals, delegation of projects, a defined path to accomplish goals, and the ability to scale.

You Can’t do it Regularly

According to the B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report mentioned previous, 42% of B2B marketers publish new content either daily or multiple times per week. This means that it’s highly likely that your competitors are doing the same, depending on your industry.

If you aren’t keeping up with them, delegating projects is a good way to increase your content output without dramatically increasing your workload.

In a comparable survey report from EG Innovations, 51% of B2B marketers feel that their biggest challenge is finding the time to create content, even though the majority of those surveyed said that content was the most effective marketing strategy. External partners can help you find the time by increasing bandwidth to create more content on behalf of your organization.

Even after delegating the content creation to an outside resource, your organization will still need to work with the resource to develop the strategy, channel, and overall concepts of the content. However, having them create it will take the pressure of your organization, while also churning out more high-quality content that can increase your search engine visibility and continue to increase your branding and expertise in the industry.

You Don’t Know How to Promote it

Even if your company has been creating content fairly regularly, it may just all go to waste if you don’t know how to promote it. If you feel as if you have your content creation needs handled, consider turning to an agency or consultant for help in creating and implementing a promotion strategy, which could include social media, PPC, display advertising, lead gen, and more.

What’s more, because most agencies and consultants are required to keep up-to-date with the latest trends in order to stay competitive in their field, they will constantly know of the newest methods you can utilize in your content promotion efforts.

You Can’t Come up With Ideas

Do you know you need more content for your B2B organization, but have no idea what to write or where to start? This is another situation where an agency or writer can be the perfect solution. Many freelancers or agencies have to continuously generate fresh ideas for their clients, who are often in different industries or service fields. This helps keep them fresh and able to constantly think of different content ideas and strategies.

They also have advanced expertise in content creation, SEO, and paid search in order to write, optimize, and promote your content. This type of know-how and regular requirement of innovation can help your organization publish much higher caliber blog posts, white papers, and more.

Final Thoughts

Whether you are looking to find an agency, freelancer, or consultant for content, make sure that they have experience in writing the type of content you want, as well as proven strategy approaches that can help your content be see by the right people. Finally, working closely with your outside resources to identify needs and expectations can ensure that their product best represents your organization’s voice, ideals, and brand.