You may think it’s counter-productive for marketing specialists like the team at J.O. Agency to write a post like this, telling you why you can do your own work, but here it is: You can be your own content writer. There are three good reasons why daily content like social media or the first drafts of a big project can come straight from your own team. First, though, let’s start by nailing down what it means to write content and what exactly content creation entails.
What Is Content Writing?
Let’s start by talking about what content writing is and how every business uses it. Indeed.com defines content writing (and content writers) this way: “A content writer is a marketing and communications professional who writes online content, including blogs, social media posts, and sales copy. These professionals conduct market research and collaborate with editors and other marketing professionals to produce and refine copy. They craft clear, consistent, and engaging messages for a variety of audiences in a number of industries.”
You may read that and think, “Well, that’s nice, but what exactly does that mean?” Think of content writing as the words on every piece of collateral attached to your business. Here’s a list of marketing work your content writer can create:
- Blog post
- Emails
- Newsletters
- Social media posts
- Success stories from past campaigns and clients
- Website content
- Editorial calendar
- Meta descriptions
For a small business, a full-time content writer may not be possible, but there’s always at least one person on your team who is gifted with words. Encourage their writing and give them time to flex their writing skills with some new projects. A marketing agency like J.O. will always be here to write your press releases and take on projects that impact your major business goals. If you decide outsourcing content is ultimately easier, we’ll always be here to help. so why not try this new take on your marketing goals for a quarter and spend money on another part of your business?
Here are three reasons why we think you can handle writing your own content.
Reason #1: No one knows your business and vision like you.
Capturing the spirit and properly communicating the complex topics of any organization is a major feat. It’s at least twice as hard for a writer outside the organization. Why? Because they have to first understand your business, learn its history and vision and goals, and then process it together with their own writing skills to create something new that captures the essence of your business. Phew. That’s a lot of work and an individual within your organization can be an obvious shortcut. If someone has been a part of your company or organization for any amount of time, they already understand much more about it than an outsider.
When outsourcing content marketing, you always run the risk of the chosen company or freelance writers not fully understanding the spirit of your organization. You can share about yourself in meetings and through documents, but it’s the people within any given organization that know it best. In-house writers excel at creating content that reflects their company’s culture, mission, and values because they’re constantly surrounded by it, living it, and promoting it. Finding a writer in your company who can lead your content creation will ultimately pay dividends.
Another plus is that an in-house content writer will be able to work side by side with in-house graphic designers or a communications director. They have quicker access to overseeing every stage of a project, whether it’s web content, brochures, posters, booklets, newsletters, or anything else created by your team.
Reason #2: You and your team have a wealth of knowledge to share.
You are in your unique line of work, succeeding like you are because you’re an expert at what you do. Whether that’s counseling, fitness coaching, or wealth management. You absolutely know your business. If you outsource content writing, you’ll still be doing some of the work as you teach freelance writers your business so they can turn around and write about it.
Within your knowledge exists an untold number of tips and tricks that can be turned into social media posts. Your many stories are just waiting to become blog posts. The individuals on your team are the face of your company. You have all you need to make your own social media and web content.
Even if it will ultimately lead to good content, outsourcing content is spending money you often don’t need to.
Reason #3: Creating your own content costs you nothing.
While you may be charged hourly rates with freelance writers or freelance content creators, when your team creates the content, you’ll save money. Taking a few hours out of the week to write blog posts, web content or social media ideas costs you nothing (except time) and can hugely benefit your team. Plus, for those with creative muscles to flex, it will be a fun exercise.
And remember, as we mentioned earlier, there’s no one better to write about your own company than you. Take it from J.O. ; our team writes all our own blog posts too!
Remember: J.O. Agency Is Here To Help You Create Content
If you think you’d like to try your own hand at content development, you can hire a marketing team like J.O. to help you come up with your initial content marketing strategy. As a team, we are well-versed in the work and would be more than thrilled to assist you in defining your target audience, explaining keyword research, picking which content writing platforms would be best to use, and giving you tips for content format and social media management. A team like J.O. can send you in the right direction when it comes to search engines and search engine optimization. We can even provide examples of the kind of content creation your business would most benefit from and write content examples and blog post examples for you to use as you get started. If you’d like to talk to a team like ours, contact J.O. Agency on our website or at 817-335-0100.
See? There’s a lot we can do to help you feel like your team is ready to be its own content writers! Speaking of, here are a few bonus writing tips.
Bonus: Writing Tips To Get You Started With Quality Content
As a helpful bonus, here are a few writing tips, some good stuff if we do say so ourselves! to help you with your writing content:
- Put yourself in the reader’s shoes. What are the motivations of your potential clients? Why would someone seek out an organization like yours? In their wildest dreams, what would they hope to get from partnering with you? Once you have those answers, you’ll have your audience’s attention because you’ll be speaking their language, almost like you know exactly what they’re thinking. All your content strategies, from a YouTube video to your product pages, should speak to your readers.
- Capture the reader’s attention with active language. Here’s how GRAMMERLY.COM explains active (and passive) voice: “In general, the active voice makes your writing stronger, more direct, and, you guessed it, more active. The subject is something, or it does the action of the verb in the sentence. With the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by some other performer of the verb. (In case you weren’t paying attention, the previous two sentences use the type of voice they describe.)” Passive voice isn’t always wrong to use, but it may be ineffective in the content writing process as it’s less likely to draw in a reader.
- Use internal links in your blog posts. SEO experts will tell you links that point readers to other pages of your website will increase search results for your business. It’s an easy way to improve web content and web traffic within your own writing.
- Your first draft will never be the final draft. And that’s a good thing! It doesn’t matter the level of your writing skills’ all first drafts are a work in progress. Anne Lamott has famously written on the subject in her book, “Bird by Bird.” Here’s an excerpt from the book: “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow. … A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft, you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft, you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.” Get comfortable with bad first drafts.
- Mix up your sentence structure and word choice. Rereading your drafts will help you notice when you’ve used the same words, phrases, or structure within paragraphs or sections of your website, brochure, etc. This work of diversifying your language is an important part of writing.
- It takes time to develop your writing style. Similar to how it takes several tries to get to a final draft, it takes time to develop the unique voice and style of your business. Your voice is elemental to your content strategy and it will be fine-tuned as you continue to write content and create content.
- Ask for feedback from others. Letting someone else on your team read your work and give feedback will only make it stronger. They may have ideas you haven’t considered. Even if you’ve written every word on your whole site, they may think of something you haven’t. They could have ideas about how to up your website content and the overall experience. Let others speak into your content production, and suggest a new blog post, social media posts, and other marketing content; fresh takes can lead to something great!
The J.O. Agency Team: Marketing Experts And Content Writers For Hire
If, after reading all of this, you are still unsure about content outsourcing, contact the team at J.O. We are content marketing experts who would love to encourage your work and work for you, too. Call us at 817-335-0100 or contact us here.
