Content marketing has the power to drive remarkable results. It’s cost-effective, scalable, and provides a long-lasting return on investment.

However, its success relies on creating high-quality content. Is this a task your business can handle in-house, or is outsourcing to an agency a better move?

In making your decision, it might help to take a close look at what effective content creation really involves.

Market Research

Successful content resonates with its audience, but how do you aim for that result? Market research for content is just as important as it is for any physical product. Before investing in content creation, you need to find out what people are reading about in a niche, which topics spark the most engagement, and which narrow sectors feature a gap you could fill.

Concept Planning

But identifying suitable topics is just the start. You’ll also need to come up with content ideas that appeal to an audience while also working toward a business goal. Is your content aiming for sales, traffic and exposure, social media sharing, community building, or a mixture? How will you structure a cohesive campaign to achieve this?

Topic Research

Authority content needs to be accurate as well as interesting. It also needs to approach a topic from a new angle if it’s to stand above competing content and gain traction. All of this takes meticulous research skills and an eye for detail.

Drafting and Writing

Once these foundations are in place, the content itself needs to be created. From an outline through a rough draft to the finished piece, this takes more skill and experience than many people think. The technical aspect of putting down words is one thing, but making sure the content addresses the aims of a campaign is another complexity layered on top.

Final Editing

But even the best writers don’t produce perfection each and every time. Careful editing is essential to ensure consistently high quality, and this includes more than fact-checking and proofreading for grammatical errors. A good editor will ensure a piece hits the right tone and meets the commercial brief, as well as adding any final polish that may be needed.

Pulling all these strands together takes resources and management, but it’s an essential if you want your content marketing to bear full fruit. Outsourcing to an agency will provide all the expertise and experience you need, leaving you to direct your energy where it’s most productive – driving your business forward.