A successful content marketing strategy or campaign today requires a brand to virtually “be everywhere.” That means having a blog strategy, video marketing strategy and social media strategy on multiple platforms going on at once. All of which may require hiring a marketing freelancer.
When you think about it, it’s unsurmountable for one person to take on alone. Freelancers who specialise in content creation and churn out the same content types every day are available online. You can outsource work to them merely by signing up on a freelance gig platform like AirTasker, Upwork, Fiverr or use LinkedIn’s search function and type in the sort of freelancer you’re looking to hire.
When you outsource content marketing tasks, you can focus on overseeing the growth of your business. Being able to slow down and see the big picture means you can strategically raise brand loyalty and online engagement.
Here are six steps you should take when hiring a marketing freelancer.
1. Create a Budget for Outsourcing Content Marketing Work
Relative to other marketing types, content marketing is cost-effective because it works by driving traffic to free platforms and your blog. When you pay for advertising, you can generally anticipate the return on investment you’ll get from it.
With content marketing, the ROI opportunity is unlimited. The more traffic you pull into your funnel, the more your content will make for you. Plus, content marketing is what gets you in front of Google search users in need of information relevant to your business, who could potentially benefit from your product or service and most importantly, sharing your valuable education.
According to 2018 research from Content Marketing Institute, the average business spends about 26% of its marketing budget on its content marketing strategy. However, the Fortune 500 companies spend around 40% of their marketing budget on content. On the other hand, struggling businesses spent only 14% of it on content strategy.
Now that you know how important it is to assess how much you can afford to shell out for content marketing per month at this point. Knowing this number will help you determine how much content you can outsource and how many freelancers you can hire to help create it. Once you have a number, move onto the next step.
2. Set Your Content Marketing Goals and Determine How You’ll Track progress
Once you know your budget for outsourcing content marketing jobs to remote freelancers, you have the opportunity to hone in on your bottom line goals.
These are measurable milestones you want your content marketing strategy to achieve. Rather than “increase brand loyalty,” for example, set a plan you can measure and track to attain, such as “reach 10,000 subscribers on my email list,” given you’re driving traffic to an opt-in through your content strategy.
In addition to this, plan how you’ll measure and track your progress along the way. For example, what metrics will you follow, and what tools like Google Analytics, email reporting or social media insights will you use to know what success looks like for your efforts and investment.
3. Determine Freelancer Workload and Assess Types of Freelancers Needed
A significant benefit of outsourcing jobs in your content marketing workflow is that you can get better outcomes from experts with more experience than you. If you plan to create some of the content still yourself while outsourcing to others, first consider what work you’ll handle on your own and what you will give to others.
Next, list the rest of the work that needs doing on a month-to-month basis in your content marketing and what type of specialist you’ll need to invest in to do the work for you. Do you need an ebook writer? A graphic designer or a video editor? Perhaps a freelancer who can take on your email marketing campaigns?
No matter how big or small the gig, you’ll be able to find a remote worker available for the job. Consider posting your job or project on a job board website and asking candidates to contact you. Alternatively, as mentioned above, a network like LinkedIn or a freelancer website looks for a freelancer offering the services of precisely what you need.
4. Create Resources for Freelancers with Important Details
The better you explain your expectations to a freelancer, the better your prospective freelancer can be meet them.
An important aspect of outsourcing is creating a streamlined onboarding process that orientates a new remote worker with your brand and your mission. Onboarding and resources could be as simple as an email that goes out to new freelancers to welcome and onboard them or a simple pre-recorded video using a free tool like Loom to meet, greet and explain your requirements.
For example, when outsourcing your blog posts to a freelance writer, create a guidelines resource for them that mentions things like the word count requirement and search engine optimisation (SEO) requirements like keyword and H2/H3 usage. It should also discuss writing style expectations so that your writer understands your content’s dos and don’ts.
Touch on who your brand is, who your audience is and the tone with which your brand approaches them. Formal or casual? Readability level grade 3, or more like year 10? Bubbly or smoothly to-the-point? How many sentences (on average) per paragraph? These are just some examples of questions you can answer based on the factors that matter to you.
When hiring a social media manager or content manager, the process is similar. Give new hires links to your content that is doing best. You can consider sending a report summary of your content data analytics history, and any other historical documentation that can help them learn about your brand, your expectations, and goals of working together.
5. Find and Vet Experienced Freelancers
The final step is to bring effective freelancers onboard. You’ll have to consider your budget, but also consider that freelancers who charge more for their time or per gig tend to produce higher-quality work. The most critical factor in vetting freelancers is their work samples, so look at their portfolio to see if their work reflects the level of quality or experience you’re looking for.
If you post a job position on a job board or your website to attract candidates who can take on your freelance work, make your expectations as straightforward as possible. It’s essential to mention factors that may rule out candidates who aren’t suitable matches. Also, having a lengthy description of requirements and expectations helps attract higher-quality candidates and rule out those who show they’re incapable of following directions.
6. Measuring the ROI of Hiring a Marketing Freelancer
Always measure the return on investment of your efforts by tracking expenses and online conversions from your outsourced content. By analysing this data, you can identify content types or topics that have generated the most traffic and the highest conversion rates. Use this to inform the creation of more content than outsource for additional return on your investment.
Summary
In summary, hiring a marketing freelancer is relatively easy. However, it is important to start with a budget in mind as it will assist your efforts in setting some clear goals and how you will track your progress. Further to this, once you have determined what you will like to outsource, you can look at the many options available globally or in your backyard of suitable freelancers to support your content goals.
It would be best if you thought of a freelancer no differently than bringing on a new team member and the clearer you can communicate what you what the better the journey for both of you. You have heard the saying you get what you pay for and also well worth recognised your prospecting freelancer’s previous work and portfolio in the content area you seek support.
Overall, if your freelance content marketing project isn’t measured effectively, it will not be managed effectively. Important to always be clear on what success looks like in the investment you are making.
All the best with your freelance journey and if you are ever looking for professionals in all areas of design, content writing, lead generation, web development or strategic support never hesitate to reach out.
If you want to learn more follow our journey on Facebook and Instagram or head to our news page to read more of our educational content.
