While creating content is essential for the business, more agencies are outsourcing their content needs as the work becomes more challenging.
Content creation agency Verblio surveyed more than 400 content marketers across agencies, freelance and in-house to get insights on the state of digital content in 2022. The results showed 71% of in-house marketers and 68% of agencies are outsourcing their content needs to freelancers. They also reported that the most effective type of content for driving results seems to be blog posts.
However, marketers said some of the top content challenges they faced included limited resources, a lack of industry knowledge and the need to manage client expectations. Content can serve as a way to provide measurable outcomes to clients. Bill Durrant, managing director of Exverus Media, added that affiliate-type content is what makes agencies a “true business partner” with a publisher or influencer.
“Critically, it means a direct line of sight to trackable sales, which keeps the CFO and CEO happy,” Durrant told Digiday. “With many performance channels, we do not have the chance to tell a deeper story about a brand or product, so they benefit from deeper, custom content complementing their media mix.”
Additionally, one-fourth of agencies said that more than half their income comes from content creation, according to Verblio.
Increasingly, as the research notes, marketers have found a solution in acquiring help from freelancers and content marketplaces that generate content in their respective fields, whether that’s in real estate or information technology or other topics.
“Content is the reason people visit websites,” Andy Crestodina, co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media Studies, said in the report. “Clients eventually figure this out and moments later, discover the limits of an all in-house team. This research shows that all but the biggest companies need help. And the best agencies are there for them.”
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