Whether you’re an independent contractor or in-house marketing manager, you’re limited to the number of hours in your work day.
If you want to promote your brand, you need to create content. But crafting quality content can be time-consuming, and when you only have so much time each day, you need to use it wisely. Content outsourcing will help you maintain sustainable remote growth. However, without the right processes in place, you risk drops in quality since you no longer have a hand in all aspects.
To maintain quality as you outsource, you need to shift mindsets from content writer to project manager and then eventually to content strategist. Through this role progression, you can effectively outsource content creation to free your time without sacrificing content quality.
Here’s an overview of what that transition looks like from the content marketing side of SaaS, eCommerce, and B2B tech businesses:
- Content writer: You learn the trade
- Project manager/editor: You learn to manage others
- Content strategist: You focus on results with a bird’s-eye view
Let’s take a closer look at each.
1) Content writer
Most content marketers start out in the trenches of content creation. At the outset, you need to understand the ins and outs of quality content. To establish yourself as an expert writer, start by learning the editorial process (from the writer’s side), SEO, how to structure articles for different audiences, keyword research, topic research, and general remote work best practices for productivity.
If you’re reading this article, it’s likely you’re at this stage now. Either you’re a remote worker looking to expand your capacity, or you’re an in-house marketing manager who simply doesn’t have time anymore to crank out content for your brand. But before you move on to the next stage, let’s first check off the competencies you should have as a writer.
Understand the subject matter
To create high-quality content, you need to fully understand the topic at hand. You can hone your subject matter expertise in a few ways: The first is by working with subject matter experts (SMEs). You can chat with and interview these people to improve the quality and authority of your content. The second option is to become an SME. You achieve this by fully immersing yourself in the subject matter and learning everything there is to know about it.
Improve your SEO abilities
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a core component of website content creation. You must craft engaging, valuable, and informative content that ticks all the boxes of on-page SEO to strengthen its discoverability.
Delve into what SEO is, how it works, and why it matters so you can expertly weave SEO into your content writing process and develop content that both your audience and search engines appreciate.
Hone your content writing skills
Although it goes without saying, you need to be an excellent writer — it’s the foundation of all your work. The good news is you can easily hone your content writing skills with a little (okay, a lot) of practice and some theory.
Take time to learn the principles of strong content. Familiarizing yourself with the basics of content marketing is a great starting point. From there, you can sharpen your skills by learning how to execute the writing stages of the editorial process, how to use copywriting frameworks, and how to format long-form content.
The skills you should have as a content writer
Below are some of the skills you should already possess as a content writer. You can’t outsource content if you don’t know what it takes to create quality content in the first place.
Subject matter expertise
Whether you’re an SME or work closely with them, you should be able to craft content from the perspective of an expert. Many SaaS, tech, and eCommerce brands recognize the need to produce authoritative works. If you can showcase this ability, you’ll be at the top of their list of go-to content writers.
Research
Research is the cornerstone of writing. From keywords and competitors to consumer patterns and the specific subject matter, there’s a wide variety of topics you need to dig into before you begin to write. Being a strong researcher allows you to formulate content that’s miles ahead of the competition. It also gives you confidence knowing the work you produce is reliable, informative, and engaging.
SEO
Any writer worth their salt knows the importance of SEO. But the more critical factor is knowing how to construct content that performs well organically.
When managing content projects, I make sure every freelance writer I work with knows how to optimize their content for search engines. While I favor a reader-first approach to writing, you still need to write content that ranks well. Following a content SEO checklist is a great way to make sure you consistently produce excellent, SEO-driven content.
Content writing
Project managers and editors want to work with writers who can crank out high-quality content from the get-go. Learning how to write stellar pieces will keep your editor happy which, in turn, can lead to you receiving more assignments.
To enhance your skills, write regularly (an obvious but often neglected practice), consume the content your target audience reads, keep up with content writer news, follow a well-constructed content outline, and start with research.
Time management
Time is of the essence when it comes to content writing. Being able to produce timely pieces for trending topics, keep up with fast-moving publication schedules, and hit deadlines are core requirements for any writer.
Sharpen your time management skills to ensure you’re always seen as a reliable and responsive professional. Once you’ve mastered your writer’s skill set, you’re ready to progress to the next level.
2) Editor/Project manager (PM)
The next step is to change your mindset. You need to stop thinking of yourself as a content writer and start seeing yourself as a content manager.
This phase of the content outsourcing progression sees you take on the role of editor/project manager. When in this position, you may also be referred to as a content manager since you’re responsible for overseeing the development, distribution, and optimization of content.
As you take on overseeing the entire content process, you are no longer the person responsible for deliverable creation. Instead, your expectations lie in delivering quality work on time, regardless of who created the content. To do this, you need to find freelance writers you can rely on so you can move into more of an editor/project manager role.
Building a reliable team of writers
It’s crucial you find a content team structure that works for you. In my experience, the project manager role functions best with two freelance writers per active brand. This allows your team to create a blog post every week (at minimum), a few guest posts a month, and the occasional one-off timely announcement.
If you have a semi-active brand and only write when a strong topic comes up, you can make do with one freelance writer. However, it’s a good idea to maintain relationships with other competent writers you can tap if your brand’s content output increases.
Some project managers or editors will find themselves managing content for multiple brands at once — all of which have high content frequency requirements. For a remote worker with multiple clients, I recommend operating with a rotation of three to four freelance writers. Familiarize yourself with their writing styles and send plenty of feedback (even if it takes more time than just “fixing” the article yourself). The longer you work with talented writers, the less feedback you’ll need to send each time.
Here are some questions I ask every writer I start working with:
- How many articles/words are you available to handle per month?
- What are some of your favorite topics to write about?
- Do you prefer writing long-form or short-form content?
- Is there anything else I should know?
These questions are a great way to vet the skills and suitability of potential hires, but add to this list as you see fit. For example, if you need white-label content, ask if the candidate is comfortable crafting articles that will have someone else in the byline.
Creating a uniform experience
As well as adjusting how you manage content, you’ll also need to adapt your client management processes.
Now that you have multiple different writers and voices all contributing to various clients, you need a system to unify every moving piece. That includes:
- Supplying every writer with the same information
- Aligning the goals and priorities of different writers with different clients
- Ensuring each writer knows the process, how the system works with multiple moving parts, and what they’re accountable for
Once all your writers know the voice, expectations, and processes for each of your clients, it’ll be far easier for you to manage multiple projects at once.
To help you get started, here’s a content project brief you can send to new clients or employ in larger projects to keep everyone on the same page. Ask your clients to complete this project brief so all your writers have the necessary information to deliver quality work consistently. Alternatively, take charge of filling out this project brief and help your client establish their content requirements and guidelines.
Bonus: Download my content project brief template here.
Developing a content production schedule
As the person overseeing the entire content production process, it is up to you, the editor/project manager, to make sure content is produced in a timely fashion.
Developing a content production schedule will allow you to prioritize the most valuable pieces so that content with the highest ROI is written first.
You’ll also be able to use this content production schedule to allocate assignments to each of your writers, set deadlines, and manage the overall content frequency. By planning your content production schedule in advance, you’ll quickly see if the content frequency outweighs your writers’ capacity. This should give you enough time to call on your wider list of trusted writers to support your content creation.
Consider including the following details in your content production plan:
- Individual steps in the content project
- Name of the responsible person assigned to each step (even better if you can directly tag them in the project)
- Deadline for each step
- Content handover process (I include a link to a shared Google Drive folder for each of my projects)
- Project overview
Your content production plan may look different depending on your needs. I recommend adopting a project management tool like Trello or Asana to keep track of schedules. This is also a great way to centralize comms with your writers in one place.
The skills you should have as a project manager/editor
Here are some of the skills and traits you should bring to the table in this role. Talented writers won’t work with sub-par project managers, so make sure you sharpen these abilities to attract and maintain a quality pool of writers.
Organization
As you switch into the project manager position, you’ll need to solidify your editing process so your writers follow a uniform path. Organization is key to keep things running smoothly.
I add all my freelancers to separate Asana boards where I assign an article/card, then move it through columns labeled “To-Do,” “Outline Needed,” “Being Written,” “Ready for Review,” “Edits Needed,” and “Approved” as the project progresses.
You can edit the columns based on your writer (for example, I have a writer who rarely needs edits, so I removed the “Edits Needed” column for them).
Trust
Give your writers all the information they need to begin, then trust them to complete their tasks. Let your writers have autonomy over their work, and they’ll take pride in writing the best article possible for the project. No one likes micro-managers, and if you pick your writers well, you should be able to rely on them to produce great work.
An important aspect of building trust is being there for your writers; they need to know you’ll listen to and support them. Letting your writers book a call with you whenever they want to have meetings, catch up, or just get to know you on a more personal level can make a big difference in terms of how much they trust you. I have a Calendly link that I share with my freelance writers so it’s easy for them to reach me.
An eye for detail
Apply everything you learned about creating great articles as a content writer to your role as project manager. That means you need attention to detail when it comes to grammar, spelling, comprehension, and overall quality.
You should be able to spot poor structure, unclear thought processes, and the need to cite more sources. Having a good eye for these details will make you a better editor. In turn, you’ll be able to give your writers helpful, actionable feedback that builds their skills too.
Communication
Unless you’ve been working together for years and your writers can finish your sentences as you type them, you’ll need to learn how to send clear project briefs and feedback. See my project brief template to learn how to structure these briefs effectively.
Build content feedback loops with your writers and other relevant team members that allow everyone to work together to produce the best content possible. Establishing a strong internal feedback loop with your writers ensures you’re all on the same page regarding a project’s needs and priorities.
Being able to communicate clearly with your writers is especially crucial if you want to prepare them to take over the project management responsibilities once you step into the next stage of your role progression.
3) Content strategist
Now we’ve hit the point where you’re almost completely hands-off when it comes to day-to-day deliverables. As a strategic mastermind, you should still make sure the content ship is heading in the right direction, but you no longer have to man the oars.
Strengthening your team
You can only become a strategic mastermind once you have a talented and reliable content team. That entails expert writers who need minimal guidance and proactive project managers who are always on the ball.
You’ll know you have a strong content outsourcing process when you’re able to move team members through the role progression. When writers rarely need additional guidance or edits and they’ve learned the processes you implemented to deliver great work, ask if they would like to move on and manage the content creation process. They can step into the project management role acting as a writer for some projects and hiring additional freelancers for them to oversee as needed.
Appointing one of your writers to the project manager role will free you to step up as a strategic mastermind. Whether you contract with multiple brands or work in-house, senior leadership will value you bringing a tactical approach to their content processes.
Steering the strategy
Your role as a strategic mastermind means you guide the strategy for your projects while leaving the project manager/editor to oversee the content that the writers produce.
Some things you should keep a close eye on are:
- The business goals and activities
- Wider market trends and development (including competitor activity)
- Content performance and impact
You should then be able to feed this information to your project manager to ensure they assemble a content production plan that delivers the most value for your clients.
As the name suggests, being able to build, manage, and develop strategies is a crucial part of this role. A B2B content strategy will be significantly different from that of a customer-facing brand. Similarly, a start-up content marketing strategy will look nothing like the strategy you put together for a well-established brand. So, make sure you know what it takes to craft a strong content marketing strategy and how to adjust it to unique circumstances.
With your operations running smoothly thanks to your project manager, and the day-to-day work outsourced to reliable CEs and SMEs, you can focus on more pressing business matters.
The skills you should have as a strategic mastermind
To establish yourself as a strategic mastermind who outsources content smartly, there’s a few skills you’ll want to polish first.
Strategic
Obviously, being a strategic mastermind requires you to be strategic. That means you think about the bigger picture and are unafraid to challenge the status quo or ask uncomfortable questions geared towards growth. To become more strategic, be proactive and continuously optimize your work methods.
Analytical
Strategic masterminds provide evidence to back up their suggestions. That means any decisions you make are driven by data and analytics, not hunches.
Tune into the data behind your content and make sure you actively track the business value of the content produced. This allows you to keep senior leadership informed on the impact your team has and demonstrates the value of what you do.
You should also keep a pulse on the brand’s marketing KPIs. Frequently monitor these benchmarks to see what’s working well for your content team and how to improve your content efforts going forward.
Forward-thinking
Always be looking (and thinking) ahead. By embracing a forward-thinking attitude, you’ll be able to guide your project manager toward maintaining an innovative content strategy.
Keep an eye on industry trends and track trending topics to stay ahead of the curve and position your brands at the front of their respective markets.
Wrapping up — Become a formidable content strategist who outsources content creation like a pro
Being a content creator with excellent writing skills is great, but it isn’t always your intended end point. If you feel you’ve outgrown the role of writer or need to make better use of your time, take steps to progress toward a project manager or content strategist role.
Outsourcing content to a team of trusted writers under the leadership of a reliable project manager allows you to turn your attention to the strategic needs of your business.
If you want to learn how to master remote work and stay productive, sign up for my free nine-part “Mastering remote work” email course.
What’s your biggest content outsourcing challenge?
- Originally published June 14, 2018
- Updated December 4, 2019
- Updated February 19, 2024