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Do you want to know how to outsource tasks to qualified professionals?
How much did you achieve yesterday?
Seriously.
Don’t think that outsourcing isn’t for you. Trust me, if you embrace it you’ll not only get more done, but you’ll reduce cost, and experience a dramatic improvement in your relationship with your customers/clients.
According to CreditDonkey, In the IT and business sector, 87% of the reasons why people outsource is to reduce cost. 30% say that it's been an effective strategy to reduce costs.
How much of the industry changing blog post did you write?
Or relationships with key players in your industry did you build?
Regardless of your answer, I would argue that you could squeeze your schedule to fit in a little more…
Honestly do you think you will build a Buffer Blog, Dan Bilzarian Instagram Account or Wine Library TV YouTube Channel with 2 hours a day on your most high leverage tasks?
I think not.
But there is a solution…
I like to call it "leveraging other people's time" or "OPT.”
Yes, employing low cost, experienced virtual team members to handle your low leverage, time consuming tasks to enable you to focus on what really matters in your content marketing strategy is necessary.
It give you the rare opportunity to create and promote value to you readership.
In the rest of this post I will outline the 7 Must Outsource Tasks In Your Content Marketing Strategy along with the Google Sheets that we use in our business for maximum outsourcing efficiency.
1. Managing Social Media Schedule
One of the tasks that you can outsource is social media management. As we know, there is no point in creating awesome content if you have no one to share it with.
It’s a great hassle having to know the optimal time to post on social media platforms.
Though, in order to build a crowd of sharing fans, you need to invest time daily in the following tasks:
- Ensuring content is native to each network
- Ensuring consistent posting schedule
- Reaching out and interacting with audience
- Ensuring leverage of industry relevant hashtags
Time, that for you, could be better spent elsewhere.
Here is the sheet we use to manage our social media schedule, click on the link, then "File" then "Make a copy…".
2. Keyword Research
Probably the most boring and yet crucial part of your content strategy, the initial hours spent with the Google Keyword Tool are ideal for outsourcing.
In the past, I have spent 30 minutes with my virtual team member explaining the exact profile of the individual we are targeting with our blog.
And 24 hours later I receive a spreadsheet full of both competitive and long tail keywords, with all the relevant information required to select our keyword shortlist.
Here is the sheet we use to manage our keyword research, click on the link, then "File" then "Make a copy…".
3. Managing Guest Blogging Campaign
If you are just starting out in the blogging world, I would advise against pumping out content to your non-existing audience.
Instead, focus your attention towards spending time adding value to other people's audiences whilst building awesome relationships with key influencers in your niche.
Yes, you guessed it; the best way to do this is through good old Guest Blogging.
Now, I would definitely recommend you keep the outreach to influencers and content creation to yourself, as if it comes across like you do not know what you are talking about, you will get nowhere.
However, there is still plenty for your virtual team member to do to increase your chances of a successful campaign:
- Research potential target blogs
- Create design assets (see next section)
- Add guest blogs into social media schedule
- Research for list posts
Here is the sheet we use to manage our guest blogging campaigns, click on the link, then "File" then "Make a copy…".
4. Content Creation Support
You know when you agree with an influencer of another blog (or your boss) to create one of those mega list posts?
When you state confidently: "Sure, I can easily find the 100 Best Free Productivity Tools For Influencers", then you sit down for two hours and find 7…
Yes, these giant list posts take time.
Furthermore, you know those awesome images you see on your industry's best blogs?
Yeah, they look great but also take time to create.
Luckily, with 5 minutes training, any virtual team member can create 6 per hour using tools such as Canva.
And it’s also the most economical person on your team to spend time building the components of your giant list post.
5. Managing Content Schedule
We call it the Bible.
It's the Google Sheet that defines what is being posted, when and with whom.
In order to keep everything together, it needs daily maintenance by your content manager, a perfect role for a virtual team member.
Here is the sheet we use to manage our content schedule, click on the link, then "File" then "Make a copy…".
6. Competitor Research
Taking a step to know more about your competitors is the quickest way to outsmart them, and their best strategies.
Insights garnered from competitor research can double or even triple the relevance and reach of your content.
- Does your industry share more on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?
- Does your industry enjoy consuming list posts or interviews?
- Who should you choose for your next content collaboration?
All relevant questions, yet the knowledge required to provide the answers takes time to collect, a perfectly "outsource-able" task..
Here is the sheet we use to manage our competitor research, click on the link, then "File" then "Make a copy…".
7. Transcription job
Transcription business is hot right now. You need to use it to your own advantage. According to this study, "we speak 7 times faster than we write and 4 times faster than we type."
If you were to transcribe your audio content into a blog post, recent study found that a professional transcriber can type between 80 to 100 words per minute.
If you can't type that fast, outsource it.
How much do you think your email subscriber conversion will increase if you were able to offer post specific lead magnets?
Ok, well a simple way to do this is to re-purpose your content and offer it to your audience, in exchange for an email address.
For example, your podcast is experiencing 100's of listens each day, yet your email list is barely growing.
Simply have your virtual team member transcribe each podcast into a beautiful .pdf file for your audience to download… in each for their email address and permission to contact them again in the future.
With these tasks handled by an experienced virtual team member, you can now focus on creating and distributing value to your readership, which is (hopefully) the reason you became a content marketer.
Let's do a quick exercise to end our time together…
Suppose you can give yourself back 2 hours of your time per day through outsourcing the tasks above.
Then let's fast forward a year…
You have now spent a whopping 440 hours extra on the tasks that matter.
What sort of effect do you think that will have on your Twitter follow/blog subscriber count?
Or more importantly, the lives of your readership?
Exactly…
Feel free to link to your blog in the comments, I will take a look and immediately highlight key areas your business can outsource.
Conclusion
I know that some of these tasks requires a skilled and experienced professional.
Which is why you must carry out your due research to determine beforehand the quality of work to expect.
Outsourcing is definitely for every content marketer.
You become highly effective, not just because you’re a great writer, and content distributor, but because you can mobilize others to do the work for you.
I’ve been outsourcing a lot of work since 2011, and I don’t intend to stop right now – because it has enabled me to free up time, get more done on important tasks, and increase my income.
As usual, what’s your #1 reason for outsourcing any content marketing task?
"Tom is the Founder of Virtual Valley, a platform that connects Entrepreneurs and Rockstar Virtual Assistants with the mission of giving Entrepreneurs back 10 million hours of their time by 2020. Tom writes about how to grow your remote business on the Virtual Valley Blog and you can connect with him on Twitter here: @tomhuntio.