Three quarters of companies say they are increasing their content creation efforts this year (source: eMarketer), but if you're among those companies, how will you do it? Much of the burden of content creation falls on in-house staff inside a company. It stands to reason that companies either have to hire more people to create more content, or leverage existing staff that may not be used to doing it.

Even though companies are feeling the itch to create more content, only 4 in 10 have decided to outsource content creation. Small and midsize companies don't always have resources or expertise to create content their customers need. Here are 5 reasons that companies choose to outsource their content creation, or at least part of it.

1. You've got no time to write

Writing -- whether it's for your blog, for your website, or a publication -- takes time. Rarely can you site down and rip out a 600 word blog post during your workday because you've got other things going on (meetings, anyone?). Even if you or someone at your company can write well, you're all to familiar with the distractions of the day that make sitting down and writing difficult.

While you might hire a ghostwriter or firm that does content creation, know that it will still take a time commitment on your part to make it all happen. When we write for companies, we interview subject matter experts for 10-15 minutes per blog post in order to get the tone, voice and information correct. If you're cranking out 8 blog posts per month, that's a time commitment of 2 hours per month, which is much more manageable than writing it yourself.

2. You don't know what to write about

You work in the business day in and day out, and the longer you work somewhere, the more you lose sight of what might interest your customers. Outsourcing your content creation can bring a fresh perspective to the ideation process. Not only can we run a brainstorming session that generates 100 or more topics in a couple hours, but we can approach your business like a customer because we're not working in it every day.

You don't have to work in an exciting industry to write regular, compelling content for your website or blog. We actually enjoy working in "boring" industries because "boring" industries can mean that your customers are in a niche, and potentially very interested in what you have to say.

3. Content you've written is not giving you desired results

You might already be making a valiant effort to create blog and website content, but you're not seeing results from it. Ultimately, your efforts (or the efforts of an agency that does outsourced content creation) have to be fruitful to make it worthwhile.

We use your industry wisdom to generate blog and website content ideas, but we also tap into tools that tell us what people actually search for on Google. By combining your expertise and our knowledge of search engines, you'll increase your website visits and generate more leads as more and more people in your target audience find your content.

When we write, we write for your personas--your target audience. By determining who your customer is, we know how to best speak to their needs as we write. You should have these personas in mind every time you write, whether it's a blog, newsletter, email, etc.

4. Content marketing is not just about writing

Let's face it, you're not the next New York Times bestselling author, and that's ok. Lots of marketers and business owners don't write because they don't feel they are good enough writers.

Outsourcing your content creation will enable your voice and industry knowledge to shine through, but do it coherently.

There's one more thing, though. Blogs attract website traffic, and your blog has to do something to encourage the visitor to explore more once they are there. That's why writing calls to actions and landing pages are critical to turning a blog visitor into a new business lead. A marketing firm will think through that whole process for you so you generate more leads from your website than if you were to go it alone.

5. Access to talent

Your in-house marketing person/team might be able to write well, but you'll find that as you create new content, you'll need some other creative skills like web design, video production, research, search engine optimization, keyword research, social media, even a developer to implement new ideas on your website. If you outsource content marketing, you'll pay for access to all of this talent for the cost of a single person.

We've been very careful to build our team with hybrid marketing professionals that are multi-talented. We train our staff in writing, keyword research, SEO, email and conversion optimization. When you hire us to create content for your company, you'll get a team that can handle it from start to finish.

Other resources

Download our guide to outsourcing content for your company