Increase Your Content Marketing Writing Income By Outsourcing
It’s easy to think that the best way to make the highest income is to do all of your tasks yourself and spend as little money as possible. But I have found that once you have a steady client base and are making at least $100 per hour on average without outsourcing, the opposite is actually true.
There are certain tasks involved with freelancing that only you can do. The main one is to craft a great story that solves the audience’s problems using the tone of your client’s brand voice. You also need to interview sources, communicate with clients and figure out story ideas to pitch to clients. These all take skill, knowledge and experience. They also take specialized knowledge about the subject and the audience. This is what your client is paying you for.
But there are many other things that must happen to create a great piece of content. You need to research potential sources, search for statistics online, transcribe your interviews and do the final proofing of your story. These all take time. And when you are a freelancer, time costs money. But all of these (unlike the tasks in the previous paragraph) can be done by someone else.
Why Paying Someone Can Make Financial Sense
Yes, you have to pay for these services. But the rate is typically less (much less) than your hourly rate, assuming you are earning at least $100 per hour. And by making sure you are spending your time in a manner that ultimately increases your hourly rate, you will make more money in the long run.
However, there isn’t a set formula for what tasks to outsource and what to do yourself. Except writing, which you should always do yourself (in my opinion) unless your client knows you are subcontracting. The trick is knowing what tasks you are not as good at or are time-consuming for you. Then determining if it makes financial sense to outsource those specific tasks.
In my case, it’s proofreading. I am terrible at catching my own typos. And if I do produce clean copy, it takes me at least an hour to proof and reproof until it’s error free. I learned long ago that it’s worth the money to hire a proofreader, both for the sake of time and for the not-so-small fact that I probably wouldn’t have any clients if I didn’t.
I used to make notes myself during the interview, but I save so much time by now using a transcriptionist. I record the call using an app and then send off the file to a transcriptionist. When I get it back, I pull out the quotes and information that I want to paraphrase in a matter of minutes instead of an hour of pulling it all together. And I have a higher level of confidence that my quotes and facts are accurate.
Easy Choice: $185 per hour or $100 per hour
I know that many of you are still skeptical, so I’m going to give you an example from a story I wrote on Monday of this week. It was a 700-word article requiring two sources that paid $500.
I paid for the following services:
- $15 for Virtual Assistant to research potential sources
- $15 for Virtual Assistant to find relevant statistics for my story
- $32 for a transcriptionist to write out the notes from my two interviews
- $22 for a proofreader to proofread the copy
Total = $84 for outsourcing
With all of these tasks done for me, I spent:
- 45 minutes setting up and conducting the interviews
- 1 hour 15 minutes writing the draft
- 15 minutes reviewing the edited version from my proofreader
Total time spent with outsourcing research and editing = 2 hours 15 minutes
Estimated $ per hour with outsourcing subtracted = $185
If I had done everything myself, then most likely I would have spent the following time on the story:
- 1 hour researching sources and statistics
- 2.5 hours writing the story
- 30 minutes editing (I’m being conservative here for myself since this is probably average for most writers)
Total time it would have taken me without outsourcing = 4 hours
Estimated $ per hour without outsourcing = $100
Extra Money or Extra Time: Your Choice
By outsourcing, you make more money in less amount of time. This means that you can use this extra time as you wish. You can take on other work, which increases your overall income. Or you can spend this extra time on yourself and family or with friends, which is sometimes even more important.
Many freelancers often forget to think of themselves as business owners. And it often takes spending some money to make more money. By strategically thinking about which services make the most sense to outsource, you give yourself many more choices – higher income or more free time. And when it comes down to it, isn’t that exactly the reason we all freelance?
Do you outsource any of your content marketing writing tasks? If so, what do you outsource and what benefits have you found? If not, have you considered it and why did you decide not to do it?
Great tips, Jennifer! I never thought of outsourcing the preliminary research. I have looked at someone to transcribe the interviews — my least favorite task — but the rates were much higher than you find. I’ll look for virtual help again next month when I have a batch of interview MP3 files!
I pay $1 per word. My interviews are typically pretty short since they are usually just experts not someone I’m profiling . So usually around 15 minutes or so. I use Rev.com
Thanks for sharing your detailed example, Jennifer. Very helpful! I have outsourced transcription and proofing but not research. Would you be willing to share where you looked for and found the VA you use for research?
I posted in a writers group and got recommendations for my VA then talked to her on the phone and we clicked. You know, I think that this is worth a whole post. It’s really important to find the right VA, not just a VA. Having her do my initial research saves me so much time. Then I go through everything she sends me and do any extra if there are holes.
Great article. I am definitely going to consider outsourcing options now. I never thought of the proofreading component! What app do you use to record calls?
I use Tape A Call and Call Recorder. Both work great! I also find that I conduct better interviews when I”m not trying to write notes like I used to do.
Honestly, the proofreading was huge for me since I’m SO BAD at it. I’m a good writer, but not proofer. So I was losing clients no matter how long I spent. The year I started outsourcing proofing was the year I doubled my income and made the first strides to earning a high income.
Your “real life” example of how outsourcing makes you money was so helpful, Jennifer. Thank you very much for sharing that. I was skeptical until I saw how the numbers added up.
Can you tell me how to find a transcriptionist? Transcribing has become a big time suck for me.
And I think it’s worth noting that you write really quickly. (I do too — thanks to experience at daily newspapers.) This model (and content writing in general) might not work so well for people who write really slowly.
Thank you for an excellent and very useful post!
I totally agree that I write quickly and that it’s a huge benefit. I also spend a lot of time writing in my head. And I really do think that slow writers struggle with content marketing writing Here is a post I wrote about how to write faster. https://www.jennifergregorywriter.com/2016/02/17/write-faster-10-secrets-increase-income-without-raising-rates/ Most of the people I know that earn a high income as content writers tend to write faster.
I use Rev.com for my transcribing and usually get it back in under 12 hours at the most. $1 a minute and the quality is usually good. I prefer a service over a person because of speed. I’m going to do a post detailing who I use for outsourcing.
I have worried that outsourcing is like “cleaning for the cleaner”. Meaning I’d have to tell a VA what I’m looking for, how the story will be cast, and that they’ll I’ll not get the depth of research otherwise. Thank isn’t it more administrative work to pay them? Perhaps not once you have a system set up. I transcribe interviews (can write as fast as people speak and use shortcut language and also ask them to restate if I’ve missed something. I don’t feel I need a transcriptionist, but pre-research, lining up sources, and setting up source calls within my calendar would be great.
I think that the time is greatly reduced once you have a system and also the right VA that understands your niches. The way I work is that I have a task Google sheet where we keep track of the tasks I need her to do and what she’s completed. when I come up with something, I add it to the sheet nd then when she is done she marks it green and puts the finished product in a shared Google doc. For research I give her the story description and a few sentences about what I need (specific stats). SIt usually only takes 1-2 minutes for me to put it in and no time to administer. Paying – she sents me a paypal invoice each month (we do a retainer) and I pay it with 2 clicks. At the end of the year I will give her a 1099.
Proofing!!! Proofing would be totally worth it. Does your proofer just straight proof of does he or she offer suggestions for how to rearrange ideas or paragraphs for a stronger takeaway…that you could choose to adopt or ignore? How often does the proofer bill? Every story? Monthly? (Perhaps this is another blog post, administratively tracking and paying VAs and finding the best ones and knowing the ones already working for you to scale back on/let go?
I used to use my old VA for proofing but now I use Proofreadnow.com which is a 24/7 service. If you give 24 hour notice then it’s 11 dollars a page. If you do 1 hour it’s more expensive. But at least you have the option to do something ASAP if you need. I much prefer the service than an individual because if I am running late I can still get it done in an hour, I just pay more.
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