Month: April 2017

April 26, 2017

Will artificial intelligence render content writers obsolete?

A study released earlier this month by market research firm Forrester predicted that automation (robots) will kill 24.7 million U.S. jobs by 2027. The firm concluded that automation and other developing technologies will create 14.9 million new jobs in that same time frame. That’s still a net loss of nearly 10 million jobs. Customer service, manual labor and complex calculation tasks are the most at-risk.

Writing would seemingly be the last jobs robots take over because of “human exceptionalism.” Emotional nuances, cognizance and other human faculties are ostensibly unique to homo sapiens. People craft words that resonate with other people. Star Wars fans remember when Luke Skywalker first met C3PO in The New Hope. Luke asked C3PO about some of the battles he’s seen between the Rebellion and the Empire. But C3PO was programmed only to be a language interpreter. He did not have the functional capacity to tell a story. C3PO apparently received more advanced programming in Return of the Jedi. He sure told the Ewoks a compelling story.

Artificial intelligence technology in 2017

There are already robots writing certain types of copy. The practice is growing in scope. Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and chief researcher at Gartner, said at the company’s Symposium/ITxpo 2016 in Orlando that robots will author 20% of business content by 2018. Budget reports and quick recaps of sporting events are currently the most common types of content written by artificial intelligence (AI).

Financial writers combed through 10-K, 10-Q and other SEC earnings reports in the old days (meaning a few years ago). They took notes in the margins and even did audio narratives of their weeks-long absorption of these textbook-like documents. Some 10-K and 10-Q reports for large companies easily exceed 100 pages of headache-inducing, cryptic blather. Writers translated the garble and wrote articles that regular readers could understand.

The Associated Press (AP) reported in January of 2015 that it previously wrote about 300 articles per quarter about corporate earnings. The tasks was too tedious to assign much more to financial journalists. The AP formed partnerships with Automated Insights, Inc. and Zacks Investment Research in late 2014. Automated’s natural language generation platform called Wordsmith, combined with Zacks’ research and analytics, enabled the AP to published 3,000 such articles in one quarter. That’s a ten-fold increase in production.

Artificial intelligence and copywriting in 2017

Automated Insights was purchased by venture capital firm Vista Equity Partners in early 2015. Vista also owns Stats LLC. Fantasy sports players recognize the name Stats LLC. as one of the industry leaders in providing real-time scoring for their leagues. The partnership is only scratching the surface as to its capabilities. Stats’ huge vault of sports data and Insights’ AI technology provide endless opportunities.

Scientists at the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Hyderabad, India, also married sports and AI in late 2015. A robot “watched” hundreds of taped cricket matches on the ESPNcricinfo website. It also watched the Indian Premiere League channel on Youtube. The robot learned via word association. It matched actions on the screen and players’ names with the announcers’ commentary. The computer taught itself an algorithm to write its own real-time commentary during live games. It was 90% accurate in its commentary. Robots have also tried their hand at writing movie scripts. But the end results didn’t exactly impress the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Successful writers are perpetually adapting to the ever-changing landscape of SEO and content marketing. It comes with the territory for those who wish to remain in the industry. The expansion of AI is simply another challenge writers must accept.

Sports and financial writers’ jobs at risk?

Robots have the ability to view box scores and write intelligible summaries about the game. Fox Sports and Yahoo! have been generating this type of content with AI for several years now. Chicago-based Narrative Science is leasing its natural language generation platform called Quill to financial firms like Credit Suisse and T. Rowe Price. It writes performance reports on mutual funds, hedge funds, and stocks.

The days of sports writers sitting in press boxes, collecting stat sheets from team personnel, and writing recaps after games are likely numbered because of AI. But robot commentators won’t be doing play-by-play for basketball, football and ice hockey anytime soon. Opinion journalism is the norm in professional and amateur sports. That gives human writers the edge over machines.

Sports and financial writers have adapted to this reality. Job security and fierce competition are forcing their hands. Financial writers used to let the numbers speak for themselves. But a human touch is essential in the fast-paced 21st century. It distinguish them from both machines and their human competition.

Artificial intelligence isn’t cheap

Automation is on the wish lists of many companies. It streamlines workflows and significantly reduces the time it takes to complete certain tasks. The reality is that AI is cost prohibitive for most businesses.

The legal industry is bullish on AI for its potential money and time-saving capabilities. But Connie Brenton, chairman of the board at the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, is more skeptical. She told law publication Corporate Counsel in February that AI is not a “silver bullet” that will disrupt the legal profession overnight. Brenton elaborated at Legalweek: The Experience 2017 Conference. She noted that initial costs exceed six-figures in many cases. There is also a 5-6 month time investment before virtual assistants are ready for implementation into legal workflows. Full-time administrators must be hired to maintain the system. Frequently consultation with the AI vendor is also necessary.

Seth Earley, CEO of Earley Information Science, agreed that cost and time investment eliminate AI as a realistic option for most companies in the near term. Earley suggested via Harvard Business Review that the more realistic option for small and medium-sized companies is what he termed “AI Lite” systems. They lack cognitive computing ability. AI Lite is programmed to complete only certain tasks. These systems require additional coding to learn new tasks. But AI Lite is scalable. It provides a foundation for companies as the technology becomes more affordable and accessible.

Breathe easy, writers

Financial writers had job security because few people understand economic regulations, indexes and statistics enough to compose compelling stories. AI is already impacting that segment of writers. The journalistic aspect of financial writing is still a human activity. Interviews with industry experts, CEOs, etc. provide perspective to readers. Journalists have difficulty contacting sources on the phone and/or via email to get direct quotes. Its doubtful CEOs and market analysts are willingly to talk to robots on the phone or via email versus responding to another human being.

AI is everywhere in 2017. The trend is not slowing down whether humanity likes it or not. Robots drive some cars today. But 75% of Americans and a majority of Europeans are afraid of autonomous technology. They would rather drive themselves. An Indiegogo virtual sex robot campaign was suspended because demand was so high. But most (normal) people still favor sex with other humans, not robots.

A 1940s experiment also proved human touch is vital to human life. Note this was before the United States had medical ethics. One group of caretakers was ordered to hold, look at, talk to, etc. a group of babies. The other group only changed the baby’s diapers and fed them. They excluding all physical contact, communication, etc. The experiment ceased after four months. Four of the babies that received no human contact died. Two more died months later even with real parental care thereafter.

Artificial intelligence not ready for prime time

AI is presenting writers the opportunity to better themselves. Writers must be subject matter experts in more industries. They must acquire new skills like graphic design, web design and/or SEO. Writing is innately a human form of communication. It requires humans to craft and subsequently appreciate.

Professional writers know the basics: cite primary sources, use keywords in headlines, hit deadlines, etc. But most importantly, give your writing that human touch. Humans understand and appreciate other human experiences. Adapt or be replaced. It’s as simple as that.

April 24, 2017

Facebook: the unnecessary nuisance for marketing departments

Facebook had 50 million active business pages as of December 2015, up from 40 million eight months earlier. Assuming sustained growth through today, there are upwards of 70 million active Facebook business pages in April 2017. It makes good business sense for small and medium-sized businesses to follow this trend when they glance at the numbers.

Facebook boasts an astounding 1.23 billion daily active users, and 1.86 billion monthly active users. Facebook is a theoretical must-have for all businesses due to the sheer number of potential customers that can be reached. Unfortunately great odds don’t necessarily translate to success.

Social media is an important part of all marketing strategies. Facebook marketing has taken on a life of its own in the last couple years. But the resources marketing departments are allocating to the world’s largest social network are better spent elsewhere.

Numbers perspective

Facebook’s 1.86 million active monthly users are nothing to sneeze at. That is a humongous potential profit pie for companies to explore. A more comprehensive look at the numbers tells a different story.

A vast majority of Facebook users, more than 85%, are located outside of the United States and Canada. China, the most populous country and fastest growing economy in the world after surpassing India last year, banned Facebook in 2009. Some Chinese people still access Facebook via VPN, but there’s no way of estimating how many.

Facebook’s first quarterly earnings report after its IPO in 2012 indicated that at least 8.7% of users were fake, meaning they were duplicates, “misclassified,” or “undesirable.” The company’s 2015 annual report put the number at about 7% fake accounts. Averaging those numbers out, upwards of 150 million Facebook profiles are fake.

Despite all the aforementioned, there are still millions of Facebook users who may be interested in your product or service. Now its just a matter of reaching them.

Facebook algorithm changes

Facebook Ads launched in November of 2007, with one of the features being that businesses could “build pages on Facebook to connect with their audiences.” This was only 28 months after the company acquired the domain Facebook.com for $200,000, so business (fan) pages have been around for most of the social network’s existence. The way these pages operate has changed dramatically since then.

When business and fan pages started, administrators enjoyed very high organic reach with its followers. Facebook was the go-to platform for major brands and small businesses to build large followings and post unlimited promotional and customer relations content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO) in May of 2012 immediately changed how the platform worked. The company now had shareholders to satisfy. Its entire philosophy changed almost overnight, and made many influential people angry in the process.

George Takei, the long-time Star Trek actor, noticed the change in June that year and posted a not-so-subtle note to his two million followers about it.

A Facebook employee responded to Takei, saying the company had not changed anything about the way posts were disseminated. Instead, according to the employee, Facebook made the user experience better by making the content they see more relevant. But Takei was not satisfied with the explanation, as he posted a very similar note several months later.

Billionaire Mark Cuban, who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, talked about the changes to Facebook business pages in November of 2012. The team posted a promo for an upcoming game on Facebook assuming it would reach a large percentage of its 2.3 million followers at the time. The post only reached 27,000 of the Mavericks’ followers organically (or about 1.1%). Cuban tweeted his assessment of Facebook, along with a screenshot of Facebook demanding $3,000 for the Mavericks to reach about half of their followers (NOTE: the tweet has since been deleted).

A few days later Cuban expanded on his tweet in a Huffington Post article. He was not recommending companies leave Facebook, but that they de-emphasize it in favor of Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and other social networks.

Post-IPO Facebook changed its news feed algorithm to reduce average organic reach by business pages to 16% of its followers, according to a 2014 white paper by Social@Ogilvy. Further, the more followers you had, the less your organic reach. By October of 2013, average organic reach dropped to 12%. Pages with more than 500,000 followers, however, dropped to an average of 4% organic reach. Four months later, in February 2014, average organic reach for all business pages dropped to 6.2%, and to 2.1% for pages with more than 500,000 followers. Facebook announced more changes to its algorithm in June of last year, leading to even lower organic reach.

There are things you can do on Facebook to increase organic reach of followers. As Mr. Takei suggested above, tell followers to prioritize your posts. Today this is done a little differently than he described in his 2012 post.

Facebook Live broadcasts and videos published on the native Facebook video platform (versus externally-linked videos) tend to get more interactions. The algorithm also recognizes quality content, which uses factor such as word frequency, choice and count. Its just another reason why company blogs with high-quality content are such valuable assets.

The only way businesses truly reap the benefits of Facebook is by paying for it. We recently tested out paid advertising on Facebook for a clients’ business page that sells encrypted email service. We authorized Facebook to take $50 from the clients’ credit card to “boost” a post about online privacy in the wake of Senate Joint Resolution 34 being signed into law earlier this month. The campaign was supposed to run for four days. Facebook ultimately took $30 from the client’s credit card and ended the campaign after three days for whatever reason. The client just joined Facebook that week, so only had five followers before the boosted post, which ultimately reached 1,266 news feeds (60 organically), got 110 total engagements, and only ONE click on the actual link.

Some data is excluded due to confidentiality agreements.

At that rate, you’re paying about $30 per click-through to your actual website, even when the audience is targeted by demographics and user habits. A higher budget will help, but that money is better spent investing in your own website, particularly on publishing daily, high-quality blog content and growing your email list.

Social vs. professional network

When you log into Facebook, you expect to see embarrassing breakups, what people are having for breakfast and the new sweater somebody bought their dog. Its nothing short of cringe-worthy when the same type of stuff shows up on LinkedIn. Jerome Knyszewski was the first to publish an article on LinkedIn about this, and there have since been several iterations by others.

Facebook specifically states on its homepage that it is a social network that helps you “connect with friends.” LinkedIn specifically states on its company page that it exists to “[connect] the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

LinkedIn has a fraction of the active users of Facebook, with about 467 million registered users in 200 countries. The U.S. has the highest number of registered LinkedIn users by far with over 133 million. India comes in a distant second with 39 million. LinkedIn is the obvious priority for U.S.-based B2B companies’ social media investments. B2C companies have more opportunities to leverage Facebook in their favors, while LinkedIn provides a means of connecting with others in their respective industries.

The 2016 Hubspot “State of Inbound” marketing report proved two things: old school still works and investing in your own website instead of social media is smart. Whether sales teams increased or decreased in numbers, companies identified phone and email communications as the most successful channels for their salespeople to reach prospects.

Phone communications typically originated from email communications via prospects and leads contacting or subscribing to company blogs or websites. The report suggested that companies stop cold-calling and contact warm leads who responded to content on their websites. Growing your email list is thus more important than growing your number of Facebook followers.

Though there was no significant difference between Facebook and LinkedIn success rates for salespeople, the tiebreaker is organic reach. Last week on LinkedIn, I published an article on my personal account with only 225 connections. But as of publishing 110 people saw it, or about 49% of my followers. Further, big brands are using Twitter far more than they do all other social networks, according to Forrester Research.

Bottom line

If you’ve had a Facebook business page for years, and have over 1,000 followers, its unwise to just ditch it. Its best to learn more about your followers with Facebook Insights and try to figure out from the data the best approach to increase organic reach. Unless you’re willing to spend more money, time and effort to reach followers, its best to prioritize your own web properties.

A Facebook business page is good to have even if you don’t use it a lot. People may search for your company on the platform and find contact information. Even the largest, most successful brands in the world aren’t heavily active on Facebook because of the time and investment it takes to get even minimal returns. Coca Cola (102 million followers) and Starbucks (36 million followers) sometimes go weeks without posting anything, but they’re still on top of their respective industries. Both companies have very active blogs with great content.

All companies – small, medium and large; B2B and B2C – should have a Facebook page for SEO purposes and to have another means of communication with customers and leads. Investing a lot of time, money and effort into it takes away from investing in your own websites that you have 100% control over. Use Facebook to supplement your blogs and websites, not the other way around.

Are you ready to reap the benefits of publishing high-quality content on your company blog? Do you need to start a new blog from scratch? Read about Content Coup, check out pricing and contact us today. Cut out the middle man and join the revolution!

April 21, 2017

5 company blogs that are doing it right

Successful company blogs typically have three things in common: consistent editorial calendars, high-quality content, and effective calls-to-action. They make mundane topics interesting and interesting topics fascinating. Companies that prioritize blogging quickly establish themselves as thought leaders in their respective industries, while being rewarded by Google’s ever-changing PageRank algorithms for regularly publishing new content.

Several companies are trendsetters and/or standard bearers when it comes to how a company blog should be ran. Here are five of the best company blogs in 2017.

Disney Parks

Whether you’re a baby-boomer who grew up loving Mickey Mouse, or a millennial who fell in love with Princess Jasmine from “Aladdin,” it seems everyone has a favorite Disney character. The parks are also pretty popular (understatement alert). Disney World in Florida attracts over 54 million visitors per year, while well over 700 million visitors have been to Disneyland in California since opening in 1955.

The Disney Parks blog provides a virtual ticket inside its properties right from your laptop or smartphone. It frequently publishes personal accounts of visitors’ experiences, including celebrities. The Disney Parks blog also displays photos of its regular authors within posts, giving it a more personal, human feel (those using WordPress can install a simple plugin to do the same on their blogs).

When readers visit the Disney Parks blog, they feel and experience the brand as one would expect: fun, professional and inspiring.

REI

Active, outdoorsy-types have likely stumbled across the REI blog while searching for the latest cycling, hiking or camping gear. Known as the “Co-Op Journal,” the REI blog conveniently displays all of its blog categories as a main menu across the top of every page.

REI’s content epitomizes balance. It educates readers while subtly plugging its products without sounding overly advertorial. For instance, the company offers advice on how to choose the right sleeping bag. Obviously REI hopes you choose one of their options, but provides objective, actionable tips and commentary to help you make an informed decision.

The “rate this story” feature gives the REI blog a social media feel on its own website. It also confirms that readers enjoy the content. All posts on the Co-Op Journal’s front page earned at least four evergreen trees out of five (as of April 21).

Southwest Airlines

The marketing team at Southwest Airlines gets kudos for creating one of the funniest, most clever advertising campaigns in history. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Southwest’s marketing team inspired humor and creativity in others.

They also deserve credit for thinking outside the box when it comes to their blog. The “Nuts About Southwest” was launched in 2008. A group of employees post regular content relating to everything from TSA regulations to new planes joining Southwest fleet. But a majority of the content is posted by customers.

Southwest allows users to create profiles and post their questions, concerns and compliments as actual blog entries. Southwest employees sometimes respond directly to these posts, but typically other readers answer them first. One user recently posted a complaint about ambiguity in Southwest’s unaccompanied minor policy on international flights. Another reader posted the policy’s full text in the comments section, answering the questions at hand.

This type of setup isn’t ideal for every company, but it works well for a large airline with millions of customers.

Dollar Shave Club

There are some interesting and entertaining results when you enter “men hate shaving” in search engines. But two of the most consistent complaints are that razors are expensive and dull fast.

For those unfamiliar, the Dollar Shave Club is a mail order service that delivers customers a fresh supply of replaceable blades for its custom razor handles every month.

The company also sells a line of personal hygiene products, including shaving cream and after-shave. But few companies can pull off the edginess Dollar Shave Club does on its blog.

Most marketing executives would balk at the idea of a story entitled “Do I Need To Wipe If I’m About To Shower” being published on its company blog. But how many of you just clicked the aforementioned link out of total curiosity? Dollar Shave Club blog has perfected the art of writing catchy headlines and discussing intimate personal hygiene issues others would rather leave alone.

The blog is also a standard bearer for balancing quality and quantity. The company posts upwards of five new articles per day, but all of them are either educational, interesting or just down-right funny.

Bigelow Tea

Like our own Content Coup blog, Bigelow Tea shows that quality content is far more important than aesthetics when it comes to reader acquisition and retention. The company uses a very simple, no-frills theme that is not going to win any web design awards or even subtle praise. But when you get hundreds of “likes” and shares of your content, none of that matters.

Tea drinkers tend to be earthly, spiritual, healthy people. The Bigelow Tea blog caters to this demographic while subtly highlighting its products. A blog post about how to start an indoor garden gives instructions on how to plant seed that grow in tea bags.

The blog touches on subjects like what foods go best with different Bigelow teas, better snacking habits, and relaxation methods. It also keeps customers apprised on the company’s conservation efforts. The only glaring flaw on Bigelow’s blog is poor navigation. There is no “home” button at the top and clicking on the blog title takes you to the Bigelow website (away from the blog). But again, good content is the equilizer and keeps readers coming back for more.

Are you ready to add your company’s name to this list of impressive blogs? Contact us today at support@contentcoup.com. Check out our content packages and FAQ section. Cut out the middle man and join the revolution today!

April 20, 2017

#Happy420: Is writing about cannabis on company blogs still taboo?

The United States is a much different place than it was 80 years ago. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 criminalized cannabis for the first time in U.S. history. The federal law required anyone who possessed or distributed marijuana to obtain and publicly display a federal tax stamp.

But the process of acquiring the tax stamp was viewed as an admission of criminal activity in a court of law. Doctors and commercial hemp farmers were typically the only people issued tax stamps without much hassle. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional in 1969. Requiring defendants to incriminate themselves to obtain the stamp violated the Fifth Amendment. Congress quickly passed the Controlled Substances Act a few months later. Possession and consumption of marijuana remained a federal offense as a result.

Attitudes towards cannabis have changed dramatically in the 21st century. A 2015 Gallup poll found that 58% of Americans supported legalization of marijuana. That’s a significant increase from the 36% that supported legalization 10 years earlier. Eight U.S. states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Washington) have legalized marijuana for recreational use in that same time frame. Meanwhile 21 more states allow medicinal marijuana and/or have decriminalized the plant.

The legal conundrum between federal and state law complicates matters. A memo issued by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this month said it will enforce federal marijuana laws even in states that have legalized it for recreational use. Eleven U.S. Senators declared in March that they oppose enforcement of federal marijuana laws in their respective states.

The cannabis industry has morphed into a powerful economic force. The state of Colorado hit the $1 billion mark in cannabis sale by itself in 2016. Total North American revenues for both recreational and medicinal marijuana products reached $6.7 billion in 2016, according to data compiled by Arcview Market Research. That’s a 30% increase from the previous year. Tom Adams, editor-in-chief for Arcview, told Forbes the only industries he’s ever seen experience that level of compound growth were post-dot-com era broadband sales and cable television subscriptions in the 1990s.

Cannabis retailers and growers talk about their primary products on company blogs. But the cannabis political landscape still makes it a sensitive subject matter on company blogs in other industries. Here are a few things to consider before writing about cannabis on your company blog.

Location, Location

National and international companies should not mention cannabis on their blogs. But local and regional businesses with finite customer bases and physical presence have more freedom in this regard.

The above map from Governing.com shows geographic trends pertaining to marijuana attitudes across the country. Companies that are physically located in bright-green states, and have customer bases within said boundaries, should feel comfortable writing content about cannabis. All other should avoid it.

Relevance equals legitimacy

Auto repair shops, toy stores and accounting firms have no business mentioning cannabis on their blogs. But yoga instructors and massage therapists may speak to the relaxation properties of certain cannabis strains. Personal trainers and fitness instructors helping people lose weight may want to discourage cannabis due to what is known as cannabinoid-induced feeding, aka “munchies.” Travel blogs can provide maps and information on the best recreational cannabis shops in Colorado, Oregon and other legal states.

Companies with genuine, business-related reasons for discussing cannabis should feel comfortable doing so on their blogs.

Stick to the facts

Cannabis is a subject that triggers different emotions in different demographics. Most people have hard-wired viewpoints and are unlikely to be swayed by other’s opinions.

When writing anything about cannabis, always utilize original sources. Don’t make claims such as “marijuana cures cancer” without citing reputable, verifiable university and medical studies. Use the same approach when presenting negative information about cannabis, such as “it leads to other things.” Stating opinions on any controversial subject, regardless of which side you’re on, alienates some of your reader base and completely derails the discussion. Stick to indisputable facts and everything else will take care of itself.

Do you have white-glove type content ideas for your company blog that would be best produced by a professional content strategist and writer? Join the Content Coup today! Cut out the middle man and be a part of the revolution!

April 20, 2017

How much should you pay for content marketing?

A vast majority of banner ads online are completely ignored by internet users. Despite this fact, marketing professionals still pay premium prices for them.

Small businesses that utilize PPC (pay-per-click) ads as their primary advertising source, spend $9,000 to $10,000 per month on Google AdWords campaigns, according to Google partner and PPC marketing firm Wordstream. Marketing directors are willing to pay this kind of money for the prestige and reach of Google (Alphabet) regardless of the well-known drawbacks associated with AdWords.

Data compiled by marketing blog Invesp found that 85% of clicks on PPC display ads come from only 8% of the global internet using population. These dart-throw-type odds for conversions and high prices related to PPC campaigns have not deterred small businesses and their large corporate counterparts. Google revenues rose to $89 billion in 2016, with more than 90% of that coming from advertising. Meanwhile blogging continues to be the most effective, efficient and relatively inexpensive inbound marketing solution that is still (inexplicably) ignored by many small and medium-sized businesses.

A 2015 study by market research firm Clutch found that nearly half of all small businesses don’t even have websites, let alone blogs. Only 36% of Fortune 500 companies have blogs. Many companies, both B2B and B2C, cited cost and time as the primary reasons for not having blogs. Despite the reluctance, more companies are now prioritizing inbound marketing, specifically blogging, because of the obvious benefits.

A company blog with high-quality content provides a 24/7/365 de-facto advertising and customer relations platform that helps grow your brand. Its simply a matter of coming up with a plan and executing it for your company to start reaping the benefits. Writing, like driving, is something pretty much anybody and everybody can do. But everyone cannot be on the NASCAR circuit competing with the best drivers on the planet. The same can be said when it comes to writing.

Companies of all sizes have three choices when deciding on how to handle their blogging needs:

1. Have existing employees write all the content

2. Hire a full-time, in-house content strategist/writer. The salary range for a full-time content strategist/writer is between $81,000 and $115,000, according to Robert Half.

3. Hire a professional freelancer or marketing agency.

The first option is the worst since you’ll be sacrificing the quality and SEO benefits professional content strategists and writers bring to the table. Its best to mix employee content with professional SEO content. The second option is good if your company can afford to bring on another full-time employee. The third option is the most cost-effective without sacrificing quality and SEO.

The 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America report by the Content Marketing Institute found that successful companies blogs with measurable ROI spent an average of 42% of their total marketing budget on content marketing. Using that statistic and the above salary numbers as reference points, here are a few things to consider when budgeting for content marketing.

You get what you pay for

Freelancers and marketing agencies charge widely different rates depending on reputation, writer quality, order size, etc. Compare pricing of different marketing agencies to get an idea of what you’ll get for your money.

Upwork places the cost per blog at $700 – $1,500. That amounts to about $2 per word. A Clearvoice survey found that 40% of freelancers charge anywhere from $100-$300 per article, while 20% charge $300 or more per article. Content Factory has a wide price range, charging anywhere from $80-$950 per article.

Marketing agencies also charge monthly access and retainer fees, which of course increases cost per article. The best freelance writers that demand fees on the higher end of the scale should have a lot of published work samples for you to read and evaluate.

Be Prepared

A freelance writer or marketing agency provides professional writing, research and SEO experience when your content marketing endeavors begin. But you must inform them about the specific needs of your customers.

Why are your customers interested in your brand? What do they like best? What do they complain about most? What questions come up most from your customers? Your writer will read online reviews and social media comments about your company to get a broad feel for your brand. But your internal customer service and sales personnel have the most experience and insight with your most valuable assets. The writer and one of these individuals should have at least a one-hour conversation (whether by exchanging emails or by telephone) about your brand and company culture before the content creation process begins.

The more information writers have, the more targeted and relevant the content will be towards your customer base.

Measure ROI

Increasing web traffic, brand visibility and sales are the obvious goals of content marketing. But the money you invest in content marketing should provide noticeable differences to your online presence.

Quality content results in more social media engagement. Keep in mind Facebook algorithms have essentially eliminated organic reach for your posts and companies must now pay to get posts “boosted.” But you should still see increases in total engagements relative to your number of followers if the content is of high-quality. If one blog post gets more “likes,” shares and comments than your previous three posts combined, your investment is paying off. Writers also need to understand how to use hashtags on Twitter to maximize engagements there.

Another metric to monitor is direct engagements on your website and/or blog. Most people use social media to interact with companies. Effective content marketing should lead to more unique visitors to your website, direct comments, and newsletter subscriptions.

Leads and conversions are obviously the bottom line. But as long as your content is keeping your customers engaged and positioning your company as a thought leader in the industry, it is money well spent.

RELATED: Work Samples/FAQ

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