It’s one thing to have a great idea for a business article or blog post and quite another to turn that idea into a reality. There are various costs that come along with creating content that will go into marketing a product or service. In this article, we will discuss some of the most common costs that you might encounter when writing for a business audience.
Copywriting Strategy And Planning
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of copywriting costs, it is important to first establish a copywriting strategy. For some businesses, a content strategy might be the proper way to go and this is a crucial step before you begin writing. Having a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve with all of your content is the key to creating effective content that will drive business growth. Having a solid strategy will help you map out the ideal content plan and will allow you to consistently deliver high-quality content to your audience. To put it simply, you can’t just dive into writing without having a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve.
Travel Costs
When traveling to speak at a conference, it’s usually best to travel with your team. Sometimes it’s convenient to speak at a 1:1 meeting with a potential customer or subject matter expert and traveling alone might seem like the perfect opportunity to build rapport and trust. However, for a business to grow, it often requires having a presence in multiple locations. When you are running a business, being present in person is often the key to having a successful outreach strategy. Establishing a presence in a city where your target audience resides is usually a good idea and it can be cost-effective to do so. When hiring a contractor to help with your website or blog, take time to consider all the travel costs that might be incurred.
Hiring Freelancers And Expenses
If you are looking to grow your business via content marketing, it might be best to hire freelancers to help you with the strategy and execution. When you are first starting off, it can be cost-effective to hire freelancers to help you establish your business and to create content for you. For legal reasons, many businesses opt for contract work where they outsource specific tasks to specialist legal professionals. When you outsource legal work, you often need to pay for the attorney’s time and expenses as well as the time of the paralegal who is working on the case. When you are first establishing your business, it might be a good idea to consider using legal firms to help you navigate the legalities of running a business. Outsourcing legal work can help you save a lot of money in the long run and it can also help you avoid any legal hassles. If you want to learn more, here are three fantastic articles on how to legally run a business:
- How to Legally Run a Business (Small Business Blog)
- How to Create a Business Plan: Legal and Financial Analysis (HubSpot Blog)
- The Complete Business Guide: Running a Business (Gleisdreit)
Marketing And Advertising
Once you have a steady amount of traffic coming in from organic searches, you can begin to think about how to attract more customers to your business. For many entrepreneurs, traffic is often the key to success and if you want to learn more, here are a few marketing blogs to get you started:
- Brand Journalism (MarketingCharts)
- Executive Summary (MarketingCharts)
- How to Write a Perfect Business Plan (MarketingCharts)
- How to Write a Perfect Business Plan (Small Business Blog)
- 6 Steps to the Perfect Business Plan (Medium)
Once you have established yourself as a go-to person for your industry, you can begin to think about advertising. Having a steady flow of traffic is one thing, but being able to convert that traffic into paying customers is quite another. The truth is that not all visitors will become paying customers and you need to be able to target your ads effectively to ensure the best possible ROI (Return On Investment). For legal and regulatory reasons, many businesses opt for paid advertising where they pay to have their ads displayed. When running paid advertising, you will often need to consider Google AdWords, Facebook Advertising, or Instagram Ads.
Research And Analysis
Depending on how much data you have, this step can either be a lot of fun or a complete pain. If you are looking to grow your business via content marketing, it is usually a good idea to conduct some research before you begin writing. If you are not sure where to start, here are a few websites that you can use to help you begin your research:
- Google Compare (CNET)
- Zolo (Google)
- Duck Duck Go (Google)
- Trine 2 (Google)
If you are looking to conduct analysis, here are a few libraries that you can use to help you get the data that you need:
- Material Design Lite (Google)
- Expense Ledger (Apple)
- FundCloud (Payments)
- Raven.js (Data)
- Raven Node (Data)
- Grunt-contrib-qrcode (Data)
- Free Products That Every Business Needs To Know About (FusionMoi)
As you can see, there are a lot of costs that come along with creating content that will go into marketing a product or service. Depending on your strategy, you will need to consider how you are going to split these costs. Are you going to use a service partner? Are you going to outsource some of the work? Are you going to rent or purchase equipment?