TEAM STRUCTURE & OUTSOURCING s we’ve found in past years, many organizations have small or one- Regarding large companies, 61% indicated last year that they outsourced. Aperson content marketing teams serving the entire organization. This year, the figure was up to 75%. This suggests that in the early phase Large companies (1,000+ employees) are the exception. of the pandemic large companies pulled the reins back on outsourcing but are now back to the practice. In fact, more large companies are 67% AGREED THAT, OVER THE LAST YEAR, THEIR CONTENT TEAM outsourcing now than in 2019 (75% vs. 71%). HAD BEEN ASKED TO DO MORE WITH THE SAME RESOURCES. THE DATA SUGGESTS THAT DURING THE THICK OF THE PANDEMIC, How does the work get done? The data suggests that many companies LARGE COMPANIES PULLED THE REINS BACK A BIT ON OUTSOURCING are both outsourcing content marketing work and asking internal BUT ARE NOW BACK TO THE PRACTICE … MORE LARGE COMPANIES staff with other responsibilities to take on more. However, those who ARE OUTSOURCING NOW THAN IN 2019 (75% VS. 71%). have dedicated internal content marketing resources tend to be more successful with content marketing. Reinforcing this, 40% of respondents said budget issues were a top challenge when seeking outsourced content marketing help – down “The pandemic slowed things down for us,” one respondent said. “We from 51% the previous year. The top challenge? Finding partners with were going to hire support for content, but we haven’t been able to. So, adequate topical expertise (65%), which was also the top challenge the we’re doing more with less/the same and it’s tricky.” previous year. Outsourcing trends Where the content came from In a consistent year-over-year trend, around half of all surveyed used Many organizations did whatever it took to keep the content coming: outsourcing. The percentage was higher for large companies and lower among the least successful. It makes sense that the least successful are “We created a dedicated cross-functional task force team to pump out doing more content marketing work in-house, as many from that group content regularly to keep up with changing COVID issues related to our are in the early phases of content marketing maturity and may be laying customers. This team spent 25-50% of their time doing this which made us the foundations internally before seeking outside help. the leader in our industry.” continued on next page 1212