As one of the oldest and largest circulating newspapers in the country, The New York Times has become synonymous with quality content from expert sources. Growing from their small team over more than 150 years, the NY Times now publishes content from hundreds of contributing and guest writers.
Your company can reach the same level of authority (in your industry) by approaching content creation in the same way they do.
With the growth in content marketing in the past few years, your business needs to take advantage of the content creation experts if it expects to survive. According to Content Marketing Institute, 70% of companies plan to increase the amount of content they create in 2017. Unfortunately, only 35% of companies that have a content marketing strategy include the ability to scale their content over time and grow with their organization.
There was a time when the NY Times could get by with a small team of in-house writers. But to think they could keep up their current volume of content without leveraging freelance writers seems almost laughable. The same is true for your company. Just like publishers, leveraging freelancers can help you:
- Handle Increased Volume: Using a mix of in-house and freelance writers allows you to scale your content creation as your business grows.
- Access Experts: When the New York Times needs to write on a specific topic, they reach out to an expert in that area. Having your own experts allows you to target new audiences or experiment with new content mediums in the same way.
- Allow Different Perspectives: One person creating all your content is the easiest way to create boring, formulaic content. Opening your content marketing to a variety of perspectives will keep it fresh and original.
Marketers are beginning to realize the benefits of “thinking like a publisher.” The use of freelance writers increased 77% this year. Even The NY Times understands the benefit their approach can have for marketers. Over two years ago, The New York Times extended their expertise to brand’s looking to create engaging, multimedia articles that had the same level of value as a traditional journalistic piece. T Brand Studio proved to be a major success, landing clients like Netflix and Cole Haan.
Here are a few ways publications like The NY Times use contributing writers to produce a variety of content and how your brand can use freelance writers to do the same:
Set Clear Editorial Guidelines
Leveraging a larger team of content writers requires you to have a very clear understanding of what content on your site should and shouldn’t include. The New York Times has their own editorial guidelines and styling that all their contributors follow so people can easily identify and trust content that comes from their site. Guidelines should include things like:
- Source Requirements
- Word length
- Tone
- Style requirements
- Multimedia Guidelines
Content Calendar
The main goal of The New York Times is to sell subscriptions and entertain their audience. This is not necessarily your main goal.
If you plan to use your content to establish thought leadership, generate leads, earn webinar signups or any other goal, your writers need to know that. Share the specific content goals you have for the year, quarter, month and every specific content piece.
By creating a content calendar, you can organize all your larger marketing goals and create content to support those goals. If you have a whitepaper being released at the end of the month, share that information with your content community so they can create content that supports and promotes this larger piece.
Encourage Freelancers to Send Ideas
One of the ways The New York Times maintains fresh perspectives and varying viewpoints is by allowing any of their contributing writers or any guest writer to submit article ideas on any topic they think will be relevant to their audience. By allowing your freelancers to send you content ideas you’ll have the same level of variety.
The important thing to understand – that differentiates you from a publisher – is this step will not work as well without the two steps above. If your freelance writers don’t know what your content guidelines are and how their ideas will fit into your overall content strategy, they won’t be able to tailor their ideas to your specific needs.
The New York Times has evolved quite a lot in its long history. Your business will also need to evolve if it expects to remain competitive in today’s content-rich world. By learning from The New York Times and other publishers and leveraging freelance writers (like yours truly) to help scale your business you can evolve your content marketing into a true competitive advantage for your company.
