In an uncertain period for the industry, in which content creators are being asked to do more, in less time, for less money, using the right content production model can be the difference that keeps your organization competitive.
Finding that balance can often mean choosing a mixed model that leverages the benefits of both offshoring and automation to make sure the right work is being done by the right people—or software—at the right time.
The Offshoring Model
Offshoring means moving certain elements of the production process, usually Tier 3 and 4 functions, to other countries where labor prices are lower and time-zone differences extend your effective working hours. As well as saving time and money, offshoring provides access to specialized talent without having to hire for permanent roles or bring in expensive local freelancers. Its rapid scalability, both up or down, is ideal in an often unpredictable industry characterized by sudden peaks and troughs in demand.
At the same time, offshoring requires careful management, ideally with local managers to address any language or cultural complications, and dealing with emerging issues can be tricky across different time zones. Clear definition of roles, responsibilities and processes is also essential, so be sure to follow best practices.
“Our savings with our offshore team are probably around 50%. Our user acquisition work stream is very high volume, and part of the volume is based on creative optimization. So we take a concept and, if it works well, we’ll change the background and then produce six versions with different color backgrounds. Simple work, high volume, and good savings when outsourced.”
Sian Finnis, Director of Marketing Studio, King, Candy Crush Saga
Automation
Automation simplifies and streamlines content production and distribution by removing human intervention from the content lifecycle. Using tools that suggest ideas, generate copy, optimize text for SEO, produce images or videos quickly, check for plagiarism, or even handle workflow management, automation is a fast-growing industry trend that’s already changed the face of the sector.
Downsides to automation can include concerns over originality and therefore intellectual property infringements, increased sensitivity to automated content by search engines, reduced creativity and worries about errors arising. So one element of human intervention that shouldn’t be removed by automation is careful monitoring of the output.
Hybrid Models Offer The Best Of Both
Offshoring and automation are far from mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite, in fact; the best creative content production models leverage the benefits of each but leave room to iron out the negatives.
Organizations producing content at scale can benefit from purchasing their own automation software and starting their own offshore team or using external providers, providing there’s still experienced human oversight to monitor and quality control both the process and its output. Smaller companies and brands won’t achieve the necessary ROI to make investment in proprietary software viable, so the models will be different depending on an ogranization’s size.
The best way to do this and still save time and money is to find an offshoring partner you trust that also provides automation, or an agency with an extensive network that does all of the above. Even with networked agencies, however, the considerable expense of setting up infrastructure in higher-cost economies can significantly impact overall cost/benefit ratios.
Working with an offshore partner will ensure that the nuanced tasks that are best undertaken by people—such as brand guardianship, a human tone of voice, cultural sensitivity etc—remain in human hands, but at a lower cost than permanent internal or offshore staff, and without costly investment in emerging tech, infrastructure and complex management.
Finding The Right Partner
According to Deloitte, only 55% of companies are ready to meet the creative production demands of the changing times we’re living through. The right partner solves that problem if they offer all the specific, scalable services you need—whether that’s versioning, image or video editing or any other specialized skill—in a single provider. They’ll also have in-country managers for offshore work to address all of the considerations outlined above.
“[AI is] going to be the future and we’ve started to explore and evaluate, but there’s some way to go. Automation will help us with personalization. AI will also play a big part in marketing operations and help our teams and partners produce content. We are already using GenAI tools for some levels of content creation.”
Roberto Rucio, Senior Marketing Operations EMEA, Boston Scientific
Content is a tech-first sector, and an offshoring/automation partner will be on top of emerging trends. Generative AI may spring to mind most readily, but augmented reality, optimized voice search, interactive content and automated content repurposing are all disrupting the space. So any conversation about a potential collaboration can’t just be about what your potential production partner can do for you now—you need them to have an eye on the future too.
A Proven Solution
At We Are Amnet, embracing and staying ahead of these changes is what we do. Joule, our industry-leading MarTech solution for creative production, has been specifically designed to enable organizations to produce and manage content at scale.
And our Smartshoring® model makes the most effective use of talent wherever they may be. It will save you money, optimize your content production processes and enhance your competitive edge.
Talk to us to find out how.
