Among B2B content marketing respondents, in 2025, 91 percent stated that creating brand awareness was one of the goals they were pursuing with their content marketing activities. Building loyalty among existing customers was a target for 44 percent of respondents. (Statista).
At first glance, Content Marketing seems to be an expensive option, especially if you go straight to marketer, with an idea to outsource it all. The fees are high precisely because strategy, creative, copy and analytics are involved in recurring content marketing. A need for Video shorts and Reels also adds a bit of complexity to production.
But as Neil Patel said on his blog, “content marketing is not as expensive as you think”.
Why?
Well, it can be scaled up from a small weekly activity up to an integrated marketing strategy with all the digital goodies. Ergo, you don’t need to start at the high level; you can start with the bare minimum.
This is how I got leads in business – blogging once a fortnight with the right keywords on the same domain as my support services. Now it takes more than that.
One way to save cash is to hire an intern to write the blog, and then you could get an editor to proofread each blog and adjust it for optimisation. This is an affordable option – editing would cost about $80 to cover the hour.
Done Beats Perfect
For authors or business coaches, many feel they must dive into the deep end of making content and be all perfection minded.
But to make a message visible, you need to get cut-through on one or two platforms. A blog content plan is a good starting point.
Remember, the blog is not there to talk about how great you are; it’s to be a source of vital information and comparisons. Case Studies involves writing stories on what happened after the sale.
For authors, a blog is a way to carefully curate all the thematic content out there – making it simple for visitors to grasp.
For marketing purposes, it’s then repurposed into other forms.
Write it Yourself?
Next up is: do you write it yourself? Sure, you can research the right topics and keywords, hit onto something consumers are saying and you can even use AI technology to write a post. However, all up, this will take from 40 minutes to 1.5 hours a week. And when you add in image making and formatting, it’s a little more. Perhaps it’s two hours a week. Would this be doable for you? Or could you earn more elsewhere?
If you spend one to two hours on calls to prospective clients, then that could be more lucrative for you. The great thing about being in business is leverage – and if you hire a content marketer, your firm is generating appealing digital content without doing it yourself. You are leveraging.
If you get a freelance content writer from Upwork, you just get the posts. You don’t get any strategy or continuing Content Audit of which posts are doing well and which aren’t.
You may get someone who cannot write. I was once hired on Upwork to edit a book, meanwhile the writer hired was a liar – everything she wrote was from an article spinner. It came out as word garbage. Word to the wise – you can write it yourself far better.
What is a Content Audit?
A content audit is a thorough review of all the content on your website, looking at various aspects to judge what parts are effective. By doing a content marketing audit, marketers are able to determine how to improve your website content and get a greater ROI.
The person auditing the website content needs to have access to Analytics to see visitor drop-off, bounce rates, and low conversion numbers from particular pages.
This analysis can be made easier with a SEO tool, e.g. Ubersuggest — or Search Console & Google Analytics.
Check Your Number of Pages
Another thing to consider is Pages and their optimal names. What extra pages could a writer add that will help your website rank better in search queries?
Would it surprise you to know that my own website (JenniferLancaster.com.au) ranked very well for six years because it has 300 pages and posts. And I did this alone. You can check your own website by Google searching “Site:yoursitename.com.au”.
Look at the number of results – that’s the number of pages indexed, including some less important pages (like gallery or portfolio items).
What if you don’t have any employees who can blog or create guides? If you can secure a flexible content marketing service, that would be best. An agency might want a long-term contract and the minimum price point for Content Marketing services in Australia is from $1,500 a month.
Unfortunately, as many marketing agencies do NOT have writers inhouse, they go back to the same pool of writers working for $5 an hour. The ensuing posts are dead dull and may seem quite familiar.
If you find the unicorn of a service which does have a writer and editor without great expense, and you can talk to them on the phone, then this is a better alternative.
Why Not Just Write Blogs and Stop There?
Here, I want you to consider offering lead magnets on-site, and writing external magazine articles.
This is where a full content marketing approach is genius as it broadens your target reader net. Guest articles are crucial for both credibility and SEO/AEO.
If you want to be mentioned in AI answers, it pays to author many online articles for industry websites (not article banks). Places such as Female Founders Queensland
Leaders in Heels: a platform that empowers and educates female entrepreneurs, often discussing work-life balance and unconscious biases.
She Society AU is a digital magazine and community platform by and for Australian women. To write for them, you can pitch your story, experience, or shared learning by directly emailing their editorial team at she@shesociety.com.au
There are other ways to get featured. I have written for Startsat60 for cash. Get featured in local magazines, often they post on their Facebook account as well.
Find other editors and bloggers.
Other Email Subscriber Ideas
Add a chapter preview behind an email opt-in form. This can lead to web visitors being added to your prospective readers. I call these “the curious”.
Turning these curious cats into loyal lions depends on the quality of email newsletters and promotions you send. Or perhaps discounted offers of a book if your offering is a high-level one.
Repurpose Every Piece!
Content Marketing means repurposing. Start with an essay, write a short editorial for the email newsletter, create spin-off short posts using Claude Sonnet, and use Canva for the images to go with the short social posts.
You can repurpose a blog into (shorter) videos for YouTube. I’ve used Invideo, who are sponsoring this post by way of my affiliate link. Invideo was kind enough to give me a try creating animated book trailers!
Now, they also have other AI-driven, fun ways to create videos.