DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

The limitations of in-house content (and how to solve for them)

Episode Summary

It might be time for you to change the way you produce your content. In-house content is anything made by an internal team. It takes time and has some limitations regarding cost, authenticity, scalability, the potential of fatigue, and of course, the pandemic. People don’t like seeing the same thing repeatedly on social media or TV. They’re going to be engaged when they have something new and fresh to look at. In this episode, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of producing content in-house.

Episode Notes

1. “In-house content loses a little bit of its authenticity when you’re the one that’s being the creative director. You might know what you’re audience is looking for, but you may not be as highly tuned in as you think you are.” #DTCPOD
2. “You don’t want to be making content using the same mug (if it’s a drink), the same kitchen, and the same person over and over.” #DTCPOD
3. “If you really like a content creator, more discounts aren’t going to incentivize them.”  #DTCPOD
4. “We have a customer that’s put half a million dollars on ads to an image that cost him a hundred dollars on Trend.”  #DTCPOD
5. “When you’re a small business, your time matters a lot. There are many hats to wear for every team member and putting resources toward making content doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.” #DTCPOD

We speak about:

• [00:30] What is in-house content?
• [01:38] The biggest limitations of producing your content in-house
• [04:45] Strategies to overcome the challenges of in-house content creation
• [08:42] What it takes to work with content creators
• [11:13] There is immense value in user generated content
• [13:55] Another limitation: Moving fast is difficult when you see ad performance failing 
• [15:03] Watch the data and test it out + Try Trend for free!

It might be time for you to change the way you produce your content 

In-house content is anything made by an internal team. It takes time and has some limitations regarding cost, authenticity, scalability, the potential of fatigue, and of course, the pandemic. 

People don’t like seeing the same thing repeatedly on social media or TV. They’re going to be engaged when they have something new and fresh to look at. 

In this episode, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of producing content in-house. 

With in-house content, it’s hard to develop new settings and new people, while keeping your content relevant and authentic.

In addition to content fatigue, you could end up spending way more money on in-house content than if you just sourced your content from freelancers or independent contractors.

Outsourcing your content creation frees up time and energy you can spend on other tasks and projects

Here are some good strategies to overcome the challenges of in-house content creation:

• Keep it authentic, don’t try to make it professional.
• Avoid putting the same person in front of the camera multiple times. 
• Switch it up by only including hands in your content or keeping the faces of your team out of it. 

To go even further, you can use your customers as content creators, (although it can be tedious and time consuming to scale).

With Trend, the turnaround time for content production is much shorter. 

Stay tuned as we discuss the value of being able to speak to what you need from creators and how to control the creative process without having to be the full-time creative director.

We dive into what kind of people you need in your internal team, what the process look might like, and what the result looks like.

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Interested in Trend? Try it for free.