How do you centralize your process for interacting with freelance writers so it’s easier to track and manage? Career information and job opportunity community Ivy Exec recently tackled this issue.
Bringing Order to a Decentralized Process
With five people on his marketing team, including one full-time content manager, Ivy Exec’s Director of Marketing and Member Services, Greg Hunt relied on the services of freelance writers. He needed them to help supply all the content the company’s marketing efforts needed.
“We started out using different freelancers, but it was very decentralized,” Greg noted. “Content would show up late, and things were generally difficult to track and manage. We had invoices coming in from all over the place, adding additional work to my plate.”
Realizing there must be a better way, Greg turned to nDash to augment the volume of content his internal team could produce. He also needed nDash’s help to streamline the content creation process. Almost immediately, he saw nDash’s value. “nDash allows us to centralize everything related to content. It creates a scalable, transferable point of reference,” Greg said.
“For example, when our content manager went on maternity leave, our other team members’ schedules were full. No one had the time to become a content manager in addition to their current role. Our content manager could commission and schedule all the work we needed before her leave. nDash freelancers delivered it in a way that we could easily plug it into our program. In doing so, minimizing the overall impact on our team,” Greg shared.
Besides gaining access to nDash’s community of writers, “rather than having to go and find them,” Greg also appreciated how easy it was to onboard their existing freelance writers to the platform. “Asking freelancers to onboard to use new tools can sometimes come with mixed reactions. But because nDash is so easy to get into and intuitive, our freelancers could quickly get signed up and running. They see good value in being on the platform,” he said.
Increased Speed, Enhanced Focus on Strategy
nDash also increased Ivy Exec’s content speed. “We’re able to come up with ideas and get the content out onto the site,” Greg said. “nDash has improved our efficiency, allowing us to keep our content calendar from falling behind and ensuring we post blogs on time. Additionally, knowing that our nDash freelancers are handling specific content gives my team time to focus more on strategy, manage the calendar, and coordinate upcoming campaigns. We’re able to use a single tool to manage workflow rather than a bunch of separate tools, allowing us to focus on the bigger picture and big impact efforts.”
Compelling Content Brings Results
Greg and his team use nDash’s services for creating blog posts, white papers, ebook content, and social media posts; today, nDash writers create 80% of the posts published on Ivy’s blog. “Our blog is an important channel for driving awareness and is a big channel for member engagement. Our ability to ensure quality, consistent content via nDash’s network has allowed us to not only retain more members but actually grow the community,” he said.
Site metrics support Greg’s assertions. Since partnering with nDash, the Ivy Exec website has realized steady growth in organic traffic: the site’s average page views more than doubled in 2018. The company has tripled the number of organic member registrations.
nDash’s content has also helped Ivy Exec form longer-lasting relationships with site members. Greg explained, “People come to Ivy looking for a job, and they may stick around for a few months until they find something, but they rarely keep coming back afterward. Our content allows us to maintain a longer relationship with our members by continuing to provide them value.”
“One of our strategic business goals is keeping members engaged; market research is a big revenue driver for us, and it’s imperative that we can identify community members and poll them for their opinions. Our valuable content helps us continually reach our members more effectively. Additionally, our content has also helped improve member acquisition, driving new people to our site,” Greg said.
What Can You Learn from Ivy Exec?
The main takeaway from Ivy Exec’s experience is that nDash provides a centralized platform for coordinating freelance writing needs. By managing all of your freelance writers and content requests in a single platform, you can more effectively meet your content needs while streamlining the content production process.
By taking this approach, your team can focus on more critical, higher-value efforts rather than getting bogged down in the operational side of managing multiple freelance writers.
About Ivy Exec
Ivy Exec is a curated community of the world’s most successful executives and professionals. The company’s exclusive portfolio of career-focused experts and recruiters curated job listings, and proprietary company and business school profiles help our members continue achieving their biggest career objectives. They do this while lending their well-earned expertise, which users desire most through our market research and expert network programs. Always inspired by its members’ goals and aspirations, Ivy Exec is their long-term partner – helping them thrive in their careers and harness their best-in-class insights for enduring success. For more information, visit their site today.