Thread: Would You Outsource Your Writing Research?

I'm working on getting back into freelance writing, and a friend of mine suggested that me and my partners focus on providing research outsourcing services for writers as opposed to the general writing services to everyone else. This makes sense given that I'm launching a freelance writing blog alongside what would be the writing services.

My question is this: would you outsource your post research if you only had to:

1. Fill out a 5-question form
2. Wait for Email Notification
3. Receive a PDF with a summary of the research and sources


We would have something like a "quality sources" guarantee.

Thoughts?

I don't think that it would be profitable enough to offer the services to writers.


The idea sounds more interesting to offer as a SEO package of the sources in bibliography format, keyword research, domain name suggestions and a few sample articles.

Hi,

I think it might work but the research will take time. Time = $

I feel you would do better selling it to people like me. I can't seem to find anything on the net when I look for something. I would pay for someone to find stuff for me. If it could be found fast and the cost was right.

So I would target people like me.

Everyone always says "Google it" but Google, Bing, and Yahoo sucks when it come to finding information on the net.

"Having a hard time finding on the net what your looking for? We'll find it for you."

Sami

Originally Posted by Sami4u

Hi,

I think it might work but the research will take time. Time = $

I feel you would do better selling it to people like me. I can't seem to find anything on the net when I look for something. I would pay for someone to find stuff for me. If it could be found fast and the cost was right.

So I would target people like me.

Everyone always says "Google it" but Google, Bing, and Yahoo sucks when it come to finding information on the net.

"Having a hard time finding on the net what your looking for? We'll find it for you."

Sami

It would be great to have sources in bibliography format that were from hardcopy books. Only a small percentage of information out there is actually on the web. I figure that a college student with access to a large university library could take pictures of the relevant pages with a camera phone.

I like the whole college student idea. I'm in college and my school has resources that cost hundreds of dollars to obtain that cannot be found in any search engine. The technical side to businesses is quite secretive I would say, so obtaining reports would be valuable. I guess just having information that no one else has, makes you a gem.

I am a big believer in outsourcing. A research service that has "off the web" results could be really valuable.

Originally Posted by CoreyFreeman

My question is this: would you outsource your post research if you only had to:

1. Fill out a 5-question form
2. Wait for Email Notification
3. Receive a PDF with a summary of the research and sources

We would have something like a "quality sources" guarantee.

Thoughts?

Well my thought on this is not to outsource. The 3 tasks are not very hard to do. You'll just fill out forms and wait for email. If there were some additional tasks for the writer then that would be worth it. That's just my opinion.

Well, You outsource mainly because of the two reason, to save the time and to save the money. You outsource the non-core activities that is not part of your core work. You give this task to others and you can concentrate more on your business. For SEO content writing is a serious work. It should be done by someone experienced and know how to fit your keywords into the fresh and unique content.

I think that if you couple your research with actual writing then you have a winner. This way you can add attribution as your sources and help provide reader/customers with a more well rounded piece of content.
Im not sure if this is really saving time, since i've experienced that writers are already savvy enough to quickly find resources with a click of a mouse.

If you did offer something that was targeted to offline content like catalogs, data or something, you could be hitting a goldmine but you need to identify WHO needs your service. Once you find an avatar customer, find what they need and get paid to bring it to them.

Secondly, is your service similar to:
Fiverr / Search results for 'research'

Maybe you can test your service out there to see if there is any interest.
Good Luck!

There are many benefits of outsourcing your writing content. It saves time and you can focus more on your core business.