Today, I’m thrilled to announce that Crowd Content has rebranded to Stellar. This change reflects our years-long evolution from a content marketplace to a premier provider of content services. It’s a journey that, in some ways, mirrors my own path in the content world — a transformation that began in mid-2018 with what I jokingly call my “mid-life crisis” and my wife calls “that time you decided to stop making money.”
A Parallel Evolution
Personally, it was time for a change. I decided to get back into advertising as a copywriter, but it had been awhile since I left that industry. I needed to get up to speed with SEO and writing for broader audiences, so I dove in headfirst, working 14-16 hours a day for the first few months.
My first gig? Writing guest-post content at 2 cents per word for a questionable company I found on a job board. Not exactly glamorous, but that first $20 felt great despite the hours I put into earning it.
Eventually, I found Crowd Content. I started as a writer, quickly became an editor, and, after a few months, accepted a role as a part-time project manager. It didn’t take long before I went full time, serving as the senior project manager.
Onboarding and overseeing a ton of projects over those first few years – and working with some fantastic freelancers, clients, and coworkers – taught me a lot. I learned that repeatable processes had to be customized to each client because no two projects ran exactly the same way. I also learned the importance of communication, flexibility, and trust. Meeting deadlines and quality expectations is just the minimum. Service sets you apart.
It took a few years of seasoning, experimenting, failing, and succeeding to go from the new guy to a leader qualified to head up content operations at Crowd Content. I take great pride in being a leader who has personally done all the things I ask of my team and our freelancers every day.
Much like my personal growth, our evolution as a company was gradual and ongoing.
From Content Mill to Content Excellence
When I joined, CC was primarily known as a marketplace for freelance writers. We had a massive pool of vetted freelancers, but quality was inconsistent. The truth is, for many years, we were what’s known as a content mill — a label I’ve always disliked but couldn’t fully deny.
But we didn’t stay there. About four years ago, we decided that being a good content mill wasn’t good enough. As our managed services team grew, we focused on raising our standards. We cleaned out poor performers, improved our vetting, built processes, and committed to reliable and trustworthy service. We worked on becoming trusted advisors to our clients rather than order-taking cogs in their content marketing machines. Many businesses out there needed consultation as much as they needed production.
At the time, one of our core values was “aim higher,” so we took that to heart. Everyone in operations participated in daily training. It didn’t matter if you were a content manager, strategist, SEO, QA specialist, community manager, or production assistant, we spent time every day reading and discussing content marketing best practices, SEO strategies, search engine updates, and other relevant topics. To be in operations, you must know more than just what your role entails, and to be a trusted advisor, you must share that knowledge when the opportunity presents itself.
It wasn’t a smooth path by any stretch. We faced challenges, including the recent volatility brought by AI advancements and post-pandemic economics. But even as we experienced fluctuations in business, our churn rates kept falling. When we did lose clients, it was usually due to budget cuts or internal restructuring, and it often came with a promise to return down the road.
Beyond “High-Quality” Content
But service is only part of the equation. Bottom line — it’s still very much about the deliverable.
Like many of our competitors, the words “high-quality content” were plastered across our site. Over time, we realized that “high quality,” more often than not, meant nothing more than tightly written and search-optimized content.
For a long time, those ingredients got the job done. But with a flood of bland AI content and search engines rewarding helpful, EEAT content with information gain and differentiation, businesses needed better than what the industry has considered the standard. Content must serve the audience it was designed to reach, and it needed to perform to whatever goal the client was trying to achieve.
We had to focus our efforts just as much on creating valuable content as we did optimizing it for search. And so we did.
We looked for ways to differentiate content and shared them with our clients. We stressed information gain and unique insights. We championed effective content briefs and educated clients on the importance of pre-production processes that emphasized SMEs, interviews, and strategic brief creation. We worked hard to ensure the resources we provided writers and editors were a blueprint for consistent brand voice, optimization, and content structure.
Did it work? Over 60% of our active Q2 2024 managed accounts have been with us at least a year, and 45% of them have been around at least three years. These aren’t ad hoc clients – we produce their content every single month. They’re agencies, publishers, and large brands. They certainly don’t call us a content mill, and most don’t even call us a vendor. We’re an extension of their team.
The Company Formerly Known As…
As we evolved, we felt our website no longer reflected who we had become.
We knew a facelift was in order, but the design mockups didn’t ring true.
We knew our messaging was off, and changes were definitely needed, but corrections and improvements didn’t feel like enough.
That’s when it hit us. The crowdsourcing our name was built on no longer reflected who we had become. We needed an identity that captured our commitment to excellence, our drive for innovation, and our ability to consistently deliver exceptional content and kick-ass service.
We needed a name that captured who we had already become.
And so, Stellar was born.
More Than a Fresh Coat of Paint
Our rebrand is more than a new name. Stellar is an ambassador of outstanding content. Our goal is to elevate content standards across the industry, and that takes tools, resources, processes, and people. Stellar is so much more than writing:
The Agency Toolkit: A comprehensive collection of content, templates, checklists, and tools designed to empower agencies to confidently offer content production to their clients. It’s valuable not just for our partners, but for any agency looking to scale their content operations effectively — with or without our services.
The Client Hub: A centralized portal allowing clients to manage their production workflows seamlessly. It features an AI-powered custom content brief creator and a content production calendar with integrated task management. It’s currently available to clients, but will soon be available for any business to use.
BrandAlign Onboarding: The result of years of process tweaking, our BrandAlign onboarding for managed clients ensures a smooth but thorough kickoff that results in consistently on-brand, scalable content through understanding your vision, building resources, assembling ideal teams, customizing workflows, and testing all of it.
The Village Approach: It takes a village, not just a writer, to create stellar content. Our in-house content operations team is staffed with account managers, content managers, content strategists, SEOs, QA specialists, designers, data gatherers, and production assistants – all dedicated to ensuring every client gets the support necessary for success. We can be the cog in your content marketing machine if that’s all you need, but we’re fully capable of being the entire machine, too.
The Backbone: Stellar is about the intersection of people and technology. Our platform features powerful content management and content creation tools, bringing administration and execution of production all under one roof.
Our Stellar Freelancers
Our transformation wouldn’t have been possible without our network of talented writers, editors, and subject matter experts. Many have grown alongside us, evolving from quick turnaround specialists to content professionals capable of handling super-complex topics and creating thought leadership that actually leads thoughts. Their dedication and adaptability have been crucial to our success.
Stellar writers and editors have been held to a higher standard. Frequent audits and reviews have led to us parting ways with many long-term freelancers over the last few years. Focused recruitment and a rejection rate of over 95% have resulted in a network that features a balance of versatility and specialization unrivaled in the industry.
But we’re not done. Current and future Stellar freelancers must thrive in an environment of feedback and collaboration because our journey beyond excellence is far from over.
As the content industry continues to change, particularly with the rise of AI, we’re excited to see our freelancers rise to these new challenges. We’re collaborating with those who are embracing these changes, using AI as a tool to enhance their already impressive skills and create human-written content that goes beyond what automated systems can produce on their own.
We’re committed to supporting our freelance partners and excited to continue bringing in more of the best talent available. For those ready to take their craft to the next level, we offer opportunities to work on more complex, high-value projects that demand the unique insights and creativity that only skilled humans can provide.
Looking Forward: The Future is Stellar
As we begin this new chapter as Stellar, our commitment is to set the standard rather than just meet it. We aim to become the top choice for content creation among digital marketing agencies, brands, and publishers worldwide. We’ll do this through innovative tools, expert resources, flexible solutions, outstanding deliverables, and exceptional people.
Will we always get it right? Probably not. I certainly didn’t get it right on every step of my journey. But each misstep is an opportunity to learn, improve, and become something more than we previously were.
The future of content is Stellar. And we’re just getting started.
