How We Became a Content Marketing Agency
Joel Conner • November 5, 2019
Our Story may Help You Figure Out How to Leverage Content Marketing for Your Business
How we became a content marketing agency and which type of content marketing is the best fit for your business.
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Before I jump into our story, I need to give you this insight, content marketing is a great long-term investment for any business. The extent of certain factors (competition, location, marketing budgets, time constraints…) will determine if you should or could do some content marketing
on your own, hire a small content marketing agency, or hire a large digital marketing firm. As you read our story, you should have a clearer understanding about the content marketing path your business should be on.
When I started out as a web designer almost a decade ago, I used simple content marketing to rank my services on google. This included writing an occasional blog post, sharing a few things on Facebook, and listing my business with local directories. Over the years my web design firm grew and we became more of a typical “we do everything under the sun” digital marketing agency. This came about because our client’s pretty websites on a brand-new domain were often lost in vast ocean of the world wide web.
So, since we care, we began helping our clients grow their web presence. We often provided these services without extra fees. Another reason that we ended up doing this was because of some of the astronomical fees that agencies would quote them for “SEO.” Paying a thousand dollars a month for content marketing make perfect sense if you have product or service that may bring in several thousand dollars a month per new client/sale, but not if your product is $10-$50 and you’re not currently being found online.
So, after learning and testing PPC, Social Media Marketing, SEO, Backlink building, blogging, Video marketing and just about every other element of the digital marketing footprint, I have found that “Content Marketing,” was by far one of the best investments for business when done properly. SEO becomes the complimentary partner when more competitive keywords or locations are involved.
Don’t get me wrong, all those other pieces have their place, but providing answers to people’s questions and pain-points and understanding what a person is most likely to type into a search box in order to get a relevant answer via blog or video works wonders for getting your business in front of potential clients or buyers.
On a national or international level, content marketing can really difficult, but for local businesses, it can and does work wonders. This is why our agency made the decision to put our main focus on content marketing. We still provide all of those other marketing services, but they are not the backbone foundational piece.
Making Content Is Hard Work
Here’s the thing about content. It’s really, really hard to get it from business owners. Even larger businesses who could delegate blog writing, don’t, because nobody wants to do the hard work of writing quality original content.
So here are a couple of key points before I lose you…
1. You say you are going write a blog but, most likely, you won’t.
2. A content marketing agency will do a better job because they have insight about content keywords, article structure, plagiarism checking, URL structure, and other factors that will make a difference.
3. Media Agencies have the software to assess your competitors and thus provide a viable strategy to compete. Our agency spends thousands on software that provides us with insight in content development strategies.
4. Agencies have the tools to monitor and make adjustments to blog posts and webpages on your website.
5. Content marketing companies also know how to layer on other digital marketing factors such as video marketing and social signals to magnify the effects of your original content.
So, let’s unpack your options for doing content marketing.
1. Do it yourself.
Pros: Free. Rewarding. More personalized.
Cons: Lots of work. You have to schedule it into your daily life. You must be consistent and patient for it to work.
2. Small Content Marketing Agency
Pros:
• Happens on Autopilot.
• Agencies have more insight on what works (target keywords research - word count – SEO)
• Smaller agencies are much cheaper than large Marketing Agencies because they are typically leaner and have much less overhead and also less likely to outsource operations.
• More likely to have access to agencies founder or top minds.
Cons:
• Cost
• Content won’t be as personalized.
3. Large Marketing Agency
(These may vary from one agency to the next)
Pros:
• Typically have access to more resources and connections
• May have more experience in multiple industries
• More man-power for monitoring and managing projects. (a smaller agency typically has to do more multi-tasking)
Cons:
• Cost: These larger operations can cost up to double or triple what smaller content agencies charge.
• Outsourcing certain tasks to overseas virtual assistants has become common to offset overhead such as office space, larger staff, and leadership salaries.
• Stability: Many agencies never grow out of start-up mode and borrow insane amounts of money to get up and running. Smaller firms are usually cash-flow positive from the beginning, thus less likely to go out of business due to financial reasons.
• Access: Your support personal are likely not going to be seasoned experts at SEO and content marketing.
Disclaimer: These are general observations from an industry insider, but there are going to be media agencies that break the mold and to which these observations don’t apply. The account that I have given if born of my experiences, conversations, and research in trying to help businesses grow.
If I had to sum up Content Marketing in one word it would be RELEVANCY. You create the content that delivers relevant answers to what people are looking for. If you do that well, people will stay on your website and devour your content and what’s more they will know you are the “go to” resource when they need help and the goal of search engines is to put the right piece of content in front of the right person.
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