Content Marketing As A Service: Should You Hire A Content Marketing Agency?
- Dejan Kvrgic
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Whether you’re a product or a service-based business, the only way to carve out your little corner of the Internet is through content.
In other words, without content, you won’t have any online presence.
But not everyone has the funds or the time to maintain a full-time team of content marketers. Thankfully, there are many agencies that offer content marketing as a service.
But do you really need content to get more eyes on your business? How does content marketing even work?
Let’s find out!
What Is Content Marketing?
So far, you’ve heard a lot about content marketing but not what it actually means.
So, what is it?
Content marketing is a common marketing strategy for attracting, engaging, and retaining customers by producing relevant blog posts, videos, briefs, and just about anything else on the Internet.
This marketing strategy will establish your business as an authority in your niche, raise brand awareness, and build brand loyalty.
Although content marketing has become a necessity in the online age, it’s been around for quite a while.
One of the earliest examples of content marketing is John Deere’s Furrow magazine.
But we don’t have to go that far.
One interesting (yet often overlooked) content marketing strategy is Lego’s Bionicle product line.
Lego was on the brink of bankruptcy, but thanks to a successful multi-channel content marketing strategy,
this company managed to remain the number one plastic brick toy company in the world.
Image Source: The Heroes That Saved Lego - PopularMechacnics.com
Back in 1997, Lego reported their first annual loss in years.
And it was pretty hefty - nearly 27 million dollars.
The company was slowly losing popularity due to the booming video game and console markets.
This would all change in 2001 when Lego released Bionicle. A set of cool-looking yet simple action figures.
But that was not all.
Following the release of this product were also a comic book series and two video games that introduced expansive lore that would draw in new customers.
Not long after, Bionical became one of the best-selling Lego products and almost single-handedly saved this company from bankruptcy.
All thanks to the content surrounding the product.
The same can be true for just about any type of business:
With the right content, you’ll be able to reach your target audience and encourage them to stay with you on your journey.
Content marketing is much different than other marketing strategies because you’re connecting to your audience in a more personal way.
You’re not forcing your way onto the top - you’re providing your customers with value.
However, you don't just need great content - your content also has to be SEO optimized.
The Internet is an ever-expanding place, with around 250 000 new websites going live each day.
The only way to get attention from the target audience you need to optimize your content, so it pops up on the first page of search engines.
This is where SEO content writing comes into play.
What Is SEO Content Writing?
Creating high-quality content isn’t enough.
To reach new audiences and increase organic traffic, you need to write your content, so a search engine puts it on the first page of search results.
In many ways, SEO content writing is a perfect marriage of data science and art.
You need an entire content marketing team composed of SEO analysts, content marketers, and writers to produce something that will increase your website traffic and lead generation.
So what is SEO content writing?
SEO content writing is a practice of integrating
key terms and phrases into the content, so it ranks higher in search engine results.
Whenever you search for something on Google, you are basically typing in key search terms. Google then “spits out” web pages based on the terms you typed in.
Of course, Google and other search engines don’t rank websites solely on keywords, but they play a huge role.7
Content marketing agencies analyze and rank search terms based on how many people search for them in a given time period. Content writers then incorporate keywords in such a way that it answers all questions about the search term.
Why You Need High-Quality Content?
If all you need is for your content to cover all the keywords, why not write content for Google?
Well, Google also cares about how good the content is.
The better the content, the higher your SERP.
So, it’s a win-win situation.
Our content marketing service employs highly motivated, creative writers who are passionate about creating content that’s engaging and provides the audience with real value.
But how do we does that work? Are there any real benefits to producing high-quality content?
Keep on reading to find out!
How Content Marketing Gets You Leads?
From what you might’ve gathered so far, it’s easy to conclude that content marketing is pretty simple.
It’s a way of presenting information to your customers.
Content comes in many forms, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics and more.
When used effectively, the content will increase your ROI and attract more valuable leads.
Keep on reading to find out how.
#1 Content Attracts Qualified Traffic To Your Website
One of the key metrics determining how well your website is doing is how much traffic it gets each month.
However, qualified traffic is something completely different.
This term refers to visitors that are more likely to try out your services.
Unlike general visitors who are just browsing your website with no intention of spending money, qualified visitors display interest in what you have to offer, which makes the more likely to spend money.
You would think that the only way to attract these customers is by producing content that appeals to as wide audience as possible.
And you wouldn’t be wrong if we were talking about conventional digital marketing.
With content marketing, you can produce content that specifically caters to high-value customers since they’re most likely to convert.
Real-World Example: Townsend Security
One of the best ways to convert website visitors into quality leads is by offering them something that provides value.
In this case, “something with value” is the content Townsend Security publishes on their website.
These guys publish all kinds of content, including but not limited to:
- How to guides
- Case studies
- Webinars
- Blog posts
Unfortunately, creating high-quality content from scratch can take quite a bit of time.
But what if you don’t have to create new content to provide your website visitors with value?
This is what Townsend Security did with their encryption key management page.
To convert visitors into qualified leads, this company simply repackaged their content into a pillar page that’s nothing else but a giant guide on encryption.
This way, people visiting their page got something that could take with them and use it in a pinch.
The result?
In the first year of publishing their pillar page, nearly 65% of visitors gave their contact info in exchange fore a PDF version of the said page.
#2 Content Demonstrates Your Company’s Expertise
Most user traffic you’ll attract with your content will be coming from search engines like Google.
99% of the time, users are searching for something related to your niche - and you need to provide that.
What do we mean by that?
Well, you need to provide your users with value in the form of expertise. Answer frequent questions, and publish tutorials and guides. In other words, you need to give your customers what they need, and in return, you’ll get conversions.
Although this might seem like you’re giving away value for free, in the eyes of your customers, you’ll be seen as an authority in your niche.
While not all visitors will convert the first time they visit your website, if you have authority content, it will leave a great first impression which increases the likelihood of them returning and actually converting.
Real World Example: Colgate
Colgate has become synonymous with dental health.
After all, they’ve been around for decades and it’s almost impossible to find a store that doesn’t stock at least one of their products.
But how has Colgate managed to remain at the top of their industry in the digital age?
The answer is pretty simple - by demonstrating their expertise.
The company hosts a massive dental health knowledge library. If you need something teeth-related, you’ll probably find an article about it there.
For instance, they host over 1200 articles just on gum disease.
That’s a lot of content!
Image Source: Colgate.com
And thanks to this content, Colgate will always be seen as a definitive authority in its industry. Moreover, people reading their content are more likely to buy their product since they provide valuable information.
#3 Content Shows How Your Services/Products Can Help Customers
Most content on your website should be either informative or entertaining and help your customers without sounding too salesy.
With that said, your company’s products and services are designed so they fulfill a certain need, which often goes beyond things you can discuss in an online article.
However, you can still inform your customers while promoting your services at the same time.
For instance, if you have an electronics repair shop, you can develop a content strategy around helping users with basic electronics maintenance.
You can publish a detailed article on how you can troubleshoot a PC that’s not turning on.
This will certainly help someone that’s frantically searching the Internet for a way to fix their computer.
At the end of the blog post, you can then remind readers that if nothing mentioned in the article helped them, they could take their PC to your store so you can have it fixed.
Keep in mind that content marketing strategies are rarely this straightforward.
The type of content you put out heavily depends on your niche and the way you incorporate your services.
Real-World Example: Girl With The Dogs
Girl With The Dogs is a YouTube channel owned and operated by a professional pet groomer Vanessa. She’s also the owner of Perfect Pooches Grooming - a pet grooming salon.
Her channel features content where she shows how she grooms all kinds of cute pets - from broody cats to hyped-up huskies.
Besides providing a ton of entertainment, this content also demonstrates how company’s services can help the customers.
You wouldn’t take your good boy to the first pet groomer you find, would you?
But if you get to see pet groomer’s demonstrate their skills on a video, you’ll certainly get a confidence boost to try the service out.
Vanessa’s content marketing efforts paid off quite well.
She boasts a 2-million subscriber YouTube account, which immensely helps her find new customers.
#4 Content Helps Highlight Your Success
Besides demonstrating to your customers how your company can help them, you also need to provide some proof of your success.
The best way of showing how successful your company is is via case studies and customer testimonials.
Telling your customers what your company can do for them is one thing. But if you can show them that, you’ll leave a greater impression.
Detailed case studies paired with positive customer reviews will boost visitor confidence in your brand, making them more likely to convert.
How Does A Content Marketing Agency
Plan A Content Marketing Strategy?
To be able to reap any benefits from content marketing, you need a well-defined strategy.
If you produce engaging and informative content, it will drive traffic to your website and thus increase your sales.
But if you don’t have a well-thought-out strategy, you’ll just be wasting time and money.
This is why we put a great emphasis on communication with our clients.
Before we get to producing any content, we first need to develop a personalized content marketing strategy.
Here are the steps we take to get that sorted out:
#1 Identifying Your Goals
There’s not much point in doing anything if you’re not trying to accomplish some kind of a goal.
So, the first thing we’re going to do is work with you on defining what you’re trying to accomplish with content creation.
Do you want to boost your sales leads numbers? Does your website need a traffic boost? Or do you see content creation as a means of becoming an authority in your niche?
Once we’ve figured out what’s your ultimate goal, we’ll start setting some targets we can track. This way, we’ll be able to track how well the content marketing campaign is doing.
#2 Zeroing In On Your Target Audience
Once we’ve set the goals for your content marketing strategy, it’s time to figure out what type of audience you’ll be targeting.
There is no point in trying to appeal to everyone. The best example of this is are recent game releases from western developers.
In order to make their product as accessible as possible, they’ve made it bland, unappealing and not very challenging.
In most cases, you will be targeting a specific portion of the population.
Before our content writers can get to work, we need to understand the audience’s likes and dislikes.
Moreover, we need to figure out what type of content will appeal to your target audience.
To do this, we need to define the persona of your average customer.
We start by figuring out the basic demographic info such as age, gender, location, and yearly income.
Next, we’ll further refine this persona by researching what their pastimes, motivations, and concerns are.
Once we’ve defined your core audience, we can get a clearer picture of what type of content we need to incorporate into our digital marketing strategy.
With the target audience zeroed in, it’s time to check out what the competition is doing.
#3 Checking Up On The Competition
The Internet is an incredibly big space. No matter how small your niche is, there’s probably someone else competing against you to get the audience’s attention.
Our experienced digital marketing experts will start researching what your competitors are doing. This includes what type of content they’re producing, how well it’s doing, and why it’s successful (or not).
Of course, you won’t be only competing against your competitors for the audience’s attention. There are also slews of content sources such as news, referral, and entertainment sites that cover the same topics as your company does.
When researching your competition, we will take into account all these factors and develop a general formula for the content.
Next, it’s time to get a bit more in-depth on how we’ll write the content.
#4 Topic And Keyword Research
For our team of content writers to be able to write content that will rank on Google, we need to find out what your audience is searching for online.
We use SEO tools such as Ahrefs and SurferSEO to figure out what keywords will have the most success in ensuring people will find your content.
Ideally, we will find a keyword that has a high search volume in your niche but low competition.
Of course, we will also make a broad list of topics relevant to your niche and then expand on that by creating a list of keywords your customers will likely use when Googling something.
#5 Reviewing Your Existing Content
If you already have a blog post or two up, that’s great news since it gives us insight on what type of content worked before you started with our content marketing services.
During our review, we will focus on things such as:
- What topics have you covered so far
- What type of content have you posted
- Where are you sharing the content
- How is your content performing in terms of engagement and traffic
We will also investigate which of your website’s pages receive the most traffic.
This will help us further refine our keyword and topic list, which greatly helps in ensuring our content strategy succeeds.
Of course, you don’t need to have any content on your website or social media.
However, this will make the first couple of months a bit of a slog when it comes to growth since your website doesn't have any content to showcase to the audience.
#6 Figuring Out Which Channels Work Best For Your Company
Now it’s time to figure out what distribution channel will best help you reach your goal. In most cases, we will focus on channels where you already have some kind of a presence.
We will conduct a thorough audit and see which channel brings in more leads/eyes on your brand.
We will also make an audit of your website’s analytics so we can find out where most of the traffic is coming from.
Did they find your website by reading a blog post or did they click a link in a newsletter?
How many people stumble upon your site by simply typing in terms into Google?
Figuring out from what channel users are coming to your website helps us focus on those channels.
#7 Zeroing In On The Type Of Content
Not all content is made equal. There are quite a few types of content to consider when developing a content marketing campaign.
For instance, if you’re running a clothing brand, you don’t need long-form blog posts talking about the history of clothing.
The content that will work best in this scenario is social media posts and images.
On the other hand, if you’re running a tech startup, photos and videos won’t bring in much engagement.
You will find more success in producing articles that explain in-depth the technology you’re developing and how it will help the world.
The type of content also depends on the stage of the marketing funnel and the audiences you’re targeting.
#8 Developing A Content Calendar
With the content type locked in, it’s time to develop a publishing schedule.
To ensure you have an effective content marketing strategy, we need to plan out the content you’ll publish well in advance.
Moreover, this will make our job much easier since it helps us keep track of what articles have been posted and which ones are in production.
A content calendar also allows both our team and you to track the status of each piece of content, how it’s distributed, and which writer is working on its production.
#9 Producing And Publishing Content
It took s a while, but we’re finally at a stage where we can start producing content.
Thanks to all the prep work we’ve done before, our writers will have a much easier time since they won’t be shooting in the dark.
They’ll be able to produce content that’s relevant to your customers and provides them with value.
Of course, all content written by our team is fully search engine optimized, so your potential customers won’t have much trouble finding it.
Once we’ve written a post, we’ll get to publishing. All that’s left is to see how well it performs.
#10 Measuring Performance
The final step in running a successful content marketing campaign is measuring performance. Without proper metrics, you won’t know whether you’re hitting the goals you’ve set out.
By measuring the success of the published content, we can further refine our marketing efforts and make the marketing strategy more efficient.
Need Help With Your Content Creation?
Having a full-time content marketing team can get pretty expensive.
Why not outsource it?
We have years of experience in creating high-quality content that drives traffic to your website.
Contact us today and find out how we can help you take your business to the next level by making you an authority in your industry.
AUTHOR: Dejan Kvrgic
Dejan is the main responsible guy behind PRO Content Services. He's an experienced inbound content marketer and SEO content specialist with proven record of successful projects.
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