How To Choose The Best Content Marketing Agency?
24 April 2019
6 min read | 560 views
Table of Content
You cannot expect every content marketing agency, even those with a great reputation, to be an option for your business.
While some agencies come with industry-specific expertise, others might excel in different services within content marketing.
Content marketing is an umbrella term that includes multiple content types, strategies, and distribution channels, relevant throughout industries in the digital age.
To find the best content marketing agency, you must go beyond evaluating the agency’s efficiency. Find the agency that aligns best with your specific needs and objectives.
However, it is you who understand your business needs and objectives the best. We can help you meet your business needs and objectives the best.
Finding The Best Content Marketing Agency: 3 Questions You cannot Skip
Content is a timeless instrument that helps marketers move through the marketing funnel. Then why does it look like a task to find a suitable agency for content marketing?
This is due to the evolving business world where digitization, data, and AI make navigating competition and user expectations an everyday challenge.
A business needs to be extra cautious about its requirements when asking a content marketing agency the following questions to determine the best option for its business.
What is Your Experience and Expertise?
A content marketing agency's experience and expertise are crucial in evaluating their value to your business. Each business has a unique target audience, so your content marketing strategy should be customized to meet their expectations and preferences.
For example, a content marketing agency may excel in creating strategies to reach a young American audience for one client but struggle when targeting an older audience in Asian countries for another client.
Furthermore, a content marketing agency's experience and expertise vary based on the specific business sectors, such as B2B or B2C.
Thus, ask the next two questions on this set to assess if the agency’s experience and expertise are relevant and authentic for your business.
What Range Of Services Do You Offer?
It's important to consider an agency's range of services to understand the type of market it serves. For example, if a content marketing agency provides offline content marketing services, it likely focuses on the B2C business sector.
More importantly, when evaluating these services, you must have a clear understanding of your own needs.
Thus, when you feel confused about which services to pick for the best results, try to picture the result you’re looking for.
For instance, if you are confused between social media posts and blogging services, decide if you’re looking for engagement or awareness. While social media content promotes engagement, the latter helps spread information and, thus awareness.
Your list of potential content marketing agencies should be able to outline the relevant range of services when you present clear business goals.
Do You Have Client Testimonials And Case Studies?
Once you’ve learned about the agency’s field of expertise and range of services, seal the deal with client testimonials and case studies.
Client testimonials and case studies help you evaluate their expertise and experience. In fact, this also helps you understand what the strong areas are where the agency excels.
Another testifying factor for an agency’s efficiency is its online presence.
In the digital marketing industry, this helps you find rising stars.
For agencies that lack long-term experience in the market, their company website, social media pages, and other digital assets function as their portfolio.
However, dismissing these agencies can be a blunder as fresh ideas often come from inexperience. Since content marketing demands constant innovation and unique ideas these rising stars can be the perfect fit for your business.
Understanding Pricing Models
When we say pricing models, it means your budget.
No matter what pricing model a content marketing agency follows, it must adhere to and accommodate your requirements within your spending capacity.
Most Digital Marketing Agencies Design Their Pricing Models In Three Major Structures:
- Hourly basis.
- Project-based.
- Retainer.
Depending on your requirements, you can choose a suitable pricing model.
How To Set The Budget When Looking For The Best Content Marketing Agency?
In 2024, businesses increased their content spending in comparison to 2023. While some businesses spend more than $45k monthly, 47. 6% (almost half) businesses spend $5k to $25k on content marketing on 2024.
The challenge is no longer about finding affordable content marketing packages. The real question is: are you spending enough on content marketing?
A business that spends $4,000 or more per post is approximately 2. 6 times more likely to receive a "very successful" report than those that spend between $0 and $500.
Some important factors that directly affect your content marketing budget are as follows:
- Content mix (blog, ebooks, videos, infographics/media assets, PPT, promotional content).
- Creation & collaboration tools are preferred by both parties.
- Relevant distribution channels for your business.
- Your time-limitation.
Assessing Communication And Collaboration
Content is often subjective. What looks good in one’s eyes may not strike another.
Thus, clear communication is the key to getting what you’re looking for. If you cannot picture the end result, no amount of expertise on the agency’s part can help you get to it.
Most content marketing agencies rely heavily on tools for communication and content sharing, such as Planable, MS Office, Google Docs, Trello, Figma, Asana, etc.
When working with an agency, you can either follow two approaches:
- Transactional
- Collaborative
Transactional Approach
The transactional approach is independent of long-term commitments to quality. It involves strictly time-based scattered tasks that focus on immediate ROI and cost reduction. The approach also provides convenient access to on-demand talent.
However, this approach may impede significant projects that have the potential to foster brand growth.
Collaborative Approach
When agencies and businesses collaborate, the resulting work is of superior quality and greater effectiveness. This dynamic involves collaboration on projects instead of one party projecting the requirements and the other simply delivering them.
Collaboration nurtures trust and creativity, providing advantages to content marketers. Establishing relationships over time facilitates improved understanding and collaboration among partners, enhancing work outcomes.
Measuring Success And Performance Metrics
By identifying the key success metrics for your marketing campaign, you can ultimately assess your ROI or evaluate it by individual campaigns or a collection of campaigns.
Thus, when selecting the best content marketing agency, you must check what performance metrics they focus on.
For example, a digital marketing agency could publicize the number of views on an Instagram reel to demonstrate success. However, if they conceal the number of impressions (i.e., the number of new accounts reached by the content), they are masking the true impact of their services.
Therefore, know which tracking metrics add real value to a service’s potential when looking for a content marketing agency.
What Features A Top Content Marketing Agency?
A content marketing agency becomes top when you’re satisfied with their service.
For instance, at Viacon, our primary performance indicator is our clients' reviews. To ensure client satisfaction, we actively encourage them to provide regular feedback through emails, feedback forms, and scoring methods.
Moreover, you can expect the following when hiring services from a top content marketing agency:
- Onboarding guidance.
- Specific deliverables during pre-launch, launch, and post-launch phases to keep campaigns on track.
- Consistent results that help clients achieve their content marketing goals effectively.
Top content marketing agencies are known for their thorough questioning practices. They ensure that they provide you with the necessary upfront information for you to evaluate their company and make a well-informed decision.
Once you have made the decision to proceed, they will request all necessary information and materials to achieve the desired outcomes.
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About author
Saswati Banerjee is a content writer with specialisations in different fields. Her niches vary from travel and food to fintech and games. A writer by day and a reader by night, she enjoys close company, a cup of coffee, and a guitar after a hard day at work
