Evaluating Content Marketing Packages for Your Business
Choosing the right content marketing package is a pivotal decision for any business. Digital marketing agencies often offer varied tiers of services, some far more substantial in scope and price than others—but your choice will ultimately impact your overall results, so it’s crucial to map out your needs and expectations before signing up with an agency.
What Does a Content Marketing Agency Do?
Full-service marketing agencies will take the entirety of your content marketing needs completely off of your plate. This means learning about your business and its goals, conducting SEO research into your industry and competitors, planning and implementing an effective strategy, creating content across all platforms, and handling all manner of marketing-related collateral.
The scope of this work includes, but is not limited to:
- Building and launching a new website (if applicable)
- Redesigning a current website to match SEO needs
- Creating content marketing campaigns
- Conducting market and SEO research to find the most relevant topics and keywords
- Ensuring a brand’s site is optimized for search engines
- Drawing up a brand’s content plan and calendar
- Developing and deploying content such as: blogs, site copy, customer- and client-facing emails, social media campaigns, case studies, as well as marketing materials including:
- Landing pages with appropriate CTAs
- White papers/ebooks
- Help with digital presentations
- Promotional “leave-behinds” and collateral
- Managing and performing routine maintenance on a brand’s site
- Tracking and measuring site analytics
- Nurturing sales leads
The above constitute an all-encompassing, end-to-end marketing package. However, not all are created equal. And, while some may be more affordable, they likely won’t move the needle for your business.
Content Marketing Strategies That Fall Short
Have you ever been too busy and too strapped for cash to sit down and have a good home-cooked meal? We’ve all been there. Work has you running ragged, you have personal obligations to attend to, and inflation has taken up permanent residence in your bank account. So, instead of that delicious, balanced meal, you opt for fast food drive-thru. No judgments—but how do you feel after eating that quick, cheap bite?
Unfulfilled. Short-changed. Unsatisfied.
That’s essentially how a lesser content marketing package will leave you feeling, especially when you think about all the missed opportunities and lost leads—not to mention all the time and money wasted.
No agency can guarantee results, but if you're going to commit your precious resources to a marketing package, then you should at least know how to weed out the agencies to find one that is likely to fit your needs.
So anyone you consider should be:
- Responsive
- Data-driven
- Capable of understanding what your company does at a deeper level
- Able to relate that understanding to the needs of your potential buyers
- Capable of producing content that speaks to those individuals at every stage of the buyer’s journey
In other words, your agency should be able to put together a content package that is holistic and geared toward lead conversion, not just “driving traffic.”
Questions to Ask When Evaluating a Marketing Package
In your search for suitable content marketing services, you’re going to come across many different agencies, and each will attempt to sell you an array of services. The thing about sales is that it all sounds good—that’s how sales happen, after all. But how can you be sure that the services are actually good and will meet your marketing needs?
That’s when being a smart consumer comes into play. Smart consumers ask questions before making a purchase. And with so much of your potential revenue riding on your choice of marketing strategy, asking the right questions goes a long way.
Here are some actual questions you should ask about any content packages presented to you by a marketing agency:
"What kind of edit/approval process do you have?"
The whole point of hiring a marketing agency is to have qualified individuals take care of the work you don’t have the time or know-how to handle yourself. You must be absolutely sure that not only will the agency create the content, but they will also foster the content until it is clean, correct, and in line with your brand’s messaging.
"What do you base your SEO recommendations on?"
Search engines are designed to be extremely smart and sophisticated. Optimizing content so that it is just as sophisticated is the only way to gain traction in a crowded consumer marketing landscape. Find out what tools the marketing agency in question uses to conduct keyword research, and be sure to ask for examples of previous work and the results the agency has generated from it.
"Will the content be produced by in-house writers or outsourced?"
Relationships are incredibly important to a successful marketing campaign. Not only do you need to establish a relationship with your audience, you also need to connect with your chosen marketing agency. The only real way to make such a connection is by knowing who is on the marketing team and what role they play. If a marketing agency outsources your content, there’s no relationship to be had.
"What other clients do you have in our industry?"
There’s a duality to this question. If you're looking for a marketing agency specializing in a highly technical industry—or one with knowledge of specific regulatory issues—then it's probably advantageous to establish a partnership with one that boasts experience in your field. However, if you’re focused on improving SEO and the agency is working with your competitors, then that might be a negative. In that case, the best course of action would be to go with one that is skilled in quickly grasping what you do and can create impressive content through collaboration with you and your team.
Hypha HubSpot Development Content Marketing Packages
When you are ready to make the investment to work with an agency that addresses major components of content marketing over an extended period of time—that’s when you will see the best results.
Hypha's Strategic Inbound Content services are included in our Implementation & Retainer services, or available as stand-alone packages upon request! The former includes everything you read earlier in this article, as well as:
- An accessibility audit of your website to ensure compliance
- The full suite of sales collateral and email marketing
- Automated nurture campaigns
- HubSpot setup and onboarding
Our team of inbound content marketing specialists are seasoned experts in executing strategic campaigns that achieve results. Choosing a partnership with us gives your organization access to a complete, custom-designed content marketing package tailored specifically to your needs.