How do you choose the best content marketing services for your business?
I know what it’s like – there’s so many choices when it comes to online marketing it’s enough to make your head spin.
You’ve got SEO, PR, Social Media Marketing, “Digital Marketing” and Content Marketing services to choose from.
Once you’ve decided you want the best of all worlds, exposure and more leads – you settle on content marketing.
Drive lots of traffic to your website, and the right kind of traffic too – customers.
People searching for your services in Google are much more likely to become customers than someone who stumbles on your twitter account after all.
Choosing the right service is something that I’ve seen businesses really struggle with.
Making the wrong choice can ruin your chances at online success. And leave a bitter taste in your mouth about online marketing in general. No one want’s to plummet a whole heap of money into something that doesn’t work for them, after all.
So here’s a short guide on how to choose the best content marketing services for you.
You don’t have to read it all – skip down to the heading that suits you best & read on!
Best content marketing services for a solo-preneur
As a solo-preneur you’re up against some heavy competition, let’s be honest.
But the great thing is – with the right content marketing services – you can carve out a serious piece of success. You have the passion & expertise in your industry that often larger companies don’t have. Their marketing will be done by someone who is passionate about marketing, not your products and services.
The question is – do you have more time or money?
If you’re under a serious amount of pressure already – you’ll want to work with a content marketing consultant. They can help you figure out what time you do have to contribute to your content marketing and devise a plan of action from there. You can do a serious amount on your own in a relatively short weekly window, if you have it. However, a good consultant will also point you to the right completely outsourced service if you can’t face doing it all yourself.
As a solopreneur, you’re likely to be low on funds.
If that’s true for you, doing some weekly training with a content marketing consultant could massively benefit you. Spend the time learning how to do it yourself, which things will have the most impact on your business etc – and eventually you won’t even need the consultant to help. They’ll often do the technical research for you and help you edit your blogs, which makes you much more likely to succeed.
If weekly training doesn’t sound like it will suit – you can even check out courses in your area, or get a step by step content marketing plan you can follow in your own time.
More information on weekly content marketing guidance can be found here.
Best content marketing services for a small business
If you’re running a small team and juggling a lot of customers all at once – it can be really tough to figure out which content marketing service is right for you.
You’ve little time to invest, but also not a great deal of money either.
The thing is – getting a full service content marketing agency to take are of it all is seriously pricey. To be done correctly takes a huge amount of time weekly, not to mention knowledge and skill, so if you want to make any real dent in your progress through outsourcing – you’re talking about investing thousands per month.
If your local company is offering it for hundreds – run – fast.
You won’t see real results from it, so you’d be better saving that money to invest in something else.
If you have staff, however – you’re at an advantage.
Who in your staff is most knowledgeable about your product? Whether it’s yourself, or the latest intern – training is your best option.
Whether you choose to look at online courses, follow professional weekly guidance, or a custom content marketing plan for your website – hundreds invested in yourself or your staff will go so much further for you in the future. The return on your investment will be serious stuff and you’re also much more likely to succeed with your content marketing efforts.
After all – who cares more about your businesses success than you?
And when you do grow big enough that you need to outsource – you’ll even know what to look out for, and how to spot the scam artists quickly!
Best content marketing services for a medium business
If you’re running a medium sized company, with a decent team behind you, you likely have a couple of marketing personnel already working on your latest venture. So the question really is – should you outsource it all completely? Or can they be trained to sort it out for you?
In this situation, the biggest factor is going to be time.
Sit down and talk with your marketing team – realistically, how much time can they offer per week to your website? What kind of potential customers are there online for your market?
If they can offer between 2-6 hours or more weekly – weekly guidance and training from a content marketing consultant might suffice. With a view for them to eventually take on everything themselves, your marketing team could be personally trained on how to content market well for your business.
Not only is this a great motivational boost for them, ticking the box in personal development – but it means avoiding the heavy cost of fully outsourcing too.
Fully outsourcing your content marketing is going to make a serious dent in your bank account.
You’re talking a few thousand per month to see any results – it’s like hiring a new member of staff. However, if your marketing team isn’t confident with the online world and you’d just like it taken care of by a professional – it’s a completely legitimate option.
Get in touch with a few agencies and get an idea of cost. And more importantly – find out who knows what they’re talking about. Check out their blog and ask them some questions. Just because it’s expensive doesn’t always mean it’s going to work either.
Ask them for a realistic time scale on when you can expect more customers hitting your site – and what kind of keywords they would aim for and why.
Honestly – if it doesn’t cost at least a thousand per month to outsource – you’re hiring someone who has no idea what they’re doing.
You’d likely get more results out of going on the street and paying customers to come inside if it only costs a few hundred.
Best content marketing services for a large business
If you have a fairly large company the most likely thing is – you want it all taken care of.
This one’s a pretty simple recommendation – get it outsourced. The one thing you’ll want to ensure you do is to find an agency or consultant that wants to work closely with you or a member of your marketing team.
The reason is, it’s important that their marketing goals align with your business plans. To be able to perform your content marketing well, they need to know who your target market are, how your products or services help and more.
Find someone you can work closely with – and that’s open about how they get it all to work.
There are no “guarantees” in content marketing – so stay well away from anyone who offers them. Even if you worked for Google you couldn’t guarantee to rank for a keyword.
Ask them for time scales and information on their methods as well as a price – most expensive doesn’t always mean best unfortunately.
Expect them to be in contact frequently – content marketing works best when an expert is at the helm of your content. So expertise will be needed from you or a member of staff in order to bring in new customers through your website.
Here’s more information on fully outsourcing your content marketing.
Best content marketing services for charities and non-profits
If you’re running a charity or non-profit organisation – let’s face it – the budget can be tight.
You don’t want to waste your donated funds into something that’s not going to work.
If you have keen volunteers that are somewhat good at writing and website’s – get a custom content marketing plan they can follow. It’s the cheapest way to go about it, while achieving real results.
If you’re serious about gaining exposure online about your charity, drumming up more investment & getting more volunteers – you need to take your online marketing seriously.
That doesn’t mean you have to fork over thousands per month – but having someone on your team trained to do it for you could mean huge growth in the next 6 months.
Check out our custom content marketing plans for more information.
[We like to donate our time too. From time to time we offer free website reviews for non-profits – contact us to be added to our list.]
Best content marketing services for owners with no time
You’ve not got any time to be doing content marketing on your own – you’ve barely enough time to read this article.
In fact – let’s be honest – you’ve not read anything else and skipped straight here.
Let me be straight with you – content marketing takes a serious amount of time, skill and dedication. If you don’t have the time to invest in it – it’s going to be fine. But you’ll need to put your money where your mouth is.
Get on the bandwagon before it’s too late – content marketing is the only way to rank well in search engines these days.
Outsourcing is going to be your best option.
Search for content marketing agencies and content marketing consultants – send them off a quick email such as the following – happy for you to copy and paste:
Hello [Insert name here],
I’m looking for a content marketing service for my business [insert business name here]. You seem like you might be able to help.
I have a couple of questions for you:
- How long would you expect it to take before I was seeing traffic from content marketing?
- What kind of keywords would you recommend aiming for initially and why?
- What will you need from me?
- What methods do you employ?
- How much does it cost?
Thanks for any information,
[Your name here]
Firstly – take note of how long they take to respond. Obviously if it’s on a weekend, I wouldn’t expect an instant response, but if they take more than 1-2 working days, let’s be honest – they might have too much work on at the moment to focus on your business.
Secondly – are the cagey about how they work? This is a mega red flag. You do not want to work with anyone doing ‘black hat’ seo – this can permanently damage your website.
Does it sound too good to be true? It could be a scam. Especially if the offer guarantees. Not even Google themselves can offer guaranteed results.
Do they need your input? If they don’t – I’d be nervous. Honestly, I know you don’t have a lot of time – but in order to perform good marketing, they at very least need to know your product/service well (often more than what you’ve written on your website already) as well as knowing what your expectations and goals are with your website. How are they supposed to achieve them if they don’t know them?
Actual length of time, keywords etc are less important – it can depend entirely on your needs, budget and competition in your industry. But what you’re looking for here is someone who responds in a timely manner who seems like they know what they’re talking about.
Information on our content marketing outsourcing services here.
Best content marketing services for owners with little money to invest
You’re strapped for cash – but the only way to bring in more money is to get more customers. And the only way to get more customers? Investing in good marketing.
It’s a seriously tough position to be in.
If you know your market are mainly online and you want to attract more customers to your business – you’re going to have to invest in content marketing services. But you need to be extra smart about how you invest.
First things first – talk directly with a content marketing consultant. They’ll be able to tell you what is and isn’t feasible within your budget. A lot of it can be dependant on the competitiveness of your industry – so don’t expect the to give you hard numbers in one phone call.
If you think you have the time to put towards learning how to do it yourself (or getting an intern/family member on board that can help with about 2 – 6 hours work a week) a better idea than getting a fully outsourced service (that will cost thousands) is to get training in how to do it yourself.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s a whole lot to learn.
But you don’t have to learn it all – you just have to know enough so you can do it well for your business. There’s options like online courses, working with a content marketing consultant – or we offer something very unique. Weekly content marketing guidance.
Basically we can offer weekly guidance – such as what to write, how to write it for search engines, where to post it, how to promote it etc – tailored entirely around your business. The end result is that you’ll not only have a much better website after a few months – you’ll learn how to take it away and do it yourself.
Which is going to be a huge return on your investment.
Best content marketing services for owners who lack writing skills
You’d like to try out content marketing – but honestly, seeing a blank page gives you the chills.
“I’d never be able to write like that”
Whether it’s a worry about your spelling, grammar or just generally writing well enough to make people care – the best content marketing services will be able to help you.
Here’s the thing – you are one of the best placed people to write about your industry. You know your customers better than anyone else. You know your products/services better than anyone else. That makes you the best person to answer your customers questions. And guess what? Most of your success or failure in content marketing is going to depend on how well you answer your customers questions.
If your competitors do it better – they’ll get more customers. Simple.
Did you get a D in English? Maybe you failed?
Don’t panic – before you go an hire a copywriter, know this: people like to read articles written by people.
Just in the way they talk. Your customers aren’t looking for a word perfect essay – they’re looking for someone who knows about your area of expertise to help them.
The best thing for you to do is to work with a content marketing agency. Look out for services where you can be involved – and talk directly to a consultant if you can.
They’ll be able to either help you edit your blog to improve it, or point you in the direction of a full service where you can simply give someone else the answers so they can write them up in a more customer friendly manner.
It entirely depends on your level of skill, the time you have on a weekly basis and the progress you’re hoping to make online.
Get in touch with us today and we can point you to the best content marketing services for your situation.
Best content marketing services for owners who lack technical skills
If writing doesn’t put you off, but you just think you’re not clued in enough about how to write for the internet – don’t panic.
We all feel like that at first.
Read up on what it all involves – check out our blog for more information, or you can sign up to our email list to get a free guide on how to write technically for the search engines.
There’s a lot to learn – but it’s not impossible to do it on your own.
If you’re looking for the best content marketing services for your situation – I’d suggest either going for a training programme or working closely with a content marketing consultant. Blogging these days is getting easier and easier – if you can use Word, it’s not a huge leap to use something like WordPress to blog. And it could have a huge impact on your online marketing efforts.
We have a weekly content marketing service you might want to check out here.
I hope that was helpful – content marketing can require a great deal of time, cost and expertise. So it’s important to pick the best content marketing services for your business. If you have any questions at all, I’d love to know – just leave me a comment below and I’ll get back to you ASAP!