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Brian talks about an article from Kristen M. Vaughn from Search Engine Journal on questions to ask a content marketing agency.
Checkout Kristen’s Article – https://www.searchenginejournal.com/hiring-content-marketing-agency/426244/
Transcription
11 questions for a content marketing agency.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
What I have here is an article, and this is an article by Kristen Vaughn.
Kristen M. Vaughn with a Search Engine Journal SearchEngineJournal.com.
The title of the article is, Hiring a Content Marketing Agency? Ask These 11 Questions First.
So I’m going to go through Kristen’s 11 questions and kind of give you my just initial take, I have not read the article cover to cover a top to bottom, I should say. But what I do is I have a certain instinct on some of these ideas.
I’m not a content marketing agency, I do have a little bit of a background in content marketing, both doing it myself, doing it for other partners and clients, and so forth.
So I want to talk a little bit about some of these ideas that are being presented here. So we’re just going to go through one by one, I’ll just give you a quick take on all of them.
Number one, Do You Perform SEO?
And that’s an interesting question to ask a content marketing age agency. But it does have something to do with it now was Search Engine Optimization. That’s what SEO is.
So the main idea is when you’re putting content out there, do you know not that you’re an absolute expert but do you know the basics of SEO, so that you can get around in all of the areas that you’re going to be posting content?
So if you’re posting content on YouTube, does the person know what is going to get attention on YouTube?
And so that’s a legitimate question. But once again, I don’t think it is really needed that they really need to be an expert, they just need to know the basics to be able to get forward if they if you’ve got good content, and no clue about SEO, you may have a little bit of a tough time, especially if you’re doing a full organic search.
But if you understand basic as an SEO, if you know basic SEO, you should be able to get through pretty well.
Number two, How Will You Help Our Business?
That’s a pretty good question.
Especially if you’re looking for a specific end outcome.
Most agencies, whether content marketing or any other type of marketing agency, try to dissuade looking at a specific outcome. Because if you get caught up in a specific outcome, it means they literally have to perform for a result.
It’s a little tougher to do with content marketing, but anybody that’s fighting you on results based in the game is someone you should be careful of working with because you should have an idea of what you are going to achieve and whether it’s actually measurable or not with via a content marketing campaign.
Number three, What Results Can We Expect?
That plays toward the same idea if you’re looking for results?
If you’re looking for how you’re actually gonna get help from these people?
That really stuff you got to know before you, you hunker down with an agency?
Number four, How Do You Report On Results?
Once again that plays back to the same idea.
If you can find results if you can define results?
How are those reported?
How are we going to know when we actually get there?
Number five, What Will Be Required Of Our Team?
Boy, this is an important one.
It’s one that is not clear cut, in most cases that I found when working with agencies, is especially when they’re selling what they’re offering you sometimes they can oversell what they’re going to actually do for you versus what your team is going to be expected to do.
Boy, this is important. And then whether it’s a marketing agency, or whether you’re dealing with somebody designing a new website or anything else, these are things that have to be worked out ahead of time.
Everyone’s excited about moving forward and doing something new but you have to make sure you really do ask these questions of yourself first and then of whoever you’re going to be working with.
Number six, What Industries Do You Specialize In?
And that’s a decent question.
I found that most content marketing agencies, I haven’t seen a whole lot that specializes. If you can find one that specializes in your industry great but realizes that you may end up with things that look like everybody else in the industry.
And so that’s another discussion you got to have with them and see if that’s actually the direction they’re taking you or not.
Honestly, if you’re looking for a content marketing agency, I would suggest steer clear of people that are industry-specific or get someone completely outside your industry.
If you’re looking for someone to help promote your bakery, go and get someone that does content marketing for lawyers, I mean, find something completely the opposite of what you would think of, and have them come in, you’ll get different results, which is what you want. So you stand out in your industry.
That’s the whole point right?
So number seven, How Will The Project Be Managed?
Yeah, once again, you’re getting into the nitty-gritty specifics that really do need to be worked out. Number eight, can you share proof of results?
Once again, it’s back to the results question and that that really is important.
Number nine, What Types Of Content Do You Create?
Well, yeah, you better know that if you’re working with a content marketing, professional or agency, you better know what they do, you know, and what they’ve already done and what they’re capable of doing.
Number 10, What Tools Do You Use?
Well, that’s an interesting question. And this might, this might really matter whether you already have done some content marketing on your own, up until now, or whether you have a tech team that would understand the tools that they’re using.
For me, it really doesn’t matter what tools they use.
For me, what matters is the end result but that’s that could just be a number 11. What will it cost more?
Yeah. If you’re not asking that, you’re gonna be in some real trouble before you sign a deal with somebody. And that that was it that those are the main 11 questions that our friend from the Search Engine Journal had for you.
If you’re looking at hiring a content marketing agency. I’ve put out questions like this before when you’re looking for somebody, and I’ll do an updated one soon.
But Kristen M. Vaughn, very good list, really makes you think. And it’s one of those things that most companies don’t spend enough time really thinking hard about, what what are you trying to get from your content marketing, where are you going with it, and who are going to be the team players that are going to work with you long term to make that happen.
And you really do need long-term results. Maybe you need short-term results, too. But you got to make sure you have some paid advertising in there to help out that content.
Guessing that it’s going to go organically, without any added infusion of advertising is it’s tough to do nowadays.
So you better have a really clear idea what you’re looking for.
Hopefully, that makes sense to you. I wrote a whole book about strategy, which is the same concept, really asking the right questions early on and constantly in your game, in your profession, in your industry, sitting back and really realizing what it is you’re doing, where you’re trying to get and how you’re going to get there.
The name of my book is, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. The whole idea is to make yourself completely competition-proof across the board.
Even if that competition is as big as amazon.com you can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. That’s all I got for tonight. You have a good one.
We’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.