The fact is, since its inception, digital marketing landscape has gone through more changes than a socialite teenager before a night out. Tactics and approaches have been tested and rejected if found lacking, or overused and ruined if they showed some promise.
Pretty much the only consistent approach out there seems to be content marketing, not only because it is so fundamental that it can’t be targeted by search engine algorithms (they can try to assess the quality of your content, but as long as it’s unique and follows the rules of grammar and spelling, you’ll be fine) but because it is, at its finest, simply based on creating amazing content. The ‘marketing’ part has to do with setting the goals for the content, optimizing it for search engines and the demographics you are targeting, building an adequate reach out strategy and everything else that helps you convert. However, all of it is meaningless if the content itself fails to engage the public.
Client Input
One of the main issues with scaling content creation is the fact that you have to create interesting and useful content for clients working in different industries. Sure, if you are running a marketing company that only deals with the promotion of other marketing companies (the sitcom would practically write itself) you’ll know what you are talking about, but if you have a more traditional, diverse client portfolio, you simply cannot be expected to have experts on hand for each and every of their fields of operation.
Aside from the clients themselves, naturally. Looking at clients as a resource may be somewhat unpopular, especially among those clients, who might object that you are forcing them to do the work that they are paying you to do, however, it shouldn’t take you too long to persuade any sensible person that this would be in their best interest. After all they have all the knowledge of the industry you need, what you need to be able to do is to get the most relevant, interesting and useful pieces of that knowledge and transform them into something that people will enjoy and share.
As tight pressed as the client is for time and resources, they should be able to provide you with a liaison of sorts, who would cooperate with you in content creation and offer insights that only someone in the industry is in disposal of. Chances are every company has at least one creative employee wishing to take on extra responsibilities and try his or her hand at some out of the cubicle thinking, you only need to demonstrate the value of this employee’s temporary assignment to your content team.
The Pitch
Naturally, expecting everyone to immediately see reason implies we are living in a perfect world, brim full of reasonable people itching to make our lives easier. Take a random comments section of a random site, and you’ll be promptly reminded that this is not the case. So how do you go about making your case to the reluctant client?
Naturally, you can start by explaining how content marketing is the only reliable way to go if they want long term results immune to the whims of search engines, but what do you do when they realize that they’ll have to invest something in content creation?
While some may be swayed by the explanation of the value of the established authority and visibility of an in-house expert (who can be credited with all the content you’ve produced together), which are benefits that they’ll retain even once they’ve done doing business with you, others might claim that they simply cannot devote any manpower to this goal.
If this is the case, and none of the other arguments worked, you might want to consider deducting the projected value of consultations from your charges. It’s completely understandable if you’ve flinched when you read this, but some people will not be persuaded by anything else than you showing your unbridled faith in the necessity of such consultations. Naturally, you would have to make sure that you are getting the value for your money, i.e. someone who can actually help in the content creation process and justify the fee reduction.
Of course, cooperation with clients on this level is not always possible or feasible, especially in short term engagements, but if you’ve had a client for a while and you expect that you’ll be working together for a while to come, coordinating your efforts and collaborating in the creation of their content can only benefit both of you and result in something that will not only increase the client’s visibility but also the respect they are getting within their own industry.