20 things your Content Marketing Agency should be telling you

Jessie Rasmussen 9 years ago

When working with a Content Marketing Agency, the strength of the relationship between you, the client, and that agency, is key. It's a working relationship which requires trust, honesty and regular communication. Here are 20 things your agency should be sharing with you through the course of their work.

Typical Agency Practice

You need to gain a good understanding of how your agency works and how this can impact the work they are carrying out on your behalf. Are your objectives realistic? Are you kept in the loop with the activity carried out? How often do you actually speak to your main contact within your agency? Are you understanding the results of their hard labour?

  1. Your agency should challenge you on what you think you need to make sure that goals are realistic, achievable and are the right areas of focus.
  2. Regular correlations should be made between your agency's progress and the overall performance of your site and business. Otherwise, how else will you know if the agency’s work is having a positive impact?
  3. By receiving regular updates on all activities planned on a month by month, week by week basis, you will be provided with a full explanation on what your agency are doing, why they are doing this and what the scheduled activity hopes to achieve.
  4. Establishing a plan for regular communications early on in the working relationship will make you feel at ease with your new partnership, allow you understand what is needed and the work which will take place. It will also allow your agency to build a strong relationship with you, in turn understanding your business and its long term objectives. Your agency are working towards a specific outcome and you should be an influential part in this.
  5. The term ‘fit for purpose’ will be used regularly during early conversations between yourself and your agency. It is important to understand the health of your site through an in-depth technical audit. With this in place your agency are able to identify the work that needs to take place to ensure the site is ready to start the work surrounding your long term goals, whether this is for increased traffic, improved site visibility or repairing the damage from an algorithmic update such as Panda or Penguin.

Attribution of Success

Are you able to clearly see the attribution of success? What are the areas you need to be reviewing in order to understand the elements that working well within your marketing campaign?

  1. KPIs can be your agency's worst nightmare. They are often restrictive and do not allow for other successes to shine through. It is important to be realistic in your goals and more importantly, to focus on the areas which will have the most influence on the success of your business.
  2. When measuring ROI from organic traffic, do not just refer to ‘last click’ data, as this can be a misleading figure. Looking at Multi Channel funnels will show the channels that visitors have used in the 30 days prior to conversion. This will give an accurate view on how they accessed your site, whether it was from an organic search, a PPC advert or a social referral.
  3. It is vital to compare and contrast the different marketing channels to determine which is the most effective and to proportion budgets accordingly. There is no point and will be no return in ROI if you are pouring time and finances into PPC, for example, if it simply isn’t working.
  4. Establishing goals in Google Analytics will enable you to measure how well your site is fulfilling objectives and will offer an overview of the progress your agency is making. Goals can range from making a purchase for an e-commerce site, to the number of contact forms completed from a lead generation perspective.

Measuring Success

How do you know your site is performing well? Are you able to see clear progression against your competitors? Different agencies have different ways to record successes, but measuring these against your objectives should be clear.

  1. A competitor analysis is a great way to identify your successes and areas of weakness in your site's performance. An in-depth view of your key competitors can offer you an insight into how to dominate the market and will allow you to understand how to appeal to the target audience as proactive marketing gains momentum. You will be able to appreciate your position against a competitor with the view to overtaking them in terms of both SEO and ROI.
  2. Webmaster tools allow the ability to report on impressions, clicks, click-thru-rate and rankings. All of these results can be based on specific keywords or landing pages and create an informed view on which terms and pages are creating the most conversions, in turn highlighting the areas which require improvement - whether that is increased content on a particular page or more information for the visitor.
  3. Producing a comparative view of site performance is the ideal way to establish any strengths or weaknesses within a marketing strategy. Whether it is a month-on-month view, or year-on-year, growth and progression can be easily identified across a specific time period.

Marathon not a Sprint

Having clear objectives, a good communication plan and a strong understanding of what needs to be done are only part of the relationship with your agency.
You also need to have an element of patience as your agency battles to accomplish the agreed goals as quickly as SEO practise will allow.

  1. Any good agency will not be able to give a precise completion date of when objectives will be achieved. SEO is notoriously unpredictable and something - which may seem relatively simple - can actually be dependant on a number of factors and, to an extent, out of your agency's control.
  2. In SEO terms, consistency is key. Google will repeatedly crawl your site, cataloguing things such as unique and relevant content, how often the site is updated, etc. So, it is important to have a long term strategy. With this comes patience and understanding, appreciating that although site optimisation is not an overnight action, it will be worth it in the end.
  3. Recovering from a penalty, whether it is an algorithmic penalty stemming from Panda or Penguin, or a manual penalty, can be a particularly long and involved process. Whether it is through the submission of reconsideration requests or attempting to rebuild search visibility, the damage will not be undone overnight.
  4. With the number of updates, algorithm changes and new requirements outlined by Google, your agency is constantly playing catch up. Elements of activity will need to be updated or changed at a moment's notice to ensure the right thing is done to positively impact your site's performance. This could mean the end goal is pushed back slightly, increasing the length of time before success is really achieved.

Strategy

Clear and concise strategies are the best way to clearly outline objectives and the elements that need to be achieved in order to reach this point. What strategies are your agency putting in place to help you reach your desired position?

  1. All marketing activity can compliment each other. Working in harmony with other agencies and PR companies doesn’t have to be a pipe dream, instead it can lead to a more effective and enhanced marketing strategy with a team of experts working towards the same goal.
  2. A content strategy is essential in producing the best possible content and identifying the target audience along the way. To give your brand a voice, you need to determine what it is that you need to say to make your audience listen and a content strategy is the best way to do this.
    The strategy should also be data informed and heavily inspired by your objectives and end goals.
  3. Every agency should, at some point, mention the importance of being social. Socialising your strategy is a good way to ensure your brand becomes familiar and recognisable amongst the target demographic whilst adding a boost to your content - increasing engagement and increasing the opportunity of a viral piece of content.
  4. Content needs to sit across a variation of platforms. Not every company needs or can realistically create ‘big bang pieces’ and often these are just not necessary. A steady flow of different content types will create brand awareness, offer a voice of thought leadership and ensure, from an SEO perspective, that you are adhering to Google’s guidelines. There are so many different content types out there that it is easy to find the ones that are relevant to your business and, more importantly, your audience.

It is so important for Content Marketing Agencies to be transparent with their clients, to identify when something isn’t working and to have a frank discussion about desired outcomes. The relationship between agency and client should be easy and relaxed, focused on working towards a united goal.

Actionable Summary

  • Communicating with your agency from the offset will not only build a strong foundation but will allow you to be a strong part of the marketing process.
  • Establishing clear goals, with the use of Google Analytics, will enable you to track success and monitor progress, something which your agency should work with you on.
  • Webmaster Tools offers a strong look at the overall performance of the site and will flag any technical health issues.
  • Your agency should become an extension of your business, working to achieve a desired goal and having the best interests of your business at heart.
  • Patience, consistency and accuracy are essential when it comes to a marketing strategy, all of which need to be exercised when liaising with your agency.
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