Finding the best content marketing agency or freelancer for your business can be a daunting task. You want someone who can create engaging, relevant, and valuable content that attracts and converts your target audience. But how do you know who can deliver on your goals, budget, and expectations? Here are some tips to help you find the right content marketing partner.
Before you start looking for a content marketing agency or freelancer, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your content strategy. Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive sales, or improve customer loyalty? What are your key performance indicators (KPIs) and how will you measure them? How much are you willing to invest in content marketing and what kind of return do you expect? Having a clear vision of your objectives will help you narrow down your options and communicate your expectations to potential partners.
Although there's many important items here as listed by LinkedIn and other guests like portfolio, case studies, reviews, KPIs, etc, I would say one of the most important and overlooked items is to be sure to know how important you are as a client for that particular agency, freelancer or partner. If yours is a startup or SME and the agency typically works with companies with very large budgets, there will likely be less attention paid to your company and the agency might not necessarily dedicate their best team to work with you.
One of the best ways to evaluate a content marketing agency or freelancer is to look at their previous work and see how they have helped other clients achieve their goals. You can check their website, blog, social media, case studies, testimonials, and reviews to get a sense of their style, quality, and results. You can also ask them for samples of content that are relevant to your industry, niche, and audience. Look for evidence of creativity, originality, consistency, and effectiveness in their content.
Taking a look at their personal content is a great way to evaluate them. LinkedIn services pages and publications sections of their LinkedIn profile are two areas you can see past work. Review sites like G2 and Clutch can also be of help.
Content marketing is a broad and diverse field that requires a range of skills and expertise. Depending on your needs, you may want to look for a content marketing agency or freelancer who can offer services such as content strategy, content creation, content distribution, content optimization, content analysis, and content management. You may also want to consider their knowledge and experience in your specific domain, market, and audience. You can ask them about their qualifications, certifications, tools, methods, and best practices to gauge their competence and credibility.
Also, consider a freelancer who demonstrates a solid understanding of your industry or niche. They should be able to grasp the unique challenges and requirements of your target audience, allowing them to create content that resonates with your audience/target market.
Once you have shortlisted a few content marketing agencies or freelancers who meet your criteria, you can ask them to send you their proposals and prices. A good proposal should include a detailed breakdown of the scope, deliverables, timeline, and cost of the project. It should also demonstrate how they understand your objectives, challenges, and opportunities, and how they plan to address them with their content strategy. You can compare their proposals and prices to see which one offers the best value for your money and aligns with your vision.
Don't simply dismiss the topmost expensive proposals out of hand. Ask them what you stand to get for all that invested money.
Finally, finding the best content marketing agency or freelancer is not only about their skills and results, but also about their personality and communication. You want to work with someone who is trustworthy, reliable, respectful, and responsive. You want to have a good rapport and a mutual understanding of your goals and expectations. You want to have regular feedback and updates on the progress and performance of your content marketing project. You want to have a long-term partnership that grows and evolves with your business.
In my experience, when using a contractor or a freelancer, you get better results if you have a good working relationship with them, communicate frequently, and make them feel like they are part of the team.
Make sure to evaluate how they communicate with you. The communication skills alone can tell many things about the agency or an individual.