Brands are never an isolated affair. They involve design, artwork, and a bit of social media thrown in. These days, brands are increasingly driven by content, and when it comes to fashion where everything hinges on personal touch and speciality, content that hits the bull’s eye is the most endearing. Fashion content writing has evolved a lot lately.
The discerning consumers of today are very vividly aware of what they want and how they want it when it comes to their fashion quotient. This makes it imperative for fashion content writing services to be on the same wavelength as the brands in the market.
Writing about fashion in present times should emphasise numerous important aspects, than just the age-old write-to-brag approach, to bring out the value of the content and the brand.
Before you begin fashion writing, remember the first thing – everything starts with your PDA. The ‘Product Description Alignment’ needs your product description to be aligned well with your product. Don’t feel overwhelmed.
It simply means seeing and knowing the product you are going to write for. The product description not only has to be exact regarding what the product is, but it also has to be conversational instead of just plain flat details.
A PD that isn’t written well, will be boring and fail to garner any attention for the product. For any fashion e-commerce website, a well-written and detailed product description have to be the first priority.
In this age of shorter attention spans, brands are trying to make their space in the virtual as well as the real marketplace. Fashion brands rely on catchy and powerful content to command attention and mobilise their customers to make a purchase.
Power your brand with powerful words and make your content relevant and meaningful to preset it to your customers most favourably.
Tips To Make Your Fashion Content Writing Attractive
A brand can make the entire world its stage if it wants. Compelling content is what does the trick and draws the audience to it. But what makes fashion content attractive and effective?
Personalisation
So you have managed to grab your customers’ attention with a catchy title or an attractive tagline. But is that enough? Hardly. Unless you have personalised the content in a way that it looks custom-made for them, nobody would be interested in run-of-the-mill generic information.
For instance, you could target ‘DIY and cost-effective fashion’ or ‘fashion on a shoestring budget instead of ‘fashion trends in 2023’. You must make your content worthwhile to your audience.
Enhancing Brand Personality
Fashion content should create and enhance a brand’s personality. It has to realign the customers’ expectations with what the brand offers. Let the content smartly and consistently present the product in a way that reinforces the brand’s personality and sets it apart from its competitors.
Content Optimisation
Sub-optimal content runs the risk of getting lost in web traffic. Plan, prepare and present your content to appeal to the customer and make them engage with your brand. Keep your content fresh, updated and relevant at all times.
SEO, advertisement, social media engagement, and images; there is a lot that can be done. Be creative, think outside the box, and never hesitate to experiment in a domain as dynamic as fashion.
Always Deliver What You Promise
Fashion content writing is all about presentation. But while presenting, ensure that you remain relevant and objective. Don’t go over the top and promise something you can’t deliver. Match the content to the actual product. If you promise low-cost fashion, you cannot include designer brands that cost a bomb.
Fashion is ever-evolving, and so is content. Fashion presents a desirable image and lifestyle. Content convinces the customer and brings them closer to the image.
Fashion content writing is slightly more complex than routine blogs which aim to inform. It aims at conditioning the customers to adopt a new style and may even contribute to setting a new trend.
An eCommerce website showcases the brand and its products. It is much more than colourful images and taglines. It is a platform for the customers to engage with the brand.
It is also an opportunity for the brand to get a new loyal customer, and an opportunity for the customer to try something new. Content does the magic of converting this opportunity to real sales for both parties.
Professional content writing services bring to the table a special set of skills essential for the fashion industry. Thorough research, and in-depth industry knowledge, coupled with the experience of creating engaging content, make professional content agencies a perfect choice for your brand’s fashion content needs.
The importance of blog writing and article writing in content marketing is ever-increasing. It is impossible to craft an effective SEO strategy without blogs because of their role in drawing web traffic through relevant keywords. Guest blogging is getting a lot of attention in recent times.
Guest posts take traditional article writing a step further. Its primary objective isn’t to draw in web traffic but to build trust in your brand and its content. In simple terms, it means publishing a blog on a third-party website to draw backlinks back to your website. Guest blogging is not necessarily promotional, as it tends to educate and provide valuable insights.
It’s more effective than traditional article writing services because third-party websites have a wider audience reach, which is crucial in generating awareness about your brand.
Additionally, guest blogging done on the right portal will lead to your brand being exposed to the right audience instead of just a wide one. This niche audience connection is exactly why guest blogging is gaining momentum in successful digital marketing campaigns.
Tips For Finding The Best Websites for Guest Blogging
Finding the right platforms to publish your guest blogs on is crucial to getting the process of generating backlinks started. Here’s how you can find the right guest posting sites –
1. Establishing Direct Contact
The best way to get a third-party website to publish your blog is to pitch it directly to its editors. Popular websites are usually looking for niche content and hence provide an email address to which brands and individuals can send in their pitches.
However, editors receive numerous pitches, and to make yours stand out, your credentials, writing style, topic, and domain-specific knowledge should be highlighted. Additionally, given their lack of time, your best bet at having the editors take the time to read your pitch is by grabbing their attention through a catchy subject line.
2. SEO Search
This is an interesting way to use an SEO technique to get SEO benefits. You have to ensure that you find the right audience for your niche and that your blog’s message aligns with not only yours but the guest site’s interests as well.
The best way to choose the appropriate site is to follow the ‘relevant keyword + blog/article’ approach.
For example, if you are a kitchenware provider and want to start guest blogging, then you would search for ‘basic cookware + blog’. This will bring up a list of food and lifestyle websites, some of which could be open to accepting guest blogs.
When choosing the right platform, however, you must also ensure that the guest posting sites Domain Rating (DR) is at the very least, similar to yours. However, a higher DR is preferred, as the resulting backlinks from posting a guest post on such a website can help boost your DR too!
3. Social Media Profiles
Social media timelines tend to show you profiles that might interest you and are closer to your niche. Following these profiles and starting a conversation with them can help you build a connection that you can then leverage to pitch your idea. You can even look out for article writing services that are looking for guest bloggers.
Key Benefits Of Guest Blogging
While we have already established the importance of guest blogging, its benefits outweigh the efforts.
1. Authority & Credibility
Once a site posts your article, it basically means that they see you as a credible source. It builds your authority among your competitors and establishes you as a thought leader in your niche.
2. Building Backlinks
Guest blogging has intangible SEO benefits. Once a website links back to you, it generates backlinks or inbound links. This increases your credibility in the eyes of the search engine algorithm and organically boosts your ranking on SERPs.
3. Increases Organic Traffic
Investing in guest blogging is essential in driving web traffic. A guest post sends quality traffic to your website due to inbound marketing. Moreover, the enhanced SERP ranking draws higher organic traffic.
4. Increases Brand Awareness
Featuring a popular website provides you with wider exposure. A new audience is exposed to your brand leading to new leads and possible conversions down the line. These potential leads will drive new business and strengthen your brand equity.
5. Expands Business Network
A positive association with popular websites increases your brand value. Moreover, the industry views you as someone who is highly informative and knowledgeable. This helps in generating new contacts in the industry and opens the possibility of advancing your business venture.
While guest blogging might not seem very different from traditional blog writing, it is poised to be a crucial aspect of your content marketing efforts going forward.
Publishing guest blogs on the right platforms can do wonders for your SEO and ranking, leaving no doubt about the fact that you should implement this as soon as possible. There are several other content marketing trends that are bound to make an impact in the future too, and you can read more about them here.
First things first, how is this blog relevant to you? Content marketing is getting a lot of attention lately. Many companies are focusing on creating quality content. Gen Z should focus more on content marketing as it can help in the long run.
B2C Brands, read if:
You are targeting consumers below the age of 23yrs (born after 1996).
Your organisation hires talent from a similar age group.
B2B Brands, read if:
You provide services to B2C companies targeting Gen Z.
Your organisation hires talent between 18-23yrs of age.
Let’s start. Gone are the days when everything could be blamed on the millennials because there’s a new generation that people just seem to love to hate – Gen Z!
They’re young, impatient, whimsical, and like every new generation, have an air of mystery around them that intrigues older generations.
Despite all these things, there’s no denying that they’re the face of the future and that from a business perspective, they’re an important target audience.
In fact, it is estimated that, Gen Z will make up about 32% of the world’s population, surpassing millennials.
In India, especially, there is an extremely high youth population. Gen Z has been estimated to rise to 472 million. Hence, it is clear that customising your content marketing for Gen Z audiences will give you a very large customer base, and it is increasingly becoming the need for marketers across the globe.
How Should Content Marketing for Gen Z Audiences Work?
They seem so far off as a generation that it appears impossible. All the things mentioned before about their restiveness are not exactly conducive to sales and it makes them difficult customers.
Targeting a Gen-Z audience is no walk in the park. It is difficult to hold their attention for long and they’re most likely not brand-loyal and would move on to the next best thing as soon as the opportunity rises. However, there’s no denying that they’re an important target audience. They’ve got strength in numbers and if you can get that on your side, you’re golden.
So, how can you keep an ever-moving generation still long enough to listen to your pitch, and what can you do on your part to get them to invest?
Here are 6 things you should keep in mind while formulating Gen Z marketing strategies:
1. Be Where Gen Z’s Are
The best way to reach this demographic is through online platforms, especially those that are primarily or entirely best accessible through mobile devices such as smartphones. It’s no secret that Gen Z makes the most use of mobile devices.
In fact, even social media sites that are equally accessible through computers, as well as cell phones, get a lot more mobile traffic, not just from the under-21s but also from the general populace. For example, YouTube gets a large amount of traffic from mobile users.
Similar apps including Whatsapp, Instagram, and Snapchat are very mobile-oriented. While marketing content online, these easy-access platforms should be prioritized.
2. Prioritise Micro influencers
Unlike big influencers who are unable to make an impact, micro influencers are the ones who are the most genuine and trustworthy source of information about a product, technology, or service. Here’s an example of an influencer with 2 million followers who couldn’t sell 36 t-shirts!
Micro influencers are more authentic and lead to higher conversions and a better rapport with their followers. And when I say influencers, they are not restricted to Instagram. Trending apps or channels like TikTok, Snapchat, Ecommerce communities, and micro-video apps are redefining the role of influencers.
2. What Content to Create?
While doing content marketing for Gen Z audiences, your marketing strategy should involve creating content that overcomes the hurdle of Gen Z’s low attention spans.
Lengthy blog posts and descriptions won’t work as they did in previous generations. This generation is all about images, videos, and colorful graphics. The same information that is usually conveyed in a paragraph is much more likely to be noticed by your target audience if it’s in the form of a picture or a flyer.
Similarly, with videos, less is more. Good graphics and animations will help, but brevity is key (it’s ironic that this is a 1500-word article about a target audience that can’t tolerate lengthy or drawn-out content, then).
3. So, Should You Stop Writing Blog Posts?
No way!
85% of Gen Z say they are aware of ads in Google and most of them prefer ad-blockers.
But at the same time, 71% say they discover new products using Google, which means they search and prefer authentic content that ranks on top.
So, here’s the thing, attracting Gen Z and taking care of SEO can be done by adding relevant visuals to your long form content and enhancing the overall experience on the platform.
Gen Z does not have purchasing power like millennials but they surely have influence and as a brand, you should tap into it.
4. Be Creative on Social Media
A good way to engage a Gen Z target audience is to post a video or photo to Instagram stories and add a call to action (CTA), usually ‘swipe up. The content of the video or the picture caption should spark the curiosity of viewers and make them want to swipe up to get more details.
One person who uses this effectively is Matthew Hussey (@thematthewhussey) who is a popular relationship and dating coach.
He adds a ‘swipe up’ CTA which leads to either his blog or his Instagram feed, where he puts up lengthier posts giving relationship advice. The captions on his Instagram stories incite curiosity.
As you can see, the story uses:
An eye-catching image.
A topic that is interesting to Gen Z (relationships and relationship myths)
Attention grabbing words like ‘it’s time to get really honest and ‘blow apart relationship myths’.
A clear call to action ‘swipe up.
Effective use of gated content, i.e., he makes sure they don’t have access to the material unless they swipe up and go to his Instagram post.
Another option could be memes, and since they are all the rage among the youth, it doesn’t hurt to tap into one’s humorous side and add memes and other jokes into the mix of Gen Z marketing strategies.
Try not to look like you’re trying too hard though, because that could drive them away rather than spark their interest.
5. Make it Friendly, Human, and Humorous
You need to be authentic and have a two-way conversation if content marketing for Gen Z audiences must work. If they relate with your persona, it is only then that they will follow you and buy from you.
Two-way communication isn’t limited to the online experience only. Extend it to your offline interactions making it a seamless brand experience. With seamlessly, comes the word consistency. As a marketer, you might have come across the word “omnichannel”, and this is what works for Gen Z.
Gen Z is more expressive emotionally than earlier generations and that makes it more important for you to make your brand more human. They trust the face more than they trust the name!
And while you are making it more human, you can’t miss humor!
Gen Z has a different and quirky form of humor and your brand needs to understand that. But how do you do that? Find an 18yr old around you and spend some time asking him to show his favorite content on YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms. You’ll be amazed to see the content they watch.
When it comes to language, the content that is marketed to Gen Z should be brief, concise, and capture the gist of your business and what it does in as few words as possible.
A common question with any target audience when they have marketed a product is, “What’s in it for us?” and Gen Z is no different. Being the most difficult of the generations to be convinced by a brand to commit to a product or service, you need to have a good reason to sway their opinions in your favor.
Customer testimonials and genuine product reviews are a good way to convince a Gen Z audience about the authenticity of what you have to offer.
If you can strike a brand deal with a celebrity, social media influencer, or YouTuber, it’s even better. Unboxing videos are very popular among youngsters and brands targeting Gen Z should take note of this.
Another thing that acts as an incentive is brand ideals and values. Gen Z is the most socially conscious generation. If brands promote and stick to ideals such as cruelty-free production and eco-friendly practices, they are more likely to be loyal and continue to use the products and services.
These ideals are what make a brand different in a market where several companies are offering the same thing, with a plethora of cheaper alternatives.
Like the millennials before them, they are very socially conscious and will not hesitate to take a stand and stop supporting organizations if they aren’t ethically sound. Recently, the American fast food chain, Chic-Fil-A faced heat for donating to anti-LGBTQ organizations. It is the younger generation that has taken note of this and boycotted this restaurant chain.
There is an overwhelming need among Gen Z to be able to relate to the brands and businesses that they choose to support. In a cutthroat economy where they are spoiled for choice, tapping into this element is what will make you stand out to this fast-paced generation.
What do the words, ‘freelance content writer’ bring to mind?
Chances are, you’re already thinking of a burnt out liberal arts /media school major sitting in front of their laptop on their couch (or worse, their bed.) You probably don’t even see freelancing as gainful employment.
It’s funny how many content writing myths still exist, and especially so about freelancers even though work-from-home and gig /contract-based work is so common that it’s almost the norm now.
A List of the Most Commonly Believed Content Writing Myths
A large part of working with these content writers involves building trust and setting certain boundaries, e.g. deadlines, payments, outlining content requirements correctly, editing and revising content, etc., all of which seems like a huge hassle.
Understandably, you’d want to avoid this altogether and gravitate towards hiring in-house content writers rather than oursourcing content writing.
You probably have your own reasons and arguments for doing so, but if cost-efficiency is one of them, you’re sadly mistaken. This is a very common content writing myth that hiring in-house writers is cheaper than hiring freelance content writers.
It’s not like hiring in-house content writers is any less of a hassle than working with freelancers. You’ll need an editor, someone to manage content operations (i.e. assigning content and following up on deadlines, coming up with ideas for content, etc.)
Another argument that’s in favour of this content writing myth is that they’ll grow their knowledge about the company while they work there and eventually write exactly the kind of content that the company is looking for.
Granted, you might be right about that. After all, how much would a freelancer know about your company, its objectives, etc. anyway?
What you don’t realise, however, is that after a point, writing in a particular way for the same organisation limits a writer. Writers want to write about different things. Creative stagnation and mental blocks are a real problem when you write for the same place for too long.
Which is why a fresh perspecive might be just what your business needs. A freelancer may not know your organisation like the back of their hand, but that’s not really a bad thing.
There are seasoned freelance writers who can can make your company, its products and its general image really shine through, if you give them the chance.
Freelancer Content Writers Are Inexperienced and Unskilled
The general idea about freelancers seems to be that they’re inexperienced and unskilled, but many of them actually have a lot of experience due to the different kinds of tasks they have to do and have developed their careers due to the same.
Also, just because a writer works for your company full-time, doesn’t mean they can write about anything under the sun.
There are limits to what every writer can do, whether they work full-time or freelance. However, the world of freelance gives you a much wider pool to choose writers based on what you need, i.e. it makes it much easier to find domain-expert content writers.
Your in-house writer might be a tech whiz but may be at a loss for words when it comes to writing about workplace culture or marketing.
Sure, you can hire a team where each person specialises in a different domain but you’ll be hiring for years because that team would never stop growing. There are an infinite number of topics that you may need content for at any given time and hiring a freelance content writer is just the more feasible option.
The freelancer pool is much more versatile when you need content written on a large variety of topics.
Hiring In-House Content Writers is Cheaper
Now for the much awaited question – what about the money?
We’ve discussed cost in terms of time, energy and resources, but what kind of numbers are we looking at when it comes to freelancers and in-house writers?
Agreed, there’s a little more consistency in what you pay when you hire in-house content writers. Fixed rates do not equal lower rates, though. Hiring an in-house writer means you pay them a certain amount, no matter what. Also, other full-time employee perks would need to be taken care of.
That’s right – hiring an in-house content writer would actually cost you more!
Hiring a freelance content writer, on the other hand, gives you a little more flexibility and make sit easier to manage their tasks.
Freelancers charge by word or by content piece, so the rates are a little bit more negotiable. Since they’re not full-time employees, you pay them for the work and don’t need to think about anything else.
Moreover, since freelancers appreciate any work that comes their way, they make it a point to give you the best they can. They will revise and rewrite content as needed and you need only release payments when completely satisfied with what you have received.
It’s a low-commitment alternative – if one writer is not giving you the content you are looking for, you can always look for another writer. You can even send out an assignment to multiple writers and see who delivers the content that captures your vision in the best possible way. Another alternative is to go through an agency that will select and manage the writers for you.
In Conclusion
The freelance world is not just couch-writers and burnouts. There is so much potential out there- way more than you might find within the confines of an office.
If you still feel like the screening, onboarding and managing of freelance content writers is a daunting task, fear not. We are here to help! WittyPen brings you the best quality content from freelance writers around the world.
Having worked day and night in the content industry, I can tell you one thing for sure – Content promises to be huge as we move ahead. Today, in almost any kind of marketing, content is an essential.
I am not denying the importance of traditional marketing tools though. But let’s face it – they have to be backed with great content. A recent research from CopyPress says the same, that almost 84% of the marketing agencies believe that content is going to be the most important factor defining the success of clients’ marketing initiatives in the coming years.
I am sure you belong to that 84%, and hence, realise the importance of content and content marketing.
But What’s in It for You?
When you are leading an agency or any vertical, the most crucial aspect of your performance depends on the P&L. For content marketing to convince you and other stake holders in your agency, it should put a direct and positive impact on your P&L.
Let’s see how that happens:
1. Recurring Revenue
Content Marketing never ends. Once you start creating content to engage with your customers, it will somewhat become a routine for you to add value and get more users. Also, the effect of content marketing greatly flourishes with time, something that no business wishes to avoid.
The consistency of content marketing brings forth a recurring business to you for building an ongoing revenue stream for your content marketing agency services.
2. Opportunity to Diversify & Experiment
Blogs, Videos, Ebooks, Infographics, and more, all come under “Content”, bringing with them huge opportunities in terms of topics and themes. Since content becomes the fuel for any content marketing campaign, the opportunity to pitching multiple projects grows significantly.
This not only enables you to build better case studies, but also allows you to experiment and get the creative best out of your team.The measure of creativity and impact of your marketing campaigns will help your agency grab Awards and New Clients.
3. Impacts Your Clients Bottom Line
There isn’t a better way to retain clients than by making profits. Content marketing helps your clients get higher ROI, thereby improving their bottom line. Content marketing when done consistently adds lifetime value to your customers which improves client relationships and retention.
But how do you convince your clients of that? And, most importantly, how do you sell content marketing to your customers?
Well, why not start by telling them the benefits of it.
How Beneficial is Content Marketing for Your Customers?
Now, if you were to explain what is content marketing to your customers, how would you do it?
Content Marketing is all about driving sales in exchange for giving customers what they want while they are searching for it online.
So, the objective for the brand is to be visible on search when customers are looking for solutions in that niche. To achieve this, businesses have to get into content marketing.
Let’s look at some of the key benefits:
1. Google ? Content
The only way for Google to keep earning revenue is by helping people find what they are looking for. If you go ahead and research more about what best marketers have to say about ranking high on Google, you will find that everything boils down to content.
However, creating content is not the ultimate goal. Your brand content should be value driven and optimized for user intent rather than keywords. To be specific, 75% intent and 25% keywords; as recommended by Rand Fishkin.
2. Helps You Grow Sales ?
It is very common for Sales teams in various organisations to complain about the quality of leads shared by the Marketing department.
Let’s dig a little deeper into this. Consider you are a salon owner trying to find ways to grow your business. You come across an appointment scheduling tool, and plan to signup and explore further. Say you are still exploring, and the sales team suddenly reaches out? Will you buy? No.
A user goes through a buying journey, which includes
Awareness>Consideration>Decision
After a user is made aware of the problem along with the solution, they tend to research more about it before taking a final decision. This is where content comes in and helps your brand gain trust and credibility.
You can have a process which depends on the user’s interaction with your brand and impacts the Lead score.
Here’s the thing, if your user is aware of your offerings even before your sales team reached out to them, the chances of conversion are significantly higher.
3. Outbound is Difficult to Execute at Scale ?
Cold emailing is difficult but equally inevitable if you want to drive sales in early stages of your business. But when your customers have reached a certain scale, you can’t depend on outbound emailers to generate leads.
You need a channel that helps you get recurring leads and has a compounding effect overtime. Content Marketing does that for you.
You don’t believe me?
Inbound leads generated through content marketing have a conversion rate of 14.6%, while the ones generated through outbound campaigns have close to 1.7% conversion rate (Says HubSpot).
4. Not on the face of Customers ?
Ads are annoying. Period!
Why sell when you can educate and get better outcomes?
Adblockers are on the rise for good reasons and this makes it an opportunity for your brand to create content which is relatable and drives engagement.
Your customers are smart and they research a lot before making a decision to buy. So, if your product is more experience driven or in B2B, content is the only way to gain trust and impact on the purchasing decision.
Let’s consider it from a ROI perspective.
Say you spend $2000 a month to generate 100 leads, what happens next month? You have to spend $2000 again. Consider the scenario after 6months. Will you get any leads if you stop spending on ads?
On the contrary, take the case of Content Marketing, when you stop creating content does it mean you stop getting leads for the content that was performing well earlier?
Content Marketing has a compounding effect with ROI increasing over time provided you keep up the consistency.
Irrespective of the many benefits that a strategic content marketing plan can offer, there is still a lot of resistance from clients to try it out.
Although overcoming objections from clients might seem like a daunting task, it is definitely possible.
So what can you do about it?
What Stops Your Customers from Approaching Content?
Irrespective of the fact that content strategy can be instrumental for better business prospects, a lot of the customers are still hesitant in terms of content approach.
Among the several reasons I’ve noticed for this behaviour in the recent past, the main ones include-
a) Takes Too Much Time to Show Results
In a world of instant gratification, expecting results immediately is quite natural. However, content marketing is a slow and strategic process that requires patience for the right results.
As an agency or media consultant, you need to make the customer see the importance of giving enough time to content strategy for it to show the desired results. Similar to any sales conversion process, it is essential to consider mapping the content accurately with the customer journey and your sales process for effective results
b) Perhaps the in-house Team is Sufficient
Considering the fact that content creation & execution is a personalised process, a lot of clients prefer to keep it in-house.
The reason why you as Agencies not only survive but excel in their marketing campaigns is because of the creative talent.
Creative people prefer working for multiple brands with diversified problem scenarios and usually avoid sticking/working with a single company. You can use this credential as a means to convince your clients. The creative talent will enable them to get the required ROI and also stand out in front of the target audience.
The other set advantages come in the form of leveraging your expertise across functions such as SEO, marketing automation, creative design, etc., which can be easily de-prioritised in case it is kept in-house.
c) You probably don’t Understand my Business
This one is probably one of the most difficult ones to overcome as clients are of the opinion that an outsourced agency has no knowledge of their business whatsoever.
In such cases, you need to assert the client’s expertise and let them know that the process of content strategy is going to be a collaborative effort heeding to the client’s inputs at every stage. The client needs to be assured that they will be part of the project right from ideation till execution along with subject matter experts from the industry the client operates in.
d) You won’t be Able to Understand What We Want
A lot of clients worry about the authenticity of the content and effectiveness of the execution process with an outsourced agency. The need is to explain the process and approach to quality content and it’s strategy to the client starting with the basics. This will convince your client of your ability to bring desired & profitable results for the business.
How Can You Effectively Sell Content Marketing to Overcome These Challenges?
If you are wondering how to address these challenges, these steps can be helpful:
a) Offer the Content Marketing Expertise
Ensure that the content strategy solutions you provide as an agency are customised to individual clients’ needs. Make sure to use your expertise by building a strong content portfolio including blogs, email content, social media updates, digital press releases, newsletters, etc. in order to be able to manage the content marketing piece well for the client
b) Prioritise Reputation Management for Client Business
As a marketer representing the client, you should have the ability to bring forth better customer experience, efficiency, speed of service, creative marketing tactics for reputation management, strategic brand building, and targeted growth of the business.
Leverage your expertise in various marketing domains including targeting website traffic, SEO, etc. to deliver the desired results in terms of specific business requirements.
c) Offer the Knowledge of Integrated Marketing
Marketing today is a different ballgame altogether with a bouquet of functions. Since clients/businesses don’t have time and or expertise in the segment, you need to use your skills to bring the perfect mix of technology, design, and brand know-how to build a strong game plan for all the marketing functions including content building, market segmentation, advertising, SEO, and satisfactory customer experience.
d) Use Solid Data Analysis and Research Skills
As an agency representative, you should be able to offer strong research/analysis skills to gain a clear competitive advantage for the client’s business. You should be able to offer a detailed analysis of the current industry trends, competitors, and local markets along with the expertise of various tools and applications to effectively visualize data trends and patterns to help businesses identify the exact problems and design appropriate solutions.
How to build Content Marketing Capability in Your Agency?
If you are convinced enough about the benefits of content marketing or probably can foresee some customers adopting it in their businesses, then you should worry about the deliverables.
The leadership team in the agency will not wish to risk enough for an unexplored vertical making it difficult to role out the offering. While that definitely makes sense from a business perspective there has to be a way to execute by not risking it all.
What’s the requirement to make it possible? People.
Let’s divide them as per their roles:
Client Servicing
Strategy heads
Content Creators(Writers, Designers, Video Makers etc.)
When you start a new vertical offering within an agency, it is always good to shift a few experienced people from other verticals which have now been standardized in processes. They not only perform well, but are also capable of leading these new verticals. In this case you should consider shifting people for Role 1 and Role 2. i.e.
Client Services
Strategy heads
Doing this saves you a lot of time in hiring and training executives on client handling, core values, and processes of the agency. But what limits the execution and scale is Role 3, Content Creators. Here’s what you should do:
1. Don’t Hire Fulltime, Hire Freelancers
Hiring fulltime employees not only takes more time but it also adds complexity and limits your scale. Modern agencies use right tools and create processes to work with people across the globe!
When you hire freelancers, you can scale your expenses up or down depending on the client work, but in other cases, you start with the payroll from Day 1.
Freelancers are creative people who don’t believe in boundaries to deliver great work. Avoiding this scenario can lead you to loosing out on huge talent potential which might have been the right fit for your audience.
But would it lead to micromanaging teams and multiple revisions? Not really. When we work with our agency partners at WittyPen, we manage teams, content creation, editing, timeline management, and everything else.
The agency only needs to talk to a single individual from our team, that’s it.
2. Determine Goals & Needs
The best way to manage projects and client expectations is to align ourselves with the goals expected from content marketing. These goals help to not only manage the project flow, but also helps freelancers understand the objectives and align the content language, tone, design, etc. with the desired goal.
When you personalize content creation along the lines of a desired goal, the expected ROI is much higher resulting in reduced overall friction in project timelines.
3. Create Briefs
Since it is you who understands the customers, creates strategy, and manages the team of freelancers, you should create a descriptive brief. When working directly with freelancers or platforms like WittyPen, the brief becomes the starting point and if all expectations are not put down on paper, it will lead to chaos.
This is the usual scenario that happens with internal teams too, where you have to diligently create briefs. Therefore, while working with freelancers you should give this special priority.
Once you are done with hiring your team of freelancers and allocating their respective responsibilities, all you need to focus on is managing the strategy level execution and scaling it with the business requirements of the customers.
To Conclude it all
Surviving in a fiercely competitive online marketing segment with aspirations of acquiring a solid client base and retaining it successfully is quite an uphill struggle for marketing agencies. The need is to approach the process of content selling strategically, both in terms of conceptualization and execution.
If approached in a systematic way, it can be instrumental in ensuring a constant flow of revenue and robust customer base for both your agency and the client’s business.
If you make sure to understand the client’s expectations thoroughly followed by co-creating a strategic content marketing plan along with them, both success and a positive ROI will follow.
