How Content Marketing Agencies and Brands Can Work Better Together #CMWorld Twitter Chat

Undoubtedly you’ve seen the statistics about content marketing in the past few years and while the space continues to be a popular and effective component of digital marketing, there are challenges. 

Some of those challenges are due to brands' lack of documented strategy, others are due to a shortage of skills and talent coupled with the sheer volume of competition to stand out.

The boon of brands outsourcing their content marketing has withdrawn somewhat as mature content marketers bring their programs in-house. However, those same marketers continue to engage experts and agencies more selectively. At the same time, companies without content marketing capabilities continue to engage content marketing agencies for strategy, content creation, promotion and measurement. 
But how does a company choose the right agency? What can they do to ensure a successful engagement? 

That is the context for the topic I will be giving a presentation on at Content Marketing World in a few weeks, September 8th at 12:05pm in room 1 of the lunch and learn sessions. To help create awareness of the presentation, CMWorld staff invited me to do the #CMWorld Twitter chat this week.

For brands wondering about finding the right content marketing agency resources and getting more value from their agency investments, here is a summary of the questions asked during the #CMWorld chat and my responses. 

Q1: Do you use an agency, or is your content marketing done in­-house? Why?  

A1: As a marketing agency, our content marketing is in-house & in partnership with influencers & other companies. 

A1: My experience working with clients is that most companies do some content marketing in-house, but outsource where needed.

Q2: What are some misconceptions about content marketing agencies? 

A2: Brands that view content marketing tactically tend to gravitate towards “content farms”, high volume, nominal quality.

A2: Misconception: Brands that want to engage in content must work with an agency that only does content. 

A2: Misconception: That SEO agencies now calling themselves content marketing agencies are the same as those in the game 10 years. 

A2: Misconception:  Content Marketing agencies can only create content, not promote and optimize performance.  

Q3: Can a traditional advertising agency do content marketing, or should it be specifically a content marketing agency?  

A3: It’s possible for an ad agency to do content marketing well, but "jack of all trades, master of none" can be an issue. 

A3: Ad agencies often do ok to very well with content creation, but rely exclusively on advertising for promotion. #organicstillworks

Q4: When looking for an agency to help with content marketing, what kinds of questions should we be asking?  

A4: Questions for evaluating agencies for content marketing services: their POV about content marketing, best practices, successes, trends.

A4: Brands should give some context and ask the agency how they might approach solving that problem. Give examples. 

A4: Questions for agencies should also include overall capabilities, team structure, book of clients, tenure of staff, operations.

Q5: How can agencies become an extension of your marketing department, rather than being just a vendor? 

A5: A marketing brief with strategy, audience, tactics, measurement & roles brings agency/brand together with content programs. 

A5: Organizational roles must be defined: Is the CM agency leading strategy or the marketing dept?  

A5: It’s important to be clear on cadence of communications, expectations & digging deep into brand messaging, customers, goals. 

Q6: From ideation to creation to distribution to measurement ­­what should the agency help with, and what should the client do? 

A6: A full service agency (like @toprank) does strategy, creation, measurement & performance optimization. Brand needs determine how much.

A6: If a brand doesn’t have a content capabilities inventory, a good content marketing agency can do an audit to identify where to help best.

Q7: How can a brand set up their content marketing agency for success? What information or involvement is key?  

A7: Brands that are clear on goals, strategy, roles and expectations with the agency are far more likely to see the success they’re looking for.

A7: Communication is everything for brand / agency success. That means in good times, and forbid, bad times, you pick up the damn phone. 

A7: As soon as content marketing is viewed tactically, things will go wrong. Lower level employees dictating approach rarely succeeds.

Q8: Does an agency need to be using content marketing for themselves to prove their capabilities? 

A8: Content Marketing is a craft needed to execute for clients so I do believe agencies should be able to give evidence of their own abilities. 

A8: At @TopRank Marketing, we use events and content marketing almost exclusively to attract new business. That means trust = high. 

A8: For example, toprankblog.com alone brings a million plus relevant visitors to our content every year. Why would we not want that? 

A8: In the end, an agency can make all kinds of excuses about why they don’t practice what they preach. I think it’s BS. 

A big thank you to Monina Wagner for moderating the chat and making sure everything ran smoothly. 

THANK YOU for reading! Be sure to find my pithy tips, news and insights on "the Twitter" at @leeodden. If you like the photo above, it came from my Instagram account. Of course, I pay the bills by working at TopRank Marketing and do a little blogging at TopRank's Online Marketing Blog.