What is a Content Marketing Agency? And Do You Really Need One?

In today’s digital landscape, where engaging content can be the deciding factor between gaining business and losing it, content marketing has emerged as a crucial strategy for success. As a result, content marketing agencies have become increasingly important to help businesses craft compelling content that resonates with their target audience.

But what exactly is a content marketing agency and do you really have to work with one to be successful? Let’s dive in and see.

What is a Content Marketing Agency?

A content marketing agency is a specialized service provider that focuses on creating, strategizing, and managing content to drive business growth, build brand awareness, and foster customer engagement.

A combination of writers, strategists, SEO specialists, and designers make up these teams. Each member plays a key role in crafting your content and bringing the whole picture together. For example, at Jack & Bean, our strategists typically start the project, hand it over to SEO specialists for their input, where it then gets passed to writers, and finally given to designers to layout the new content.

The main goal of a content marketing agency is driving high quality traffic to their clients’ websites to increase brand visibility and the number of conversions.

What are Some Content Marketing Services?

Content marketing agencies offer a range of services designed to grow a company’s online presence and improve their marketing efforts. These services typically include content strategy, content creation, SEO, social media management, email marketing, and reporting.

Content Strategy

Having a fully developed content strategy is critical to seeing success with the content you produce. A content strategy outlines the creation, distribution, and management of content to achieve specific goals. It’s basically the roadmap that will drive your content.

Content Creation

From a fully-developed content strategy comes the creation of that content. This can include developing high-quality, engaging content in various formats such as web page copy, blog posts, articles, infographics, and more.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Optimizing new and existing content for search engines to increase rankings on search engine results pages is another important piece of content strategy. The best content is virtually useless if no one is able to find it through search engines. This also includes conducting keyword research to determine high traffic and low competition keywords to focus new content creation around.

Social Media Management

Social media is still a big avenue for companies to connect with their customers and target audience. To do this effectively, planning and creating high-value social media content is key.

Email Marketing

Email is a direct way to communicate with those in your database. Writing and developing compelling email campaigns to nurture leads and retain customers is another facet to a well-rounded content strategy.

Analytics and Reporting

Consistently monitoring and analyzing content performance is critical to refine strategies and achieve better results. Using this data to optimize and improve upon content can help your company achieve future success.

How Much Do Content Marketing Agencies Cost?

The price of working with a content marketing company can vary based on the agency’s experience, range of services, and location.

The way agencies structure their pricing can also affect the final cost. For example, the pricing structure for an agency that bills on a retainer might be drastically different from an agency that opts for project based billing methods. 

To answer the question more directly, costs can range from a few thousand dollars a month to tens of thousands. It’s important to be realistic with your budget and goals with this wide range—you won’t be able to create 10 content pieces a month with a $500 budget. Generally speaking, you won’t find a quality content marketing agency for less than $1,000 a month.

DIY Content Marketing vs Marketing Agency

Deciding if a content marketing agency is right for your business versus doing it in-house depends on a number of factors. For many companies, working with a marketing agency is well worth the cost.

Benefits of Working with a Content Marketing Company

We’ve worked with countless businesses on their marketing content goals. Their biggest reasons for working with boiled down to our expertise, time-savings, quality content, and scalability.

Expertise

Content marketing agencies are full of experts with knowledge and experience in all aspects of content creation and marketing. This expertise enables them to develop strategies that are well-informed and aligned with the latest industry trends and best practices.

Time Savings

Crafting high-quality content, optimizing it for search engines, and analyzing performance are all time-consuming tasks. Your team can redirect their efforts toward other business activities, like product development, customer service, and strategic planning, when you have a marketing content agency.

Quality Content

Producing content that captures your company’s voice and resonates with your audience requires an understanding of your brand identity and values. Content marketing agencies’ writers have a keen ability to adapt their writing style, tone, and messaging to mirror your brand. This skill ensures a seamless and consistent content experience for your audience.

Scalability

Content marketing agencies offer a high level of flexibility, making them an easy choice for businesses with changing or growing needs. Whether you’re launching a new product, running a seasonal campaign, or expanding your content efforts to new platforms, agencies can quickly adapt their strategies to include these changes.

Benefits of DIY Content Marketing

Not every company has the desire or budget to hire a content marketing agency. Luckily, there are also some pros to keeping this part of your business in-house.

More Control

Opting for in-house content marketing gives you greater control over the creation and distribution of your content. This control allows you to finely tune your messaging, tone, and storytelling to align with your brand’s identity and objectives.

Cost Savings

In-house content marketing can be a cost-effective alternative to partnering with an agency. You can invest the money you’d be paying an agency directly into your content marketing budget and resources.

In-House Knowledge

No one knows your business better than you. By keeping content creation within your organization, you can tap into the wealth of industry expertise, product knowledge, and insights already at your disposal. 

6 Tips on How to Find the Right Content Marketing Agency

Although all content marketing agencies generally focus on the same thing, they aren’t all created equally. One agency might have more knowledge about your industry than others, while another agency might have more experience creating the type of content you’re focused on. To find the right content marketing company for your business, keep in mind the following aspects.

Experience

If you’re outsourcing part of your business, you’ll want to ensure who you select to manage it is competent and qualified to produce successful results. Look for how long the company has been in business, check their past work, and see if they have experience working in your industry.

Reviews

Experience alone doesn’t always translate into success. You’ll also want to check out their reviews and reputation online. Look at their reviews on Google and if they have any proof points of past success in the form of case studies on their website. You can also look at roundups of top marketing agencies too.

Strategy for Success

When researching and meeting with potential content marketing firms, be sure they have a clear strategy for achieving success for your business. This should include an overall audit of your current content, including ways to improve what’s already there and recommendations to fill in the gaps of what’s missing.

Communication

During your research process, pay close attention to how communicative the agencies are with you. Are they hard to get a hold of or are they responsive to your inquiries? This phase is just the beginning of your relationship, and the way they communicate with you can be indicative of what’s to come. Working with an agency that has great communication can make a night and day difference in your overall experience and success.

Proven Processes

Content marketing firms should have a proven process to help your company achieve success. This goes a layer deeper than their strategy for success by showing you how they work internally to achieve that success. What is their workflow like? How many rounds of revisions will you see? What is the expected turnaround like for certain deliverables?

Clear Business Goals

Before hiring a content marketing agency, you should have clear business goals defined internally to ensure the company you partner with is meeting those goals. What specific goals and metrics are you hoping to achieve through working with an agency? Answering this question will align your research with agencies equipped to help you achieve success.

Why Your Business Should Hire a Content Marketing Agency

A content marketing agency can be a valuable partner in developing and growing your company’s online presence. Their expertise, strategic approach, and ability to deliver consistent, high-quality results make them an investment worth considering for virtually any business.

By understanding and setting your business goals, evaluating your options, and determining your budget, you can find the right content marketing company to grow your brand and achieve new levels of success.

If you’re interested in working with an experienced content marketing agency, contact Jack & Bean for a free consultation. We’ll dive deep into the ways we can help you grow your business through high-quality content.