The content marketing journey is no short trip.

I mean, that’s why it’s called a journey…

The point is, it's not something you can just haphazardly attempt and hope for the best or something to which you can simply say, “let’s give it a little try and see what happens.”

No, if you’re committed to growing and scaling your company through inbound methods, then you need to get serious about content marketing.

That means spending a significant chunk of time upfront strategizing, planning, preparing, and scheduling. It means creating and crafting content regularly, whether you’re feeling up to it or not.

In fact, 60% of successful marketers create at least one piece of content daily.

That’s a lot of time to dedicate toward content creation, especially when the average blog post can take anywhere from 3-6 hours to write. And that’s just the content writing components.

This (among other reasons, which we’ll get to shortly) is why many companies that are looking into the future and envisioning serious growth turn to a content marketing agency to lend a hand or ten.

Of course, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, there are a lot of content marketing agencies out there. And they don’t all do the same thing, at least not exactly.

So, what makes a good content marketing firm then?

When it comes time to choose a content marketing firm to take the reigns and help your company scale, there are a lot of things to consider, but you can really break it down into three main categories:

1. Expertise
2. People
3. Processes

The Best Content Marketing Agencies Can Demonstrate Their Expertise

Aside from the lack of time, the biggest reason you’ll be seeking out a content marketing agency is that they can offer you something you don’t have — expertise.

Obviously, (or perhaps it’s, hopefully), they have significant expertise in the content marketing arena, but you should be looking for something a little more than that.

Content Marketing Agency vs. Content Writing Agency

While a content marketing agency might hire individuals to write content, it’s probably less likely that the same can be said for content writing agencies.

Why?

Because content writing agencies are focused on execution, actually creating the content. Once the article is in your hot little hands, it’s yours to do with as you please.

So before you hire one or the other, be sure that you and the agency have aligned expectations about how your content will get out into the world. If you don’t, you might find a ton of content and no time to strategize how you post it or a content marketing strategy without any content. Either one isn’t a good outcome.

1. Niche & Subject Matter Expertise

Think about it like this. If you’re a dentist and need help attracting new business, will you go to a marketing firm specializing in B2B?

No, you’re going to find a company like SmileShop Marketing which solely specializes in marketing to dental clinics because they know your needs, goals, and industry inside and out.

Finding a content marketing agency is the same.

If you’re a SaaS, you want to find an agency that lives and breathes SaaS, has worked with several SaaS companies, and knows the ins and outs of selling software as a service.

If you don’t, you’ll probably find that any content they create just doesn’t cut through. Moreover, you’ll have difficulty communicating to them the intricacies of your product because they don’t have a decent background in working with similar companies.

Tip #1: Choose a content marketing agency that knows your niche.

2. Previous Work & Case Studies

This might seem obvious, but it often gets overlooked. When choosing a content marketing agency to work with, spend some time reviewing their previous work.

If they are hesitant to demonstrate their previous success, it could mean they are fairly new in the game, or maybe it means they aren’t all that proud of what they’ve done to date.

Though some content marketing agencies have examples of their previous campaigns on their website, others may have them available upon request.

That’s because previous clients aren’t always willing to share their sensitive data, which is pretty reasonable.

If you do manage to get hold of an agency’s case studies, spend some time understanding if they:

• Can achieve the results you’re after,
• Have worked with someone like you, and
• Can demonstrate how the results they’ve achieved are linked to their actions as an agency

This last point is super important. It can be all too easy to claim a win where there is no real link to the agency’s efforts. This is where case studies are incredibly valuable.

Alternatively, reviews on authority resources such as Clutch and UpCity are super valuable in determining a content marketing agency's authority and expertise. Here, you can read through real-life reviews from previous clients, which in some cases maybe even more valuable than a case study written by the agency themselves.

When scoping out a company you might want to work with, read through their case studies and see if they can prove their worth.

Tip #2: Choose a content marketing agency with a proven track record.

3. Search Engine Optimization Skillset

Now, SEO is an entire world of its own.

There are entire agencies dedicated to helping you optimize your company’s website to be found on Google.

The thing is, a huge component of SEO relies on well-written content, and a huge part of content marketing is optimizing the content you create for search engines.

It might be a bit of a cliche, but the two go hand in hand. That’s why you should also assess their SEO skillset when you’re looking to hire a content marketing agency.

That means they should, at the very least, be conducting some form of keyword research, competitor analysis, and an audit of your existing website and content.

On the more extreme end, they may offer SEO services themselves or have a partner agency with whom they work to do the heavy lifting regarding the technical stuff.

You see, SEO isn’t just about content. There’s also a significant back-end component. Your content agency will know this and should be prepared to either assist here or work closely with an SEO expert to help you attack this beast from all angles.

Tip #3: Choose a content marketing agency with deep SEO experience.

Choosing A Content Marketing Company You Actually Want To Work With

I’m serious.

There is NOTHING worse than bringing a company on board to help you grow and quickly realize something horrible.

You don’t enjoy working with anyone there.

When that happens, you’re on the fast track to a failed relationship, with months (and probably tens of thousands of dollars) potentially down the drain. That’s why it’s important to do your due diligence on the company’s previous work and its people.

4. Transparency and Trustworthiness

If you get even the slightest hint that a content marketing company isn’t being totally upfront, run.

In fact, that’s probably a good rule to have for working with any agency.

The thing is, when it comes to the big bad world of digital marketing, there are a lot of horror stories.

I mean, a lot.

You’ve probably heard one or two of them. Maybe you even have one of your own.

Regardless, transparency is key to finding a quality content marketing partner. Transparency around their pricing model, transparency around previous projects, and transparency around any potential conflicts of interest are all extremely important to building trust.

Tip #4: Choose a content marketing company that is upfront, honest, and transparent.

5. The right character fit

Ask yourself the question, do you get along with these people?

Look, I’m not saying you need to take them out to dinner every week, but you’ll probably be speaking with them regularly and working very closely together.

When choosing a content marketing company to work with, you should approach it the way you would when hiring an internal staff member.

Ensuring they are the right character fit for your company will mean many more years of smooth sailing.

Tip #5: Choose a content marketing company with the right character fit.

6. Walking the Talk

There are a lot of smooth-talking marketers out there.

You’ve seen the ones.

Posting videos in your Facebook feed of them standing in front of Lamborghini’s telling you about their “One simple trick that made them $1m in 6 months”.

But when you click through to see what’s in store, you realize it was all a ruse.

So, when you’re deciding on a content marketing company, make sure they can walk the talk.

That means they are actually doing content marketing for themselves!

You’ll want to ensure that they:

1. Post blogs regularly
2. Publish case studies of their previous work
3. Have a superbly designed website
4. Share their content marketing secrets

Okay, maybe they won’t share all their secrets. After all, there has to be a reason for you to hire them.

But if they don’t share any of their expertise, it does leave you wondering if they are really the experts they claim to be.

A good question to ask yourself is: how did I come across this agency?

If you learned about them through a piece of pillar content or a blog post, that’s probably a good sign, as it shows they actually know how to use content to generate leads.

Tip #6: Choose a content marketing agency that walks the talk.

The Content Marketing Firm You Choose Should Have Solid Workflows

If they’ve passed the first two tests, then it’s time to dive a little deeper.

Any reputable digital content marketing firm worth its salt will have a firmly entrenched set of processes, systems, procedures, and workflows.

The best agencies have developed these over several years and are constantly and consistently working to refine them to the needs of the market and the ever-changing digital landscape.

Though they probably won’t share any specific details until you start working together (and fair enough), it’s pertinent to learn a little about what they’ll do once you sign on that dotted line.

7. Goal Setting

The first step in any successful content marketing strategy is to start by setting goals.

Your content marketing agency should have a clear process for goal-setting and should be able to guide you as to appropriate targets, aspirations, and timeframes.

After all, they’ve done it several times. Right?

Chances are they’ll follow a process like SMART goal setting.

Whether they use this specific framework or not isn’t the be-all and end-all, as long as they have some form of a proven process.

Tip #7: Choose a company with a firm grasp on goal-setting.

8. Choosing The Right Marketing Metrics & KPIs

Just like setting appropriate business and marketing goals, your digital content marketing agency should be able to help you decide on which metrics to track and set some realistic KPIs.

The bar mustn’t be set too low here or too high.

Their experience in your industry will help them dictate where the middle ground is. That’s why choosing a firm with a solid background in your niche is important.

Some common content marketing metrics to track include:

• Website traffic
• Click-through rates
• Email open rates
• Time on page
• Bounce rates
• Shares on social media
• Backlinks
• Post engagement
• Email opt-in rates

Tip #8: Choose a digital content marketing firm that knows the most appropriate metrics and benchmarks for your niche.

9. Creating A Solid Content Marketing Strategy

Any digital content marketing firm that’s worth working with will know how to create an effective B2B content marketing strategy.

More than that, they’ll have done it repeatedly, so they’ll be expert strategizers.

You see, content marketing is unlikely to be a successful endeavor if you don’t have a solid strategy and vision.

That means:

• Developing customer personas
• Crafting your marketing messages
• Creating marketing themes
• Defining what success looks like
• Determining the appropriate content marketing tactics and channels to leverage

If the content marketing agency you’re considering working with isn’t planning on starting with strategy, look elsewhere.

Tip #9: Choose a digital content marketing firm that can create an effective content marketing strategy.

10. Customer Persona Creation

You’ll have noticed that one of the key parts of creating a successful content marketing strategy lies in creating marketing personas.

Marketing personas, also known as buyer personas or customer personas (I know, we just can’t agree on anything, can we), are a fictional representation of your ideal customer.

They should outline your typical customers:

• Demographics
• Key influencers
• Job/role details
• Watering holes
• Challenges
• Business goals
• Buying preferences and decision-making processes

Why are customer personas important?

Because they help you to envision who you’re talking to when you’re creating any kind of content.

It’s kind of like thinking of an imaginary person that you’re talking to and that you have in mind during content creation, and it’s super helpful for whoever is creating the content!

Tip #10: Choose a digital content marketing agency that knows customer personas inside out.

11. Keyword Research And Topic Planning

This one’s super important, so take note.

Whenever you’re creating written content, keyword research is vital.

Though it is getting much harder to rank for most keywords, it still needs to be a part of your planning process.

You see, the people who are claiming that “keyword research is dead” are the ones who’ve previously seen success by simply stuffing content with targeted keywords.

While it’s true that you can’t rank like this anymore, you still need to know what key search phrases you’re targeting with any given piece of content so your writer can create quality content around this term and implement semantically related keywords that tell Google exactly what a piece of content is about.

It’s also super important to understand what people are actually searching for.

Perfect content writing opportunities exist at the intersection between keyword research and your marketing messages.

Wherever you can add value to a customer’s life by providing an answer to their search phrase and also demonstrating your own expertise, that’s where you want to be playing.

And that’s where topic planning comes in.

A digital content marketing firm should not only perform keyword research to understand where there might be opportunities to rank for key search phrases, but they should also be turning those findings into topics that you can create content around.

Tip #11: Choose a digital content marketing agency that is an expert in keyword research and topic planning.

12. Building Out A Content Calendar

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At this point, you’re probably thinking, this is a lot.

Well, yeah, that’s why you’re hiring a content marketing agency, right?

Once the keyword research and topic planning are complete, your digital content marketing firm should build a content calendar that dictates which content is being created when, who is responsible, when it’s due, and how it will be distributed.

The importance of a strong content calendar is second to none.

Otherwise, you’ll just be creating content willy-nilly with no real understanding of when and why. And without that, you probably won’t end up achieving everything you dreamed of.

Without due dates and clear individual assignments, businesses tend to fall into that old trap of “I’ll get to it when I have the time” or “Someone else is sorting it”.

That’s a recipe for disaster every time.

Tip #12: Choose a digital content marketing firm that uses a content calendar.

13. Choose Content Writing Services that Suit Your Business Needs

A lot of content marketing agencies have in-house writers.

I mean, after all, they are creating content all the time, so why wouldn’t they?

Well, here’s the thing:

In-house content writers are great for them, but maybe not for you. That is, in-house writers for agencies are much easier to manage and tend to keep costs much lower.

The problem is that in-house writers will never be experts in everything. They might be great at one or two verticals, but the rest? They’re probably no better than the next guy.

This leaves you at risk a little.

By contrast, some digital content agencies contract out to several specialized writers, bringing them on board for specific projects where their skillset is especially relevant.

This allows them to pick and choose specific writers for a given project and for given content types in which they are most skilled.

But what makes these content writers better equipped to research and write articles for a particular industry? All content writers should know how to research and write, so what gives?

Let’s start by looking at different types of content writers specializing in a particular industry vertical and what kinds of skills they possess that make them different.

Tip #13: Choose a digital content marketing firm that has specialized writers.

Where to Find Content Writing Companies

Now that you understand why hiring a content writing firm specializing in your industry is important, you have to learn how to find them!

There are a few ways you can search for content writing companies:

1. First, you can check out HubSpot’s Solutions Directory if you have a HubSpot website or are looking to get one. Many of the agencies listed here will work with you even if you don't.
2. If you’re a B2B company, use UpCity to search for the top reviewed B2B-focused content writing agencies. While you can narrow your search by location, many content writing firms listed (Roketto included) will work with anyone within North America.
3. Use good ol’ Google. This is also an excellent way to check an agency’s SEO efforts. If they show up on Google search easily and have content on their website that ranks, chances are they can do the same thing for you.

But honestly, if you’re looking for an agency to handle your content marketing efforts, you should consider Roketto. We’re tooting our own horn for sure, but it’s not without good reason. We’ve helped countless B2B and B2C SaaS, eCommerce, and SMB clients get noticed online and gain new clients with our comprehensive inbound marketing services, and we’d like to help you, too.

Give Roketto a call today, and we’ll chat about how we can help your business.

14. Using The Right Types Of Content

It sort of goes without saying, but not every form of content is appropriate for every goal or aim.

Your content marketing agency should not only know this but know when to use specific types of content to achieve certain goals.

At Roketto, we believe in content that is:

1. High-Quality
2. High-Frequency
3. Long-Form

Let’s break that down a little.

Obviously, everyone prefers high-quality content over low-quality content.

What we mean by high-quality is content that is 10x better than anything else ranking for that search phrase, is highly relevant, and leaves the reader with something they can take away and implement right now.

If it doesn’t, then what's the point in reading it?

When it comes to frequency, we know that pumping out content regularly is extremely important. It tells Google that you’re active and relevant, and it tells your customers that you care about their challenges and are motivated to help them solve them.

We also know that long-form content gets shared way more than short-form write-ups.

That’s why our blog posts are consistently at least 3000 words. Plus, we know that it’s hard to deliver any real, actionable value with a blog post that is only 1000 words long.

Google is tricky, fickle beast, but we believe that its #1 goal is to show the most relevant, highest quality content for any given search query – every time.

Tip #14: Choose a digital content marketing firm with the right content type for your purpose, goals, and mission.

15. Traffic and Lead Growth Through Content

Creating educational and highly actionable content is important, but if it doesn’t generate leads and traffic, then it’s useless.

I mean, you want to see a decent return on investment, right? And content marketing can deliver some really nice ROIs.

You want scalable growth and sustainable results, right?

If the answer is yes, then it’s important that the content marketing agency you decide to work with has a solid track record of generating traffic and lead growth through the content they create.

This means knowing how to generate traffic using

• Organically ranked content
• Social media tactics
• Email marketing campaigns
• PPC ads

Tip #15: Choose a digital content marketing firm that knows how to grow traffic and leads for your company.

16. Landing Pages & Conversion Paths

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Once you’ve got traffic there on your website, your content marketing agency should know just how to turn it into leads.

There are a number of reasons someone might reach your website. It might be through your blog content that ranks organically over time, it might be a click-through from an email campaign, or maybe it's the result of an ad on social media.

Whatever the case, your website needs to be optimized to turn traffic into leads.

That means:

• Building landing pages for marketing campaigns
• Creating high-converting lead funnels
• Knowing how to create successful CTAs
• UX-focused web design that creates a path to lead conversion
• Building out lead nurture campaigns that turn Awareness-stage leads into buyers

You’ll notice that that last point is less about turning traffic into leads, and more about turning those leads into sales, which is obviously highly important as well.

The thing is, not every lead that comes in is a buyer, at least not straight away. In fact, there are three kinds of leads that most companies target.

It’s clear, then, that each of these three types of leads needs to be handled and nurtured differently before they can be converted into a paying customer.

For example, offering a demo or quote to an awareness-stage lead isn’t going to secure the deal. In fact, it’s probably just going to make them think you’re hungry for sales and quite likely scare them off.

Tip #16: Choose a digital content marketing firm that knows its landing pages from its conversion paths.

Overview of the Best Content Writing Services

So what do the best content writing services do? How can you tell them apart from the riff-raff out there?

We’ve got a few tips.

1. Check out their website. This might seem obvious, but a website tells a lot about a content writing agency. If their website is nicely designed, has straightforward navigation, and has content that shows up on search engines, then you’ve already gained some insight into their business. If they can do it for themselves, then they can do it for you, too.
2. Read reviews. If you haven’t already, check out the agency’s reviews. People generally leave reviews when they’ve had a stellar experience or an extremely bad one, so it’s important to weigh both. If the agency has overall good client reviews, then chances are they’ll be safe to work with. One caveat though, look for detailed, useful reviews — some businesses might resort to padding review platforms like Google with a bunch of low-quality, five-star reviews with one or two words of text. If you see a bunch of those, then something might be up, and it’s worth it to do more investigation.
3. Look at their social media. Not every content writing agency will be super active on their social media, but it’s still worth a look. If they’ve taken the time to make some posts and answer client comments and concerns, then you know they’ve at least made an effort. Social media can also be a good place to get an overall sense of the conversation around a company, which can be a big help in making your decision as to work with them or not.
4. Reach out to them. Fill out their lead gen form, send an email, or give them a call. If they respond to you within a decent amount of time, then it’s an indication that they’re taking your business seriously. If they demonstrate a clear process that is trying to win your business and determine if you’re even a fit to work together, that’s another good sign.

Conclusion - It’s Time To Choose A Content Agency

So, now you’ve got the down low on everything you need to consider when choosing a content agency, it’s time to make some assessments.

And make a decision.

After all, you don’t want to spend so long humming and harring that you never actually choose someone to work with. You want to get started as soon as possible, right?

Well, guess what? We’re content marketing specialists. Keen to chat? Let’s do it.

Or, if you’d like to give it a crack yourself, start with our content marketing strategy template.