7 Signs You Should Hire a Content Marketing Consultant
At a certain point, it's nearly impossible to grow a business without help. Whether it's a sales plateau or a less-than-stellar brand reputation, business leaders often conclude that a key ingredient is missing from their marketing strategy. By and large, this missing ingredient is content.
If you're trying to determine if it's the right time to hire a content marketing consultant, this piece will help. Ethos Copywriting, a top-tier content marketing firm, will explain exactly what a content marketing consultant does, the benefits of hiring one, and seven telltale signs you need one.
What Does a Content Marketing Consultant Do?
Before digging into what content marketing consultants do, let's talk about what they are. Content marketing consultants are people who act as external advisors to businesses and organizations in regard to their content marketing strategy. They have a firm grasp on customer needs, understand how content creation relates to growth, can parse through data, streamline production processes, and find practical solutions to overarching promotional problems.
From updating your overall marketing strategy to fixing issues with a specific lead generation initiative, a good content marketing consultant can work on big-picture tasks (blog overhauls, publication creation, press runs) and puzzle-piece-sized projects (individual blog posts, eBooks, social posts). While many tend to operate at a chief marketing officer (CMO) level, they can also get down in the weeds with your team.
Content marketing consultants collaborate with your staff and contractors to better understand your customers' journey and how to create high-quality content for them. Depending on your needs, they can:
Build brand trust with customers
Design marketing collateral
Differentiate your brand
Find new market opportunities
Foster a customer retention strategy
Launch marketing campaigns
Outline a content strategy
Oversee branding/rebranding campaigns
Ramp up public relations (PR) campaigns
Search engine optimize your site
Track content marketing performance
Write copy for various mediums
The distinction between a typical marketing consultant and a content marketing consultant is simple: one is a generalist, and the other is a specialist. In fact, a marketing consultant will often recommend you speak with a content marketing consultant if they spot weaknesses in your content strategy.
Keep in mind, your content strategy should grow alongside your brand. A content marketing consultant can help ensure you stay relevant to the current business landscape and that your existing processes aren't causing stagnation.
If you, your in-house CMO, or your marketing team senses that your content is lacking (be it in tone, style, voice, quality, or quantity), it's helpful to find someone experienced in your specific problem(s). And, if your gut feeling isn't enough, here are a few signs that you should reach out to a content marketing consultant.
You Have No Idea if Your Content is Working
If you're unsure whether anyone is reading, watching, or listening to the content you're creating, you need to reach out to a content marketing consultant. They'll help you set realistic goals with corresponding metrics to ensure you put your time and money into the right projects. A recent report from marketing software company, CoSchedule, found that goal-setting companies are 377% more successful than their winging-it peers.
Content marketing consultants will help you set up Google Analytics and Search Console. In doing so, you can access your site's data and monitor it through your consultant’s search engine optimization (SEO) software. They’ll be able to track specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to help identify what is and is not performing well. When it comes to measuring the success of your content, you should consider looking at:
Backlinks
Bounce rates
Conversions (sales, sign-ups, contact submissions, etc.)
Emails subscribers
Organic site traffic
Social media followers
*Critical Pro-Tip: If you're paying for Google Ads, but your conversion snippet is unverified, pause your ads until you get it working! It's impossible to track conversions if your snippet isn't correctly added to your site.
2. You Don’t Know What to Talk, Blog, or Vlog About
All too often, companies craft content around what they think their audience wants versus what it actually wants. A content marketing consultant will help you determine what topics you should cover to reach your goals. They’ll look at keywords and market trends to better understand your audience and the content with which they’re engaging.
But like all forms of communication, it's not just about what you talk about; it's how you talk about it. A content marketing consultant will help your company cultivate an engaging, authentic, and authoritative voice. They may even create a style guide for your team to better streamline your messaging. Though it may seem like busy work, it’s critical that you remain consistent in terms of:
Brand-specific word usage
Grammar and syntax standards
Oxford comma usage
Voice and tone
As you create content, your consultant will collect data to ensure you're making educated decisions. Most of the time, if a blog post, podcast, or video is doing significantly better than others, it typically means you’ve struck a chord with your audience. It also means you should find a way to approach the subject again in another piece or take on a related topic. In this way, you're leaning into your strengths and leveraging your audience’s engagement.
3. You Don’t Know How to Use Your Content
Publishing a blog post or a video is just the first step. Content marketing consultants will show you how to leverage your content to maximize its impact.
For instance, a blog post can provide the scaffolding for a video script. Then, you can repurpose sections of your blog post and video to make multiple social media posts. Depending on your strategy, you can also promote your newest piece of content in a newsletter, press release, or pay-per-click (PPC) ad.
When it makes sense with your audience and industry, you can contribute to forums (Reddit, Quora, Discord, etc.) by using your video or blog post as a resource. If your content marketing consultant thinks you'll get lost in the noise of major publishing platforms, they'll likely find niche, industry-specific sites that'll be more targeted.
If you use them properly, forums can be a direct line to your audience. By contributing to the community and answering people's questions, you can build brand awareness, trust, and credibility (or, Ethos, if you will). While most backlinks you gain from forums will be "no follow" links (links that don't provide a boost in search engine rankings), you can certainly gain more relevant site traffic. This increase in site traffic can indirectly improve your search rankings.
4. Your Competition is Winning
Without a thorough analysis of your competition, it will be challenging to ensure you're staying competitive. Your content marketing consultant can often help you discover your differentiators, holes in your competitors' strategies, and missed opportunities. This systematic practice of gathering, analyzing, and leveraging relevant industry information is called marketing intelligence.
From a comprehensive look at your brand to an all-encompassing look at the landscape of your industry, rigorous marketing intelligence will provide profound insights into every aspect of your content marketing strategy. Align this process with well-defined KPIs, and you'll likely notice a(n):
Boost in in-store & online traffic
Improvement in search ranking
Increase in sales and leads
Missed touchpoints in the customer journey
New growth opportunity
Strengths and weaknesses in your business and the competition
Maximize the benefit of your marketing intelligence initiatives by setting up clearly defined goals early in the process. Whether you're searching for new content ideas or trying to find influencers on social media and forums, you need to know what you’re looking for in order to find it.
5. You Don’t Have a Plan
As time management guru Alan Lakein once said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” A content marketing consultant will help you craft a content strategy and calendar that keeps you and your team on track. They’ll also use that plan to help you align initiatives with KPIs to better track your successes. Your marketing plan should provide details about your:
Budget
Content calendar
Current and future content strategy
Customer journey
Distribution plan
Retention strategy
SWOT analysis
Shortterm and longterm goals
Target market
Unique selling proposition (USP)
6. You Have No Online Presence
A content marketing consultant will typically perform an online audit of your business to determine how it’s stacking up against competitors. They’ll often look at:
Backlinks
Brand positioning
Content quality and quantity
Customer reviews
Search ranking and authority
Social media presence
These audits will provide direction for future content marketing initiatives. Whether it's a plan to blog weekly, post videos monthly, or reach out to past clients for reviews, you'll have the support you need and the confidence of knowing you're making the right decisions for growth.
7. You and Your Team are Overworked
Content creation often takes a backseat on the priority list when you and your people are stretched too thin. The problem is, content can help you increase revenue. And, with increased revenue, you can hire more people to alleviate your workload.
It's for this precise reason that overworked teams should bring in a content marketing consultant to take on some of the workload, optimize the content creation process, and prioritize the most successful marketing tasks. While many of us like to think we can do it all, it's simply not possible as businesses grow.
Let Us Lend a Hand
There is a multitude of strong indicators that your business or organization needs content marketing consulting services. But, at the end of the day, your gut instinct is just as important. If you feel like your business is falling behind, isn't living up to its potential, or your competition is taking the lead, Ethos Copywriting is here to help. We'll be your buzzword translators, brand-centric think tank, and industry-savvy wordsmiths.
Whether you want to strengthen your in-house marketing team or need a fresh perspective on your brand's voice, we'll individualize a solution for you. Please reach out to Ethos by dropping by our contact page.