Why is Content Marketing Not That Expensive?

What are the Top Goals of Content Marketers?

Among B2B content marketing respondents, 91 percent stated that creating brand awareness was one of the goals they were pursuing with their content marketing activities. Building loyalty among existing customers was a target for 44 percent of respondents. (Statista).

At first glance, Content Marketing seems to be an expensive option, especially if you go straight to an agency with an idea to outsource it all. The fees are high precisely because strategy, creative design, copy and analytics are involved in recurring content marketing. The need for Video shorts and infographics also adds a touch of complexity to production.

But as Neil Patel said on his blog, “content marketing is not as expensive as you think”.

Why?

Well, it can be scaled up from a small weekly activity at the start, to an integrated marketing strategy with all the digital goodies much later. Therefore, you don’t need to start at a high level; you can start with the bare minimum of blogging.

In fact, this is how I got many leads in business – blogging once a fortnight with the right keywords on the same domain as my support services.

Another way to save cash is to get a marketing employee to write the blog and then hire an editor to proofread each blog and adjust for SEO. This is an affordable option. For a regular 800-word length, our editing would cost about $75 to cover the time and optimisation.

Done Beats Perfect

For a services company, most feel they must dive into the deep end of making content, and be all perfection minded. Usually, this small company has a website, so why not use the free facility of a blog? Add to this an overall marketing plan, a content writer who can take a brief with these KPIs, and wallah! You have an inexpensive blog content plan.

Remember, the blog is not there to talk about how great you are; it’s to be a source of vital information and comparisons. A sense of humour helps as well.

A strategic approach to content marketing is the most sought after skill in content marketing roles, says Statista.

Write it Yourself?

Next up is: do you write it yourself? Sure, you can research the right topics and keywords, hit onto something consumers are saying and you can even use AI technology to write a post. However, all up, this will take from 40 minutes to 1.5 hours a week. And when you add in image making and formatting, it’s a little more. Perhaps it’s two hours a week. Would this be doable for you? Or could you earn more elsewhere?

If you spend one to two hours on calls to prospective clients, then that could be more lucrative for you. The great thing about being in business is leverage. So if you choose to hire a content marketer, your firm is generating appealing digital content without doing it yourself. You are leveraging.

If, however, you get a freelance content writer from Upwork, you just get the posts. You don’t get any strategy or recurring Content Audit of which posts are doing well and which aren’t.

You may even get someone who cannot write to save themselves. In my experience among a team of writers, where they hired ‘a student doctor’ writer, everything new she wrote was from an article spinner. It came out as word garbage. Word to the wise – don’t choose solely based on price.

What is a Content Audit?

A content audit is a thorough review of all the content on your website, looking at various aspects to judge what parts are effective. By doing a content audit, we’re able to determine how to improve your website content and get a greater ROI.

The person auditing this vast array of website content needs access to Analytics to see visitor drop-off, bounce rates, and low conversion numbers.  This analysis can be made easier with an SEO tool, like Ahrefs. The posts shared social popularity can be measured through BuzzSumo.

Check Your Number of Pages

Another thing to consider is Pages and their optimal names. What extra pages could a writer add that will help your website rank better in search queries?

Would it surprise you to know that my own website (JenniferLancaster.com.au) ranked very well for seven years because it has 300 pages and posts.

You can check your own website by Google searching “Site:yoursitename.com.au”. Look at the number of results – that’s the number of pages indexed, including some less important pages (like gallery or portfolio items).

What if you don’t have any employees who can blog or create guides? If you can secure a flexible content marketing service, that would be best. An agency might want a long-term contract and offer no real guarantee of results.

Unfortunately, as many digital marketing agencies do NOT have writers in-house, they go back to the same pool of overseas writers working for $5 an hour – even if they are charging the client $900 to $1,500 a month. The ensuing posts are dead dull and may seem quite familiar.

If you find the unicorn of a service which has a writer and editor in-house (hint hint, look up) and you can talk to them on the phone, then this is a better alternative in terms of results. Working together on a considered and budgeted plan can provide content marketing that’s not expensive.

Why do we Not Just Write Blogs and Stop There?

Copywriters are often pulled in to write blogs. Many are being paid about $110 an hour for what they view as simple articles. But the real value-add is in offering the next level of content and rewarding your visitors. It could be in combining subject matter into downloadable guides. It could be in talking through the problem/solution matter on video.

This is where a strategic content marketing approach is genius.

Overall, you want the most lead-pulling content you can get. Me-too articles just won’t cut it. I believe that fellow who started ClickFunnels would agree.

This ‘secrets of’ type material can be offered behind an email opt-in form and this can lead to more and more people being added to your prospective buyer list. I call these “the curious”.

Turning these curious cats into loyal customer lions depends on the quality of emails and promotions you send. Or perhaps free offers of a book if your offering is a high-level one. Get a strong writer for your content marketing as the first step.

Your company are likely the experts on a certain subject matter, so why not teach the ins and outs to the marketer/writer? She will create solution-based content to everyday concerns of the target market – copy that really hits the right notes.