On a recent flight I read through the latest issue of Chief Content Officer. It’s a beautifully produced publication with tons of interesting, thought-provoking information. But the numbers of “content marketing agencies” that have cropped up struck me as crazy. There’s even an award for “best content marketing agency” in a field that’s only a few years old. Five years ago it didn’t even have a name!
Hold the hate comments – I’m not disparaging the entire field of content marketing. I think quality content marketing can be amazingly successful for lead generation, demand generation, and branding. It’s a very important weapon in your marketing arsenal. However, smart marketing consultants chasing the shiny new thing in an attempt to relive the glory days of high margin print advertising do a disservice to many clients. They ran from digital advertising to search engine optimization (SEO), then to social media, and now content marketing.
Successful marketing demands that the agency understand the clients’ business, products, and customer targets inside out. As a B2B company, you should only hire a specialized content marketing agency if you have really clear marketing goals, and employees that have the time to share vision for the company, layout product roadmaps, and brainstorm on new content with the agency. You can’t just throw a content calendar at an agency and expect great results. You’ll be throwing your money away on a lot of beautiful looking, useless content. You must be strong in all other aspects or have the foresight and patience to bring together a bunch of specialized marketing agencies and get them to communicate effectively with your team and each other.
If you don’t have the resources in-house to participate in a segment of marketing such as content development, social media, etc., then consider instead hiring an integrated marketing agency instead of a specialized content agency. A marketing agency with a wide range of services isn’t going to steer you in a particular tactical direction just because it’s their bread and butter. They should offer the best strategies, tactics and tools for your particular situation, market and business goals. You’re going to have to develop great content – an integrated agency can develop the content to match your marketing goals and find maximum reuse for it in all marketing campaigns.
Author: +Chris Slocumb
