7 Questions To Consider When You Hire a Content Marketing Agency

In 1996, Bill Gates predicted that content was where much of the money would be made online. He was right. Today, content marketing is as important for businesses as ever. If you don’t create engaging content on your website, people won’t visit it, meaning no one will convert into customers.

The trouble is that writing content (good content, at least) can be tricky and time-consuming. Your team might not have the time, resources, manpower, or expertise to maintain a content strategy. That’s why many businesses opt to hire a content marketing agency.

The question is, how do you know which agency to choose? How do you ensure you don’t end up with a shady or incompetent agency? That’s what we’ll discuss on this page. There are seven questions you should ask yourself about any content agency partnership you might be considering, including:

1. Are they within your budget?
2. Do they offer the services you want?
3. Do they have positive reviews and testimonials?
4. Is their own content marketing any good?
5. Do they have experience in your industry?
6. Do they customize their services to your business?
7. Are they transparent with their processes?

Asking these questions will help you spot any content agency red flags. In the meantime, if you’re interested in seeing more helpful digital marketing tips and tricks, be sure to subscribe to Revenue Weekly, our email newsletter!

1. Are they within your budget?

The first thing to check before hiring a content marketing agency is their pricing. Needless to say, if you can’t afford to partner with an agency, there’s no point in asking any further questions about them. Simply move on to other options.

Of course, you shouldn’t only be concerned with high pricing. Suspiciously low pricing is also a problem — in fact, it’s one of the biggest content agency red flags out there. Often, you get what you pay for with content marketing, so a drop in pricing probably also indicates a drop in content quality.

Try to find an agency that’s affordable, but not overly cheap. 

2. Do they offer the services you want?

Once you’ve verified that an agency fits into your ideal price range, you should next consider what services they offer. How much content do you want your agency to create? What format(s) do you want it to take (blog posts, videos, etc.)? Do you only want your agency to create content, or do you also want them to help it rank in search engines?

Based on your answers to those questions, consider the offerings you get with each agency to find one that can provide the services you want. It’s also worth asking if you want any other marketing services beyond content marketing, like paid advertising or email marketing. If so, you should look for a full-service marketing agency.

3. Do they have positive reviews and testimonials?

One of the quickest ways to determine whether a content marketing agency partnership is any good is to read some reviews and testimonials. An agency will obviously try to make itself look good, but their clients will be honest and straightforward about what it’s like to work with them.

Of course, every agency will have at least a few negative reviews. The question is, what percentage of their reviews are negative? If the vast majority of the reviews are positive, that’s a good sign. But if you see a lot of complaints, it might be best to consider other options.

4. Is their own content marketing any good?

When you partner with a content marketing agency, you’re trusting them to produce high-quality content for your business. But how do you know how good their content creation skills are? Easy — just look at the content they’ve created for their own website.

There aren’t many content agency red flags bigger than finding an agency that doesn’t even have good content on their own site. If they can’t make their own content good, they definitely can’t make yours good. On the other hand, if their content is well-written and engaging, that shows you that they know what they’re doing.

5. Do they have experience in your industry?

Your content marketing agency will be responsible for creating content about various topics in your industry. But they can’t do that unless they know your industry. Of course, a good agency will coordinate with you to increase their industry knowledge, but it helps if they already have some familiarity going in.

That means it could be a good idea to look for agencies that have worked with clients in your industry before. Maybe they work exclusively in your industry, or maybe they work with many industries, but yours is among them. Either way, industry experience is an important quality in content marketing.

6. Do they customize their services to your business?

One thing you don’t want in a content agency partnership is a cookie-cutter strategy, where the agency approaches your content in exactly the same way that they do for all their clients. That will only result in you having content that sounds like all the other content online, so you won’t stand out!

A good content agency will start your partnership by assessing your unique position in your industry, and by learning all of your specific business goals and needs. They’ll then use those insights to create an original content strategy for your company, setting you apart from your competitors.

7. Are they transparent with their processes?

One more thing to look for when you hire a content marketing agency is transparency. A good agency will keep you in the loop about everything they do for your content strategy, getting your input on big decisions and updating you regularly on the results your content is driving.

If your agency doesn’t do that, that’s a problem. You shouldn’t feel like your content strategy is happening behind closed doors. If your agency shuts you out of the process, it’s probably worth looking for a new content agency partnership.

WebFX is the experienced content marketing agency your business needs

Hiring a content marketing agency can be a tricky process. Thankfully, it’s a lot easier when you find an agency you know you can trust. That’s the experience many businesses have when they find WebFX.

As a full-service digital marketing agency, we have over 29 years of experience with content marketing and other strategies like search engine optimization (SEO). We’ve driven some incredible results for our clients through the content we’ve created for them, and we can do the same for you.

Interested in partnering with us for our content marketing services? Just call us at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!