Content marketers can come in various different shapes and sizes, which can make their roles quite different from one another.
But this isn’t helpful when it comes to content marketing consulting, as often people have no idea what to look for when they’re trying to find a content consultant.
It doesn’t help that you’ll find marketers refer to themselves as strategists, producers, executives, specialists and potentially consultants too. So, if you see “content marketing consultant” – here’s what to expect.
What does a Content Marketing Consultant do?
Generally, a content marketing consultant is someone that can help you strategise your content marketing plans – but not execute them for you.
This may include planning your SEO strategy for being found by users via Google, or it could be retaining email subscribers on your mailing list – the definition is fairly broad.
Though typically, a consultant will only work with you for a certain period of time – be it 6 months or a year.
Of course, it could be for much longer than this, and there are consultants that work on a long term basis.
However, they’re probably not going to be integrated with your main team, and actually you’ll often find them training in-house marketing teams so they can do the work themselves.
Content marketing strategy often needs a whole marketing team behind it, but when the blueprint is in place, it’s much easier to fill in those roles. This is where hiring a consultant may pay off.
Increasing engagement with your content
Content marketing will usually require patience, which is why many marketers work on a minimum six month contract.
For most, this time will consist of creating blog posts to publish on the site. This is why an SEO (search engine optimization) specialist can be the most important hire for many small businesses.
The marketing plan may only take a few weeks or months to build, but content creation is a much longer process than this.
Some consultants will step in at the beginning, create a marketing plan for you then leave you to execute it yourself. Other consultants can be there every step of the way, so it really depends on what you need.
And the truth is that typically a business does not care how many pages that you post on their site – they care how much it contributes to sales, revenue or leads.
This requires engagement, which should be considered when creating the content for your site.
A good content marketing consultant will not only help you create content, but they’ll help you create the right content depending on your business goals.
Helping you produce Quality Content
Merely creating average content doesn’t suffice. To succeed in content marketing, you need to create better quality content than your competitors, and it needs to guide your customer through the purchase journey.
You’ll also want to consider that your content must be of a decent quality to rank in search engines like Google. High quality content will allow others to link to your site naturally, which will then result in a higher ranking in the Google SERPs.
Content marketing philosophy
It can be extremely frustrating creating content for your website without a real content marketing philosophy.
When you plan out the content for a company, you really need to take a holistic approach and cover every need of your user.
It is true that most people find it difficult to develop a solid content strategy that’s useful for both the user and for search engines.
This is where a content marketing consultant can step in and bridge the gap between the two.
Benefits of a Content Marketing Consultant
There are many different benefits to hiring a content marketing consultant.
You can hire a consultants for a one time project, which can include them training your team inn the basics of content marketing.
This means you typically pay a one-time fee, but continue reaping the rewards for many years to come.
You can hire them to improve your SEO process, email marketing or various other tasks depending on the marketers experience.
Generally, a content marketer will understand exactly what you need to do to drive sales to your business.
A day in the life of a content marketing consultant
Content marketers have very different day to day activities, and a lot of it really depends on what they specialise in.
For example, if your marketer is an e-commerce specialist, then they may spend most of their day helping to strategise an email marketing campaign, or creating the paid ads for your marketing campaigns.
On the other hand, someone that specialises in SEO could fill a large part of their day with copywriting and/or editing – be that for a company blog, a newsletter or another distribution channel.
Do they have blog posts you can check out?
If you already have blog posts on your website, then a good content marketer could be able to make use of them.
This could be simply by repurposing them to target new keywords and rank in Google, which can help bring new organic traffic to your website.
A content marketer should understand the importance of organic growth. A social media content strategist can help analyse the performance of your social media pages and the overall engagement you’re getting from your customers too.
Do they work with companies similar to yours?
You need to make sure that the content marketer you’re reaching out to is happy to work with your company. Not only this, but their skills and strengths need to match your needs and weaknesses well.
This can range for expertise in your niche all the way through to specific marketing techniques that require substantial experience. Find the right content marketer for your needs and use them to supplement your work.
Conclusion
Content marketing consultants are usually someone that is hired to help you with content strategy, which is use to engage your target audience and aid them along the purchasing funnel.
A good marketing consultant will be knowledgeable in their field, and can help you to identify the areas you need to invest in.
Also read: What’s a content marketing specialist?
For many small businesses, marketing is going to be the primary focus when using technology and watching B2B businesses grow. This means that using content strategy consulting services should be focussed on delivering exactly what the client requires.