3 Benefits of Working with a Content Marketing Agency

• Pre-Screened Writers—Content marketing agencies carefully screen writers before allowing them to produce content on behalf of clients. Without experience screening and hiring writers, finding the right person to meet your content needs can be difficult and quite time consuming. After all, when you look for a writer on your own, it can be difficult to tell if the person you are considering working with truly is a professional writer with the type of experience necessary to create the content you need.
• Content Creation Team—Content marketing agencies have a team of writers, each of whom has a unique voice. Rather than being limited to one – or a few – writers, you have many options when you work with an agency. Your content can be created by a single writer whose writing style is a perfect fit for your company’s needs or you can enlist the services of several writers with varying styles to speak to different segments of your target audience.
• Editorial Staff—When you work directly with a freelance writer, you will have to hire someone to proof and edit the content that you receive or you will have to do it yourself. When you work with a content marketing agency, however, the work will be professionally edited and verified before it is sent to you for review. You can feel comfortable that your content has been created and edited by experienced writing professionals before you receive it.

Mary Gormandy White is co-founder of Mobile Technical Institute, where she works with clients throughout the U.S. as a professional trainer, consultant, and speaker, focusing on topics related to HR, management, and public relations. She has extensive professional writing experience and is the author of 101 Human Resource Management Tips and 101 Successful PR Campaign Tips in the LifeTips book series.

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3 Top Reasons to Outsource Content Marketing

• Stay Focused on Your Business – Instead of spending your valuable time writing web content, hiring a content marketing agency to handle this allows you to remain focused on those aspects of running your business that only you can do. Allowing professional writers to assist with content marketing allows you to spend your time managing and growing your business rather than writing blog posts and articles for your website.
• Benefit from Expert SEO Content Strategies – Producing effective SEO content is a skill that requires specific expertise beyond just the ability to write informative, engaging copy. When you work with a content marketing agency, you’ll have an opportunity to work with professional freelance writers who have expertise in content marketing. They’ll provide you with quality content that is well written, has been properly edited, and that has been carefully crafted to attract visitors to your website using search engine optimization strategies.
• Maintain a Systematic Approach to Content Marketing – When you work with a content marketing agency, an optimal posting strategy designed to meet your company’s goals and objectives can be created. Rather that writing and posting when you can find time to fit this activity into your busy schedule, you can relax and know that this important marketing strategy is being handled for you!

Mary Gormandy White is co-founder of Mobile Technical Institute, where she works with clients throughout the U.S. as a professional trainer, consultant, and speaker, focusing on topics related to HR, management, and public relations. She has extensive professional writing experience and is the author of 101 Human Resource Management Tips and 101 Successful PR Campaign Tips in the LifeTips book series.

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Most business owners know that when they hire freelancers, they save money on:

• Social security and unemployment insurance
• Health and Retirement Benefits
• Overhead
• Office equipment
• Perks (coffee, food, etc.)
• Support staff required by other employees (such as payroll, HR and IT)

But did you know that hiring freelance writers is also a green business practice? Freelance writing is “geographically independent.” Freelancers can work from anywhere. Most choose to work from home. Fewer employees driving into your office each day reduces carbon emissions, lowering the overall carbon footprint of your business.

With fewer employees and more freelancers working from home, you may even be able to lease a smaller office space. Your electricity, heating and cooling bills will go down. With the money you save, you can even consider investing in other green practices—like buying carbon offsets or installing solar power.

With email, teleconferencing and Web conferencing solutions readily available, hiring freelance writers becomes a practical solution to reducing your budget and your company’s carbon footprint.

Dawn Allcot is a full-time freelance writer and blogger. She frequently writes about technology, business, parenting and paintball.

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A good rule of thumb for a company is to have at least one to three months of blog posts in reserve. A freelance writer builds these reserve posts as one project, or the reserve can be slowly built up over time. Since the writing will not take time away from a full-time employee, a freelancer offers companies the freedom to get the project  done without the extra expense. It also ensures that key employees will not be distracted with writing and that the proofreading and editing will be done professionally.

When hiring freelance writers for blogging, it is important to define the voice and tone of the blog so the writer knows exactly what is expected before the first post is written.

Jennifer Gniadecki loves to write. You can find her on any given day writing lists, blog posts, articles, assignments, outlines or fleshing out story ideas on her laptop.

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When you hire a content marketing agency, we know you have choices. Here are some questions to ask before you hire a marketing agency to handle all the online marketing for your business.

• How long has the company been in business?—The Internet is no longer “new” technology. Look for an online marketing agency with a proven track record for improving their clients’ page ranks and sales.
• Is it a full-service online marketing agency?—You want to hire a company that will work with you to create a comprehensive marketing strategy, provide the content you need for your website, test the content for maximum benefit, track the results and make changes as needed.
• How good is their Content Management System?—Their CMS should be reliable so you’ll get the new content you need when you need it.
• Are they up to speed on social marketing?—The Web is about so much more than tossing content out there and hoping it sticks. Can the content marketing agency you select help you create the community you need to build brand loyalty and generate sales?
• Is the company up-to-date on SEO best practices? —Search engine algorithms change constantly. You need a company that can keep up, to keep your website at the top of the search engine rankings.
• What does their portfolio look like?—Can they show a range of diverse clients—or clients with needs similar to yours? Do the items in their portfolio mesh with your corporate culture? Based on their past work, do you like the way the marketing agency’s employees think—and write? Finding a marketing agency that takes the time to understand your company culture may be the most important factor when selecting a firm to create marketing content for your website. 

Dawn Allcot is a full-time freelance writer and blogger. She frequently writes about technology, business, parenting and paintball.

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Plagiarism is for chumps.

Ian Lurie of ConversationMarketing.com has a bone to pick – and we’re right there with him. On his blog, he recently wrote a post eloquently titled “Content thieves: I want to punch you in the face.” It turns out that several sites and so-called marketers had lifted his carefully thought-out content and used it in their own materials without any reference or credit (in fact, they replaced his company’s name with their own in several instances). In other words, they stole it and he’s outing them.

If you develop original content and want to prevent people from getting their copy and paste on, Ian has a few entertaining tips to booby-trap your content from plagiarists. But what if you’re hiring a writer to develop content for you? How can you ensure it’s legit (and yes, you need to. As the publisher of the work, YOU are responsible.)?

1. Pay a fair writing rate. While it’s not a guarantee, paying a reasonable rate for writing will reduce a writer’s temptation to get lazy. If you’ve hired someone to write ten 500-word articles for a measly $50, you need to remember: You get what you pay for. If this person was writing the articles legitimately, it could take them roughly ten hours to complete this assignment (including research, writing, editing, formatting and e-mailing with the client). That works out to a whopping $5 per hour. Ask yourself: How good of a job would I do for $5 per hour? The last time you earned that low a wage you were likely on your bike, hurling newspaper bundles onto your neighbors’ porches. On the flip side, a “writer” could instead spend two hours researching and copy-and-pasting existing articles into a document in under two hours, earning $25 per hour. Which do you think is more tempting?
2. Use Google to check the work out. Once you receive the work from your freelance writer and before you publish it, put a few lines from the document into Google and see if you come back with any exact matches. You may come back with a few, especially if there’s some generic wording, so take a look at those pages and compare it to what your writer handed in. If there are huge chunks of copy that are pretty near identical, you likely have plagiarism. Go back to your writer and look for an explanation (ideally, do this before paying them – you might be SOL otherwise).
3. Work with professionals. If you’re going to hire a writer for a major project – like a book or your entire website, it may be worthwhile for you to go to professional plagiarism hunters like Copyscape or iThenticate. Additionally, consider hiring a writer through a well-established content marketing agency. They’ll have screening and safeguards in place and will be able to guarantee the authenticity of the work.

Not everyone is good at writing, let alone writing SEO content.  The first step is admitting you have an SEO problem. The second step is hiring a writer who can help. At ideaLaunch’s free webinar tomorrow, February 25 (at 1pm EST), we’ll show you in the ins and outs to finding, screening, recruiting and motivating the talent you need to create the content that sells itself. If you are a freelance writer, you may want to tune in as well, just to make sure you’re covering all the bases clients will be looking for.

ideaLaunch founder Byron White and guest Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO of SEOcopywriting.com and SuccessWorks, will present the info and be on hand to answer questions. Instead of spending your lunch with that sad sandwich and Farmville, spend it with us (the sad sandwich is still welcome).

Register for this free SEO writers webinar now.

Plus, if you sign up for this SEO webinar, a PDF version of Byron’s 101 Content Marketing Tips will be available to you for free!

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Happy almost-Valentine’s Day, Hallmark fans!

If people were to list the qualities they look for in a Valentine or a relationship, chances are, they’d include traits like:

• Funny / has a good sense of humor
• Able to keep things fresh
• Intelligent
• Trustworthy
• Dependable and stable
• Thoughtful of others
• Capable of reaching out
• Understands me
• A good listener
• Around to open jars

With the exception of the last one (unless someone at this marketing agency has developed super virtual powers I need to know about), each of these things are what good content marketing should strive to be. Whether it’s understanding how the audience thinks and selecting the right SEO keywords, hiring a freelance writer that puts a smile on faces, or developing daily content people can count on – these are reflective of the traits valued in both personal and business relationships.

If you’ve been developing a website, blog or podcast that just doesn’t connect to people, doesn’t quite have much heart to it and is feeling rather shallow and lonely – consider contacting an online relationship doctor like a content marketing company. By this time next year, you may just be in a full-bloom relationship with your dream customers.

Filed under “it’s funny because it’s true” is this classic exchange between a website designer and a potential client. You can replace “website designer” with graphic designer, freelance writer, photographer … pretty much anyone who works in the creative field. We all get approached with these “opportunities.” With exception of the use of the ‘c’ word (no, not that one!) at the very end, this video is G-rated:

If you’re thinking of hiring a freelancer writer, redoing your website or considering marketing your content online, we have a bunch of free content marketing tips that might be helpful – and they aren’t nearly as snarky as this video is!