People often ask me what it looks like to work with my digital marketing agency, and I wish I had one answer to give everyone, but the truth is I don’t, because what I do is very customized. Some people want to tell me what topics to cover and just have me write the content. Others want me to come up with the topics and keywords and write the content. Others just want me to come up with the topics and keywords for them so they can write it themselves.
Some people want me to give them the content in a Word document or Google Doc so they can review it before putting it on their website themselves. Others want me to put it directly on their website for them.
I’ve worked with people all kinds of ways. As long as the content gets created and published and the client is happy with the result, I really don’t care who does which part.
But there are some things that remain constant when I take on a new client, and I started thinking about these things recently when I heard someone talking about their frustrations in dealing with the digital marketing agency they had hired.
Table of Contents
My Process
I’m going to start with what my process looks like, and then I’ll cover some tips you can use to get the most out of your experience with a digital marketing agency, whether it’s AV Writing Services, or a different agency.
Existing Content
The first client to ever hire me to write blog posts had been writing his own blog posts prior to hiring me. Since it was my first gig, my initial step was to look at his existing blog posts to get an idea of what I was expected to write. I quickly found out why he wasn’t getting results from his blog and knew I could do better, so I jumped at the chance to get paid to write, and the rest is history.
But part of what I took from that experience was the value of reading someone’s existing content before I write anything for them. My third client had a health and nutrition website, and I was actually a fan of the site before they became a client, so I was already intimately familiar with their voice before I started writing for them.
Not everyone who becomes a client of mine has existing content at the time they hire me. Sometimes they do have content, but they’re going through a brand refresh and they don’t want their old content to reflect their new brand, in which case, I ignore it and find other ways to identify their new brand voice.
But going through existing content is still a good way to get an idea of my client’s voice. This is especially true for clients who are their brand (i.e. the coaches I write for). People expect consistency, not just across their marketing content, but from their content to their presentations to their coaching calls, which means I need to get to know my clients and their speaking style very well before I start writing for them. Sometimes this means reading their existing content. Other times it means working with them as a client before I start writing for them. My best experiences have probably come from both reading their existing content and working with them as a client, which leads me to my next strategy.
Interviews
I have yet to find a better way to find a client’s voice than simply talking to them, especially since everyone wants conversational content these days. It’s easy to read and makes you seem more relatable to your prospects. As a result, the more familiar I am with how a client talks, the better able I’ll be to write content that feels like it was written by them.
As I said, most of my clients who are coaches have coached me either before or after becoming a client of mine, which is a great opportunity for me to become familiar with their voice and their coaching style. The better I know them, the more likely I am to be able to hear their voice in my head as I’m writing their content. That makes it much easier to tell when a word or phrase I’m about to use sounds like something they’d say or if it needs to be changed.
For new clients, I have found interviews to be a great way to get to know more about them personally, as well as their brands. Not only do I ask them all kinds of questions about them and their business, but in the process I get to hear how they speak and the words they like to use. The result is that, by the time we’re done, not only do I know what to say about them and their business, I know how to say it.
If, for some reason, I can’t interview the client (as happens when I work with other digital marketing agencies and the business I’m writing for is the client of my client), any recording I can get of the person speaking has proven to be immensely helpful. This could be videos they created for marketing purposes, interviews the other digital marketing agency conducted, a podcast they host, etc. The more opportunities I get to hear them speak, the better.
How to Work with a Digital Marketing Agency
Let’s say you’re thinking about hiring a digital marketing agency and you want to make sure they have what it takes to make sure your brand is represented all over the internet. How can you be sure they’ll do your brand justice? Here are some things you should ask:
What’s the Onboarding Process Like?
Obviously, you want to know what the onboarding process is like any time you hand over your credit card information, not only to know what you’re paying for, but to make sure they have a process in place to capture your brand.
Keep in mind, this will likely involve a fairly hefty time commitment on your part, at least initially. I’ve known digital marketing agencies that spend three hours interviewing clients before they start creating anything so they can get a crystal-clear idea of their brand, as well as their goals for their marketing initiatives. Yes, the digital marketing agency will be the one creating the website/logo/content/etc. but that doesn’t mean you should not be involved in the process. You should be very involved early on, and then leave them to do their work.
How Are You Going to Capture My Brand?
If you’re not satisfied with their answer to your question about the onboarding process, ask more specific questions about how they expect to get a clear idea of your brand. If they don’t have a good answer to that question, it’s time to find another digital marketing agency.
Can I See Some of Your Past Projects?
Every digital marketing agency should have a portfolio, so take the time to look through the portfolio of every digital marketing agency you’re looking to hire before you hand over your credit card information.
Do you like the work they do? Does each project reflect the unique brand of the company it’s trying to represent?
For example, I’m always looking to partner with graphic designers because we tend to have a lot of the same clients. When I met with one graphic designer a couple years ago, I looked through their portfolio after our meeting. While their work was certainly good, it all looked the same. If I were to recommend them to a client, I didn’t feel convinced they could create something that reflected the client’s brand.
By contrast, the graphic designer I ended up hiring to do the cover design of my book has an extensive portfolio with a wide range of types of projects. I made sure to find something I liked in their portfolio (and point out to them that that’s what I was looking for) before hiring them to create my cover design.
What Results Have You Gotten for Your Clients?
Another common source of frustration for people who work with digital marketing agencies is not getting the results they were expecting. Sometimes this is due to hiring digital marketing agencies that don’t know what they’re doing, but more often it’s due to unrealistic expectations on the part of the client, so make sure you’re clear on what you can expect from what the digital marketing agency you’re about to hire has to offer.
While I love talking about my first client who got $75,000 of sales after 6 months of blog posts, that’s not something every client can expect. That was a large, well established law firm whose website had been around for a while and already had a lot of content on it. Someone who hires me to create content for a new website and start blogging from scratch can’t expect to see the same results.
And while the blog posts I wrote for that law firm did a lot to drive traffic to their website and convince prospects to reach out for a sales call, there still had to be someone on the other end of the line capable of taking that call and turning that prospect into a client. I can take credit for part of that work, but not all of it.
While I do focus on marketing strategies that lead prospects through a funnel, and I do believe that marketing strategies (when done right) should absolutely bring in a return on their investment, it’s important to understand that marketing is not the same as sales. Marketing increases brand awareness and drives traffic to your website. If the digital marketing agency you’re looking to hire has a proven track record of increasing brand awareness and driving traffic to their clients’ websites, then you should absolutely hire them. If you’re looking for someone to increase sales of your products/services, you need to hire a salesperson.
Create Your Own Brand Voice Guidelines
People tend to think of branding when they think of their logo, the colors on their website, even their font. But they don’t always consider branding when it comes to the tone of voice they use when creating content for their business. If all my clients had ready-made brand voice guidelines they could just hand over to me when they hire me, it would make my job so much easier.
Whether you’re thinking of hiring me, or another digital marketing agency, or doing your own branding and marketing, you might want to create your own brand voice guidelines.
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