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How to attract clients to your agency with content writing?

Attracting clients to your agency with content writing

Attracting clients to your agency with content writing.

I was just reading this Smashing Magazine article on how to attract clients to your agency and thought of giving it a content writing twist.

In the beginning the writer says that many web design agencies (he mostly addresses web design agencies but the advice that he gives can be used by any agency) depend on word-of-mouth recommendations, which he says, is not a long-term strategy. I partly agree.

I have been writing professional content for a little over 15 years now, and I have accumulated a decent list of satisfied clients who don’t hesitate from recommending my content writing and copywriting services to their colleagues, business partners, or relatives. This is a steady stream of work that I don’t mind. It doesn’t mean that I put all my eggs in a single basket of word-of-mouth recommendations, but a big chunk of my money comes from such recommendations these days.

One thing I agree with, though, if you want to work with a diverse range of clients, then too many word-of-mouth recommendations can turn your work stale. For example, if you get a recommendation from an Internet marketing coach, most of the clients will want you to write according to the teachings of the marketing coach even if you don’t completely agree with those teachings.

Similarly, if a real estate client recommends you to his other real-estate friends, they are going to expect you to write just the way you have written for that particular client.

Well, this is what the Smashing Magazine author says, and though, to an extent I agree with this chain of thought, I don’t agree completely.

Anyway, I started writing this blog post to explore the ideas of using content writing to attract new and more clients to your agency.

The difference between an agency and a normal client in terms of content writing

When an agency contacts me for writing content it is for two reasons:

  • It needs content for its own promotional campaigns to attract more clients.
  • It needs content for the clients.

An agency works with “accounts”. It can be a web design agency, an interior design agency, and architects’ firm, or an employment agency.

The term is often mixed. If you look up the definition of agency, it works for the benefit of its “account” and on behalf of the “account”, interacts with other parties. For example, an employment agency interacts with prospective employees on behalf of an employer.

Anyway, that’s beside the point.

Every agency needs to attract clients. If you are a web design agency, you’re looking for clients who are interested in getting their websites developed and designed. If you are an app development agency, you are interested in companies and people who want mobile apps developed. And so on.

A good thing about content writing is that you can attract different categories of clients to your agency by publishing targeted content.

I can call myself a content writing and copywriting agency.

Although a big chunk of my clients come from the IT and the Internet marketing industry, I also get lots of work from other categories such as interior design, real estate, real estate financing, accounting and bookkeeping, and the hotel industry. For the past couple of months, I have been writing lots of content for a lab that provides various tests such as lipid profile, thyroid, diabetes, cholesterol, blood count, and so on.

Hence, you can say that I have cast a wide net. Conventionally, this isn’t recommended. You would say that if I am comfortable writing about information technology, then I should just focus on information technology and develop my expertise further so that I can charge more for my specialty.

That’s a different issue.

Let’s explore some ways you can attract clients for your agency through content writing.

Tell your success stories through regular content writing

Every client loves reading your success stories, especially when that client is about to hire you or needs to make a decision. Success stories are reassuring. They tell your clients how you solve problems for other people you work with. Hence, if you can solve their problems, you can also solve the problems of this client.

Why stories? Why not simply explain?

Stories are conversational. They are relatable. They’re not hypothetical scenarios. They talk about real-world problems faced by real-world people and real-world solutions provided by real-world people.

A story has a narrative. It has a context. It has a logical sequence. It binds people.

If I simply tell you that my content writing services can help you improve your search engine rankings, you may or may not believe.

But if I tell you about this Prakash Chaturvedi who runs a data analytics company and who’s search engine rankings were not improving no matter how much content he published on his company’s blog, and then how I helped him recognize the problem with his current content strategy and rewrote his existing content and brought many blog posts to Google’s first page, you are immediately going to get interested.

Even if you don’t run a data analytics company yourself, you will be able to relate to his dilemma.

This is just one instance. I can write similar stories for real estate business, hotel business, catering business, blockchain development company, and so on.

I can write about different success stories.

The stories will reassure my clients and they will be more eager to work with me.

Improve your search engine rankings with relevant content writing

As an agency, if you depend on Google and other search engines to get new clients, you definitely need to pay close attention to your search engine rankings. How do you plan to improve them?

Relevant and quality content writing can help you.

To improve your search engine rankings, you need to publish content regularly. You need to follow a content publishing schedule. Once you have created a schedule or a content publishing calendar, make sure that you stick to it.

Although covering your primary and longtail keywords shouldn’t be the sole focus of your content writing, keywords are important.

Make a long list of them. If possible, use various research tools and research methodologies to find the keywords and search queries used by your clients when they are trying to find your agency or the work that your agency does.

Then start regularly publishing content on those topics.

Focus on quality. Quality must always come first. Don’t cover your keywords at the cost of quality and relevance. Publish content that satisfies search intent – provide exactly what people are looking for.

Cover all the bases. As I have written above, you can write success stories. You can publish blog posts that explain various aspects of the work that you do.

I constantly publish blog posts on content writing and copywriting – what I’m learning, what I’m observing, and what I think can help my clients. I share everything. This tells my clients that I know what I’m doing.

Build your brand authority

Being an authority means people trust you. They believe that you have enough knowledge to deliver a quality service.

How can you build your brand authority as an agency?

There are many ways.

  • Satisfy the knowledge thirst: People are looking for answers. They want to learn. They want to enrich their minds. They want to understand. When you provide information that satisfies people, you become an authority.
  • Publish unique research and new findings: Agencies that come up with new research and new findings are always considered authoritative in their field. For example, if I come up with a new finding that 70% agencies can improve their authority with strategic content writing, and I have the figures and sources to prove it, you may consider me as an authority figure.
  • Bring the latest to your audience: Being an authority, you’re always at the forefront of the cutting-edge. What’s the latest happening in the field of content writing and copywriting? What achievements have been made? What new web design trends are emerging? As an authority, you expect me to know the latest.
  • Take a stand: You can take a stand only when you are in command over your field. To be able to take a stand, you need to know. Hence, when you take a stand, people automatically assume that you know what you’re doing. It may mean antagonizing some people, but that’s the risk that you need to take.
  • Remain visible: You need to write and publish content regularly. No matter how authoritative your writing is, if you don’t regularly remain in front of your audience, you cease to matter.

Build your mailing list

I know, this has got nothing to do with content writing, but since you need to write content for your newsletter, somehow this is relevant. As an agency, building a mailing list is a must.

A mailing list is a list of people who share their email ID with you so that you can keep in touch with them through a newsletter or routine email updates.

Many clients approach me to write email marketing campaigns for them while they have spent no effort on building relationships with their mailing list. This is a wrong approach.

A mailing list should be used for building relationships rather than constantly trying to sell stuff.

Remember that as an agency you’re not selling items. You are selling a presence. When you send messages to your mailing list, you just want to keep them aware of the fact that you exist, and you are delivering your services non-stop.

Remain active on social media

Social media may seem trite, especially the platforms where people are posting silly images and videos, they have a reach. They have a visibility.

Even if your prospective client isn’t looking for agencies like yours on Instagram, there is a great possibility that he or she has an account over there and goes through the timeline once or twice a day.

When he or she comes across your update it’s a pleasant surprise, especially when you add value to the timeline.

This is how you increase your agency’s brand visibility. Remain visible. Be clear about your messaging. Be consistent with your messaging.

Again, this was a small blog post that I began to write after reading that Smashing Magazine article, but then I felt like covering all the points that came to my mind.

Content writing can be a potent tool in your toolbox of digital marketing if you want to attract clients as an agency. It helps you tell your story. It helps you share your expertise. It helps you add value to the lives of your current and prospective clients. It keeps your agency’s name in front of them with a positive association.

 

10 Reasons You Need to Hire a Content Writing Service for Your Small Business

10-reasons-you-need-to-hire-a-content-writing-service-for-your-small-business

Are you still wondering whether your small business needs to hire a content writing service or not?

When it comes to expense such questions are understandable. After all, there are very few people who actually grasp the importance of quality content. It is very difficult to spend money on something you don’t get.

I have personally seen that people don’t want to spend as much money on content writing as they spend on a typical weekend outing. This is primarily because they don’t realize how important professional content writing is for their small business.

Why is effective content writing important for your small business?

Despite the fact that everybody wants well-written content for his or her website, very few give a serious thought to its effectiveness. Very subtle things in your content writing can motivate people to do business with you, or send them away to one of your competitors.

What makes people do business with you after coming to your website? It’s your content. If your content writing cannot convince your visitors, they’re not going to do business with you.

A small business does not have a brand presence like a big business. All you have is, your ability to convince people.

This is why, it is very important that your website has engaging content that informs people, educates them and eventually, convinces them into doing business with you.

You need to convince people, and you need to be in front of them all the time.

If you haven’t been living in a cave, you must have noticed that people these days spend more time on social networking websites. They exchange views. They post updates on what they are buying and what they are eating. They share opinions with each other. They access timely information. Even when they are interacting with companies and businesses, they prefer to do so using social platforms.

Most of the news these days comes to you from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

But timelines move fast. If you post something on Facebook, let’s say, within seconds your Facebook contacts may miss your update because lots of people are updating their timelines with great speed. So, you need to post regularly.

But then, nobody wants to incessantly see your promotional offers. They’re either going to block you, or mute your updates. People have also developed ad blindness.

People are looking for valuable content. People want something that can inform them, update them, make them more knowledgeable, help them improve their lives, enrich their lives, or generally entertain them. They don’t want to know about your latest menu unless they want food. They don’t want to know about the shoes you are selling in your shop unless they want to buy shoes.

People want to know about your business only when they actually need your business.

The paradox is, at the time of need, they forget that you can give what they want. Despite being in your contacts list, they end up buying a product or a service for someone else because it slips out of their mind that you offer the very same product or service.

It’s like people in my contacts list are looking for a content writing service and they don’t realize that I provide such a service.

This is where a professional content writing service can help your small business. It can help you publish highly engaging content that doesn’t put off people but at the same time, keeps them informed.

Read The importance of content writing for small business.

As a small business, you can improve your SEO with the help of a content writing service

It makes more sense these days to improve your SEO by hiring a content writing service rather than hiring a plain old SEO service. In fact, most of the genuine SEO services these days improve your rankings through high-quality, engaging content.

With every new ranking algorithm update Google is giving more importance to quality content. Long gone are the days when putting your keywords here and there and getting a few backlinks could get you good search engine rankings.

Of course, keywords and backlinks still matter, and they matter a lot, but eventually, it’s the quality of your content that decides your rankings.

There are 3 attributes that Google these days considers in order to rank your content:

  1. The quality of your content
  2. The frequency with which you publish new content and update existing content
  3. The formatting and keyword arrangement of your content

Again, quality backlinks matter and you cannot get good search engine rankings without quality backlinks. But backlinks won’t help you if you don’t regularly publish quality content.

If you can devote enough time writing high quality content on an ongoing basis, then good for you. But if you want to focus on your primary small business and let a professional content writing service handle your content, it is always better to hire an agency.

Engaging content can improve your website conversion rate

Better search engine rankings are of no use if your content doesn’t convert well. Your content should be able to reduce your bounce rate. This can only happen with professional writing.

As I have mentioned above, your text should be able to convince people into doing business with you. It should be reassuring. The language should be friendly and conversational. People should be able to trust you. The tone should be casual but professional. No grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. The writing should be genuine. It should neither be very long nor very short. It should be precise. It should make an impact.

If you are a seasoned, talented writer, great! If you have a knack for publishing great content on an ongoing basis, good for you.

Otherwise, hire a content writing service for your small business.

Now we finally come to 10 reasons why your small business should hire a content writing service rather than hiring an in-house team of writers.

1. A content writing service can help your small business bring marketing costs down, drastically

Are you spending lots of money on advertising and marketing? What about PPC campaigns like AdWords?

Although conventional advertising cannot be completely discounted, it comes with its own set of cons.

First of all, for a small business it can be very expensive. Just imagine, if you are using AdWords, or Facebook advertising, or LinkedIn advertising, you are paying for every click.

You can never be sure whether people who actually want to do business with you are clicking your ads, or all sorts of people.

On the other hand, if you create a presence for yourself through the strength of your content people recognize you for the value you provide. You create a presence on various channels and when people click your links, you are not paying for every click.

With targeted content writing you also improve your search engine rankings. Your small business links begin to appear in search results and you don’t have to pay for every click.

When people are using search engines, they pay less attention to advertisements and paid links, and more attention to links that appear naturally and organically, on the strength of their worthiness.

Wondering how qualified content writing drastically brings down your advertising and marketing costs? I will give you an example using my own current blog writing rates.

Currently I charge $25 for a blog post. Every week you want me to write 3 blog posts for you.

So, every month you are spending $300 on 12 highly optimized and engaging blog posts that are continuously improving your search engine rankings.

Due to your blog posts that are regularly published you begin to create a presence on social media too. People start coming to your website without clicking your PPC campaigns. You begin to generate free traffic.

Have you ever noticed your conversion rate? How much do you spend per conversion? How much are you spending every month on your PPC campaigns?

In your PPC campaign your cost will increase as your traffic increases.

With content marketing, your cost remains the same while your traffic increases. Suddenly, even if a single blog post sends you 10,000 visitors everyday, aside from that measly $25 that you paid me, you’re not going to spend anything else.

2. You get high-quality, engaging content non-stop

If you want to switch to content marketing from conventional advertising and marketing, you need to publish high-quality content non-stop.

This is because everybody is publishing high-quality content. All your small business competitors.

Sometimes, even those who are not directly your competitors, might be publishing content that can take traffic away from your website.

This is why you need to cover all your bases with all possible case scenarios, and do it on an ongoing basis.

Only a professional content writing service can provide you professional quality content week after week, month after month, without mitigating the overall quality.

When you hire a content writing service for your small business, can focus on your business rather than worrying about access to good quality content.

3. You don’t need to hire people and give them employment benefits

Hiring an in-house team of content writers can be expensive. You will have to provide them all the employment benefits you are bound to provide by the law of the land.

If you hire a content writing service you are not bound by such laws. You don’t have to pay for anything else.

4. You don’t need to get into legal troubles in case you need to fire your content writing team

The success of your content marketing efforts depends on the quality of your content and if your content writing team cannot provide you quality content that is engaging and effective, and also search engine optimized, you are wasting your small business resources.

You have no choice but to fire your content writing team so that you can try out other content writers. This can get you into legal troubles. You can’t just fire people. Small businesses are more vulnerable to such cases.

On the other hand, if you hire an outside content writing service, there are no such obligations. Don’t like the work? No sweat. Just switch your content writing service. It’s as simple as that.

5. You save on precious office resources

Office resources can cost you money. With your employees you will have to provide them both hardware and software. They will also take up your office space. There will be wear-and-tear. They will be using your stationery, electricity, heating or air-conditioning and furniture. They will be using your telephone and Internet connection. Basically, they will be using all your office resources.

A separate content writing service will be placed somewhere else and people working over there will be using their own resources.

6. You spend money on just content writing

This point is just an extension of the points above. When you hire a content writing service for your small business, you are just paying for content writing and nothing else. Isn’t it wonderful?

7. You don’t need to monitor the activities of your content writing team

Monitoring your employees can be a big problem. How are they spending time in your office? Are they checking their personal emails? Are they wasting their time on Facebook and Twitter? Are they seeking out new employment opportunities using your Internet connection, computers and laptops? Are they distracting or harassing other employees?

There can be scores of such things you will need to monitor if you hire an in-house team of content writers.

With an outside agency, there are no such headaches. All you are bothered about is whether you are getting your quality content on a regular basis or not.

8. You can easily change your content writing service if you are not satisfied

Changing a content writing service is very easy. All you have to do is, stop paying and then contact another agency. Unless you have signed a legal document that strongly binds your small business to your current content writing agency, there is nothing to hold you back.

9. Quality control is not your headache

For a successful content marketing strategy, there should be no compromise on quality. Even if you don’t have a well-defined content marketing strategy and you need a content writing service to improve your SEO, quality is non-negotiable.

Read What is quality content and how does Google recognize it?

A professional content writing service like Credible Content has an inbuilt mechanism to ensure quality. I make sure that

  • Your content is well-written, factual and without errors.
  • Your content is optimized for the selected keywords.
  • There exists no plagiarism and duplicated information.
  • Your content is engaging, conversational and topical.

If I don’t provide you quality content, you will no longer like to work with me. It is as simple as that. So, I have to ensure quality.

10. You have easy access to subject matter experts

Sometimes you need subject matter experts – people who really know their stuff – to write expert-level content.

Being an established content writing service, I am in touch with writers from various fields of expertise almost from all over the world.

Even if right now I don’t have a writer specifically for your needs (it rarely happens) I can arrange such a writer.

On your own, getting a good writer as well as a subject matter expert would be a great problem.

Successful content writing is personality-based, to be frank. Only an experienced content writer can get under your skin and then directly address your audience. Your content writer should be able to empathize with your customers and clients because they are the targets. You’re not getting content for your website or blog to make yourself happy; you want to make your prospective customers and clients happy.

If you can do it on your own and write engaging content for your small business, well and good, otherwise, I suggest that you hire a professional and experienced content writing service to carry out your SEO and marketing campaign.