Tag Archives: Content Writing

How to attract 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.

What differentiates a great content writer from an average content writer?

Leave a reply

Difference between a great and an average content writer.

Someone asked this question on Quora but since I have already answered 2 questions (my daily target nowadays) I thought I’d provide the answer on my own blog.

What are the attributes of a great content writer?

I will use a politically correct pronoun “she”.

When someone talks about “great content writer” I assume what she means is, a content writer who does her job well. She may or may not be experienced, but she delivers.

She delivers on the front of quality and relevance. She expresses well through her writing. She can write forcefully without intimidating the reader.

Below I’m listing some attributes of a great content writer.

Takes initiative

A great content writer takes initiative. What do I mean by initiative?

She goes beyond the brief provided by the client. She uses her own brain to figure what may work and what may not work for her client.

She does research independently. She finds data from credible sources. She uses her judgement instead of completely depending on her client’s input.

Takes a stand

She should be able to take a stand.

I will give you my example. Sometimes I disagree with my client.

My client knows her subject. For example, if my client is a lawyer, she knows more about law than I do. But I know more about content writing than she does. She has hired me not to write how she wants me to write, she has hired me because I can write the way she cannot, but she needs to.

Therefore, once she has given me the brief, I don’t want her to dictate every sentence I write. A great content writer knows when to take a stand or put her foot down.

She is not simply a stenographer. Above all, before a content writer, she is a writer.

Has a passionate writing voice

If you don’t feel excited, nor will your readers.

Whenever new writers approach me for work, this is the first trait I look for: the sample that they have sent me, have they written like a writer or like a content writer desperate to impress?

A great content writer gets emotionally invested in the project. You are passionate when you are emotionally invested.

I won’t go to the extent of calling myself a great content writer (I leave that conclusion to my clients), but when I’m writing, I’m writing with the good of my client in my heart. This makes me passionate. And this passion quite often resonates through my writing. I am not saying that it happens always, but most of the time, it does.

Knows why the client has hired her

Why does a client hire me?

The macro reason is that she wants to grow her business. This is the ultimate goal of every entrepreneur. By the end of the day, you need more buyers, you need more subscribers, you need more paid users.

The micro reasons might be that she wants to improve her search engine rankings, boost engagement on your social media profile, increase conversion rate on her website and improve user experience.

She may also want to improve the click-through-ratio on the web pages where she wants the visitors to download her e-book or subscribe to her newsletter updates.

My every sentence must contribute towards that. I don’t want to impress. I don’t want to prove what a great a writer I am. She is not paying me for that. She is paying me to write content that helps grow her business in whichever applicable manner.

Does it mean I don’t seek praises? I definitely do; I like it when a client says that I have done a great job. But every client knows that this “great job” doesn’t mean that I have written like Haruki Murakami or Tolstoy. It means I have written in a manner that contributes to her business.

Hence, a great content writer walks the extra mile and makes sure that she is writing content that serves the purpose.

Isn’t obsessed with money

I know money matters, but a great content writer, once she starts the work, isn’t bothered much about whether she is being paid for 200 words or 500 words. She is not insecure in that sense. She is more worried about writing what needs to be written.

This is something I have observed in many writers I have worked with. They are constantly worrying about how much they are writing and how much they are being paid.

I’m not saying that they should leave themselves open to exploitation, but it isn’t going to harm them if instead of 500 words (which they are being paid for) they’re writing 700 words and they are not being paid for the extra 200 words.

Just yesterday a client paid me supposedly for 800 words (I’m still in the process of moving from per word to value deliverability) but I wrote 1200 words because the subject demanded that, without expecting to be paid extra.

If a content writer constantly obsesses about money it becomes a vicious loop. Nobody pays you just for the heck of paying — people want value delivery and you cannot deliver value if your need to get paid for every word dominates your power of expression.

Am I saying that you should allow your clients to fleece you? No. When you focus more on value delivery, your clients can’t afford not to pay you.

Writes a lot, in fact, constantly

A great content writer, being a writer first, has this great desire to write continuously. She doesn’t just write when she is being paid for writing. She writes on different topics. She participates in discussions on social networking websites. She blogs regularly. She works at building her network not just for business purposes but also to expand her understanding.

Writing for her is not a chore, it’s an existential craving.

Learns constantly

Learning never stops for a great content writer. I have been writing professional content for 20 years and still I learn something new every day.

I learn new words. I practise using new expressions that I have never used before or have rarely used, or have forgotten.

I make a note of everything I come across. I do all my reading on Kindle reader and Google Play Books so that I can highlight the portions that I may like to use for my own writing.

Whenever I come across a word I don’t know, I make sure I do, and I don’t proceed without that.

I have a huge Word file where I save words, phrases, and sentence formations that I would like to use when writing. I have been updating this file since 1998. I have saved more than 200 phrases in one of my Google keep notes.

A great content writer is constantly learning and never believes that she has learned enough.

Has confidence

A constant desire to learn doesn’t mean that a content writer is low on confidence. Don’t take confidence with a negative connotation. That’s overconfidence.

In fact, just the fact that she knows that she constantly needs to learn more, shows that she is confident.

The more you learn, the more you practice, more confident you get.

Among average content writers I have observed that they are constantly scared of something. They hold themselves back. For them, writing is just a means to make money and if money is not there, writing is not there for them. It is just another occupation.

The problem with writing is that unless you have a passion for it, it doesn’t pay you much. Your lack of interest shows through every word you use, through every sentence you form. If you don’t want to write without getting paid, you are not going to be paid for writing.

This is true for every field except for manual work. In manual work, even if you’re not interested, somehow you can make a living. But when people pay you for your skill & expertise rather than your manual work, you need to have your soul into it.

To sum up, here’s how you can become a great content writer:

See beyond the client’s brief.
Be passionate about your client’s interests.
Learn to research.
Always know why you’re writing a particular piece.
Polish search engine friendly writing.
Learn constantly. On your own. From other writers.
Set your insecurities aside.
Don’t just write for money.
Deliver value more than the number of words.
Be passionate about what you are writing.

My personal favorites are, have a strong desire to write, and take pride in the fact that you are constantly improving yourself.

You don’t need to be a writer to publish content for your company?

Leave a reply

So says this article in USA Today. Well, it depends. No, you definitely don’t need to be a writer to regularly publish content for your company. You can publish videos. You can also publish animation and images. Even short posts on social media platforms don’t require you to be a proficient writer.

What type of content you publish depends on your content marketing strategy.

But what about longer blog posts, web pages and articles?

Again, I never try to convince my prospective clients that they need a writer to publish compelling content on their websites and blogs. It’s up to them. They must see some value when they hire me.

I showcase my abilities as an experienced writer, but I don’t go beyond that. After that, they can decide whether they need a professional writer or not.

There are plenty of online tools that help you write well. There are some excellent grammar checkers. Even contemporary word processors like MS Word and Google Docs do a pretty good job of helping you write without spelling and grammar mistakes.

So, in that regard, if your concern is only writing without spelling and grammar mistakes, you are sufficiently equipped by software.

Writing, though, is different. It is not just about correctly writing words and sentences. It’s about using words and sentences to make an impact.

That’s where you often need a trained and experienced writer.

Why does regular content writing build trust?

Leave a reply

Familiarity through quality content builds trust.

Why do all the content marketers and digital marketers advise you to write and publish content regularly?

Of course, if the advice comes from content writers like me you can say that since I want people to publish more content (so that they hire me to write their content with greater frequency) it is in my interest that people publish more content.

Familiarity and trust on the Internet go together

How do you become familiar to your audience and your prospective customers and clients?

You cannot individually talk to thousands of people every day to become familiar to them.

You write and publish content they find useful. What is useful to them depends on your audience and this is something that you need to figure.

Some people are looking for funny and humorous content. Some are looking for controversial content. Some want political news. Some people want professional advice. Some people want to reduce their weight. Some people want to read good book reviews or gadget reviews.

The important thing is, your audience MUST want what you publish.

What do I achieve when I write and publish content on my blog? How do people become familiar to my business and how does it benefit me? I will explain.

I have three types of target audiences when I’m writing and publishing content regularly on my blog:

Readers who would subscribe to my newsletter.
Readers/publishers who link to my content, improving my search engine rankings in the process.
B2B readers who want to feel reassured that I am knowledgeable enough to write content for them.

I need to become familiar to these three categories. Eventually I want to maximize my business, but I cannot maximize my business without achieving No.’s 1 & 2.

Someday I would like my subscribers to pay for the knowledge that I share with them. It cannot happen right now, but I’m sure someday it well. That’s a business opportunity for me.

When my prospective subscribers regularly come across the useful content that I am publishing, they don’t want to miss it. To make sure that they don’t miss it, they subscribe to my updates. This builds my mailing list. I send them updates every day. My updates become familiar to them. They trust me enough to share their email ID with me.

Since I regularly publish content, the Google and other search engine crawlers crawl and index my content with greater frequency. It becomes easier to find my content on Google. When other publishers are searching for quality content to link to, they can find my links. Since I’m publishing lots of content, they want to link to my content. This further improves my search engine rankings, and hence visibility, and hence familiarity, and hence, trust.

Now we come to my prospective clients.

Why do my clients hire me? These are the reasons:

They are looking for quality content for their website and blog.
They are looking for a writer for their email marketing campaigns.
They know that high quality content can improve their search engine rankings and hence, they want to hire me.

My customers are B2B. Through my services, they want to increase their business. The stakes are higher. If I don’t give them good content, their business suffers.

Consequently, they need to trust their content writer. They need to know that their content writer is going to deliver. This is more important if writing is not their forte and they need to depend on the skill, talent and judgement of their content writer.

It’s easier to trust if you come across someone publishes content regularly. This content can appear in front of you in your inbox, on your social media timeline, or even search engine results.

Just imagine: there is a client who wants to improve her search engine rankings and she comes across a content writer whose many pages and blog posts rank well. On multiple occasions she has come across his or her links on Google. Isn’t this encouraging?

Regular content writing and publishing to build trust isn’t easy. It may be easy in the beginning when you are bubbling with ideas, but then you run out of ideas. How do you overcome that? You need a system. Will write more about that later.

Better content writing often needs input from the clients

Leave a reply

Just because you have hired a content writer it doesn’t mean that you simply hand out a title and then go on with whatever you’re doing.

Some topics are common. Specialized information is not needed.

But, there are some topics for which the information can only come from someone who works inside the industry – the client.

Sometimes some clients take their web copy so casually that they just send me a site map or a list of web pages in an Excel sheet and then ask me to come up with appropriate content.

Recently there was a client who wanted me to even come up with the different services that he wanted to put on his Services page! So much disinterest.

I was aghast. I mean, how was I supposed to know what services they were providing?

Please remember that a content writer is being paid for writing content, not for being your content strategist, or your subject specialist. If you are hiring a strategist, then pay the fee of a consultant, and not merely a content writer. Anyway, that’s a different topic.

So, whether you are a client, or a content writer, the right information is important. Get it either through research or through work experience.

Sometimes the client says, “Oh, if I have to come up with everything, why am I hiring a content writer? I might as well do it myself.”

When a client says that, I tell him or her, “Sure, go ahead. If you think you can easily write what I’m going to write for you, then you definitely don’t need a content writer like me.”

Don’t shy away from asking. Otherwise you’ll be blamed for writing lousy content.