Jenn VillaYou’re here because your brand needs fresh content. More blogs, social posts, emails, and brochures, please!
The problem is, you can’t produce it all on your own.
Whether budget restrictions prevent you from hiring internally or you don’t see the need to hire a full-time employee for a part-time job, you’ve decided that it’s best to outsource some content.
So here you are, on the hunt for the right content marketing agency.
Maybe someone told you about our team at Impulse Creative, or you found us organically.
Either way, “hello!”
We wrote this post to explain a few ways we handle content strategy and execution differently than other marketers. So let’s just get right to it.
We Start with a Discovery-First Approach
Most of our clients begin their Impulse experience by signing up for an audit, wherein we dig into the current state of your website and marketing efforts and report our findings.
Performing an audit before locking into any partnership helps to reveal your company’s weaknesses (and your strengths!), right away, without guessing. That means when we do get started, we know what we’re dealing with— and so do you.
The results also help us determine a few tactics we can use to help you improve and guide your budget needs so that you’re not paying a vague, ambiguous fee. You want to know exactly what you’re paying for and we want to know there’s a big-picture strategy.
From a content-focused perspective, we’d take a look at your organic rankings and point out a few opportunities to increase them. We’d also assess the type of content you’re outputting in relation to its ROI, and work with you to discover or meet your big goals.
The audit process also helps you to get to know our team and for our team to get to know yours. This way, both parties can see if we’re a good fit before beginning a project-based website build or locking into a six-month or year content-producing retainer (like many companies require from the start).
Learn more about our discovery-first approach to marketing.
We Get to Know Your Tone of Voice, Brand Values, & Graphic Guidelines
We understand that you have a brand reputation to maintain, and when outsourcing a content marketing agency, they need to uphold it. That’s why here at Impulse Creative, we ask you the big questions about your brand manual, from voice to visuals.
Right after you onboard with us, we’ll meet to discuss all the small things that go into shaping your brand’s written word, including your company’s mission, vision, core values, tone, and more. From a graphic design perspective, we also take the time to learn about your logo and visual messaging, from your hex colors to the dos and don’ts of overlays.
Some brands come with a lot of this already established, but for new brands or those looking to make serious shifts in their marketing, we can help put together an all-comprehensive Brand Plan. This ever-changing document will evolve and grow with your brand for years to come, and be a guiding light for any content crew with hands-on marketing.
Be sure to download our Brand Plan ebook to get a taste for some things we’ll discuss. Of course, we don’t give all our secrets away in this free resource, but it’s a terrific way to get started.
We Leverage Content Surveys & Briefs
Our content survey is a list of questions we send to new clients to build new webpages for their products or services. In most instances, every page has its own survey for you to fill out, giving the content marketer who will write the page all the tools they need to do it right the first time, without annoying and tedious rounds of edits.
We’ll ask things like, “What is your competitive advantage?” or “How does this service help our clients? What’s the ROI?” and more. From there, we’ll use our proven Golden Circle format, leading with your customer’s reasons for being on your website, to write your high-performing webpages.
Our content briefs are a resource we use for our retainer clients who join Impulse for monthly content outsourcing. Instead of only giving you a blog title and running wild, this brief is akin to a strategic outline.
It not only details what you can expect us to expand on in the body before the post is written, but it’ll tie into your overall inbound marketing strategy, target keywords, internal cross-linking opportunities, buyer’s journey, and much more.
This is paramount in ensuring your blog doesn’t just receive traffic, but that it also facilitates conversions and leads.
When Needed, We Schedule Subject Matter Expert Meetings
We understand that your industry or particular product or service may be complex and unique. When getting comfortable with any brand, there’s a learning curve. Sometimes our content marketers recognize that leaning into one of your subject matter experts is necessary for relaying the right message. When this occurs, we’re not shy about asking for a master’s opinion and wisdom.
Our team is willing to put in the extra time and effort to really, truly understand your brand and industry’s complexities, setting us apart from other content outsourcers. In turn, this helps us invest in your company, and in time, become subject matter experts for your business ourselves.
We Build Content Offers & Pillar Pages
While there’s no doubt that blogging is a crucial content marketing tactic for most brands, it’s important to have more in-depth, extensive resources for those who want to continue to learn or problem-solve. That’s where longer pieces of content like pillar pages and content offers come into play.
These more robust resources are often more valuable to viewers, and they know it. That’s why they’re more willing to give personal information like their name or email to acquire access.
By gating your most valuable “content offers” behind a landing page and form you can dramatically increase your conversion rate and leads. These are typically resources long enough to merit an electronic book (ebook) or guide and are throughout enough that a user would want to download the resource to read later.
Pillar pages are a nice in-between, allowing readers free access to information. Because that content is so in-depth and openly available, it helps to build trust in your brand. Sometimes this is enough to convince a reader to share their information to obtain more resources or seek out your product or service. This inbound marketing methodology isn’t something that all content marketing agencies use to their (and your!) advantage.
We Pride Ourselves in Concise Edits
Anytime you have someone writing or creating content for your brand, revisions are expected. Whether it’s adjustments from legal or a slightly different angle, edits are a natural part of any creative process.
The problem arises when edits become time-consuming and extensive, wasting your budget and requiring more investment on your team or your internal editor(s). The back and forth between approvals and fixes can extend deadlines, delay results, and be a real pain in the ass.
Here at Impulse, our content surveys and briefs are approved by your team before we ever begin creating the content, ensuring that we’re on the same page before tapping into your points or budget. When edits are required, we try to limit revisions to one or two rounds to make the most of your budget and save time for focusing on your other goals.
We’re clear about this from the start so that the client knows they have one or two shots to say their peace and get everything in before final approval. Because of how well we prepare prior to generating anything new and our comfortability with your brand as the relationship deepens, edits are usually minor.
It All Starts with an Audit
When looking for someone to outsource your content marketing, there’s a lot that has to align. A lot of folks focus on the short-term results of strictly producing fresh content, but there are a lot of long-term goals to keep in mind.
Before choosing a partner, dig into what you should expect within the first year of working with an outsourced team.
If you’re ready for a true marketing partnership, take our team Impulse Creative for a test drive. There's no obligation to lock into a contract, only a friendly assessment to see if we’re the right fit for one another! Schedule an appointment with someone from our team, today.
