04 Jun 5 Reasons Why You Should Add Content Writing to Your Social Media Product Line
As Social Media marketing has taken off, many agencies have made a substantial living from specializing in Social Media management, monitoring, and social advertising. These agencies could scale their operations and expand their profitability even further if they add on Content Writing services to the packages they offer.
Why? Because putting Content Marketing and Social Media services together makes perfect sense. They’re both incredibly important components to the digital face of a brand. They both have a goal of building audiences, shaping perception, and generating awareness. They both intuitively lead toward key stages of a brand’s marketing funnel.
And, perhaps most importantly, they both take a ton of time and effort to handle! The most tempting add-on services for marketing clients are things that they simply don’t have the bandwidth to take on themselves, after all.
If you don’t have the bandwidth, either, then don’t fret! There are plenty of options for outsourcing content production that can make your packages more well-rounded and your company more profitable.
These are just a taste of the biggest reasons why adding content services to your Social Media marketing packages makes a ton of sense. Learn more about how Content Writing benefits you and your clients in profound ways by considering the top five reasons below.
Content Services Can Encompass a Wide Range of Offerings, Rounding Out Your Company’s Value Proposition
First, let’s cover all that content services can encompass:
- Blog writing
- Web page creation
- Landing page creation
- Email marketing content creation
- Writing product descriptions
- Developing premium assets, like white papers and ebooks
Outside of the Content Writing itself, your agency can also offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Analytics Monitoring/Reporting, Conversion Rate Optimization, and Content Promotion.
Or, you could just narrow everything down to one service, like contributing to someone’s blog. The versatility and broad focus of content writing — coupled with its need for talent and attention to detail — make it an incredibly expansive service to add to your existing client packages.
Content Packages Refer to Specific Services and Have Easy-to-Measure Milestones
Social Media management can be difficult to price for some clients because each situation has different demands. Some clients just want a content queue lined up, for instance, while others want full interaction, monitoring, and engagement-driving tasks performed in order to keep their social presence appealing. Often, there’s no telling how many hours to charge for or what a fair set fee might be.
With content, the services are much simpler to quantify by comparison. Each client gets to order a set number of articles per month, or they can order a package of a bunch of articles at once up-front. You can add on discrete amounts for things like uploading content, including photos, tweaking SEO, and generating performance reports.
Compared to Social Media, these services and the expected results can be easily understood between agency and client. This makes them a much smaller “ask” and a highly appealing value-add service.
Put together: your clients know exactly what they’re getting, and you know exactly what to charge them. This arrangement is highly convenient and facilitates stronger — and more profitable — business relationships.
Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing Reinforce Each Other in Intuitive Ways
If you’re posting content on Social Media for your clients, where does that content come from?
Without a regular company blog, for instance, the brand’s Social channels are stuck sharing article content from outside sources or posting only bite-sized content, like photos. These forms of social content are both effective, but they can leave a feeling of something missing if left by themselves. There’s a noticeable absence of the brand having something to say.
Creating content, however, using the Hub and Spoke Model we’ve often mentioned provides deeper value than what most bite-sized social content can offer. Beginning with long-form blogs allows you to create a cohesive strategy, whereby each blog becomes five Facebook posts, twenty Tweets, etc. Most importantly, each Social Media post drives the reader back to the full blog post on the site.
Your content can answer questions your audience has or provide information to help them make important decisions. “By communicating thought leadership you become part of the conversation, early in the consumer journey. You allow your audience to get to know you,” observes Michael Brenner of Marketing Insider Group.
Put simply: blog content makes your client’s Social Media channels more interesting and more valuable to their audiences.
Content can also serve as the next step for audiences that engage on social. For instance, someone clicking on a cool image teasing a great infographic can be lead to a landing page containing not just the infographic but also a really strong call-to-action.
On the flip side, Social Media services are the perfect way to promote branded content. Like a great movie and delicious, salty popcorn, each one reinforces the other and creates a positive feedback loop bigger than the sum of its parts.
Content Marketing Helps Your Clients Achieve Their Conversion Goals Late in the Customer Journey
Social Media marketing is absolutely stellar at two things:
- Generating brand awareness
- Nurturing deeper relationships among audiences, including both new leads and loyal customers
However, Social Media arguably lacks the tools needed to convert someone to the later steps of a customer journey. “Shoppers aren’t flocking to social platforms to buy,” explains eMarketer, “but social media plays an important role in the early phases along the path to purchase, as a research tool and general influence.”
The bottom line is that Social Media has trouble getting people to take action outside the platform. As mentioned above, the Hub and Spoke Model can bridge that gap for your clients. This strategy creates a gentler customer journey, with less friction between steps and the promise of value during each phase as readers are guided back to your website to convert.
Let’s consider the example of someone clicking on an infographic preview and arriving on a blog post landing page. What if the landing page promised a free white paper on the subject that’s available if the visitor signs up to receive it via email?
Now, that visitor is officially on the client’s marketing list, and they can receive emails nurturing them further along their path to purchase. Basically, you’re lubricating the sides of their marketing funnel.
Content Marketing Can Be Outsourced, Allowing Your Operations to Scale Without Adding Burdensome Complexity
Hiring a full-time content writer for your agency can be a great option for establishing a consistent quality for your content, but it’s expensive! If you hope to add content services for several clients at once, you either have to hire several full-time writers — or hope the one you hired has really fast typing skills.
The alternative is outsourcing your content writing tasks to freelancers or another agency. With the latter, you get accountability and access to scale without the hassles of having to constantly vet individual writers. For example, you can say “yes” to a package of 100 extra blogs for a month using your existing resources when you outsource to an agency.
You get to charge a set fee for your content writing services and turn a profit. Your clients receive a better-rounded marketing package that serves a broader range of their goals. They feel happier, you profit more, and you expand the types of contracts and clients you have access to.
If that sounds like an all-around win to you, then take a look at the content writing services we offer today!