Content marketing is limitless in today’s endlessly evolving technical world. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, long after it’s been produced.

Content consumption isn’t going down either. Because of the pandemic, online content consumption is only increasing.

This creates a constant need for new quality content to be produced to satisfy online searchers’ queries.

Companies looking to capitalize on content marketing are competing against each other by writing better, longer blogs that will gain more traffic to improve their rankings and sales figures.

This puts companies that aren’t blogging at a disadvantage. In order to compete, they turn to a content marketing service to handle their content marketing services.

But what does a content marketing team do exactly?

Continue reading to learn what content marketing services are included when you hire a content studio.

What Does a Content Marketing Service Do?

Content marketing agencies are specialized marketing agencies focusing on digital marketing, content strategy, and content creation.

Also known as content studios, these agencies typically use a combination of SEO, blogging, content creation, keyword planning, competitive research, and PPC ads to drive traffic to their clients’ websites for lead generation.

Content marketing specialists and account managers work with their clients to understand their marketing goals and objectives, and then produce a winning content marketing strategy to target the right online audience.

Companies hire a content marketing services provider to improve their website’s Google ranking, boost traffic to their website, generate leads for business, and ultimately meet business goals and raise revenue for the company.

What is a Full-Service Marketing Agency?

A full-service marketing agency has everything in-house necessary for executing the digital marketing strategies. 

Graphic designers, account managers, web developers, writers, editors, SEO experts, PPC professionals, and email marketers are all employed by the same agency to work together on clients’ projects.

Occasionally, a full-service marketing agency might outsource particular services, such as PPC ad management, or other highly-specialized key areas in order to provide more content marketing services to their clients. 

Your business would hire a full-service marketing agency, as opposed to individual freelancers, because of their efficiency and effectiveness. Instead of dealing with multiple contractors or freelancers, a client only has to deal with their account manager, who can then delegate tasks to each specialized employee.

A full-service digital marketing agency can see projects through to completion, from the early development of an idea to the final execution of a streamlined digital marketing strategy. 

What are Examples of Content Marketing?

Content marketing attracts the clients’ target audience by producing high-quality content for the reader to stumble upon online.

Typically, this content is found through the reader’s Google searches trying to find solutions to their problems. Or it can be shared and discovered on social media.

Content marketing is a different form of advertising. To the reader, they’re just consuming a free piece of content that helps answer questions related to their Google search.

In this sense, any piece of helpful, free content shared online that produces value and attracts attention is a form of content marketing.

The idea behind content marketing is that if a company can produce enough relevant content, they’ll develop a loyal audience who eventually will gain trust in that company, and reach out to buy their products or services.

A blog post, YouTube video, Pinterest infographic, or eBook are all content marketing formats that an audience can stumble upon to start their customer journey.

Generally speaking, blog content is the most popular form of content marketing. They’re so popular that content marketing and blogging are almost used interchangeably.

How-to articles and listicles (list-based articles) are among the most searched and clicked on pieces of content. However, YouTube videos, social media posts, webinars, and case studies also count as content marketing. Even answering questions on forums like Reddit or Quora can be a successful form of content marketing.

Unlike advertising, which stops showing ads after you have stopped paying, content marketing lives on forever. It continues to attract readers up to several years after the post has been written.

Lead-Generating Content Marketing Services

Lead generation is often the primary motivation for developing a content marketing strategy.

At a content marketing agency, your account manager will work with you to help you identify your target audience, understand what keywords they’re searching for, and produce a strategy to get your content in front of the right people.

This strategy might involve a total overhaul of a company’s online presence. Particularly if the client’s website is outdated or not mobile-friendly.

Once the website is ready, blog posts and other content forms will be created to draw visitors from search engines in.

You’ll often see client-based companies, such as law firms, mortgage lenders, and financial tech companies producing tons of informative blog posts online. 

It’s because these blogs specifically target these companies’ potential customers, pulling them into their websites so the reader will fill out a contact form.

In the days of old, traditional marketing campaigns and direct mail pieces were sent out to peoples’ mailboxes in the hopes people would call a phone number or send back a form.

But this method is too costly and inefficient. You’re essentially paying for tons of wasted paper being sent to people who most likely aren’t interested in your product.

With content marketing, your content pieces are only shown to people who are actively searching for what you’re offering.

Your money is better spent. Your targeting is more focused. You’ll reel in better quality leads — simple as that.

Top Content Marketing Services that Grow Your Business

Content marketing is used to attract your target audience, grow your audience, and retain your existing clients long after you’ve collected their lead. 

It may appear simple in its concept. But let’s face it — you likely do not have the extra time to devote to learning the ins and outs of SEO, blog writing, and publishing.

Fear not though, you don’t have to go at it alone. A digital marketing specialist is worth the investment. We’re going to show you just how much value each component of content marketing offers.

Let’s look each of these different content marketing services and how they can help you grow your business.

Blogging

Blogs are the main traffic generators responsible for driving traffic to a clients’ website.

Without blogs, there would be no search results to people’s Google searches, and definitely no traffic.

Blogs are often the first impression and first point of contact that a reader has with a new company. They’re also a foot in the door that can be leveraged to encourage readers to fill out a contact form.

In addition to their attractive qualities, regularly publishing a blog on your website also has these benefits:

• Your Google ranking can improve with every new blog post published, raising its position in search results
• New blogs written can be reused to be posted on social media, or sent out in a newsletter
• Add important keywords to a website, making it easier to find in Google searches
• Your website will look active and current, giving the impression that your company is still in business and is looking for new clients.
• More blogs will keep your readers on your site longer, especially if you link to existing articles in your posts
• Blogs can encourage backlinks, which is when other websites link to your page, which results in receiving drastically more traffic
• Feature calls-to-action (CTAs) to motivate your reader into contacting you
• Blogs make your company a trusted authority and instill confidence in your reader to reach out

Lead Magnets and Content Upgrades

Lead magnets, also known as content upgrades, are downloadable and shareable forms of content that a reader must submit their email address to receive.

If you’ve ever read a blog that had a CTA that said “Download our Free Ultimate Guide/Template/Checklist etc,” then you’re likely familiar with lead magnets. And they work too!

Sometimes lead magnets can be inserted at the bottom of a regular post, and other times they are given their own unique landing page.

Whereas blogs strongly encourage readers to reach out for additional information, lead magnets require an email address to view the content.

Once the reader has submitted their email address, they will automatically be signed up for a drip email campaign that can automate sending important emails to keep them in the loop until they’re ready to buy.

Lead Generation

Once readers have landed on the website, they’ll be encouraged to fill out a contact form to submit their lead information. 

In addition to lead magnets, contact forms should be widely accessible throughout the website to capture leads no matter what page the reader is on.

Instead of using clunky questionnaires, which typically frustrate a reader before they can complete it, progressive style forms are used instead.

Also known as “lead paths,” progressive style forms ask just one simple question at a time until the form is complete. They’re a kind of smart form that can update its questions based on the answer given. This eliminates the annoyance of traditional forms that ask redundant questions, which usually turn the reader off before they can complete the form.

Compared to standard forms, lead paths convert at a much higher rate.

Email Marketing

Emails are the perfect vehicle to send new content pieces to a large audience who’s already familiar with your brand and company.

As soon as a lead fills out their contact info they will receive an automated confirmation email and be put into a drip email campaign.

Drip campaigns are email campaigns that are designed to automatically send emails at predetermined intervals. These emails will continue to encourage brand awareness and keep the contact in the loop with your company’s messaging until they’re ready to buy.

As soon as a new post has been written, it can be used as content filler to send in an email newsletter. And just how you can track analytics for blog posts on a website, you can also track analytics to see how many people opened up their emails. 

Over time, email open rate data can be used to assess which blog posts and topics are the most popular to improve and optimize the content strategy.

Search Engine Optimization

Content marketing and SEO work hand-in-hand to focus on important keywords that are bringing readers to your website. 

SEO specialists and account managers will perform competitive keyword research analysis to see what keywords and topics your competitors are focusing on.

If they notice a particular type of article or topic is performing well, they’ll take note and recommend article ideas and keywords for writers to produce similar content pieces.

After the articles have been written, SEO specialists will then analyze the performance of these blogs to see how much traffic they’re bringing in, as well as how long readers stay on the website, and see their referral source so the whole process can be optimized for higher conversion rates.

Website Design and Development

Generating a consistent stream of high-quality leads is nearly impossible on an outdated or slow-loading website. Often a content marketing agency will have web developers and designers on staff who can help a company with rebranding or updating their existing website so it can retain web visitors longer.

This is the point where you’re able to add progressive forms and updated copy. Your copy should be clear, concise, and relatable. Just like in your content, you don’t want to make anything to industry-jargon heavy.

Pay-Per-Click

Technically, PPC ads aren’t considered part of content marketing, but they’re a complementary part of the content marketing process.

Blog posts are considered a form of “organic” or unpaid marketing. Because of this, it takes a while for new blog posts to get indexed by Google to enter the search engine results page (SERP).

Once they’re added to Google, it can take even longer for the pages to start ranking high up in the results. This is why blogs are a long-term strategy.

However, with PPC ads, an ad can be approved in a few days and then be placed at the top of Google’s results.

Whereas blogs essentially last forever, PPC ads only last as long as you’re paying for them. However, when your marketing efforts need a quick boost, PPC ads are the way to go to get you there.

How Does a Content Marketing Agency Get You More For Your Money?

The price of hiring one marketing employee at your company costs more than hiring a whole team of content marketers at a content marketing agency.

When you hire an outside agency, you’ll get better content marketing results for less money and less supervision than if you were to hire a new employee. You also don’t have to pay for health insurance and benefits.

Because a full-service agency is compartmentalized, this also means that each key area of your content marketing strategy is being handled by a specialist. Web design is handled by professional designers. Keyword research is performed by trained SEO specialists.

Blog articles are handled by experienced writers with industry knowledge. You’re getting professional, quality, and unique content that you won’t find by just purchasing from online content farms, made up of random freelancers.

For the money and the results, you can’t do better than hiring an outside agency, especially if you wish to get started right away and don’t have time to deal with the steep learning curve of training a new employee.

Kaleidico — Your Content Marketing Agency for Lead Generation

Kaleidico is a full-service marketing agency specializing in content marketing and lead generation for mortgage lenders, law firms, fintech, and independent marketing agencies.

We offer direct and white label content marketing to help companies or their clients generate more leads online to fuel their sales funnels and customer discovery process.

Ready to optimize your content marketing services?

Contact us to schedule a Discovery session and get started with our Proven Content Marketing Plan.

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash