#freelance-talk
Thread
Hi Content Friends,
I'm mulling over a strategic content service and would love your input. This is v. rough.
Idea 1) Work with client on a campaign to drive MQL with a specific piece of content. The content can already be created (or not), but it needs to be a big rock thought leadership piece - original research report, excellent pillar post, excellent webinar - something. /p
My role would be to work with the client to improve distribution and therefore MQL.
How would it look in practice?
• Initial kick off call to establish goals, piece, and desired audience. We’ll discuss any promotion budget and potential channels - what’s worked before? What haven’t they tried, etc.
•
• We will implement (me or someone I bring on for specific skills)
• Review the results and report back with recommendations.
Idea 2) Use the company’s unique POV combined with SEO search intent to create three to five primary content pillars for the rest of the year. We can draw from existing resources, consider search intent (and tie it to profitable themes), and talk with SMEs and customers for insights.
With those primary topics (with a specific POV) in place, it’s a matter of riffing on and borrowing from those for the next six months. Track results and adapt as needed.
What do you think? Useful? Confusing? I should start over?
Thanks!
What would be the ICP for each, and who would be the buyer?
Hey @Erik Dietrich, thanks! Refining these too, yet, broadly, I'm thinking small (1-3 people) content teams as the ICP. The buyer would be Head of Marketing or similar - whoever controls the budget.
I think the biggest challenge you'll face, though probably not worded exactly in this way from prospects, would be a business case for this client-vendor division of labor. To put it more (and perhaps over-) simply, I could imagine the economic buyer saying "why would we need a vendor for that?"
1. With offering (1), it's hard to imagine someone with a title like VP Marketing spending a bunch of time thinking about 1 single piece of content, so they'd likely delegate to someone hired to run or execute content and socials. And that person would probably look at you as more of a competitor than a partner ("ideating, creating and distributing content is my job.")
2. With (2) the main buying objection I could imagine is VP Marketing saying "I already have an SEO firm (or plan to), and I can tell them why our unique POV is and task them with keyword research against it."
I'm not saying this to be discouraging, but rather as food for thought to possibly refine the offering by reasoning through how to overcome those types of objections.
Personally, I think a slight variant on (1) would be pretty intriguing as a productized service.
Except, not to drive leads or pipeline, per se. But to do it as a proof of concept. One of the hardest things to do is get and then demonstrate end-to-end signal from awareness to contactable, qualified leads. If you were to specialize in helping to create or identify a piece of content that was demonstrably doing that, you'd be handing them a blueprint for what to scale up.
Good stuff, thanks Erik. I'm very much workshopping this.
@Jen Phillips April I think what Erik says is true at specific companies but not all. I think it probably depends on the size of company / marketing team you are looking to target. If it's a one person marketing show or even 3-4, your service could be valuable. I think your pitch makes sense, #1 is a nice blend of campaign strategy and content, but I would maybe expand #2 into a menu of options to extend on #1 (so like, emails, landing pages, blogs, mini ebooks, tip sheets, etc.) so they can select what makes sense for them.