How to choose the Best Content Marketing Agency in India?

What is Content Marketing? 

If you are on the lookout on how to use Content Marketing to grow your business, you have come to the right place. Are you on the search for the best Content Marketing Agency? Are you having problems in narrowing down to one agency? Ask yourself the following questions before you proceed- 

• Does my brand need Content Marketing? 
• How much can I afford to spend on Content Marketing? 
• What should I look for an agency that offers Content Marketing? 
• What are the ROI’s I should look for from Content Marketing? 
• How long should I wait to see results from Content Marketing? 

Content Marketing is a long-term strategy that helps you convert readers and visitors of your brand’s content into potential consumers and buyers. By strategically seeding your brand’s content on various publishing platforms, you can grow the visibility and search of your business monumentally.  

Content Marketing involves using your website’s blog, as the chief source of content. By regularly publishing articles, offering solutions to problems, and creating credibility, you will be able to convert visitors into buyers.  

This is not an easy task, as creating content is not enough. Content Marketing involves technical prowess and planning, and a good Content Marketing Agency will be able to do that for you.  

Content Marketing is the future of digital marketing and in our experience, one that has offered the most benefits to clients in the end. Through content marketing, clients have been able to establish long-lasting relationships with buyers and consumers.   

How to choose the right Content Marketing Agency for my Business? 

Now that you have decided to hire a content marketing agency, you have to be able to choose the best agency to work with. It is important to work with a content marketing agency that understands s your business needs.  

One thing that you have to bear in mind with is that content marketing is a valuable tool that many businesses use to drive traffic to their sign, earn an online presence and a good brand reputation.  

However, acknowledging that you cannot do it on your own and taking a step further to hire a content marketing agency that is well equipped to do this is very important for the success of the business.  

The truth is, being able to identify the most suitable content marketing agency for your business can be daunting. This is because in most cases, your experience in content marketing may range from none to something small.  

However, the number of possibilities out there is enough for expert content marketers to second-guess their abilities.  

This is exactly where we come in to help you get the most valuable information that will guide you through the process of choosing the best content marketing agency for your business needs.  

Throughout this article, you will learn some of the questions and responses that you need to ask yourself in order to make informed decisions as far as contracting the best content marketing agency in India is concerned.  

Factors to consider before choosing a Content Marketing Agency:

What are your content needs and budget? 

The first step to choosing a content marketing agency starts within your brand itself. This is because, if you understand what your requirements are, then you will be able to describe it well in a way that someone else can understand what you really want to achieve.  

You could be looking for content marketing for SEO, advertising, graphic design, social media among other things. The point is if you make your conversation better with your prospective content marketing strategy, the better.  

The other thing is that your needs should be in line with your budget. What are you willing to spend? The truth is, when it comes to content marketing, there is no set price. A good marketer should work with a reasonable budget and ensure that your expectations are set in a way that they are achievable.  

For example, a restaurant café may need a lot of social media work as compared to advertising, which is at the highest level of priorities for a plumbing business.  

Being able to understand what your business needs go a long way in identifying an agency that can help you get exactly what you are looking for.  

Does your Content Marketing Agency have subject matter expertise? 

You cannot create an outstanding content marketing campaign that drives a high impact among your target audience without having a deeper understanding of your brand and the target market.  

In other words, the content marketing agency that you choose should have subject matter expertise.  

You want a partner that is able to understand your industry, target audience and market. They should also be able to establish a strong relationship with key thought leaders that you can take advantage of in your content.  

One mistake that most people make is hiring a content marketing agency that will learn their business. Well, you are not paying an agency to learn your business; you are paying them to deliver high-quality content because of their expertise!  

Subject Matter Expertise:

Subject matter expertise is one of the most critical factors to consider when it comes to the content marketing initiative.  

This is mainly because a content marketing agency cannot produce a stream of high quality, up-to-date relevant content if they do not have a deeper understanding of what challenges your target audience is facing.  

They have to understand what your competitive situation is, as well as market dynamics.  

The central question then is how then do you gauge whether the content marketing agency you are considering has your subject matter expertise?

Well, you can follow these agencies online on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn among other social media platforms. By simply reviewing their content on such platforms, you can tell whether they have an in-depth knowledge of your industry and target market.  

Check how they respond to comments, questions, concerns, and online discussion. Do they command authority in the industry?

The other way you can do this is by finding time to talk to their clients. This may be a grey area especially if you are new in this field. However, consider it your due diligence.  

Ask them questions concerning the work of the agency, their thoughts about their services based on their experience. This way, you can be able to evaluate and determine whether they have an in-depth understanding of the market.  

Does your Content Marketing Agency practice what it preaches?  

It is one thing to know something and it is quite another to know of something! Well, let me put it this way, it is one thing to pretend to know something and it is quite another to actually be able to do it!  

Most content marketing agencies will tell you that they can go to any lengths for the brand.  However, have they done it?  

The truth that most people do not want to come to terms with is that if the marketing agency is successful and competent as they say they are, they should be able to promote your products and services in a way that nurtures your clients into making purchases.  

You can already judge whether the content marketing agency is good for your business or not by the way in which it promotes itself.  

You should be on the lookout for content marketing agencies that build and differentiates its brand in the market.  

So many of them will tell you that they do it, but the question is, how many of them actually deliver? Ask yourself, ‘why would I hire a company that does not have a good content marketing strategy themselves?’

The truth is you would not. If their online presence is sporadic, that is your warning sign!  

Does your Content Marketing Agency set a benchmark in the industry? 

A content marketing agency can nurture its thought and attract the attention of its target clients in so many ways. Some of the ways you can tell whether the agency has thought leadership includes- 

• Do they give presentations during events such as Content Marketing World among other relevant conferences in the industry? 
• Do they hold a number of content marketing webinars? 

• Have they authored some authoritative articles that give an intriguing perspective? 
• Do they take part in online forums? 

If you check all these boxes, then you can proceed and hire them for your content marketing campaigns.  

What do you learn from their Content Marketing Industry Experience? 

Well, you may find that the content marketing agency you are considering has experience in your industry, which is great, right?  

However, it is important that you take this a notch higher by trying to find out about its engagements and the experience from interacting with its clients. Did everything go well or not? Were there things that were challenging?  

The other thing is for you to ask about their approach when it comes to a new industry. So many content marketing agencies in India use the cookie-cutter approach.  

Well, truth be told, if you really want to uncover a stagnant content marketing strategy, you have to give it a fresh look. If the marketer is good, they will always ensure that they conduct an evaluation of your industry even though it may be new to them.  

It has to evaluate other factors such as the online presence, competitor as well as use these valuable metrics to come up with an effective strategy to test before they can give a definite response and decision.  

Is your Content Marketing Agency credible? 

You can determine the credibility of a content marketing agency in a number of ways. The first and the main one is reviewing testimonials from clients on their website. Evaluate whether these testimonials and reviews are authentic! There are companies that will try to create fake testimonials just so that they can attract customers.  

The other approach you can take is asking for a client’s references including those that did not yield a very good experience. The truth is, no matter how good an agency is there has to be something that did not go well.  

It is very important for you to look into this to find out why things did not go well and how they were able to deal with the situation. You can also look into the good case studies. This will be able to give you an idea of how well they planned it.  

To make sure that these recommendations are credible, you could call these references rather than sending them email addresses. You will be surprised how much a phone call can give so much information! 

Finally, find out if the agency has a decent website. Does it rank well on search results? In other words, does it indicate an acumen in SEO?  

A good content marketing agency has to have well-maintained social media pages with high-quality relevant data. If they can do it for themselves, then you can trust that they can do it for your business too.  

Are they transparent? 

One of the most overlooked red flags is a lack of transparency. A brand needs to be careful about honesty and transparency when dealing with a digital marketing agency.  

If you plan to have a successful partnership. You can do this by reviewing the agency’s website for such important things as contact information, bios as well as a list of clients. If such basic information is not included, then they are not worth your time!  

Lack of basic information like an address is something that is suspicious. For instance, you will find so many offshore agencies in India promising to offer big services at very low rates. Cheap is good but it can be fraudulent! Be careful. 

The sad thing is that so many clients overlook this only to come to us running after having a bad experience. The thing that strikes us the most is that these agencies do have very limited information on their websites. The first criterion should be transparency!  

Does the Content Marketing Agency have Technical expertise? 

You will realize that in this field, so many marketers talk about clients and agencies. This means that you are either on the brand side or on the agency side. However, there is another side that not give its due importance- the technical side!  

It is important that you understand the website development technologies that the agency uses when it comes to content marketing strategies. By just looking at their website, do you think that it was built properly?  

Ask your agency whether they have had sides of the triad during their working experience, if they have, then you have your jackpot right there! This indicates that they likely have an all-rounded perception of content marketing.  

Beneficial Add-ons for a Content Marketing Agency:

In our experience, we have found that most digital companies that offer Content Marketing services try to outsource the work.  

They do not have any team of writers, link-builders, or content sites that are the foundations of Content Marketing. 

Content Writing Team:

You should always look for Content Marketing companies that have a team of in-house-skilled writers, rather than freelancers. This will help maintain quality checks, and provide consistency to your brand’s content.  

Different writers, sitting in different parts of the world, have different writing styles. This is particularly important if you are creating blogs for your website. It needs to have a unified style of writing.  

Content Marketing is all about creating good quality, original and plagiarism free content. Check with your Content Marketing Agency about the kind of writing software they use. Grammarly, Copyscape, and others are used by good agencies to moderate content.  :

If there is a possibility, talk to the writers working on your brand, and understand their thought process. They will be the ones at the front line exhibiting your brand; hence, it is crucial for them to understand the brand ethos.

You will not be able to do the above things if your Content Marketing Agency uses freelancers to write content. It is imperative that your agency has an in-house and skilled team of writers.

Content Marketing Agency should have its own Content Sites:

What good is a Content Marketing Company if it does not have their own content sites? Some of the best agencies have content sites on multiple industries, including, tech, health, fashion, lifestyle, and others.

If your Content Marketing Agency owns and operates twenty or more content sites that are it’s own, you will see the difference in their Content Marketing ROI.

By working on their own content sites, and managing technical issues like Domain Authority, Page Rank, and others, agencies get a lot of experience. They will be able to point out easily what would be best for your brand.

Seeding your content and backlinks will become a breeze if your Content Marketing Agency runs its own content sites.

However, for most clients, it boils down to affordability. If the Content Marketing Agency has its own content sites, you will get an affordable, efficient, and technically superior deal for your brand. 

Content Marketing Agency should have its own Link Building Team:

Link building, along with content writing is one of the most important parts of Content Marketing. Most fraudulent content marketing companies outsource link-building to scrupulous offices.  

This, in turn, leads your brand’s link to be the seed to bad websites, which have a low rating and questionable integrity. If your brand’s link is placed on sites, which are not reputed, chances are that it might get de-indexed.  

This is no small joke as it can destroy your reputation, credibility, and monetary investment. A brand should always be aware of where its links are. This will help avert great disasters.

I have seen thousands of dollars of a brand vanishing after the last update from Google, where it de-indexed close to two million sites. Their Content Marketing agency had placed their links in spam sites, and sites that used spun content. The result- de-indexing! 

Content Marketing Company- The Final Word:

It is always a good idea to go to an agency that offers integrated digital marketing solutions. A 360-degree digital marketing company will ensure that processes like SEO, Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing are well integrated. 

This will also save you a lot of time and money, and harassment as you can hold one agency responsible, rather than running after three separate ones. As a brand, you should also filter in the affordability factor. Choosing a 360-degree digital marketing company will be cost effective for your brand.

Well, once you have gone through all the factors we have discussed, you must have narrowed down your list to a handful of content marketing agencies in India that you can work with.

The next thing is for you to take a step back. The key is to ask yourself again what you really want to achieve from this relationship.

Remember that, content marketing should be fun for you as a business owner. This is because you have been doing all the mundane tasks required to run the business.  

Therefore, it is important that you choose a content marketing agency that aligns with your personality. This will offer you much more professional satisfaction.  

The bottom line is what kind of relationship do you want to establish with your agency? Can the agency do the job that you want to hire them for? Do you enjoy working with them? That is all the really matters.

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