Want a foolproof plan for mastering a difficult job? Borrow from the greats. Musicians do it all the time. Beethoven took composition lessons with Haydn, Warren G sampled Michael McDonald, and Vanilla Ice ripped off Queen.
Ok, so don’t plagiarize (looking at you, Robin Thicke). But you can learn a lot by watching what other people in your position do to succeed.
Leading a content team at an agency definitely qualifies as a difficult job. You’re pulled in many directions, from client relations to project management to content creation, often for several clients at a time. Oh, and you’re also managing a team.
So take a look at how these four stellar content leaders handle things at their agencies. I interviewed all of them on Content Bounce House, where they shared the wisdom that can help your content team get over the hump.
Our panel of experts:
- Alex Heinz, Director of Content at North Star Digital
- Melissa Zehner, former Director of Content at Foundation
- Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira
- Joel Klettke, founder of Case Study Buddy
The day to day life of an agency content leader
The life of an agency marketer is varied. Alex and Melissa rarely have two days that feel alike, Sam’s team is in the trenches focused on building content, and Joel spends more and more of his time as a founder, rather than as a writer.
“My day-to-day is a lot of client strategy, as well as working with the team on production. We do a lot of keyword research reporting client meetings, as well as just trying to figure out how to elevate content, especially on the SEO team.”
Alex Heinz, Director of Content at North Star Inbound. Listen on episode one.
“I don’t think any two days have been the same since I’ve joined Foundation. We move really quickly. We have clients spread across the B2B SaaS space, and they’re all in different stages of their business or their growth plan. There are a lot of moving parts to track and just a lot of variety.
On any given day, we could be doing client kickoffs, discovery calls, customer interviews to understand a client’s target market strategy, presentations, or content production.”
Melissa Zehner, Director of Content at Foundation Marketing. Listen on episode eight.
“Most of our work comes through the SEO team. Blog posts, landing pages, all based on keyword research and mapping.
We also do work for the digital PR team. Sometimes that’s a link building asset where they need longer form content. Our average day is just getting the stuff written and getting it approved according to monthly deadlines.“
Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira. Listen on episode ten.
“These days, my focus right now is really on the sales and marketing side. How do we scale? How do we bring in more business? How do we go and escape just being dependent on referrals and word of mouth, which took us to a million, but won’t take us to five?
I also work with the account managers on the sales and marketing side. And then I still try to carve a little bit of time to be working on the product itself and trying to innovate.”
Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy. Listen on episode eleven.
Measuring success
What constitutes good content? What’s the goal of this content your agency is hired to build? As much as we look at rankings, organic traffic, and conversions, the consistent advice from our panel is “stay close to the money.” Demonstrate why your traffic matters to the people it matters most to.
“We’ve tried to automate briefs as much as possible. We use a tool cIf there’s a way to put any type of dollar signs to metrics, that’s always great. Sometimes that’s traffic value. If you were spending this much on ads, you’d get X traffic, but putting that money into content generated more traffic. We’re always looking for ways to speak to the C-level audience.alled Frase to help analyze our keywords and build out a recipe for what the article will need.”
Alex Heinz, Director of Content at North Star Inbound. Listen on episode one.
“You have to be able to have a dollars conversation with your C-suite or your investors if you’re going to get that budget and that buy-in.”
Melissa Zehner, Director of Content at Foundation Marketing. Listen on episode eight.
“At Aira, we focus on client business growth. We look at things like sessions and clicks, but we’re really focused on tying all that to ROI.
It allows us to go back to clients and say, Look, we, we did this work for you. It cost you this much, it returned this much to you. Would you like us to do some more?”
Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira. Listen on episode ten.
“Go beyond the KPIs, the metrics. Talk about the impact of those results. What did it mean that they got 10% more traffic? What was made possible by that? what did it change for them? What did it change for their boss? What did it change for their company?”
Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy. Listen on episode eleven.
Building effective content
When you’re leading a content team, your content has to perform. It’s got to rank or convert. Here’s how our experts focus on building the best content possible.
“We want to make sure that we’re not just trying to rank for the keyword, but we’re bringing something new to the table. We’re looking at what’s ranking with a critical eye.
I don’t like to discount higher difficulty keywords just right off the bat. Typically what I’ll do is I’ll do a competitive analysis in the space with a bunch of different sites, with the same domain rating against them higher and lower, and just kind of get a feel for what they’re ranking for in comparison to the client, and then have a general range that I look for.”
Alex Heinz, Director of Content at North Star Inbound. Listen on episode one.
“All you need to do is get a keyword in a couple of times in a natural way. We don’t try and stuff content full of keywords.
I get the writers to write as naturally as possible with the kind of keywords and within the briefs put together by our SEO team. That way, they’re kind of naturally optimized without us having to make an effort optimizing it.”
Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira. Listen on episode ten.
“A lot of content suffers from not bearing the end in mind.
A lot of teams just leap to produce because that’s what they’re measured against. They have a keyword list and they have a brief, but they’re not bearing the end in mind. What are the business goals you have? What are the revenue goals you have?”
Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy. Listen on episode eleven.
Outsourcing content creation
Our 2022 State of Digital Content Report showed that most folks are outsourcing some of their content production these days. The most dedicated content agencies often leave things in-house, but when you need a production boost, it’s time to outsource some content.
How do these agency leaders decide which content pieces to keep in-house and which to outsource? A lot of it boils down to subject matter expertise production volume.
“We try to keep as much work in-house as we possibly can. We only outsource when we really have so much overflow that it’s necessary. We’re big believers in the idea that knowing the client, really understanding their product, understanding their audience is ultimately going to produce better content.”
Melissa Zehner, Director of Content at Foundation Marketing. Listen on episode eight.
“Most of the stuff we do is done in house, but we do sometimes go to specialist freelancers if we have a particularly niche topic.
Other times, like the month when we wrote 140,000 words, we just can’t do it with a team of four. Freelancers help us out and write to our standards for big months like that.”
Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira. Listen on episode ten.
Managing client relationships
Client communication is a huge part of any agency role, and our content leads are constantly streamlining their process to make client relationships as productive as possible.
“The initial kickoff for our clients is a starting place. We discuss the keywords we want to target, the areas of digital PR that we want to explore, and the content that a client already owns that’s not performing well. We spend a lot of time discussing what will be cheapest, what will be most effective, and what will show results quickest.”
Alex Heinz, Director of Content at North Star Inbound. Listen on episode one.
“I can check in and make sure everything is running according to schedule and in the way that’s designed to help them meet their outcomes. But with our account managers helping, I’m not as heavily involved in the day to day activities on a specific client.”
Melissa Zehner, Director of Content at Foundation Marketing. Listen on episode eight.
“I always want clients to trust us that we know what we are doing. Sometimes they feel like they need to kind of see every brief or go through every brief with a fine-tooth comb. But we have the knowledge and the experience, and I’ve written for many different industries and areas and types of clients.”
Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira. Listen on episode ten.
“You need to be proactive. The number one reason agencies get fired is communication. I learned that early in my career and have been proactive about my communication with clients ever since.”
Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy. Listen on episode eleven.
Storytelling, creativity, and entertainment in content
How do you keep content exciting, fresh, readable? Like this.
“Even for SEO driven articles, I think metaphors and similes are things that the reader can easily digest and relate with right away. You have an element of entertainment without using fluffy language. Break things down in a comprehensive way.”
Alex Heinz, Director of Content at North Star Inbound. Listen on episode one.
“We aren’t afraid to see how far we can get a client to go. That’s kind of one of one of our goals at the moment to see how far we can get a client to go. Our editor Mike, recently pitched a parody erotic novella to a florist client of ours. We haven’t built it, but the client loved the idea.
We’re in every way a creative team. We’re copywriters, but we’ve got novelists, job story writers, script writers, playwrights, musicians, YouTubers, actors. I really want to use this creativity to offer something a bit more original and unique to clients.”
Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira. Listen on episode ten.
“I always hated case studies that started with a huge paragraph about the company. Nobody cares. Readers want to get into the drama, the stakes. We’re comfortable, most of us, telling a story. We’re awkward reciting facts.”
Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy. Listen on episode eleven.
The tool you can’t live without
We all rely on tools to make our jobs easier. Here are the tools our agency pros depend on most.
“Ahrefs. I do all my keyword research there. It is pretty manual sometimes, but I personally really liked doing that because it lets you find those diamonds in the rough that you wouldn’t necessarily find if you’re just looking at a list of keywords.”
Alex Heinz, Director of Content at North Star Inbound. Listen on episode one.
“We use ClickUp internally for a lot of project tracking. We also are a fully remote distributed team, so we heavily rely on Slack communication and even Loom videos throughout the day if we’re working to keep communication lines open.”
Melissa Zehner, Director of Content at Foundation Marketing. Listen on episode eight.
“We use frase.io to see what the top-ranking competitors are writing about and to make sure that we write about the topic in as in-depth a way as possible. Frase has links to all of those ranking articles so that the writers can go in there, get 20 pieces of relevant content, and do most of their research right there.”
Sam Butterworth, Copy Team Lead at Aira. Listen on episode ten.
Wrap up
Content marketers at agencies know the ins and outs of producing high-quality content at scale — from finding the right tools and cultivating the right team of creators to communicating successes in ways that matter to both your clients and your C-suite execs.
At Verblio, we know a thing or two about producing content at scale, too. If you’re just starting to produce content as an agency, check out our guide on selling content to clients or kickstart your content production with an editorial calendar.
Want more? Tune into Content Bounce House, where I talk shop with some of the industry’s leading experts in content marketing.
