Many companies have had great success working with creative agencies. Third-parties like content agencies can alleviate a tremendous load of pressure from internal teams by helping solve their content production challenges. The flexibility that a lot of agencies offer is beneficial for teams because it means that the agency can fill in wherever teams need them to.
If you’re thinking of working with an agency for the first time, or you’re considering how to optimize the relationship you currently have, then it’s important to explore what the ideal client-agency relationship looks like—for you.
The Client-Agency Relationship
It’s important to remember that not all client-agency relationships look alike. It totally depends on your company’s needs and the agency’s offerings.
Some companies have a solid in-house marketing team with strong writers. These teams would likely benefit more from help with content strategy and scheduling.
Other teams know exactly what they want their content to look like—they simply don’t have someone internally who can do the writing. These teams need agencies to help them execute.
There’s no right or wrong way to work with an agency. But if you’re trying to decide exactly how it will look when working with a content agency, then ask yourself these following questions about your company’s needs.
How Has Your Company Grown?
Some companies have grown so much, so quickly that they never had time to establish an internal content production system. If this is the case, then an agency can fill in the gaps. Having support from an agency also alleviates enough pressure to give your team the space to develop its own content production processes.
On the other hand, if you’ve taken the time to deliberately grow an in-house content production team, then an agency is a good strategic partner for special products. You can also employ an agency as a fresh set of eyes for regular strategy sessions.
Who Is on Your Internal Marketing Team?
As mentioned, some companies have dedicated internal content teams, while others have a jack-of-all-trades person tasked with many aspects of marketing, including content. If you can identify the key people who will be responsible for working directly with the agency, then you can better understand how the relationship will work.
A team member who wears many hats needs an agency that can take an idea and run with it, independently and without need for approval at each step. However, an internal content strategist or coordinator team member will need to work with an agency in a more hands-on approach, ensuring specifics like branding, style, visuals and more.
What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?
In our experience, teams are either really good at ideation or really strong at execution. You could be good at developing your content strategy— you know the exact blog topics you want covered and the format the content should follow. But, because time is a constraint we all face, you don’t have someone on the team who can execute it.
Or, you might face the opposite struggle. You have someone on the team who is great at the technical details of content production but lacks the strategy and planning component. Find an agency who can seamlessly mesh with your team’s strengths and weaknesses.
Where Is Your Major Content Bottleneck?
This is a critical pain point to identify in your organization. Look at the consistent part of the content production chain that always gets blocked. Are you always stuck on topic ideas? Do you never seem to get a first draft done by your internal deadline? Does it seem to take forever to get a page published once it’s been written?
Wherever you notice that your team is consistently getting stuck with content production will be a main indicator of where an agency can help most.
Develop a Strategic Partnership
By looking at these aspects of your business, you can start to envision the ideal working relationship between your team and an agency. In many cases, companies consider their content agencies like “business partners”, more than third parties.
When kicking off a relationship with an agency, the two of you can work together to decide how the relationship should form in its most ideal version. You’ll decide who will be the main point of contact with the agency, how often they’ll work together and what each side’s responsibilities will be in taking your content plan to the next level.
If your team needs a helping hand with content planning or content creation, then contact Healthy Content today to learn more about how we can work together. We offer help with strategy through our quarterly content calendar plan, or we can help you execute your blog ideas with content packages or custom content production. Get in touch to find out more.
