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A freelance content marketing specialist can
By Carsten Bjerregaard, Marketingcapacity.dk (Link to the article. Copying/publishing without agreement is not allowed)
A content marketing specialist can attract leads to your business by creating interest and inviting a relevant dialog about your products, services and concepts. The role of the content marketing specialist is to understand the customer's need for knowledge during the buying process and satisfy that need throughout the customer journey. From the moment the need is awakened until the purchase is completed.
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What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is basically about qualifying a business for a purchase by being the best at answering customers' questions. Both spoken and unspoken questions.
Unfolded a bit, it's all about:
- Understand customer needs for products within a given category
- Understanding customers' need for knowledge to make a decision
- Being able to phrase customer questions the way customers will search for them in Google
- Being able to answer questions so well that it moves customers further towards a decision
- Providing customers with the information they need to make a purchase
How does the Content Marketing Specialist create value?
The content marketing specialist ensures that the company 'publishes' content. That is, content. Content that supports the customer in the purchase decision. Be it in the form of:
- Articles
- Blog posts
- Social Media posts
- Videos
- How-to guides
- Infographic
- Leaflets
In short, information in every conceivable format that customers might want to use.
But isn't it advertising? Yes, it is advertising. But advertising in the form of information and which should be decoded as fairly credible information. Both in terms of form and content.
What does a Content Marketing Specialist need to know?
There are no formal requirements. So it's up to each company to define their requirements for a person to cover their content needs. It could be based on this list of desired competencies.
Empathy and knowledge to understand customer needs
- The content marketing specialist must understand customers
- It can be intuitive via empathy or it can be via industry insights (what does a car buyer need?)
- The content marketing specialist must be able to formulate all the relevant questions customers may have
Understand what's happening in society
- Good content can gain traction by leaning on trends - or conversations - in society. Because no content exists in a hermetic vacuum. Therefore, it's an advantage if the content marketing specialist has their antennae out and understands what's happening in society
- The content marketing specialist may also be able to use tools such as Google to find out what's trending at the moment - and possibly develop and post content to fit in with the trends that are already there.
Develop content
Most content marketing specialists take a hands-on approach to their work. Not only can they define what content is needed, they can typically develop some of it themselves
- Idea development (brainstorming, angling, storytelling)
- Interview
- Writing
- Layoute
- Movies
- Video editors
- Acting
Influencers typically have many tools in their toolbox. They live and breathe their own stories, and through direct response they learn what works and what doesn't. If you don't already, follow some influencers over time and try to analyze for yourself how they work on many levels and in many ways with their stories.
Publish content
An important part of the Content Marketing specialist's job is to make sure that the material is published so that the target audience can be exposed to it. This is typically divided into Paid Media, Owned Media and Earned Media.
Paid Media: TV, Radio advertising, Out-of-home - and other media that you can't get into unless you pay for it.
Owned Media: Own website, social media channels, blogs, magazines or other publications that the company owns.
Earned Media: Earned media may not actually be media. The name refers to the publicity you 'earn' by creating content that is so good or interesting that others share it on their media. For example, if a customer shares a video that your company has developed, that's earned media.
The content marketing specialist understands - and can navigate - this landscape of media. They know how the different mediums work, how different types of content work in each medium and how they interact with each other.
Execute campaigns and keep an overview
Some content marketing specialists also have the skills to work on a strategic level. So they can plan and execute different types of content. And keep an eye on how each one performs. Because in content marketing, as in any other field, reality is the best teacher.
To do this, it is an advantage if the content marketing specialist can use different tools, such as
- Hootsuite, which among other things is a Social Media platform
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads
- YouTube Channels
Not everyone can do everything. So when searching for a content marketing specialist, it's important to be aware of the setup they will be working in:
- Are there support services the person can lean on?
- Are there creatives that the person can brief to develop content?
- What types of content should the person develop themselves?
- What quality of content will you be satisfied with?
- How much production does your company expect?
- How will it measure the value and impact?
Examples of good Content Marketing work
Every company dreams of developing a piece of content that takes on a life of its own. One that goes viral because a lot of people like it.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to plan, buy or decide. You can try hard and hope for it. But no one knows in advance what will be trending. However, one of Denmark's most talented advertising agencies has a rule of thumb for what it takes to create a viral effect:
- The content should be based on an insight about feelings, thoughts or actions that we all have in common
- It must fit into a current dialog that already exists in society (because you can't create the debate yourself). The content may be a comment or angle on an existing topic
- It must be an interesting or fun piece of content in itself
For TV2, the agency &Co. developed a campaign called "Everything we share". The campaign tapped into a current debate in society about the widening gap between different groups in society. A divide we oddly enough have a common feeling about. This is one of the reasons why this piece of content was widely shared on social media.
Google creates a hierarchy of content:
- Hero - (e.g. out-of-the-ordinary videos that create branding and that customers might want to share. Volvo made some videos with Jean Claude van Damme for their trucks that were viewed by millions)
- Hub - thorough content that supports the brand and talks about products and solutions in an easily accessible way
- Hygiene - blog posts, explainer videos etc. that answer one or more questions
Why a freelance content marketing specialist?
In the past, most people might have thought of freelancers for one-off projects. However, many companies have now realized the benefits of working with freelancers on a long-term basis:
- You can cover needs that don't justify a permanent position
- In periods when you don't need it, you don't pay for the skill
- In a long-term relationship, the freelancer gets to know the company almost as well as a permanent employee
- Compared to buying the desired skill set from an agency - such as an advertising agency - working with freelancers is usually much cheaper
- You have the flexibility to rethink the overall competency profile of the person responsible for an area
- More and more really talented people prefer to work freelance
- A freelancer can still look at your business 'from the outside' - which is a valuable thing when thinking about creative
- Freelancers can bring fresh, outside inspiration to your business
How do you find a good freelance content marketing specialist?
Finding the right freelancer can be difficult. And above all, it can take a long time. Because there are many freelancers within the same field, and even if they boast the same skills, there can be a big difference when it comes to the way they work and the work they deliver. When you ask Marketingcapacity.dk to help you find a freelancer to work with, the process is simple:
- You describe your needs to us (either in writing or verbally - we'll confirm in an email)
- We screen the thousands of profiles on Marketingcapacity.dk and, if necessary, the market through our channels
- We nominate a list of candidates and talk to them according to your needs
- You will be presented with 3 candidates that seem to meet your needs
- During the 3 meetings (at your location or digitally) you can ask questions and see examples of their work
- You choose the freelancer you would like to start working with
- We set it up in our systems with time tracking etc. so you have an overview and full control
In other words: After describing your needs, simply set aside 2 hours to meet with 3 hand-picked and screened candidates. That's your guarantee of a good result with reasonable effort.
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