Content is the fuel that drives the Internet. There are well over 300 million registered domains and over 3 million blog posts published daily. Yet only 30% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers are satisfied with their content marketing efforts.
Many companies respond to this lack of quality content by building a team dedicated to content marketing alone. That’s great. Totally.
Because smart businesses agree that no marketing strategy is complete without quality content, and multiple surveys prove it:
- 81% of online shoppers in the US search online for product information to help them decide whether to buy.
- Marketers who blog consistently enjoy up to 13 times more return on investment (ROI) than those who don’t.
There are many more examples, but let’s stick with these for now. The point is that it’s easier—a lot easier—to reach your target audience with content as your weapon.
However, 60% of markters report that hiring marketing-content talent is a challenge. In his article on Medium, Jay Acunzo says companies are no longer seeking writers; they’re looking for talented content creators. “Companies aren’t finding enough creative, producer-type talent,” he says.
Doing the Groundwork
Before you start looking for talent, you must understand your needs. As with any project, building your content creation team needs measurable goals. Start with two essential ones.
1. What do you want from your team?
To hire the right people, you must have a robust strategy. Without a plan, you’ll plaster the Internet with second-rate content nobody wants to read.
Clearly, spelling out what you want will help you get more done, more easily and faster, and you will be saving a lot of time and resources in the process.
For example, if your goal is to outrank your competitors for organic searches on specific keywords, you’ll need writers with SEO skills. If you’re after converting prospects into customers, you need people with copywriting experience. And so on.
2. Who are your customers?
A cardinal rule of content marketing is “know your customers.”
Back in August, I launched a content marketing business that works mainly with B2B tech companies. Here’s what my target customer persona looked like:
- Location: Most of my targets are living in the US, the UK or Canada.
- Target needs: Increase lead and boost traffic.
- Title: head of marketing, chief content officer, and so on.
- Marketing budget: Let’s say hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Language: I sprinkle jargon, such as “boost traffic,” “increase leads,” and “sales funnel” both in my content and pitch emails.
- Contact method: Blogs, industry forums, and social media pages and groups.
One of the best guides for creating the right customer persona is from HubSpot. It’s required reading for any serious marketer.
Hiring Your Team
An effective content team needs a mix of skills. You’ll need pros in a variety of areas, depending on the requirements you laid down in your groundwork. Most companies need at least these four roles.
1. Content creators
Content creators are responsible for—surprise, surprise—creating your content. They are responsible for coming up with ideas and turning them into tangible content; that might include researching subjects, finding images, transcribing audio to text (if you do podcasts or interviews),…
