3 Things Every New Inbound Marketing Client Should Do When Starting Out

As a copywriter and content manager at Bluleadz, I’m always interested in finding ways to make the copywriting process easier for myself and my colleagues.

The way to do this is to look at some of the biggest challenges our word-oriented team faces on a daily basis. One of the biggest challenges we face in the early days of building a relationship with a new client is a lack of information.

Lacking information early on can slow down the creative process and can make things more difficult as a new client. You may find yourself making frequent revisions on content and may feel less satisfied and think we don’t “get” you.

From a content perspective, we become frustrated because we want to do the best job possible and want to provide you with the best product. However, having little to no information to go by makes us feel like we are “winging” it – and no one, least of all you, wants that to happen.

To help our team address some of these issues, I created an internal resource to provide guidance to both our sales and account management teams when working with new clients.

They can use this to help gather information early on. Here are some of the types of information we need before ever putting pen to paper (or, more aptly, fingers to keyboard):

Give Access to Your Subject Matter Experts and Relevant Content

We do our best to learn as much as possible about your company and niche industry. However, it’s important to note that copywriters are neither clairvoyants nor subject matter experts (SMEs).

While it’s true that we are good at researching and creating content on a wide variety of topics, as well as anticipating your expectations, we still need to hear from you.

If you have a one-of-a-kind product or service, we need to know some specifics. This could be as simple as providing our team with access to:

• Marketing or sales team training guides.

• Client collateral or user manuals.

• Schematics or other technical information.

• A subject matter expert we can reach out to and speak with as needed.

If there are specific ways you like to refer to your products or services, tell us. If there is something that has worked (or not worked) that you’ve tried, let us know that as well.

The more information you give us, the better we can perform to deliver results.

Provide Guidance Concerning Style, Tone, and Voice

If you want us to sound like you, provide guidance on the style, tone, and voice we use in articles or website content.

This could come in the form of providing access to organizational style guides or related resources, giving feedback on articles or other content, or allowing us as copywriters to schedule a meeting to discuss what is or is not working.

If there is specific language or phrases you’d like for us to integrate (or avoid) in the content, let us know. This could be using terms like “chiropractic” instead of “chiropractor,” or “fleet management” in lieu of more generic terms like “GPS tracking.”

It’s important to note that these more generic keywords may still need to be included (in addition to more specific keywords) for the sake of search engine optimization (SEO). However, knowing what key phrases you want us to focus on or avoid helps us better tailor and target the content we create in the future.

Participate in the Marketing Process

While we understand that you hired our team to be marketing experts, it is still a process that requires some collaboration with you as our client. Whether we’re writing content for a new email workflow or updating a service web page, there are some of the things we need to know:

• What is the purpose/goal of the page? What do you want the audience to do with this information?

• If updating/revamping old website content for a site migration/update, how will the next page content differ from the existing content?

• Is there anything you like from existing content that you want to include in the new copy for a specific project?

• Is your target audience all personas, or should the content be tailored to one specific persona?

• What are some key talking points/items that should be included in new content or removed from existing content?

As copywriters, we will work with your dedicated account manager (inbound marketing consultant) to provide you with recommendations for what we think should be done to accomplish your goals.

However, we ultimately need your approval before we can do the work.

This means that we need for you to provide feedback, engage with us during calls, and respond to emails or other communications.

Inbound marketing is a living, breathing, and evolving form of marketing. It requires learning and adapting throughout the process to determine what works most effectively to reach your audience and what you shouldn’t waste time or resources on.

I hope these recommendations help you when working with an inbound marketing agency!