A content consultant is a professional who helps businesses create or improve their content strategy. Content consultants bring a fresh perspective to an organization and can help develop a content strategy that meets the needs of the business and its customers.
They have a deep understanding of how to create and optimize content for the web and can help businesses make their content more effective. In addition, a content consultant can also help businesses with their social media strategy and can provide guidance on how to use social media to reinforce your content and reach additional customers.
What Does a Content Consultant Do?
Content consultants understand how customers interact with brands throughout their customer lifecycle. By taking a strategic approach to content creation, they can ensure that your brand is delivering the right message to the right customer at the right time. They conduct keyword research, create content calendars, and work to improve your SEO so you show up when your customers search for you.
What’s a Customer Lifecycle?
So consultants use the customer lifecycle to organize content, but what is that exactly? Let’s break down the customer lifecycle a bit.
The B2C customer lifecycle (at its most basic) spans four key stages: awareness, interest, decision, and purchase.
Increasingly, B2B content consultants recognize that the customer lifecycles extend from the first interaction (awareness) all the way to the end of their relationship with the company. The B2B customer lifecycle spans six key stages: awareness, interest, decision, new customer, existing customer, and offboarding.
At each stage, regardless of the lifecycle path, customers have different needs, questions, and concerns. Content consultants take these needs into account when developing a content strategy. Let’s go through a few examples together:
Awareness Stage
During the awareness stage, customers are just learning about their problem (potentially – some problems are pervasive and your customer is actively seeking a solution before they find you), your company, and how they go together.
To reach people in this stage, you need content that they’re searching for – this includes content that is educational (helpful tips, guides, “things I wish I knew before…,” etc.) about your industry as it relates to theirs, trending topics that grab attention, and/or content relatable to the problems they’re experiencing.
- 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Making My First Hire
- The Ultimate Guide: Furnishing Your House Like a Minimalist
- How to Start a Trucking Company in 3 Easy Steps
- What is an IG Reel? A Quick Explanation and 10 Tips to Make One Today
- 3 Things You Need to Know Before Buying Your First Car
The goal at this stage is to reach your customer, offer them something valuable, and leave them wanting more (i.e., taking a valued action like staying on the page to read, following, sharing, signing up for an email list). This is your ads, SEO/blogging, white papers, PR efforts, some social content, etc.
Interest Stage
As customers move into the interest stage, they recognize the problem they’re facing and compare solutions (i.e., comparing your brand to others in the market). Content that is a bit more nurturing, persuasive, and inspiring will be key in winning over these customers. You’ll want to focus these efforts on warmer leads (like people who’ve signed up for your email list, followed your Instagram, or joined your Discord group, for example).
This is getting them to associate your brand with the high quality solution/product/service you offer.
- You’ve made your last bad hire: here’s how.
- How does (your company) measure up against (competing company)?
- How to choose wooden furniture that stands the tests of time
- Why you need a content strategist on your team
These are just two examples to help you embody and feel the process. By thinking through the customer lifecycle, content consultants can ensure that your brand is delivering the right message at every stage of the journey.
The strategy will be as custom/unique as the brand it’s designed for (your brand, positioning, customer lifecycles, motivators, deciding factors, etc. will all play a role), but the principles stay the same.
What is SEO?
The next thing consultants consider is SEO. But what is that exactly?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s what helps your website and blog content get discovered by your customers through search engines like Google.
There are 200 (or so) factors that the Google algorithm considers when deciding how to rank its search results (though no one knows for sure). These factors include things like:
- Keyword density
- Keyword competitiveness
- Consistency on the topic (if your website talks about a certain topic regularly, that reassures Google that you have some knowledge on the subject)
- Content length
- Internal links (links to other pages on your website)
- External links (links to relevant and notable sources – like strong .com, .gov, or .org websites)
- Backlinks (the number of other websites that link to yours as a source of information)
- Duplicate content
- Heading tags
- Content recency
- Page structure
- And so much more.
With an understanding of the different factors that cause Google to rank (or not to rank) a website, a consultant helps you get the best results as quickly as possible.
A content consultant typically bases the content calendar around blog content, because when blog content is the priority, you’re 13x more likely to see an ROI (return on investment) according to Hubspot. From your blog content, you can build out other initiatives (like social media posts, for example) to keep it all consistent.
What is a Content Calendar?
A content calendar is a tool used to organize content. The calendar includes information on what content to create, when to publish it, and where to promote it. Additionally, a content calendar can also be used to track:
- Different stages of the content creation process (sourcing photos, SEO optimization, revisions, PR efforts, etc.)
- Content ideas
- Draft deadlines
- Revision dates
- Publish dates
- Task ownership
- Important holidays and events
- And more.
A content consultant can help you create a content calendar that fits your needs and helps you stay organized. It’s a great tool to help you create a cohesive content strategy so that all your efforts work together. It’s a helpful tool for content creators and businesses alike.
While some content marketing experts recommend using a content calendar, others find that it is unnecessary. Here are some reasons to consider a content calendar:
- If you are new to content marketing
- If you struggle with consistency (either with posting regularly or posting a cohesive message)
- You feel you “spray and pray” your content all over the internet and hope for the best
- If you find it difficult to keep track of your content
- You struggle to come up with things to post
A content consultant can help you develop and implement a content calendar that meets your specific needs.
What is the Content Consultant Process?
The process may vary depending both on your business’ needs and the consultant you choose. Here’s an example of our process so you can get a good idea (whether you want to become a content consultant or hire one):
Step 1 as a Content Consultant: Understand Your Business
The first thing we do is take time to understand your business. We ask questions about:
- The company: why you started it, what products/services you offer and why, etc.
- Your customers: what they’re like, why they choose you, why they stick around, etc.
- Your competitors: how you compare to others in your market
- The customer needs you address
- How you’re positioned in the market
- Any branding (voice/tone/feel/vibe) you have in place
- Your company mission and vision statements
- Etc.
These questions help us understand both what content will sound true to your business/brand and what will resonate with your customers.
Step 2: Site SEO Audit
Before we start adding content to your website, we want to make sure your website has a solid foundation. Our SEO audit covers a lot of the on-page and off-page things Google will consider to decide whether or not your website is trustworthy.
At the end of the audit, our clients get an actionable step-by-step guide to our findings and recommended changes (which we then handle ourselves or pass along to internal developers).
Click here to read our full guide to SEO audits.
Step 3: Keyword, Competitor, and Customer Research
Next, we take the information you gave us in step one and start the research process. We dig into the details to decide on genres for content. We create a bucket of ideas and break them down into groups based on things like:
- Relevance to your company
- Customer life cycle
- Topic competitiveness
- And more.
Step 4: Organize a Content Calendar
In the next step, we create an action plan. It breaks down how we’re going to use the information and research to create content.
Step 5: Start Posting
This step is pretty self-explanatory, but we create the content, send it for approval (if needed – our niche tech, medical, and family law-based clients, for example, need to review content for specialized accuracy), and optimize it to post. Then we get it scheduled to post!
Step 6 as a Content Consultant: Data Review
Finally – one of the most important steps as a content consultant – we review what’s working and either lean in or change course if needed.
Closing Thoughts: Do You Need a Content Consultant?
A content consultant helps you create an effective marketing strategy. They can be useful whether they consult alongside your full marketing department, or if you don’t have one at all.
One thing is certain: you need content. But SEO and content are a long-term customer-acquisition strategy, so it’s up to you to decide if a content consultant is right for you.
Want to talk about it? Click here to send us a quick email or click here to schedule a free phone consultation.
