How & Why to Hire a Content Strategist
“I’ll get to marketing when everything else is in place,” you think. “We’re a technical company. The product itself is enough enticement. We want to acquire more users, so we need to focus on releasing and sharing more features.”
My friend, come sit and let me tell you with all kindness and your best interest in mind and let me tell you how wrong you are.
Remember: It’s okay to be wrong. What matters is fixing it. (Incidentally, I am wrong all the time.)
Features themselves are not convincing. If you were in a job interview and said, “You should hire me because I am tall, have black hair, and can lift 50 pounds above my head,” do you think the hiring manager would be convinced?
Likewise, listing your product’s features will not compel them to buy your product, no matter how technically awesome it is.
You have to convince. And that's where a content strategy consultant can help you right your featuritis wrongs.
What Content Strategy Specialists Do
Content strategists and content marketers are strategy people first. They’ll look at your product, target audience, and competition, then determine the best ways for you to achieve your business goals with content and marketing.
Good content strategists tend to think in terms of stories. What are the pains, how are they solved, and what are the results?
Then they will suss out your product’s value and strategize how to convey it. Then, being strategic, they will determine how they can help you meet your goals by creating content. (Note that “content” is not limited to blog posts; this includes site copy, landing pages, emails, etc.)
Content marketers are not the same as freelance writers. A content strategist will determine the type of content needed and what it should say. Then they will either write it themselves or hire a writer to do it.
Think of the strategist as VP saying, “We need a product that does xyz based on these criteria” and a writer as the developer creating the product.
Why content strategists are crucial for startups
The tech world is flooded with good ideas and unicorn-wannabes. How are you going to differentiate yourself from the rest of them? Investors are harder to find and tighter with budgets now, you’ve got to be absolutely on your game.
Similarly, SaaS is saturated (saaturated?). Orgs have tools on tools on tools and may even be looking at scaling them back. How will you prove that yours is worth the budget?
Answer: Marketing.
We’ve worked with many startups who either struggle to get investors or get customers once they’ve got capital. In most of these orgs, leadership (who are also doing the work because it’s a startup) perceives marketing efforts as bottom-of-the-list, we’ll-get-to-it work that they, well, never get to.
This only hurts your business. When you leave your website to languish, the money you spend on paid ads driving visitors to your site only to see no conversions is a budget abyss. When you focus on sending sales emails but have nothing to show the leads who do respond, you’ve just wasted a lead.
When you finally get an investor meeting only for them to say, “We’re not sure what you do,” or, “We’re not sure how you’re different from other tools on the market,” you’ve just wasted an opportunity.
Pushing marketing off only hurts your business.
Hiring a content strategy consultant and making marketing a priority will only help.
How to hire a content strategist
Speaking of saturation, there is no shortage of marketing agencies out there who will be happy to pitch their services and team of content creators to you. We might even be one of them. But here’s what to look for and the questions you should ask during your content strategist “interview.”
Ask around
Ask your network who they have used for marketing before. This is a great way to get semi-vetted leads on who to hire.
2. Check social media
Search for people talking about content strategy (we’re easy to find) and check out their work or websites.
3. Don’t go to Upwork, Fiverr, etc.
Okay, you can go to those if you have to, but based on work I’ve seen, it’s a crapshoot and my money is on the final products being not quite up to snuff. Remember, you want to find someone who thinks strategy. Someone pumping out a blog post no questions asked for a quick hundred bucks is a hundred bucks you just wasted.
The goal is not marketing for the sake of marketing. The goal is putting thought behind this and choosing strategically, based on your goals and budget, how you will stand out and how you will track success.
4. Google
Or DuckDuckGo, whatever. Search the internet for options, and try to use narrow search terms like “technical content marketing agency” instead of just “content marketing agency” to get you to a more specific pool of legitimate candidates faster.
5. Talk to them
Set up a call to chat. Give them a bit of background, and then see what kind of questions they ask you. Here are some questions you WANT to hear unprompted:
What’s been working for you?
What hasn’t worked and why?
What are your goals for this year?
Who are your top competitors?
Which companies do you admire for their messaging/content?
And here are some content strategist “interview questions” you can ask them:
What did you think of our website? (Shows they do their research and gives you an outside perspective)
Have you worked with companies like ours before?
What do you find is the biggest hurdle to getting results?
What results have you seen for your clients?
What kind of results do you think would be realistic for us? (Be prepared for “It depends,” because it does, but it’s still worth the ask)
6. Check their work
Ask for samples and look at them! Some agencies like ours work under many NDAs and are limited as to what they can send you, but they’ll always have something so you can make sure they do great work. You can also ask to be put in touch with some clients as references.
Once you find the agency or consultant you want to work with, establish an agreement and get started. And remember, when you hire someone, you’re paying for their expertise. They’re there to help you grow and meet your goals.
Get a feel for how a content strategist thinks; book a free 30-minute call with us! Or, check out my TikTok channel where I discuss the finer points of content strategy, but in a fun way.
