Joe Pulizzi: How much should brands pay for content marketing?
If you care about content marketing, you should subscribe to the Junta42 Content Marketing blog, written by Joe Pulizzi.
In a recent post, "How much should brands pay for content marketing," Joe delves deep into one of my favorite subjects -- how to price content writing services. True content marketing involves not only individual bits of content, but also the strategy and execution surrounding that content.
Joe's post was inspired by another great content writing blogger, Kate Headen Waddell at Savvy B2B Marketing, who wrote Pay Peanuts, Get Monkeys.
According to Joe, the process of creating content includes:
The marketing plan
The content strategy within the marketing plan
The specific tactics (i.e, a blog) within the content strategy
An editorial plan for the tactic (the managing editor's role)
Base content for the tactic (i.e., a blog post)
Review of the base content (expert review and proofreading)
Distribution of the content through the content management system
Optimization of the content for search engines (on-page and off-page)
Syndication of the content (i.e., through Facebook and Twitter)
Integration of the content (back to the marketing plan and other content and traditional marketing strategies)
Measuring the content (through analytics, conversions, direct/cross sales or other qualitative measures)
Reevaluating the content (based on the feedback about the content through analytics)
When calculating cost, most clients look only at the base content -- not the entire process.
