What is a Content Marketing Consultant? (Plus Benefits, Costs + Top 8)

A content marketing consultant advises brands on growing visibility using blogs, social media, and other digital formats. The cost: $5k to $20k per month. Learn what they do, their benefits, and the top 8 we recommend.

Here, you’ll find:

• What is a content marketing consultant?
• How much does a content marketing consultant cost?
• What are the benefits of working with one?
• The top 8 consultants to consider
• What to consider when choosing  one

You know you need a steady flow of high-quality content to drive targeted traffic to your website and help generate qualified leads.

The only issue? You haven’t got the time or skills to get this done!

In this situation, hiring a content marketing consultant will give you peace of mind. It will also free up your time to focus on delivering the rest of your marketing roadmap.

Whether you’re responsible for a small business, a fledgling startup, or a large international organization, let’s look at how a content marketing consultant can boost your marketing efforts.

What is a content marketing consultant?

A content marketing consultant is a marketer who helps businesses build effective content marketing strategies.

A content marketing consultant can be an individual or a group of people (e.g., a content marketing consultancy).

According to Semrush, content marketing is the fifth most-likely marketing service to be outsourced, with one in five business owners opting to use a consultancy or agency.

Consultants offer the following content marketing services:

• Content strategy: A consultant will identify the type of content you need to create, what topics to cover, and how to distribute the content.
• Content creation: Some (but not all) content marketing consultants will create your content for you. This can be anything from writing blog posts, landing pages, and white papers to organizing podcasts and webinars. They may also suggest how you can use automation to make the creation process more efficient.
• Content distribution: A content marketing expert will understand which marketing channels will get your content in front of the right target audience. Examples of marketing channels content marketing consultants may use include social media, email marketing, and pay-per-click (PPC advertising). It’s also essential to ensure content is SEO-optimized to drive organic traffic.
• Content analysis: Your marketing agency or freelance content marketing consultant will track the performance of your content and determine the metrics that will gauge its success. They’ll also make adjustments to make your content marketing more effective.

How much does a content marketing consultant cost?

In our experience, a good content marketing consultant can cost between $5,000 and $20,000 a month.

The ultimate cost depends on:

• Whether you use a freelancer or an agency. A freelance content marketing consultant is typically less expensive than using a digital marketing agency.
• The experience of the content marketing consultant. Experienced consultants with specific industry knowledge will cost more than junior consultants.
• Any additional services you need. If you need your content marketing consultant to create, distribute, and analyze your content, this will add to the cost.
• The complexity of the content you need. For example, a simple 500-word blog post will be less expensive than a 3,000-word article that requires extensive search engine optimization and interviews with subject experts.
• How long you need the services of a content marketing consultant for. A one-off project will be less costly than a monthly ongoing retainer, although a retainer may work out more cost-effectively in the long term.

$5,000 to $20,000 a month may sound like a lot, but consider the cost of a full-time content strategist.

According to Superpath, the average Content Marketer’s annual income is $95,379, and this figure is growing year-on-year.

With content consulting services, you only pay for the work done. You don’t have to pay for the consultant’s holidays, pensions, training, or sick leave. Plus you can take advantage of the benefits of enterprise marketing tools like Semrush and Ahrefs without having to buy them yourself.

This can make a content marketing consultancy a cost-effective and efficient way to get high-quality marketing for your business.

What are the benefits of working with a content marketing consultant?

So, why work with a content marketing consultation specialist? Here are some of the advantages they bring to your marketing campaigns:

• Get a solid content marketing strategy
• Focus on what you’re best at
• Keep on top of trends so you don’t have to
• Receive fresh insight into your business
• Help you scale

Get a solid content marketing strategy

A content marketing strategy is the cornerstone of any good marketing department. According to Semrush, 78% of companies with successful content marketing have a strategy in place, while 81% of businesses with unsuccessful content marketing don’t.

However, creating a solid content marketing strategy requires a lot of work. You must understand your content audience, industry, tone of voice and messaging, and overarching business goals.

A content marketing consultant will have several years of experience writing successful content marketing strategies. They’ll take what they know and apply it to your business, resulting in increased conversion rates, more sales, and happier customers.

For example, a content marketing consultant can identify the best type of content to generate results for your business. And develop a comprehensive content calendar to start creating your own content.

Beth Chernes of Beth Chernes Copy & Strategy knows the importance of a great content marketing strategy.

“A client approached me because they wanted lead generation from their website content. After reviewing their content, I discovered they were writing and posting without a plan,” explains Chernes. “As a result, the content was well-written but was all over the place.

We worked together on SEO and content strategy that focused on specific content topics relevant to their target audience and made an editorial calendar that their team could keep up with. Within 4 months, they saw a 49% increase in website traffic and doubled their website leads.”

Taylor Scher of Taylor Scher SEO agrees, advising that a reliable B2B content marketing consultant can give a business a clear steer in the right direction.

“Many companies think that content is the answer, so they just pump out whatever they feel like. Most think they need quantity when in reality, quality is the key to content marketing success,” shares Scher.

Focus on what you’re best at

Content marketers should have a lot of different skills. They need to be good copywriters, editors, researchers, and analysts. Not only this, but they need to have a comprehensive understanding of the sales funnel too!

If content marketing isn’t your strong point, using a content marketing consultant means you can leave the work to someone else, and focus on what you excel at instead.

Keep on top of trends so you don’t have to

Content marketing can be both proactive and reactive. Many organizations find that responding to breaking news stories, memes, and trends can benefit their business.

In this situation, you need to respond fast — there’s a small window of opportunity for most memes and breaking news stories.

A content marketing consultant will keep an eye on what is going on in the news on your behalf, meaning you don’t have to spend your valuable time staying up to date.

Here’s a great example of how responding quickly to news pays dividends. The social media marketing consultancy behind Burger King UK replied to a tweet by Ye (Kanye West) in three minutes — leading to worldwide attention for the brand.

Receive fresh insight into your business

Content marketing consultants work with a wide range of different businesses.

This means they can apply the new skills and knowledge they learn to your company, meaning fresh and innovative content marketing ideas.

Help you scale

Another benefit of working with a content marketing consultancy is that they can offer additional services and support as your business grows.

You can also use a content marketing consultancy to provide support as and when you need it, for example, if a member of your in-house marketing team goes on vacation.

The top 8 content marketing consultants to consider

Convinced of the benefits a content marketing consultancy can bring to your business? The next step is to choose a consultant to work with.

Here are eight fantastic content marketing consultancies that’ll supercharge your content marketing strategy.

• HawkSEM
• Foundation
• ClearVoice
• Verblio
• Siege Media
• Omniscient Digital
• Codeless
• First Page Sage

HawkSEM

At HawkSEM, we provide content marketing services that drive growth for brands across various industries. We take time to learn each business so we can deliver results to help reach their goals. And we’re experts at what we do — our clients see an average 4.5x return on investment (ROI) when implementing our suggestions.

What sets us apart from other content marketing consultants in the marketplace is our bespoke marketing technology – ConversionIQ (CIQ).

CIQ tracks the entire marketing process from start to finish, identifying which channels result in the most revenue and seeing where there’s room for improvement. We combine the data we get from CIQ with our marketing team’s extensive knowledge to deliver the best results for our clients.

Foundation

Foundation specializes in content marketing for B2B brands, understanding the specific challenges these businesses are experiencing in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Foundation’s unique selling point is that the company and its staff have practical experience in running businesses, SaaS companies, and ecommerce brands. This means the company knows what content your prospective customers want to see.

ClearVoice

ClearVoice boasts a wide range of clients in the technology and SaaS sector, including Cisco, Intel, and Intuit (the company behind Mailchimp and Quickbooks).

Fiverr operates this content marketing consultancy and runs in a very similar way. Clients can select from a range of vetted content marketing specialists, meaning you can work with an experienced person with knowledge of your specific industry sector.

Verblio

Verblio is an interesting content marketing agency that creates content using AI and perfects it with human writers and editors. While this might not be every business’s personal preference, it does mean faster, more affordable content marketing.

(Although if you want a blog that’s 100% written by a human, you can request this as an option.)

This content marketing consultancy focuses on providing quality content to small and medium-sized businesses and agencies. As Verblio says on its website – “we’re not Apple, we’re Applebee’s.”

Siege Media

Siege Media prides itself on being-data driven. This means it looks at clients’ data, as well as search engine rankings, to create content that makes them stand out.

This consultancy can deliver a complete content marketing process from start to finish, with strategists, SEO specialists, graphic designers, and animators available as required.

Omniscient Digital

Omniscient Digital’s staff have extensive experience working at SaaS brands like HubSpot and Shopify. This means they know what works when it comes to B2B content marketing.

This company doesn’t just create content strategy, but also specializes in producing it. Omniscient also offers a “content optimization” service that takes existing content and updates it so clients get the most out of it.

Codeless

Codeless offers content creation as a service, providing transparent pricing on its website. For example, with its “startup” plan, you get a SEO strategy, keyword research, custom illustrations, and six 2,000-word articles for $10,000 a month.

An advantage of Codeless is that it operates remotely, with employees all over the world. So if you operate in a specific country, you can work alongside in your timezone, making it easier to schedule meetings.

First Page Sage

First Page Sage is an SEO agency that creates your content creation strategy with search engine optimization in mind.

This company’s philosophy is to create “the best piece of content on the web” for their client’s keyword of choice.

What to consider when choosing one

We’ve looked at some of the best content marketing consultants around, but there are a lot of consultants out there. A quick search on Google shows 154 million results!

Sam Yadegar, HawkSEM Founder, believes that it’s important to do your research when choosing a content marketing consultation specialist.

“The right consultant for your business is someone who understands your target audience, the competitive landscape, and how to position your business as an industry thought idea,” advises Yadegar. “Content marketing consultants who are consistent, reliable, transparent, and have a proven track record, are always in high demand.”

Here are some of our top tips for finding a specialist who can help with your content marketing plan.

• Look at what you get for your money
• Make sure their values align with yours
• Ask around for testimonials

Look at what you get for your money

Know your budget and what you want from your content marketing consultant of choice. This way, you get the services you were expecting, and they can work to the best of their abilities.

Some content marketing consulting specialists (like Codeless) are upfront about pricing. This is also true if you use a freelancing portal like Fiverr, Upwork, or PeoplePerHour.

Other content marketing consultants may offer a quote depending on the specific services you need and the time it’ll take to create in-depth content on your behalf.

Remember that the cheapest content marketing consultant isn’t necessarily the best bet. A low-cost marketer may use shortcuts that harm your marketing efforts. For example, they may use black hat search engine optimization techniques that result in your web pages getting penalized by Google.

Make sure their values align with yours

It’s important to work with a content marketing consultant that shares your values. This creates trust and understanding and means you’re both more likely to work towards the same shared goals and aspirations.

For example, if sustainability is at the heart of your business, work with a similarly-minded agency. There are content marketing consultants who donate revenue to environmental charities, bank with banks that don’t invest in fossil fuels, and use renewable energy in their offices.

Most consultants share their values on their websites. If not, contact them with any questions you have — a good content marketing consultant will be happy to answer them.

Ask around for testimonials

If you’re shopping for a car, a holiday, or a pair of sneakers, chances are you’ll read multiple online reviews before you buy. The same logic applies when choosing a content marketing consultancy.

Reviews can help you understand the experiences of previous customer to help you decide whether a consultant is the right choice for your business.

Many content marketing consultants will have case studies and testimonials on their websites to help you decide.

Google Reviews, social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and review sites like Clutch and G2 are also fantastic sources of information.

The takeaway

Hiring a content marketing consultant can transform your inbound marketing. However, it’s important to do your research and choose a consultancy that will add value to your business.

If you’re looking for a B2B content marketing consultant that delivers results and enhances your online presence, our expert team is here to help.

Whether you need a top-level strategy to kickstart your marketing workflow or a consultancy that’ll produce and distribute content on your behalf, our know-how will help you succeed.

Get in touch for your free, no-obligation consultation today, and let’s work together to build a successful content plan.