When to Hire a Fractional Content Marketing Team

"Great, love it, but……no new hires." Your CEO/CMO is excited about how your content marketing plans fit the new marketing strategy but not so keen on expanding your team. If this is you, or you are just looking to boost your team's bandwidth, the best next step is a fractional content marketing service.

The alternative — sourcing, hiring, and corralling an army of freelancers (content writers, graphic designers, editors, SEO strategists, etc.) — may sound doable. At least until two months later when half of your freelance "team" you found on Upwork or LinkedIn are underperforming, and the others are devouring your budget with add-on costs.

Contracting a fractional content marketing team to do everything you need under one contract is a much less stressful alternative. It’s also going to give you better results.

Why You Need to Hire a Fractional Content Marketing Team

We know from research into buyer intent that 74% of IT decision-makers choose vendors who prioritize quality content. They won't fall for generic blogs that start with "In today's threat landscape…." or read a 10k word whitepaper crammed with filler. 

When you hire a fractional content marketing team, you get a single service provider who does everything an in-house content marketing team does. This includes content writing, design, promotion, keyword strategy, distribution, and link building on a rolling monthly or quarterly commitment.  

Learn more: The 5 elements of a great content marketing package

Fractional Content Marketing vs. Freelancers vs. In-House Teams

Compared to sporadic DIY content marketing or using freelancers, investing in a fractional content marketing team can 10X your ability to generate leads, appear on SERPs and get your POV across.

Outsourcing to a fractional team can also boost brand awareness and improve your marketing ROI. All without a long-term commitment to full or part-time employees, 401(k)s, benefits, and those awkward headcount conversations that happen whenever revenue drops.

Hiring in-house content-focused team members to do the above is always a good idea, but it will take a lot longer and ultimately cost more. It's also not fun hiring an amazing team only to let them go six months later when revenue dips or if your startup’s funding round gets delayed.

How Fractional Content Marketing Adds Value

Fractional content marketing gets you the same capabilities of a really good in-house equivalent content marketing team without needing to make any new hires.

Add content strategy, production, and distribution together. Take away the need for full-time employees. Reframe your concept of hiring a talented, diverse team into a monthly retainer and single point of contact. And what you get is fractional content marketing.

The word "fractional" in fractional content marketing means you get a portion of a team's time on an as-needed basis. How much time depends on your goals and budget. You could hire a full-fractional content team for several years or just a few hours a month over a single quarter.

What Fractional Content Marketing Needs to Include

Fractional content marketing offerings are essentially content marketing packages. This means they should include all the services needed to achieve the desired results. 

Fundamentally, every fractional marketing package, person, or team will need to do these tasks:

Content management, development, and strategy: Planning and managing content creation and publication across the channels you own (i.e., your blog, newsletter, and social media platforms). 

Content ideation: Slot into your marketing campaigns with creativity on tap that takes your product or service and turns it into engaging stories aimed at your audience and buyer personas. 

Understanding of your market: Whether it’s B2B cyber security or a consumer-focused privacy solution, there is no point in using a fractional content team that does not have experience in your domain. 

Collaborate and network internally: Content is a team sport. The team you hire needs to click with you and others in your marketing department as well as sales and technical teams. In a practical sense, this means either giving them access to your communication systems or bringing their own workflows and processes to the table.

Update your content strategy: Your team will need to keep your content strategy ahead of changing market trends and whatever analytics show. i.e., if a content asset gets lots of traffic, they should be doubling down on using it for internal link and funnel building.

Track and report on performance: Track, analyze, and report content performance metrics, including engagement rates, lead generation, and conversion.

Beyond these fundamentals, which also apply to more or less any kind of digital marketing service, what's needed will depend on your goal. 

For example, an SEO-focused engagement will need keyword strategy, competitor analysis, backlink building, and SEO optimization. A brand-building project might include digital PR, executive ghostwriting, social media management, and website copywriting.  Likewise, sales enablement contracts should include scope for client interviews for case studies and copywriting, resulting in email flows, one-pagers, messaging documents, and more.

Learn more: 9-step SEO content marketing playbook for security companies

With any fractional service agreement, you need clarity on what's being delivered, but a good fractional content marketing team won't tie you down to a granular set of deliverables, either. An agency should be capable and willing to do whatever it takes to get results within a reasonable timeframe. 

Choosing a Fractional Content Marketing Agency

If you've been in marketing for longer than a few months, you'll know this already - not all agencies will deliver results. In fact, most won't. The best agencies are the ones that aim for long-term growth by helping their clients get results. Here's how to find them:

• Look at their case studies and client testimonials. Case studies are an agency’s track record. Look for examples of work that plot a path backward from clear business goals and a target audience.

• Check their website and content. The jury is out on this one, but any worthwhile agency should rank for at least some of its niche-specific keywords.

Hire a Fractional Content Marketing Team Specializing In Cyber and Information Security 

At Content Visit, we specialize in providing a fractional content marketing service to cybersecurity businesses. 

Learn more: How we helped a cyber security firm 10X their SEO performance with content

A small team that can either work autonomously or fit within your own project management framework, we produce, distribute, and optimize content ranging from blog posts and landing pages to email newsletters and podcasts. 

We lean on our knowledge of the cybersecurity space combined with interviews with your internal experts to develop customer strategies to meet your business goals. 

Get in touch with us to learn more about our flexible fractional content marketing packages.