Your Must-Have Content Marketing Price Guide for 2023
Last update: 30 January 2023 at 11:13 am
3.00/5If your expectation is to reach more customers, appear on the top of search engines and earn double revenue online, then content marketing should be your priority.
Not only does content marketing help deliver valuable information to your audience, but it also helps the audience understand your business/brand in-depth.
In fact, 72% of marketers believe that content marketing assists in increasing customer engagement and the number of leads. And as a business owner, you might understand the importance of customer engagement quite well.
However, how much does content marketing cost?
Fret not; with this blog, we aim to break down the content marketing pricing for you. By the time you reach the end, you will have enough information to make an informed decision about content creation services.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is one of the many digital marketing strategies that deal with generating digital content for a brand or a business.
These digital contents aim to offer valuable and relevant information to the audience, thereby attracting them to take appropriate action (purchase from you, subscribe to your services, etc.). This is one of the reasons why content marketing is considered 3-times more efficient in attracting leads than outbound marketing strategies.
Content marketing deals with a number of assets, including –
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Social media content
- Long-form content
- Micrographics, etc.
Content marketing focuses on reaching places where customers are already looking for things online. For instance, a customer wants to find a good place to eat in NYC or perhaps is searching for tips for interior design.
The first thing they will do is check the internet for suggestions and ideas, which is a natural instinct of today’s tech-savvy customers. Even the stats say the same.
When combined with a potent search engine optimization plan, you can use content marketing to reach relevant places where searches for businesses like yours are done.
How Much Does Content Marketing Cost?
The average spending of SMBs (Small-to-Medium-sized businesses) on content marketing is between $2000 and $12,000.
Statistically, HubSpot’s survey data states that 39% of marketers reportedly spend 31% to 50% of their marketing budget on content marketing.
This tells us that marketers are leveraging content marketing more than other marketing strategies, given they are ready to spend a third of their funds on it.
Remember that this estimation can vary from company to company due to a variety of elements, including the extent of your content marketing campaign, the content marketing services you choose (listed below), the agency you wish to work with, etc.
What Elements Are in a Content Strategy?
Content marketing costs typically depend upon the services you have chosen, such as –
Blog posts
Whether you decide to hire a freelance writer or a content marketing agency, the cost to write a 2000-word blog post can be anywhere between $100 to $2000. The more the word count, the higher the cost you will pay for the blog post.
The best thing about choosing a content marketing agency is that they offer you the flexibility of customizing the content pricing as per your budget. They consider the length and quantity of the blog posts to create the final pricing of the package.
Social media posts
For social media marketing, the cost ranges anywhere from $1000 to $5000 per month. Typically, there are various factors that impact the cost of social media content, such as –
- Posts’ frequency – The higher the posting frequency the greater the cost will be.
- The number of channels – The more channels you utilize, the higher the cost will be. Hence, it is important to determine which social media your audience frequently uses. This way, you can prevent posting on channels that don’t matter.
- Reporting and monitoring – Some content marketing agencies also deal with monitoring and reporting the content. While this feature is extremely crucial to obtain better ROI, it surely comes with a costly price tag.
- Ad spends – Your decision to spend money on paid search ads will also impact the overall content marketing pricing.
Website content
When it comes to website content, medium-sized businesses pay $2000 to $10,000 per month to obtain custom website content. Some writers charge per page, while others tend to focus on per word.
However, the cost of website content depends upon the agency and writer you select. Just because an agency or advertiser advertises “cheap” content marketing services, doesn’t mean you should hire them.
Cheap price result in cheap content – one that might hurt your website ranking. Hence, you should never fall for lower content marketing costs.
Content research cost
Content creation does not mean copy-pasting information from different sites; it means spending hours researching valuable information and auditing.
This can include understanding your readers and industry niche, putting together relevant and vital details that set your brand apart from your brand, identifying pain points, and so on. Such information gives a direction to the content marketing strategy.
Some companies charge $25,000+ for auditing and researching, while others conduct basic audits for $100 to $200.
Content update
To retain your website rankings and ensure the flow of traffic through content, the content needs to be optimized and updated regularly.
Writers and agencies, often charge the same price for expanding and optimizing existing content as creating a new one, meaning the range can be between $2000 and $10,000.
Thankfully, there are agencies that include content update costs included in the monthly fee. Perhaps, choosing such agencies can prove a little less costly.
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Find an agency!Factors That Affect Content Marketing Cost
Your budget
Typically, every business has a marketing budget. This budget is divided for various strategies, such as SEO, PPC, website design, traditional marketing, and so on.
By the end of the day, if you have $5000 remaining after spending on all the other strategies, then that is what you will have to spend on content marketing strategies.
But, to determine the total budget, you wish to set aside for content marketing in contrast with SEO and PPC will depend upon your comprehension of how developed the other marketing channels of your business are.
Type of content marketing
Content marketing is a hypernym. Many types of content, such as white papers, article, blogs, infographics, and even videos, fall under it.
Some contents, when compared with others, tend to be more time-intensive and may require more people, making them costly.
Also, it is crucial to determine which stage of content marketing you wish to focus on. Do you wish to budget for content creation, planning and strategizing content distribution, or everything?
As a one-off, the content marketing strategy may seem cheaper, but it requires regular upkeep, which makes it a costly affair.
The market you are in
Certain marketplaces are easy to penetrate while others take time and patience. For instance, a “how-to” article for your appliance repair company will generally yield results quicker than for competitive fields like tech spaces.
The more competitive the market is, the higher number of resources will be needed to create an effective content marketing strategy, which is bound to cost more.
But again, the uniqueness of your business and what you have to offer can be used as a unique selling proposition (USP) to get visibility quicker.
Also, if you are competing with big players, the process will become harder and more expensive.
Your result expectations
It is a no-brainer. The faster you expect the strategies to show results, the more you will require paying for the content strategy in a shorter time.
For instance, if focus keywords are mapped out, and you have around 1200 topics to work on to obtain full authority in the industry, then 120 articles per month for a year will need to be posted.
The traction you gain with such a process will be the same as the one where you meet the volume over a period of 36 months.
Your existing content marketing state
With a solid content marketing base, your investment of $1000 can offer quicker ROI than investing the same amount for a new website.
In fact, your additional investment into content will likely go into gaining more traffic, ranking, and increasing sales. With a nonexistent or new blog section, you will require spending more upfront to obtain the same returns from your content marketing efforts.
Even though more spending equals more results, that doesn’t mean you should spend excessively to achieve your goals.
Even the penny you spend on content marketing must be based on solid logic and data, enabling you to rationalize the decisions you make. As a newcomer, take things slow, but not too slow because you will want to promptly obtain data based on the results, thereby planning future strategies and goals.
Benefits of Working With a Content Marketing Agency
The common dilemma after determining the cost of content marketing is identifying which is the best – an in-house team or a professional agency.
Well, we have made a compact list that will tell you why hiring a content marketing agency might be the best choice, especially if you own an SMB.
In-House vs. Outsourcing – Which One to Choose and When?
Are you looking to progress with a project but don’t know where to start? Or is your company missing the right in-house team members to do so? It must have crossed your mind more than once to outsource the project to a different company or entirely. But which outsourcing options do you have? Which […]
Access to expertise
A well-established content marketing agency will have more people with diverse skill-set. Similarly, these experts might have a greater depth of experience, too.
Agency experts are usually specialists in a particular area, which cannot be said about an in-house employee. Besides, agencies devote their resources to training and educating their team, ensuring they are on the cutting edge of their specific discipline.
Cost-effective alternative
When compared with hiring a full in-house team, partnering with an agency is significantly cheaper. But, the total content marketing pricing may vary due to the size of your business and your expectation of how much you wish to achieve.
While there is a cost involved in partnering with an agency and acquiring an in-house team, you save yourself from salaries plus benefits, training costs, equipment costs, recruiting costs, etc., by choosing the latter one.
And if you decide to outsource entire digital marketing requirements from a full-service agency, you will save immensely. You will obtain high-quality marketing work without spending too much out of pocket.
Lower commitment and involvement
When compared with hiring an entire in-house team, partnering with a content marketing agency requires much less commitment from you.
First of all, there is no responsibility for recruitment, interviewing, training, onboarding, and other time-consuming and expensive tasks.
You can easily hire or fire a marketing agency, making it a better alternative.
Access to advanced tools and a larger network
Since their establishment, agencies might have worked with numerous clients, resulting in a solid network of channels and vendors. Such partnerships often prove lucrative for you as a client of the agency.
For instance, the agency may have access to a vast number of resources and tools, which you gain access to by simply hiring the agency.
Agencies tend to exhibit their work and get featured in publications, which can help your company gain better visibility.
Obtain an unbiased perspective
The biggest drawback of creating an in-house team is that sometimes brainstorming sessions turn into tunnel vision and group thinking. But that isn’t the case when you have a content marketing agency at your disposal.
Agencies are not influenced by any tacit understanding or internal biases. This results in easily distilling clear messages to the target audience.
Also, the fact that internal teams have in-depth knowledge, they have a lot to say. This can cause the core message to disappear completely.
An unbiased perspective of external experts can filter unnecessary information and communicate vital details clearly.
Conclusion
It was evident from the blog that content marketing pricing varies greatly due to a variety of factors.
Even though there is no set cost of content marketing for different stages, it is often easy to identify. Agencies, consultants, and even freelancers may have a content marketing pricing list issued on their websites. You can always get in touch with them and request a customized quote based on your budget and requirements.
