Who is doing what for our blog this time? About the pain of self-marketing in agencies
Ever since "Inbound Marketing" has wound its way into the ears of decision-makers at even the smallest companies as a buzzword, corporate blogs have been sprouting up relentlessly. As an agency, you want to set a good example—and often fail in areas where you're successful with clients. We, too, failed to meet our own goals for our blog last year. Why that is and what lessons we've learned: time for some contemplation.
Agency blogs are a tricky matter. After all, for communications agencies like us, producing high-quality articles for our clients almost hourly and aligning them with a coherent strategy is our bread and butter. Running an equally targeted blog of our own should be no big deal—or so one would think. But it's often not that simple. Beyond a lack of time and ideas, there are a whole host of other factors that repeatedly keep agencies from self-marketing. Let's take a look at them.
The day-to-day business is going too well
Okay, admittedly: this doesn't even sound like a luxury problem, but rather not a problem at all. In fact, however, especially in smaller and medium-sized agencies, a well-filled project pipeline often leads to a constant neglect of their own channels. On the one hand, there's little need for self-promotion when the pipeline is full. On the other hand, existing resources naturally flow much more willingly into client projects with a concrete return on investment than into a blog. In weekly planning, the topic is given far too little attention and is constantly prioritized as "when there's nothing else to do."
Once the first blog articles have been cut due to a lack of time or resources, the team begins to question: Did anyone even notice the absence of new posts? Was it really that bad that no article was published? As a result, the blog finds it even harder to secure an appropriate place in resource planning, as it wasn't that bad last time when there was no new post. A vicious cycle.
When the blog becomes an end in itself
Many companies eventually face the problem that the vision for their own blog is lost, and articles are only published so that something happens again. No one really knows what goal is being pursued anymore. But since the blog exists, something has to be done with it. Agencies in the communications sector are particularly vulnerable in this regard: if you tell clients they need their own blog, you should also run one yourself.
However, necessity is a poor premise for PR & marketing endeavors like a blog, which rarely have a clear return on investment and require long-term commitment. Just ask your social media manager. They can sing a song about it. And a clear vision is important, we're convinced of that—because without it, you eventually stop answering the big questions of your industry and only answer the boss's question of why nothing has been published again this month.
No matter how good the planning is: Without a vision for your own blog, there's a risk that articles will get lost in triviality.
The crux of writing past the dialogue
Thematically, an agency blog often oscillates between half-hearted attempts at employer branding and the pursuit of attracting potential clients to the website with tips and tutorials. From the desire to showcase one's range of services and capabilities, instructions for creating social media strategies, tips for successful performance campaigns, or the umpteenth iteration on the latest SEO ranking factors (nuestra culpa) are created almost hourly in the agency world, all differing only in nuances.
Without vision, you no longer answer the big questions of your industry, but only the boss's question of why nothing has been published again this month.
At this point, you have to ask yourself: Who is even reading this? Do such articles actually prove to your own customer base that you know your craft, or are you ultimately participating in an ecosystem of agency blogs that more or less copy from each other and provide little added value—after all, no one wants to reveal too much.
Agency blogs can be fun too
All these factors have also become stumbling blocks for us. We, too, set our own goals too high and allocated too little space for the blog in resource planning. Even more significantly, perhaps some of the fun was lost. The joy of commenting on topics that move us or that we encounter in agency life in an honest and personal way. That's why it's time for us to change something. From now on, our articles will only appear quarterly. This gives us enough leeway to give our own blog sufficient space in planning. Additionally, our tutorials, tips, and guides are now history—many other agencies are already dealing with these topics, so our contribution to this discourse can no longer provide significant added value. Instead, we want to focus on important topics from the world of agencies, communication, and digitalization—honestly and personally.
Will it work? That remains to be seen, of course. But we are convinced that a more honest and open approach is the right way—for our readers, but also for us. Ultimately, a blog for agencies is often also a playground to test different strategies and approaches. With our new direction, we are more concerned with engaging in dialogue, participating in it, and honestly elaborating our opinions on topics as authors. And sometimes also talking about the difficulties we face as a team—like in this article here.
