Content marketing is growing up. It’s no longer about throwing out random social posts, random blog posts, or making an infographic once a quarter. Instead, we need to begin asking the questions (for our own agency and our clients):

What are we building?
What can we become as a brand that is of value to this audience of people we care about?
Who can we be for our prospects, our customers, and our business partners?

And I think an agency’s role in that can be both exciting and profitable.

Why? Because one of the biggest frustrations for most agency owners is that it’s getting harder to have a seat at the client’s strategy table. Agencies are being commoditized and relegated to the status of order takers all too often.

But when we have strategic conversations with a client around how they can truly leverage content in a way that is much bigger than a set of assets — you help them become a destination. You help them become a media company. That’s when the game changes and you’re back driving the client’s strategy and having significant impact on their goals. You become a must have partner.

My guest today is Robert Rose. He was instrumental in the creation and growth of the Content Marketing Institute working alongside CMI founder Joe Pulizzi. Robert has written several books, including two with Joe. Their latest, “Killing Marketing” is about how innovative companies are using content as a strategy to turn marketing cost into a revenue stream rather than a cost.

I promise you — Robert and I will get you thinking in completely different ways about content, the way your agency delivers content, charges for content, and talks to clients about content.

Here’s the thing — most agencies will not have the courage to implement the future proofing strategies Robert and I discussed in this episode. Be one of the few that does.

I encourage you to take action — do something with what you learn from this episode. If you do that — you will be sought after — and I want that for you.

And if you found this episode helpful — you might also be interested in the 2-day “Content Marketing For Agencies” workshop Robert and I are teaching this January. Learn more here.

What You Will Learn About in This Episode:

How using content as a strategy can help solve a client’s business issues — and in the process — future proof your agency
Why your audience — or your client’s audience — should be considered your “pre-client database
Why agencies need to understand how to create content with a purpose and that it is no longer about creating more stuff
How all the content marketing assets created for a client need to connect together to tell a single story
How treating audience members like customers builds trust, then their walls come down, and they become much more open to sales messaging
How to create an owned content experience for your clients and help them transform into media companies
Why agencies need to have some sort of vertical specialization combined with a unique point-of-view of how they approach the world in order to be differentiated
How an agency can go about uncovering its unique point-of-view
Why midsized agencies looking to grow and become trusted business advisors to clients should focus on the strategic side because that is where the value is
Why if you can’t control the media — then becoming the media is a viable content strategy for agencies and clients alike

Ways to Contact Robert Rose:

Episode 165: How to future-proof your agency, with Robert Rose

Build a Better Agency Podcast