Social media advertising has gained in stature as one of the most potent mediums to promote, engage and register conversions among the target audience – a testimony to the fact that they have been the sole cause for creating celebrities from scratch, business empires and unique corporate models for some time now. Clearly, this cannot be possible merely by putting together a string of catchy words and phrases but requires proven expertise in crafting powerful copy backed by research into the target’s online presence and preferences. First, let’s get into some general directives on how to achieve great social media posts. Copy Matters Be Compelling There are ways you can cut the clutter of the thousands of posts that are jamming your customer’s feed. One of these is, of course, answering the all-important question “What’s in it for me?” Describe a benefit: “Get more client referrals with..” Display an excerpt: “9 out of 10 people would use their realtor again, if only… Don’t use weak words These are words that sound like a mouthful, take up precious space and don’t mean anything substantial, such as, “maybe” or “hopefully” or “try.” Go for more assertive one like “guarantee” or “expect.” Understand post lengths Sticking to optimal post lengths and shorter will obviously lead to more reach and consequently more conversions. Keep it short Pressed for time and overwhelmed with the post length restrictions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more? The trick is always, always to keep it short. Image Copy Metrics Mechanics-wise, the one key takeaway to remember here is this: Facebook ads and boosted posts place a 20% image text overlay restriction. This means if more than 20% of your image is covered in the text, your post will receive reduced reach. That’s bad news if your goal is to cut through the static in your fan’s feeds. Oversell is overkill Nobody is here for your sales pitch. Ditch the sales, promotional chatter and go for an authentic and ‘real’ person to person talk, one that feels like you are addressing real-life pain points and not pushing your product down somebody’s throat. Write for your audience, choose your voice: Your voice is your brand personality. Ask: What do you sound like on social media? Spend time scanning your follower’s profiles: for the kinds of things they say, do and comment on Read the same websites/publications your audience does: to understand their taste Understand their language and verbiage: from commonly used terms and phrases Use Relevant Emojis Relevantly used, emojis are sometimes more effective than a plain copy! Plan ahead When it’s digital media, every day is crunch time. It may pay to follow some measures to plan ahead and save on quality of posts. Be ready with a Social Media Calendar: The best way to keep your posts organized is to have a social media calendar ready. The benefits include visibility of your social posts to your entire team and the bandwidth to plan your posts ahead of time as also to judge the best time of the week/month to post. Plan Campaigns: This is much better than writing last-minute one-off campaigns without much thought. Think about switching to cohesive campaigns – campaigns with consistent hashtag messaging, a series campaign promoting a single piece of content and the like. And now, a brief rundown on the dos and don’t for crafting perfect posts for popular social media channels: Facebook Post lengths vary, about 80 words maybe hitting the sweet spot. The medium is big for visual and video content and yields well to engagement using questions and contest posts. Cleverly used hashtags helps you join a larger discussion. Twitter Notorious for its character restrictions, keep your tweets to 250-260 characters in length allowing you to add your twitter handle at the end and other information such as blog link. Instagram While visuals are the name of the game here, writing the perfect caption and description can be tricky, especially since it gives you a long hand. Break up your descriptor, get innovative with emojis and you can even use them in hashtags! Linkedin A platform for blog length professional posts, great for sharing company related information like new ideas, insider experiences, and event updates. Stay professional, avoid rants and salesy language. In sum, crafting the perfect social media post is fast becoming the El Dorado of advertising writers all over the world. As is apparent, customers are increasingly going digital and making informed buying decisions based on online advertising exposure. So get ready for writing those lines of winning a copy. It’s social or so long!
Category: Social Media
Why All Business Owners Should Consider Podcasting
Podcasts started in 2004 as a very niche form of content that only some techies were hooked to. In the last 15 years, that has changed dramatically. In 2013, Apple announced that over 1 billion people subscribed to its podcasts. Today, Apple has more than 525,000 active podcasts and over 18.5 million episodes. Podcasts by Pat Flynn, Srinivas Rao, Michael Stelzner, and others have already become huge hits, drawing in millions of listeners. Yet, podcasts are still fairly unknown as a marketing technique. Business owners invest a lot of money into social media, blogs, and SEO. Few, however, give serious thought to starting or participating in a podcast as a way of enhancing their brand equity. Here are some good reasons why every business owner in today’s day and age should consider podcasting. Podcasts have fantastic engagement rates When it comes to content consumption, attention spans have shortened drastically. People are unwilling to devote a lot of time to content that demands energy and attention. Yet, podcasts seem to be bucking this trend in a big way. In fact, 80% of podcast listeners finish or almost finish an episode they’re listening to. Here are some reasons why podcasts drive such high rates of engagement. The podcast audience actually goes out of their way to find podcasts that are relevant to them. If someone tunes into your podcast, chances are they’ve actively sought you out. Smartphone use has increased exponentially in the past 5-6 years. Smartphones mean it is now much easier to listen to podcasts on the go. Unlike blogs and videos, podcasts don’t demand your undivided attention. In fact, a lot of people listen to podcasts while engaged in otherwise mundane activities like driving, working out or cleaning. This makes it much likelier that they will finish your podcast while they’re doing this other time-consuming activity. Image Source With such fantastic engagement rates, a podcast literally gives you a captive audience. You can express your brand voice through your podcast and get loyal and passionate followers. Podcasts are a great way to build qualified leads In businesses where you need to educate a customer before you can close a sale, podcasts are a great strategy. This is especially true in areas like insurance, personal finance, legal services or B2B products. Podcasts will not be the tool that drives the maximum number of leads to your door. However, people who follow your podcast are much more likely to be aware of what you represent. Since you provide them with a wealth of information and insight, you are now adding value to their lives. When they do finally come to you, they will convert much quicker and will also tend to come back. In businesses where customer churn is a problem and CLTV (Customer Life Time Value) is high, this can be priceless. It’s not an overcrowded space While blogs, social media, and search engine marketing are all important, they are also quite saturated. Of course, content marketing is what helps you build organic traffic for your website in the long run. However, the form your content takes is becoming equally important. While you can’t ignore blog posts, there are over four million blog posts written every single day. This means even exceptional content can get lost in this crowd. Podcasts, on the other hand, are still relatively virgin territory. This is especially true in India. While it is relatively easy to start a podcast, there are still very few people doing it. And even fewer entrepreneurs who are podcasting with a long-term view of growing their company’s brand equity. If you integrate podcasts into your content marketing strategy, you already have an edge over your competition. Moreover, podcasts are likely to explode in popularity in the coming years. This is the time to get that first-mover’s advantage. Better yet, you can actually transcribe your podcast episode and repurpose it as a blog post. This will make sure your blog also benefits from the content created during your podcast episodes. It is easy and inexpensive to set up and manage When it comes to starting a podcast, all you need is a mic and a hosting. A fairly good mic can cost you as little as Rs 5000 and hosting cost is $20 a month. So, you can actually experiment with podcasting without making a huge dent in your marketing budget. The other question is whether the podcast takes more time and energy than it should. The fact of the matter is that running a podcast does involve a lot of work. From hosting the podcast, and finding guests, to publishing, editing, transcriptions, promotion, and show notes. However, you can outsource everything else and just focus on actually hosting the show. Podcasting can even be a source of revenue If your podcast takes off, it may even help you generate additional income. A whopping $220 million was spent on advertising within podcasts in 2017 in the United States. Significantly, a study found that 65% of podcast listeners would be willing to buy products advertised in the podcast. This means there is huge scope for growth when it comes to podcast advertising. This is especially true in economies like India and China where podcasts are still fairly nascent. So on the one hand, your podcast can help you generate qualified leads by building a loyal following. On the other, it can actually help you find sponsorships from brands that want to get noticed by an audience like yours. The podcast can soon pay for itself and then some. Conclusion To be honest, this is the best time to consider integrating podcasting in your overall marketing strategy. Podcasting is still relatively new and is yet to see explosive growth. Best of all, podcasting is fun! It is a great opportunity to meet interesting and well-informed guests and share insights about what you know well. If you aren’t ready to start your own podcast yet, start going
Here’s How Brands Used Social Media to Celebrate Republic Day 2019
The feeling of patriotism seems to be at an all-time high in India this year. Whether it is patriotic movies being released or the rediscovery of our past glory, we Indians seem to be revelling in feelings of nationalism and patriotism. Of course, many well-loved brands are using this patriotic fervour to engage audiences to the next level. According to a key concept in Marketing 3.0, brands have moved from focussing on customer’s material needs to understand the causes and sentiments they really feel strongly about. And what can be more appropriate than appealing to people’s sense of patriotism on the 70th Republic Day? After 15th August, Republic Day is the most important national holiday in India, and brands aren’t shying away from the occasion. Here is our pick of the top brand campaigns on Republic Day this year. Nature Valley Keeping India’s energy high one bar at a time! #HappyRepublicDay Posted by Nature Valley on Friday, January 25, 2019 This nature valley Republic Day campaign cleverly combines the brand’s positioning as an energy bar with the feelings of patriotism. It does this by paraphrasing a now-famous line from the recently released movie Uri, based on the Indian army’s surgical strikes. Ixigo Ixigo’s “Train mein hai swag” campaign is hands down one of the best Republic Day campaigns we’ve seen this year. In the form of a really fun rap song, the campaign talks about how travelling by train in India is the new cool thing to do. It talks about everything we love about trains – the childhood memories, the home-cooked “puri bhaji”, and the beautiful views outside our window. The last line of the campaign is “Kyunki desh mein hai swag” which ties in the whole campaign so beautifully with Republic Day. The underlying message is that trains, which epitomize so many things about our country, are the coolest way to travel because our country is now “cool”. This is the must-watch campaign for this Republic Day! Tata Salt We often take for granted the freedom and privileges of living in the largest Democratic Republic in the world. Here’s a salt art tribute revisiting some of the many reasons to celebrate the Indian Constitution #NamakKeWaastey pic.twitter.com/35v7aZjDzD — Tata Salt (@_deshkanamak) January 25, 2019 From its earliest days, Tata Salt has positioned itself as “Desh ka Namak” (The Country’s Salt) and this Republic Day was no different. With its latest campaign, #Namakkewaastey, Tata Salt used a really unique “salt art” campaign to talk about what makes the Indian Constitution unique. Combining extreme creativity with a strong patriotic message, this is one heartfelt campaign. Sony Pictures Network View this post on Instagram Cinema that entertains and binds this great Republic together! ❤️ Here’s wishing all our fellow countrymen a #HappyRepublicDay! ?? गणतंत्र दिवस की हार्दिक शुभकामनाएँ । ? A post shared by Sony Pictures Networks (@sonypicsprodns) on Jan 26, 2019 at 12:42am PST Sony Pictures released a beautiful video on Instagram as part of their Republic Day campaign. This video talks about how cinema is truly a medium “Of the Republic, By the Republic, and For the Republic”. It showcases how the world of cinema comprises artists and technicians from all parts of the country and all communities and religions. And it talks about how the most important part of cinema is the love that it gets from its audience; the billions of Indians all across the country and the world. This campaign is a great example of choosing to use the brand product to shed light on a different kind of nationalism – one which sends a message of unity and brotherhood. Kudos! Axis Mutual Funds Nation building is a collective responsibility of all citizens. Today, as we celebrate 70 glorious years of being a… Posted by Axis Mutual Fund on Friday, January 25, 2019 Axis Mutual Fund’s campaign ties in the concept of a responsible citizen with “a responsible investor”. While a responsible citizen builds the country, a responsible investor plans and manages their money well. And the simple campaign showcases how a good Indian should be both. Captain Zack Happy Republic Day from Capt. Zack and team! Posted by Captain Zack on Friday, January 25, 2019 Pet grooming brand Captain Zack keeps things simple. It has an adorable picture with a catchy caption. With one simple image, it evokes our love for dogs, our patriotism, and a smile on our faces. They say minimalism is the key to an effective brand campaign and Captain Zack shows us it is possible even in today’s digital-first age. Robin Hood Army and Girliyaapa Little Voices We want to be a Robin and we hope that after watching this video you will too. #RobinHoodAcademy #AcademyVoice #CreateTogether #GirliyapaSpotlight We nominate all our followers & friends to volunteer, register with them on www.robinhoodarmy.com/academy Posted by Girliyapa on Friday, January 25, 2019 This one deserves a special mention. Popular Youtube channel Girliyapa collaborates with Robinhood Army to solicit volunteers for the Robinhood academy. Girliyapa, in a simple but very effective video, asks you to volunteer just 3 hours a week at the Robinhood Academy so that underprivileged kids have a better chance at life. And what better occasion for this message than Republic Day? A light, breezy but effective campaign for a very important cause. This was our list of eye-catching campaigns this Republic Day. These are the brands that made it to our list because they effectively combined a compelling story with the value proposition of their brand. If you think we missed out on any great Republic Day campaigns, do let us know in the comments below. Also, don’t forget to tell us about your favourite Republic Day campaign.
Why is it the right time to market your business through Social Media?
Today, India has gained a top seat in terms of social media users and use. Across popular social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, India has recorded a phenomenal increase in social media use over the past 4 years, edging well past the commercial leader, USA. It is not surprising, therefore, that social media is fast becoming the medium of choice for advertisers across the country. After all, with a large majority of the population hooked on to cyberspace, it has become the natural choice to reach and target potential customers. This comes on the wings of study and research that proves that users often discover new products on these sites. In all probability, your toughest competition maybe creating winning posts/ads right now at his preferred networking channel and potentially whisking away customers! It’s time you took control and set in place a strong social media strategy to accrue maximum value from this burgeoning medium and see your brand going places! Watch the video below to find out why it is time you opened a social media account for your business:
Copy v/s content – what you should be doing for the blog
“The customer is not stupid. She is your wife.” That quote from the grand ol’ daddy of advertising pretty much settles the debate on how you should be communicating with your customers. Whether you do it via your blog or advertising, the rule remains the same. Which means, whether you do it via copywriting for your ads and marketing material or content writing on your blog and website, you need to keep the basic etiquette on creating crisp content that is closely linked with the end result you want to drive. The difference between copy and content writing Copywriting, as wiki, describes, it the art of writing marketing content that is persuasive enough to drive your customers to take action. Content writing is the art of writing content on websites and other marketing avenues to promote specific products. This extends to also all steps that are the means to the end like educating your customers, creating awareness, building your brand, sharing stories, writing on your websites, blogs, building on testimonials and some more. So, how are these different? The long and short of it is simply that copy is short and content is long form. Copy is mostly thought by the industry in the sense of writing for advertising. If this extends to the website, it may involve some additional writing to drive home the point. Usually, the call to action is clear and immediate. It is also likely to be structured around a single campaign or cause. Unless these are long-standing commercials, the brand will want to increase leads and sales through advertising in addition to build recall. An additional interesting part of copywriting is that though you write it for mass consumption, you address it to make it relevant to the one reader reading it at a time for it to be effective. Last but not the least, copy in its many formats like Brand Taglines, jingles, sound cues (sensory branding) and even celebrity speak is intended to make a big impact with fewer words. Content writing is like a story you read down a meandering path where you are likely to find a solution to a problem you may have. You may ‘stumble upon’ a piece of content after you searched for the topic on Google. While content to is written with the clear intention of driving CTAs, people are more likely to discover similar stories and consume it before determining their action about a particular topic. Copywriting is used both online and offline. It is in ATL and BTL communication and is customized as per the language and interests per month. Content writing is mainly restricted to online unless you are counting advertorials as content. Is either one better than the other? Not really, you need a good use of both to make your strategy complete. For example, you could read a few blogs, watch a few videos and then some more while planning for your vacation. But when you are ready, you are likely to click on an ad that is offering the package and sharing the price up front. So how do you create a good mix of both? Mix copy and content for your blog Copywriting works as a great pull to draw attention in bursts. For example, while your blog may have great content writing, the title needs to be written with the precision of a copy writer selling an FMCG product. Clutter breaking titles for blogs and web pages are often the make or break point between consumed and non-consumed content. So you see, a blog is, in fact, a great use case where copy and content writing skills are required in equal measures. The process of coming up with click-worthy titles are similar to creating the USP for the product. Compelling words, irresistible call to actions that make you want to click right now and read is the exact intent of copywriting. There are plenty of case studies on how sites like BuzzFeed have nailed it and caused us to click and scroll through a lot more content than we intended on cat photos and sports fails. The other use case of mixing copy and content for your blog is when you want to create a single line in between the content that breaks the clutter and keeps the engagement going. These are often ‘tweetable bites’ of content that even work for other social media. The third use case of mixing copy and content for your blog comes when you want to share it across channels. Imagine that you are a travel company which has conducted a survey on the travel trends in India and is ready with a report. You’ll have to pull a good insight from the report and do some copywriting to ensure your Facebook readers check out the report. At the same time, you’ll have to write a different copy for Linkedin which brings you out as key player in the industry. You can create multiple one-line insights for tweet bites which can be shared across time zones to ensure maximum reach. Does it work vice versa? Sure does. From real estate to financial products, the attractive headline copy can get your foot in the door but you need content to ensure that when people want to know more, they aren’t left with a call center number to call. You ad copy is most likely redirect users to a website where content does the actual talking to sell. Last but not the least, you need content to be found There is no better reason to raise the content marketing services flag than the fact that Google recognizes quality content. If done right, it gets you link love and puts you right in front of the people. Campaigns with good copy can be done with a frequency cap but good content is always on. You know, they are lying in that job description When you read about a content writer job these days, they talk about
How social listening can help with SEO
When you log in to your brand’s social account, you encounter an environment of virtual noise and chatter. If you are on social, ‘hearing’ happens by default – where you see and hear everything around you to an extent that you have awareness about the most important topics and conversations. Listening, on the other hand, is an activity that requires your attention and concentration. It means you understand the sentiments behind the statements and get into a position where you are responding and not reacting. Social listening is done for multiple purposes. It is to identify brand advocates and dissuader. It is to get feedback that you didn’t actively ask for. It is to know the questions that prospects have in mind about your product or services. But one of the most important reasons to do it is from an Online Reputation Management and SEO perspective. It is important to listen to your fans and haters and respond to both and turn the brand around for the better. Here are some reasons how social listening is good for your SEO game with Google 1. Social conversations feature in search results Search isn’t what it used to be ten years back. Earlier you could search for ‘Mumbai hotel’ and get a list of hotels in Mumbai in your search result. Today you are more likely to type “Reviews for top hotels in Mumbai” and get answers from social chatter, Tripadvisor, Mouthshut and video walk-through and reviews on YouTube. Other conversations about your brand could be happening on blogs and social forums. While you don’t have control over what’s being posted, listening to these are important as you need to ensure that the sentiment is largely positive. If needed, you’ll need to nudge the conversations to get desired results. 2. Being responsive to social queries shows Google you are active and that you care Google loves fresh content, and so do we. You might have an answer on Quora which is a year old but if it still getting upvoted, Google thinks of it as fresh content. This is one of the main reasons, negative content takes ages to subside. The only way to tackle this is to have a constant onslaught of fresh, original content and upvotes which can pump up the positivity in the search results. 3. You can use social chatter to create your own FAQs and rank well A lot of social chatter is around queries people have about your product or services. They could also be about the pain points around your product and how you can improve. It is great to get some impromptu feedback too. Once you identify a pattern based on your customer’s user journey, you can pin down their frequently asked questions and give them answers straight on your website. After optimization, your own page is likely to rank for your customer’s FAQ and it can help tremendously to mould their opinion about you. 4. It allows discovery of new keywords to optimize People often don’t talk in the same language that brands envision them to. Your customers may be using short forms, similar words and even hashtags to describe your product and their thoughts around it. Once you identify these words, you can add them to your SEO keyword list. Plug them into a tool like Ubersuggest and it’ll be a sure fire way find out if these are isolated cases or a part of the frequent chatter around your products. 5. It’s a great source to identify potential link websites As you track and monitor your brand on third party websites, it can help you identify influencers and content creators who could be potential sources for links. You can identify the people in the conversation and approach them as potential link building partners. They are already vested in your product. Asking them for their opinion via reviews, guest blogs or focus groups can make them feel that the brand is willing to listen to their opinion. This empowerment automatically nudges them to become brand advocates. In fact, even linkless brand mentions are also potential SEO gold. 6. Get a forecast on topic trends Listening allows you to focus on your customer’s or prospects’ current area of interest. As the conversation changes, you’ll need to make slight adjustments to your product’s brand strategy. For example, until a few years back, people thought of vacations as a list of places to visit and things to do. Today, the conversation is increasingly about ‘travel’ instead of tourism and ‘experiences to consume’ instead of ‘sights to see’. Identifying this trend has now made many destination management companies to re-word their offering according to what their potential customers are looking for. Airbnb’s experiences is a great example of how a brand in the travel industry has created a whole new economy based on this emerging trend. 7. It helps to identify your competitors SEO strategy Your competitors could be eavesdropping on your conversations online, just like you are spying on them. Some could even potentially hijack conversations. Take this instance where users are asking about products on Craftsvilla but Go4Ethnic, their competitor is trying to grab user attention hitching a ride on the question. Social listening is also about monitoring the chatter about your competitors, identify their influencer, and track and understand their strategy. It’ll ensure you can maintain the lead in your customer’s social visibility. While we’ve given a lot of pointers on the positive effects of social on SEO, not doing it right can result in lost SEO visibility and traffic. Here are some of the potential downfalls you should avoid in your social strategy so that your SEO isn’t affected. a. Not posting enough engaging content New content indicates freshness. Content that is engaged with (liked, commented on and shared) shows that you are resonating with your audience. Both of these are SEO signals that overall contribute to your content ranking higher. b. Not posting on G+ We know that G+ isn’t
The Strategic Guide To Writing A Content Marketing Proposal
Content Marketing has emerged as the biggest buzz word in the field of marketing in the last couple of years. To a novice, it is about writing a few blogs and then waiting to see if it attracts traffic. To experts, it is using content as the backbone of all marketing initiatives. Being a specialist agency in Content Marketing, we’ve received all kinds of requests in the last few years. Most times, we have to explain to our clients that there are two words here that make this process happen – ‘Content’ and ‘Marketing’. These aren’t mutually independent and will have to work together if you have to see some magic in the form of traffic, engagement, leads and conversions on the website. Even then, we get requests for plain content writing – because we can churn out high quality content with regular frequency. We generally sit down with such a request and then turn it into a strategy that can help our clients look back six months from now and think that they did the right thing by hiring us. In this guide to writing a content marketing proposal, we’ve tried to outline what’s worked for us when it comes to creating a strategy for different industries and clients. Before you get to it, here’s a quick note – We also have proposal writing guides for Social Media Clients and Search Engine Optimization Clients. These templates and strategy can come handy when you create your next proposal. Now, getting back, here are steps to creating a content marketing proposal that’ll get you a client and also retain them. By the way, this proposal guide will come handy for both agencies and freelancers. The brief gathering process The brief for a content marketing strategy is generally gathered during a personal meet or a mix of a phone and email conversation. Asking a few pointed questions during this process is necessary to set the course of your strategy going forward. Here are two questions that can help you get started 1. What is your main goal behind having a content marketing plan? Universally, marketing has a few clear goals – activities that lead to traffic, engagement, visibility, branding and eventually leads and conversions. Does this percolate into the content marketing plan too? 2. How can content help you achieve your goals? For some businesses like E-commerce, the connect to the sales pipeline is clear. But for others like B2B products which people don’t directly buy online, being able to create a measurable content marketing strategy requires a few additional parameters. Setting goals Once you’ve collected the brief, it is time to translate them into concrete goals. Let’s take a B2C company selling groceries online, for example. Their goal was to “Use content marketing to increase conversions and generate revenue” To achieve this goal, you’ll have to define targeted metrics around it. For example, Metric 1: Generate x% of website revenue from content marketing Metric 2: Create content that ranks on the first page of Google for certain key terms Or another goal example for a B2B company can be Gain position as a leader in their industry The translated metrics for this goal can be Metric 1: Increase newsletter subscribers by x% Metric 2: Increase white paper downloads by x%. Metric 3: Increase content views by x% Internal research task a. Get thorough knowledge of the product / service you are selling: Real engaging content cannot come without understanding the product fully and how it works. Some industries are simpler than others since we may already be using the product every day. But when it comes to B2B, it is best to deep dive into Google and get a thorough research on the product and its categories. Our best bet is to generally spend some time with the product manager in the company. The human insights behind the product actually become its best story spinners. Besides, if you want to create cornerstone content, it can’t be all fluff and jargon but has to be based on experience to a certain degree. If you are doing this as a team, use a single doc to cap ideas: Typically, there may be more than one writer in our team taking up the job. This works well when you need multiple perspectives on the product. We have an internal guideline document that helps writers tether their ideas to the central document which are then viewed by editors and constructed into a coherent flow. Important: Before you move forward At this point, you have all the basic info necessary to take a deep dive and get started. So this is the best time to present a sample piece of content and get an email in place about timelines and approx budgets. But can you set an agreement without completing the content audit? It depends from client to client. For first timers, it is mostly a Yes. You see, the content audit below is a lot of work – and time from your internal team. So it is up to you to decide if you want to take up the full load before you actually bag the client. Whatever you discover from the content audit may have a direct impact on the overall budget. The budget here isn’t the entire cost of the project but more an approximate number that your client can have in mind. Budget discussions are never easy as you thread on a thin line. All agencies out there scream quality – but this can be proven only with time. We showcase ours by sharing case studies and testimonials from previous clients. As a newbie, not doing this has caused quite a bit of heartache for us. You may find only one rotten mango among the pile but it is still best to have a shield and stay prepared. Here’s why. I got duped by a rogue client. Here’s how you can protect yourself from one Content