Content Marketing for Beginners: The Difference Between Vendors and Partners
Content marketing for each brand is a unique project. You must understand the difference between a vendor and a partner.
The content should match each brand’s voice, style, marketing channels and adapt based on success analytics. A good content marketing strategy is crafted from the knowledge of your business, content creation, and online marketing. From Instagram photo storytelling to LinkedIn thought leadership articles, the content marketing strategy of your brand should define your reach, reputation, and success.
It's no small wonder that brands are looking to define the difference between a vendor and a partner so they can choose according to the need.
Outsourcing is often the best way to combine expertise with your business needs. However, you need to make sure you've found the right team for your brand and project. Choosing a content marketing team is a big decision. Narrow it down by first defining the difference between a vendor and a partner.
What Is the Difference Between a Vendor and a Partner?
Quick Answer:
Vendors sell content off-the-shelf. Partners build a strategy with you and craft brand-custom content.
The difference between a vendor and a partner can be compared to how one might choose a cake for a special event…
- Should I buy a store-bought cake? It would be a white sheet cake with a choice of chocolate or vanilla icing.
- Should I contact a local bakery and get my cake custom-made? The confectioner would ask about your special event, who is being celebrated, and when the event is. You would get to choose the flavor, design, color of icing, and the number of layers on the cake. You walk away with a cake you love.
In content marketing, the difference is the same. Would you like to participate in a standard service with pricing tiers for set amounts of content? Or would you rather work with a team that builds a content strategy with you before producing a campaign custom-tailored to your brand and goals?
Why Hire a Content Vendor?
There are times when a content vendor is the right choice. If you have a new brand without much personality and need to fill out a few starter blogs, vendor content is a low-investment way to get it.
Do you need one simple, on-topic article per month to keep a website alive? Vendor content works. If you need a portfolio of filler posts for social media or a stack of stock photos with branded captions, vendors are there for you with no strings attached.
However, if you need a content marketing strategy, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Why Hire a Partner Service?
Content marketing partners take an entirely different approach. While both service types advertise as content marketing services, vendors offer ‘packages' while partners build a campaign strategy.
A content marketing partner would sit down with you and talk about your brand personality, the message you want to send, your current marketing goals, and your goals in the more distant future.
They then work with your team and brand design to craft a marketing campaign with fresh content that matches your brand's personality and image. From social media marketing to long-form content creation, a partner service becomes an extension of your own marketing team, and they are invested in your success.
10 Questions to Ask a Potential Content Marketing Partner
1) Do you understand our brand, and can you match the style?
A content marketing partner is willing to work with you to craft a campaign that matches your brand personality and style. A good partner is one whose team immediately understands your style and can get into the groove with a similar design quickly.
A vendor, in contrast, can produce content for your industry with some brand adaptation but has only a few styles to choose from.
2) Can your services help achieve our marketing goals?
The critical element of a partner is that they care about reaching your goals. If you need to improve your outreach, they'll help build a campaign to reach new audiences. Do you need traffic? They'll create compelling inbound marketing content. If you need lead signups, your content marketing can write great downloadable booklets and brochures for clients.
Vendors, in contrast, offer specific content packages, and it's up to you to determine if their off-the-shelf content will help meet your goals. You either want the content service or you do not.
3) What is outside your wheelhouse?
A true content marketing team – ready to become your extended department – knows its limits. They may have a graphic artist, writers, and a social media team but no experience with technical content. When you talk to your partner team, they should be transparent about their specialties and what they can't cover with confidence. Instead, they may recommend a colleague or tool to fill in the gap, even if it's outside their services.
In contrast, vendors often try to cover their bases, offering to be everything to everyone, but their services are shallow. They may avoid admitting that there is a service they can't cover, which is often a sign that a team is not focused on your business' best results.
4) Can we see your portfolio?
Ask to see your content marketing team's body of work. Ask for portfolios of past projects and testimonials from recent customers. A little exploring can tell you a lot about the variety and personalization that a team can put into their content campaigns. If you see page after page of color-shifted templates, you're dealing with a vendor. If you see custom designs with various personalities and strategies, you've got a real content partner.
5) Have you worked with businesses in our industry?
Experience with your industry can matter a lot. If a team has worked with other businesses in your industry, they likely better understand your business model, audience, and marketing priorities.
6) Can your framework or methods adapt to our business needs?
Many content marketers have a framework or a few pieces of software they use to produce a large quantity of custom content. The question is just how custom the content is. Can their framework adapt to your business? Can they go beyond templates or adjust their templates so that your content is unique compared to their past clients? If yes, you are likely working with a flexible and ready partner. If no, you may be interviewing a vendor instead.
7) How are projects managed, and who will be managing our account?
There's a big difference in how accounts are managed between vendors and partners. A partner team may have a lead manager, but the manager works closely with a designer and content marketing expert who will work directly on your project and brand.
Vendor accounts are managed by an account manager who focuses on keeping your needs within their team’s abilities. This is in contrast to a partner that stays focused on your goals.
8) Can we give feedback and critique?
Vendors don't often take critique because they deliver practically off-the-shelf content. Either you like what they produce, or you don't, and the choice is yours. But partner teams usually welcome critique because it helps them gain perspective.
Did the last logo use a bubble font that was difficult to read? Let's sharpen the letter’s crest and harden the lines. Need more stats in your blog posts? They'll find a data aggregate service to pack your content with percentages and price points.
9) What tools will you use, and do you use any third-party tools?
A content marketing partner is there to make your campaign generate leads and revenue. A partner can empower your brand by using the most up-to-date tools possible. This sometimes (often) means using third-party tools and services because they work. A team that freely talks about the third-party tools they use is more transparent and less self-serving. Therefore, they likely to work with you for your company's benefit, not just their own.
10) How do you envision our campaign 6 months from now?
Lastly, ask your content partner about their vision for your brand's future. After just one interview, a partner might already know where you want to be and where you could be with a good campaign effort. The ability to look into the future and plan for success is critical for a partner who will be hand-crafting your campaign alongside your team.
Vendors, however, churn the same type of content year after year. Their business model does not change, so they don't usually have a vision for your brand's marketing progress either.
Conclusion
Does your brand need a more powerful and personalized content marketing strategy? Know the difference between a vendor and a partner.
If you're looking for a content partner that will become an extension of your own marketing department, we are eager to become the marketing partner you need. Contact us for a free consultation today. We'll help get you on the path to overcome marketing challenges with custom content campaigns so you can stay responsive to the ever-changing market of today.
At Viral Solutions we are committed to seeing YOU succeed. It is our goal to grow your business with proven digital marketing strategies that will help your business for the long haul.
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