As a content marketing agency the key to continued success is maintaining client relationships. This is often achieved by agreeing to a regular amount of monthly content and then delivering that amount. The volume of content to be created is typically decided upon early in the engagement, once an audit of existing content has been carried out and a content marketing strategy has been developed. As part of strategy development an agency will identify and develop themes around which they will create content across multiple channels. Out of this process the agency and their client will begin to focus in on how many of each content items will be required each month to adequately address the desired themes and a Service Level Agreement facilitating this content will be entered into.
Above is an example of a sample agency’s Service Level Agreement for their client, Client A, for the month of February, 2014. You will see that it clearly outlines the content that the agency is required to create for the month. The SLA tool then tracks how well the agency is adhering to the goals that they have established for the month. It breaks down progress into the number of content items that have been planned, completed, are currently being worked on and those unassigned items that work has not started on yet.
A quick look at the SLA tool lets an agency manager determine how close they are to achieving their monthly quota of content. They can then assign additional resources, if necessary, to ensure that they meet their commitments. A client can also be provided with access to the SLA tool so that they can keep track of the agency’s performance. Providing this level of transparency can help to increase trust between the client and their agency. Consistent achievement and exceeding of content goals can help to cement a contract and lead to increased business.
We originally added this feature to help our Agency customers who had been struggling to keep on top of content production for their clients. When dealing with multiple clients, several layers of management and a large team of content creators, including external contractors or freelancers it can become very difficult to stay on top of how much content is getting created for each client. Frequently, as the final week of the month arrives a big push is required to get a grasp on production and then a round of assigning content that needs to get finished up. The SLA tool is positioned to avoid this kind of situation and help agencies stay on top of their content creation to keep their client not just satisfied, but elated with their performance.
If you work for a content marketing agency that is finding it hard keeping on top of agreed-upon commitments, sign-up for a free trial today and find out first-hand how using the SLA tool can help you scale your ability to continually delight your clients.
