Digital Marketing Agencies Are Useful for Selling Degree Programs, Pet Food and Lipstick, But Not So Great for Marketing Specialized B2B Technology Products.

I’ve been earning my full-time living online as a content creator since 2009, and was doing it part-time for long before then.

I put my own by-line on my personal projects (mostly craft projects) and occasional other projects, but other than that, I typically ghostwrite.

I’m thinking of making a pivot in the types of clients I seek out.

I used to do most of my work for digital marketing agencies, but lately I’m finding that type of work is no longer the right fit for the way I work.

One of my greatest frustrations, lately, is the barriers that I encounter when trying to do digital marketing work for tech companies — in particular, SaaS companies.

My process goes something like this:

I’ll get a brief from my contact at a digital marketing agency that says,

Client: SaaSStartupCompanySite.com

Assignment: Write a 1,000+ word article that provides value to readers and builds awareness for XYZ Software Product

Publishing Site: SomeRandomTechSite.com

Link to: SaaSStartupCompanySite.com/XYZSoftware

Anchor Text: XYZ Software

So I’ll look carefully at SomeRandomTechSite.com and read at least half a dozen articles at their site to see what topics they typically cover and get a feel for what their readers might be interested in learning about; then I’ll also carefully scrutinize SaaSStartupCompanySite.com and SaaSStartupCompanySite.com/XYZSoftware in hopes of figuring out what XYZ Software does, and why prospects at SomeRandomTechSite.com might want to use it.

My primary goal for this process is to figure out what I could write that would be valuable and actionable to readers at SomeRandomTechSite.com but would also serve the interests of the team at SaaSStartupCompany.

When I do this, 9 times out of 10, I’ll find a page about XYZ Software that says

XYZ Software — Coming soon!

Or, maybe I’ll find something that says,

“XYZ Software is SaaS technology empowering digital innovation for the next generation of leaders.”

Great! That at least gives me something to go on. “Digital innovation” and “leaders” is a fantastic start.

But which leaders in which industry would use this software? Is this a product that’ll be marketed to C-suite executives? What problem does it solve for them?

So I email my contact, and I ask him,

“Can I get a download of XYZ Software? I’d like to kick the tires on this thing and see what it does so I can help visitors at somerandomtechsite.com understand why they might be interested in this software and tell them about the problems the software would solve for them.”

To which my contact will respond something like,

“Sorry, Amy. XYZ Software isn’t ready to ship yet. I’ve been trying to land this account for a few months now, and they finally agreed to work with us before launch so we could generate some pre-launch buzz. But the software won’t actually be ready to ship until July of 2025.

Me: “Okay, I understand. Can you please at least tell me what XYZ software is supposed to do for its users?

Him: “Sorry, I have no idea what the software does.

At this point in the exchange, I feel like throwing my laptop into Lake Buchanan. Or maybe going back to my previous career in textile product development. At least it is fairly easy to explain to prospects in the fashion industry what they might expect from this fabric or that fabric or that other fabric over there.

With cutting-edge tech products, it takes specialized knowledge, or at least solid interviewing skills, to figure out how to market the products — and if there are barriers in between the content creator and the knowledge, the work can’t effectively happen.

So in cases like this, I have 2 choices:

1. Write an article that won’t help anyone accomplish any of their objectives; or
2. Turn down the work and invest my time on a project that’s win-win-win for all parties involved (for the readers at the publishing site, the client, the agency and myself.)

I want to invest my effort into projects where I can make a real difference. So more times than not, I turn down assignments like this. I don’t want to take on work unless I can actually get results for the client, and in situations like this, there’s no credible way to help the client accomplish their goals. I’m a content creator, not a mind reader and not a miracle worker.

Thankfully, I’m at the stage in my career where I can turn down work. But this is really a dumb and frustrating problem to have, and I’m tired of having it.

I’ve been giving this problem a massive amount of thought lately, and I finally had a light-bulb moment. I came to the conclusion that maybe the problem is really me, seeking the wrong sorts of clients. Maybe I shouldn’t be working for digital marketing agencies.

Speaking for myself as a content creator, the problem isn’t that I’m incapable of understanding the tech. On the contrary; I’m good at tire-kicking and figuring out how tech products work without a lot of hand-holding.

That said, as tech gets increasingly more specialized, I realize that it would be prudent for me to also get more specialized and to build a knowledge base that supports a specific niche market. So I’ve been giving that a massive amount of thought.

But beyond that, it occurs to me that what really needs to happen in those situations is that I need to be able to interview someone at the client’s company to get the information I need. I’d need to interview the founder, or one of the engineers, or whichever exec is heading up the XYZ Software project.

.

So I’m not sure I want to keep working for digital marketing agencies, unless those digital marketing agencies trust me enough to put me in touch with the client’s subject matter experts.

So it occurs to me that what I need to do is skip working with the digital marketing agencies, and do more ghostwriting directly for founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs and department heads.

Interestingly, within my very own sphere of influence is the founder of a tech startup.

I married him. He’s the love of my life. I’d cross oceans with him. I HAVE crossed oceans with him.

I’ve been working on various copywriting assignments for his tech startup for more than a year now.

And from that experience, I can honestly say that I think he’s a thought leader within his space. There is no one else on this planet who has his vision and his skill.

But pinning down his actual thought process to, first of all, understand it myself; second, to explain it to others; and third, to demonstrate his thought leadership, well this isn’t such an easy thing to do.

So it dawned on me: I’m already ghostwriting for a startup founder, and that founder (my husband) chose my verticals for me.

The initial rollout of his SaaS tech product sits at the intersection of proptech, insuretech and telecom, but his patent doesn’t limit the product to use in only those verticals.

Looking ahead to the future, it’s a product that anyone, anywhere could benefit from in the long term (sort of like mobile technology; in the early days of mobile tech, it was prohibitively expensive, but now even people in remote locations all over the globe have it.)

Anyway, my husband is really an expert at telecom. So even though I’m not, I’ve been interviewing him to understand what it is that makes his product compelling and why his prosects will want it — and also why it’s a bargain to them at its asking price.

And I realized: There is absolutely no way that my husband could hire a digital marketing agency and expect that random freelancers there would be able to understand his product well enough to explain it to his prospects and get them onboard with using it.

Not a chance!

If he didn’t have me, he’d have to hire someone in house, and it would have to be their mission in life to figure out the tech and then figure out how to sell the tech to the people who would most benefit from it.

So that’s the problem with digital marketing agencies, in a nutshell. An outstanding digital marketing agency will do an excellent job at helping you sell products or services that everyone already understands — fabrics, shoes, shirts, cars, cosmetic dentistry and coaching services.

But that model totally falls apart when it comes to brand new, cutting-edge, specialized products that nobody understands yet. These days, I don’t think companies with that kind of product are best served by hiring a digital marketing agency. I think companies in that situation should hire smart ghostwriters to handle their content marketing.

So if you’re a founder or a marketing director in need of a ghostwriter, let’s talk. I invite you to get in touch. Tell me about your product and what it can do for your prospects. I’ll help you reach them.

That’s it for today! Thanks for checking out my blog. I appreciate your interest.

Wishing you continued success,

Amy