Co-founder and head of marketing for Content Snare James Rose loves three things: beer, snowboarding, and his dog. And then there’s his passion for the content marketing process. His success in the industry did not come overnight; he first got into WordPress back in 2006 and he started his first business back in 2008!
Since then, he has gone from strength to strength to become one of the leading voices in the content community. We’ve spoken with him before about community building and his tool Content Snare. In this instalment of Agency Gurus, we sit down again with James Rose and see what more he has to say about content collection, client management, and developing your own software tools.
Cloudways: Hi James! Good to have you with us again. As we discussed in our last interview with you, you created Content Snare to ease the process of content collection from clients before working on their projects. How has your tool evolved since then? And what direction do you see it heading in the future?
James: The most interesting thing for us is that lots of different businesses have been signing up for Content Snare – not just marketing agencies. It turns out almost every service business has some kind of problem getting information or files from clients. That includes accountants, law firms, insurance and more.
This has made us really think about the potential uses of the product beyond web design & marketing.
However we’re still focused on our core market of digital agencies. Our roadmap includes things like conditional logic and potentially even a sitemap navigation feature that I think would be amazing for web designers.
Source: contentsnare
Cloudways: Why do you think the content collection process is so hard in the first place? Are agencies or freelancers missing something on how clients operate? How do they get clients to send over all the relevant content at the earliest?
James: There are two main reasons it’s difficult to get information or content from clients.
First, if you work with business owners, your clients are going to be busy and short on time. It’s difficult for them to find the time to send you content.
That’s why it’s so important to make it easy for them to send everything to you. If you make the process complicated, it creates barriers and slows down the process. An example is asking them to upload files in one place, put written content somewhere else and ask questions via email. No client wants to deal with that.
Second, it’s easy to assume that your clients have more knowledge than they really do. If you’re a web designer, you’ve built 100s or 1000s of websites before. You know where things go and can visualize the final product long before your client can.
Most of the time, your client doesn’t have such a clear picture in their mind. That makes it a very daunting task to create content for something that they can’t visualize.
This can be helped by sending them visual references when you request content, so they can picture where the content will go on the website.
Cloudways: You’ve talked about how in your rush to develop your product quickly, you were left with a faulty code base that you then had to fix. In light of your experience, what advice do you have for agency owners developing their own software tools? What pitfalls should they be careful to avoid?
James: There won’t be anything groundbreaking here…I’d just say that you should take your time to hire someone and test them out on a small, separate project to make sure their code is solid.
Then of course, keep an eye on what they deliver for a while until you’re confident they are producing quality code.
If they aren’t delivering, ask them to stop work and find someone else.
We failed at all 3 of these.
Thankfully we have an amazing team now though.
Source: contentsnare
Cloudways: Initially, you primarily used community engagement to acquire clients for Content Snare. However, as your scope broadens from just agencies to event management companies and other professional services, how is your client acquisition evolving?
James: We’re investing mostly into content creation and SEO. As I mentioned earlier, we’re still focused on agencies for the moment, so we create content aimed at agencies. For the most part, the other industries find Content Snare through word of mouth or through searching for a very specific use-case.
We’ve thought about a partner model, where agencies implement Content Snare for their clients and get a referral fee from that. However I’m trying to focus our efforts, and right now that’s content.
Cloudways: You’re known to be all about saving time, which is one reason you’re so into automation! Why do you think agencies have a hard time dipping their toes into automation? How can they keep from being overwhelmed by the different possibilities of automation, and use it to improve their productivity?
James: Two reasons. First is that getting started is difficult. When I surveyed people about automation, the number one thing people struggled with was not knowing where to start.
Like you said, there are so many possibilities which can be overwhelming.
You should just start simple. Connect a contact form with your CRM and see how the process works. Explore the Zapier app directory, and type in the names of apps you already use to see what integrations are available. Your mind will start joining the dots, so just try to implement a couple of basic workflows. You’ll realise it’s not all that overwhelming once you’ve got an idea.
Creating Automated Development Workflows
Cloudways: What’s your client management secret sauce? What strategies do you use to ensure your clients stay with you?
James: I wouldn’t say there is any secret sauce. It comes down to making sure our clients are happy. That usually just means good communication. They should always feel “in the loop” and that you care about their feedback.
For agencies, a simple strategy is to email every client, every week with a summary of what was done this week, what you’ll do next week, and anything you’re waiting on them for.
Cloudways: Your Agency Highway podcast plays host to some influential names and specialists. How do you decide who to feature on the podcast? What would you say are the top three must-listen episodes?
James: Thank you!
Honestly there’s no formula there either. If I think someone has something valuable to share that’s helpful to agencies, I’ll have them on.
Picking a top 3 is very difficult, but here are some that have a valuable message for many agencies and designers:
Pricing websites with Corey Dodd
Work Less Make More with James Schramko
Value-based pricing with Jonathan Stark
Cloudways: What are some other productivity and project management tools you swear by? In particular, what resources do you recommend for agencies attempting to grow and expand?
James: I don’t actually have a project management tool that I love right now. I saw that Trello announced that they are introducing some new views soon, so I’m excited to get back into Trello.
My current toolset is:
Zapier – workflow automation
Integromat – workflow automation
TextExpander – avoiding repetitive typing
Superhuman – an email client built for productivity
Notion – note taking
Active Campaign – email automation
I love Zapier & TextExpander so much that I’ve created courses on them here: https://jimmyrose.me/zapier-intro/
Cloudways: Thank you so much James for sharing your tips and experience with our audience again James.
James: You’re welcome!
If you would like to connect to James, then here is his LinkedIn.
Arsalan Sajid
Arsalan, a Digital Marketer by profession, works as a Startups and Digital Agencies Community Manager at Cloudways. He loves all things entrepreneurial and wakes up every day with the desire to enable the dreams of aspiring entrepreneurs through his work!
