The Content Bureau

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Communications Specialist of a software company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are changing how the world is designed and made, with technology that spans architecture, engineering, construction, product design, manufacturing, media, and entertainment, empowering innovators everywhere to solve challenges big and small.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Content Bureau to accomplish?

• Develop an evergreen, comprehensive toolkit, including downloadable asset templates and customizable assets to help promote and support Education events
• Ensure scalability, consistency, and adherence to brand guidelines for all Education events while supporting a self-service event model

SOLUTION

How did you find The Content Bureau?

• Referral
• Personal connection

Why did you select The Content Bureau over others?

• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned
• Trusted vendor

How many teammates from The Content Bureau were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The Content Bureau created a comprehensive event marketing toolkit for our Education Marketing team. The goal was for our extended field team to be able to self-serve and use brand-approved materials for their events. 

The toolkit included finished assets as well as templates that could be customized with different imagery and copy. Assets included brochures, postcards, signage, messaging, web banner ads, social media graphics, emails, landing pages, PowerPoint slides, and a detailed How-to-Use Guide for the entire program.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

File download data shows that the Toolkit is being adopted and used by multiple members of the organization. The ability for field team members to self-serve resulted in freeing up resources and time for the campaign marketing team whose workload was already at capacity.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were very responsive to our needs, and managed the project gracefully, despite several last minute additions and changes in scope. The large quantity of assets delivered took great organization and attention to detail, and they handled it well. Frequent check-ins and regular communication kept both parties on track.

What was your primary form of communication with The Content Bureau?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The Content Bureau knows our company and brand guidelines well, so most of the items they delivered in the first round of review required very few revisions. We didn't have to go through endless review cycles to "get it right." There was a high level of creative trust.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Content Bureau could have done differently?

Not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of demand generation for a managed detection and response service provider. We help organizations of all sizes and industries with cybersecurity by connecting their existing security technologies and doing detection, response, and remediation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Content Bureau?

We needed help to accelerate our speed to market, drive awareness of our company, and capture demand.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Content Bureau executes our content strategy. We initially had a discovery phone call to discuss what we needed. Through that process, we provided them with an internal content brief. They worked that process with our content writer, and then we essentially started all the paperwork and procedures to complete everything.

We send over the information on what we’re looking for; we provide a brief with the key messaging points and details for every piece of content we need. The Content Bureau runs with it and sends a draft. Then, we send back any updates or changes. We keep going back and forth until we all feel good about the final product.

What is the team composition?

The three key people we work with are Stacy (Owner), Ruth (Senior Writer), and Maia (Client Support).

How did you come to work with The Content Bureau?

I worked with The Content Bureau at a previous organization. When we identified that we needed additional help, we reached out to them to let them know we’d love to work with them again; it was pretty straightforward.

Initially, I found them because someone I trusted referred them to me; she talked about her great experience with The Content Bureau. Moreover, The Content Bureau was flexible and listened to our needs during our conversations. They didn’t have a rigid outlook on things, so we felt they were good at understanding what we were trying to accomplish. Overall, their internal processes were invisible to us, so nothing could get in the way.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2022, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Just one of the pieces of content that The Content Bureau developed has delivered 5% of our marketing qualified leads year to date.

How did The Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is excellent. They’re fast and responsive; delays are usually on our side. Overall, the process has been straightforward; it doesn’t require any heavy lifting on our part.

We typically communicate through email. We’ve also used Google Docs for output sharing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

First, their team is truly focused on delivering what we need; they make their internal needs invisible in the process, so it’s easy to work with them. Secondly, the quality of their work is outstanding. Cybersecurity isn’t an easy topic, so having an outside organization write about it makes us question if they get it. However, The Content Bureau is thoughtful, and they come back with almost dead-on pieces. We only make tweaks, not drastic changes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve used them to write ad copy and landing pages, but they have little expertise in that area. Understanding a brand’s voice and writing content in that voice requires a lot of experience, and it’s even more challenging in that short-form content. Maybe The Content Bureau could build more expertise in that area to create that revelation moment with just a few words.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

With any service provider, you must invest in your part of the responsibility, which is providing clarity of direction. If you can give good input, you’ll get an outstanding output.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the partner engagement programs for North America at Intermedia Cloud Communications, a unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact center as a service (CCaaS) company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Content Bureau?

We hired them to provide marketing content.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Content Bureau builds marketing content for us. They create marketing assets for the UCaaS and CCaaS industries. For example, they may create content we use for email marketing. We also use the team as a copy editor; we send communications out to our over 7,000 partners, and The Content Bureau helps us copy-edit that. 

Initially, we created a statement of work (SoW), determined the pricing, and discussed the scope of work in detail. The Content Bureau has various skill sets we can tap into, so we discussed what we might need, including writing and design work.

Since then, The Content Bureau has helped us build campaigns specific to the verticals and industries we want to target. They create all the different elements that go into the campaigns. The team has also created vertical assets, such as data sheets targeted for specific industries and industry one-pagers for the healthcare, legal, automotive, financial, and educational industries. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve personally dealt with 4–5 teammates from The Content Bureau, and one of my in-house team members also interfaces with 4–5 resources. In total, we’ve worked with 8–10 teammates from The Content Bureau. 

How did you come to work with The Content Bureau?

A teammate who reports to me worked for another entity before our company, where they worked with The Content Bureau on various marketing projects. This teammate brought The Content Bureau to our CMO’s attention. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $75,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We're very pleased with the work The Content Bureau delivers, so we continue to give them more and more projects. In our business model, we don't work with our end customers. Instead, we work with a partner audience. We have content our partners use to sell, and our biggest metric for success is the way our partners engage with our content. We have a third-party platform where we put that content that our partners can download, customize, and use to run campaigns. 

We track metrics on that third-party platform, such as downloads, emails, logins, and leads. Over the past year, those engagement metrics have increased quarter-over-quarter (Q/Q) and year-over-year (YoY). With our partners' email campaigns, our open rates are above industry standards. Overall, we have good lead conversion rates. 

How did The Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a really good job of their due diligence on our SoW. The team understands our industry, what we need, and what it takes to create the content, so we're always on budget. We've never exceeded budget, and The Content Bureau always delivers what they promise. Even when we've scoped up, we've come in under budget. In those cases, The Content Bureau lets me know, and we re-allocate that budget somewhere else, which is fantastic.

We have our proprietary project management platform, which we use for meetings. Not all third-party providers like to use our system, but The Content Bureau is always happy to use it and knows it well. Additionally, we use email to communicate and Coupa for invoices and SoW management. Since our projects are short-term, there isn't a need to use other project management tools. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our industry isn't well known and has very specific messaging, tone, and industry terminology, and The Content Bureau has writers that nail that. They understand us; bringing them up to speed on our company's voice and brand guidelines doesn't take much time. 

We're very specific in how we want to talk to our partners, and The Content Bureau delivers on that very well, even though it's not easy to do. Overall, we love the content they produce, as does our CMO.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't see an area for improvement for The Content Bureau; I wish we had a larger budget to work with them more. If anything, they could align at a leadership level to get visibility from our internal leadership on their work to increase the scope and budget in the future. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend working with The Content Bureau. As with every good relationship with a marketing agency, you should know what you want and be able to communicate that so that The Content Bureau can align their resources and scope the project correctly. That said, the team can work well with ambiguity due to their expertise.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of visual storytelling at Workday, an enterprise management software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Content Bureau?

We were looking to create a digital asset guidebook for our medium enterprise customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Content Bureau helped us with content marketing and executing our content strategy. We knew what our messages were, so we outlined for them the content that we wanted to include in this asset. The Content Bureau's team worked with our brand department and helped us organize and produce everything based on our raw material and provided them with templates for our brand, including the structure and layout of the guide.

In addition, thanks to our previous projects, The Content Bureau knew exactly what colors, icons, and formats to make that process super simple when we got to the review portion of the asset. It's published on our website. The end deliverable was a multi-page PDF.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three members of The Content Bureau's team, including a writer and a graphic designer.

How did you come to work with The Content Bureau?

We have used The Content Bureau in the past for other projects.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $30,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–February 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The Content Bureau led a very professional, easy-to-work-with, thoughtful, and intelligent process in their decision-making and feedback. In addition, one of the most beneficial things for me was their flexibility and openness to hearing our perspectives and sharing theirs. Moreover, The Content Bureau's team understood our goals and let us remain the ownership — we were always the client.

How did The Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was amazing; The Content Bureau was always on time and communicating clearly. They also had exact responsibilities on who needed to know what and when. Regarding tools, we used email and web conferences to kick off the project and at major milestones.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We always wanted quick turnaround times, and we would've loved to have the assets we sent back in 1–2 days. If they could have more aggressive turnaround times, that would be great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager for the client-facing work at Catalyst Strategies. I also help with our business development, which requires routine maintenance and updates to our website and marketing materials.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Content Bureau?

The Content Bureau has been a long partner of ours. For this project, we brought them in to help us with our long overdue website redesign and redevelopment; we required their expertise and partnership.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Content Bureau helped us conceptualize the process from start to finish and brought their expertise to the table to help us redesign our website completely — it was a full overhaul. Initially, they created a detailed project plan to keep us abreast of their progress.

After the design phase, they built our site on WordPress so that we could manage its backend ourselves. Throughout the process, they also helped us think strategically about our site’s copy, service areas, structure, site map, and SEO. Additionally, the project included QA before the delivery.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Stacy (Owner), Todd (Lead Designer), Allison (Content Strategist), who acted as the project manager and worked closely with our team, Ruth (Writer), a support copywriter, and an SEO specialist.

How did you come to work with The Content Bureau?

We’ve had a long working relationship with The Content Bureau — we’ve been partnering with them and recommending them as a third-party specialist for the last 15 years. This project was the first opportunity we had to hire them for an internal project, and we brought them in to do what they do best: redevelop our website.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–June 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Before this project, our website was basically in the Dark Ages, and The Content Bureau brought it up to date, creating something we’re very proud of. They delivered above and beyond their line of duty, ensuring that all the elements we set out to build were properly built and QAd; we were very happy with the outcome.

We now can market our services with it to prove that we’re a legit company, and referrals and clients can use it to take a look at our work. We’ve been able also to showcase some case studies, which we couldn’t do in the past. They also had an amazing approach to how to present our site without overwhelming our visitors, and we’re really happy with how it ultimately turned out.

The most immediate improvement we saw was an increase in our website traffic and all of our social media channels that reflected our new website, which was wonderful. Our internal team was so happy with the result that they shared the new site widely.

We knew that SEO wouldn’t be a real game-changer for our type of business, but we deferred to The Content Bureau’s recommendations. As a result, they gave us very clear guidance on the best practices around it, ultimately streamlining our site and presenting the right information in the clearest way possible.

How did The Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

The Content Bureau brought in an expert team to do the work; their service was amazing. They were very flexible and worked hard to get things done as quickly as possible. Additionally, their price was really fair considering the quality of the work they delivered.

The Content Bureau also offered top-notch communication and a really robust and clear project management approach. We had weekly conversations, and they gave us clear visibility of their assignments at each step of the process. Whenever we provided them feedback, they took our comments and immediately turned them into tangible results.

The roles of their team members were clearly defined, and we knew who to go to for each need. Allison and I worked very closely together. She was extremely responsive and open to suggestions, and I felt like I could ask her questions and get in touch with her at any time. We felt very taken care of, and she reported the progress of her team weekly, discussing open items and next steps.

Something we really appreciated about them is that we asked them to deliver on a very short timeline, and they worked within it. Additionally, we worked very collaboratively with them, which we really appreciated. As far as the project management tools used, we used Google Docs to share documents, including our copy deck and our Gantt charts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Content Bureau’s unmatched professionalism, knowledge, and experience were impressive, as was their highly skilled and coordinated team. Overall, they’re an amazing partner for helping companies like ours show their value proposition on their website. They took the time to understand our business, so we really trusted their advice — it was spot on.

After this project, The Content Bureau has become a real trusted partner for us, so I would recommend their services to anyone. They’re extremely efficient and collaborative, willingly working hard to ensure the work gets done. Additionally, they’re very nice and fun to work with, and they know what they’re doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Although I didn’t feel that they needed vast improvements, it would be very beneficial for both sides if they tried to understand deeply the projects they work on. However, given the accelerated timeline of our project, it wasn’t possible for them to do it. Still, that aspect only affected a little bit in the phrasing they used on the content. For less tight deadlines on future projects, I would encourage them to spend some time understanding the client’s business so that they could translate it into excellent content.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Hire them! Their work is unbelievable, and they will take care of your success; nothing can go wrong.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a former executive at a business consulting and services company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Content Bureau?

We needed help writing published papers and a book focused on business strategy for CEOs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Content Bureau has been developing content for us according to our paper and book publishing needs during this project. Regarding the process, we start with an interview, and then we provide them with raw content and researched-based findings so they can draft up an outline that we agree with — the material they give us afterward includes graphics and print. 

Overall, they ghostwrote three published papers, each about 13 pages long. After that, they drafted the complete book, which is eight chapters.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Stacy (CEO), a writer, and a content editor.

How did you come to work with The Content Bureau?

It was an internal referral; they worked with our company on a previous project.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around $250,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2016, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They succeeded in how well I needed them to write the content. They’ve also always been on time with deliveries. In addition, they’ve given us a solid collaborative approach along the way.

How did The Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management has been excellent; they meet deadlines and stay on budget. Regarding tools, we use video conference calls and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge of the tech industry and its trends is outstanding because our book is focused on digital technologies, so for them to be able to do a good job, they had to be tech-savvy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — they’re consistent with the writers they provide, which gives us a continuity feel. We feel like they’re growing and evolving with us over the years of our partnership.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to collaborating with them; that’s how you’ll produce high-quality content with their team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the interim head of marketing for a software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with the Content Bureau?

Our writing team was quite understaffed, so we needed an external resource to handle our content development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The partnership with the Content Bureau started with an SEO evaluation and recommendation, but they’re mostly providing us with content creation and strategic consultation.

What is the team composition?

We’re primarily in contact with the project manager, but Stacy (Owner) checks in with us from time to time. We also have about six writers working with us.

How did you come to work with the Content Bureau?

Our CEO already had a prior working relationship with the Content Bureau so when we decided we needed content marketing services, she recommended them to our team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $300,000 to date.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in August 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’re using the content they’ve developed for different marketing strategies and we’ve seen an overall increase in traffic and engagement as a result.

How did the Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

The Content Bureau has an excellent approach to project management, as they’re very detail-oriented and excellent communicators. We mainly interact using Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We like that they’ve been able to adapt very well to our writing style and guidelines, so they create content for us with agility. We also like that they’re very thoughtful about the feedback we provide them and if they don’t understand something about the project, they ask us for more information to make sure they fully understand the strategy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve on catching issues on the first drafts of their content, but they’re usually able to resolve them quickly whenever I bring them up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say be very explicit and detailed in what you’re looking for with each piece of content.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief communications officer at a company that works across a variety of sectors to provide proprietary data, technology, and insights in the area of risk governance and growth. We operate in over 140 countries across six continents. Some of our capabilities include valuation, advisory, corporate finance and M&A, cybersecurity, and crisis management services. We also deal with disputes, corporate restructuring, and forensic investigations. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Content Bureau?

We work with Content Bureau on our messaging for our service offerings and business groups. Our primary goal is to identify our business’ key differentiator to help people know why they should use our company for their business challenges.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Content Bureau works on our value proposition messaging. They’ve crafted client-facing content for our website and emails. Overall, they handle our marketing, messaging, and content creation efforts. 

What is the team composition?

We work with four people from their team, including an account manager. I also work closely with their CEO. A number of teammates also work behind the scenes to help us. 

How did you come to work with The Content Bureau?

I heard about Content Bureau through a referral from a friend with a similar business. I also interviewed other providers. I chose their team because I liked that they were a small business that could give us a more specialized focus and time. 

We also liked their background since they’d worked for similar companies to ours. The team worked on financial services-related engagements, consulting, and compliance. Overall, they were a good fit for us in terms of understanding our business and translating that into good messaging. As a result, we hired them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $124,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We don’t have quantitative metrics yet, but the Content Bureau team has a positive attitude, and they’re eager and excited about working on additional projects with us to continue the partnership. 

How did The Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

Content Bureau’s project management skills are excellent, and they have great communication. The team is well-organized, and they manage the project well in terms of timelines, progress, and deliverables. They even remind us of our own deadlines as we review content and give them feedback.

To communicate, we use emails and regular check-in meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their attention to the client is impressive. They regularly follow up and check in on how the project is going. In fact, their CEO herself checks in to see how the team is performing and to know what they can do differently to help us stay on budget. Moreover, Content Bureau is timely with their deliverables and in meeting our timelines. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. We’ve had a great partnership. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear with your goals and objectives, and be open to the ideas that Content Bureau can bring to the table.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior content marketing manager at a software company. We create 3D modeling and engineering software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Content Bureau?

We needed help with content marketing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Content Bureau helps us write customer stories, messaging documents, print articles, and social media copy. Their social media work includes writing tweets and captions and creating images to go along with them.

The team also fulfills some of our design needs for things like posters and brochures. Additionally, they’ve provided some consultancy to help us with some of our research projects and our social media strategy.

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with Stacy (Owner) and a writer.

How did you come to work with The Content Bureau?

Our other departments were already working with The Content Bureau, so I decided to work with them, too.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $220,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in February 2013 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The Content Bureau’s work has been highly beneficial to us — the content they deliver is consistently well-written and compelling. They also produce amazing designs and layouts.

How did The Content Bureau perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is where they really shine — The Content Bureau is amazing to work with because they keep track of everything. The team always meets their deadlines, and they’re great at nudging me to provide feedback so they could keep things on schedule. We value The Content Bureau; they genuinely feel like an extension of our internal team.

In terms of communication, we use email, and they do a fantastic job of being responsive. Additionally, we have an annual meeting where we talk about future projects and brainstorm for new strategies we could pursue.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Content Bureau acts like a true partner and not just a vendor. Stacy has really taken the time to understand our company and connect with our team. The support she’s given us is tremendous.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It could be interesting if we could work with various writers instead of having one assigned to us. However, it’s more of a suggestion — we don’t really have any issues with the team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend reaching out to The Content Bureau.