When Should You Fire Your Content Writing Company?

Online marketing all but requires content marketing as part of a robust strategy today, but many businesses don't have the time or expertise to handle it themselves. Content marketing is a specialized industry, after all, and a lot more goes into it than just putting some words on a page.

It's no surprise that as of last year, 48% of content marketing was outsourced.

Any time you're outsourcing a service, you need to keep on top of how it's working. These marketing efforts aren't fire-and-forget; you need communication, feedback, and iteration based on results.

That means sometimes you'll reach a point where you need to fire your current content marketing agency. Maybe you want a larger or smaller agency, or maybe you just want a different agency, or maybe you've decided to spin up an internal team. It happens! Churn is natural in any industry, and business relationships come and go.

So, how do you know when it's time to fire your current content writing company? There can be many different reasons, but I've compiled the most common that I've seen, either as reasons my clients come to me, or reasons they cancel. Let's go through them.

When You Need More (Or Less) Than They Can Provide

The first, and one of the most benign, of the reasons why it's time to fire a content writing company is that they're no longer the appropriate choice for your business.

If your brand is growing, you're doing more and more in sales and profits, and you need to expand your scope, you need more content. You might need more kinds of content, like expanding into eBooks or print articles, or video and audio, or graphics. Or, you might need a greater volume of content; daily posts instead of weekly, for example.

Alternatively, maybe you aren't convinced that more content marketing can benefit you, so you want to dial back. Or, in times of economic downturn or shifting consumer trends, maybe your business is faltering or even failing, and you need to cut expenses if you want to salvage it.

Either way, when what the agency can provide and what you need no longer match, it's time to cut them loose and find something more appropriate.

Before you do, though, be sure to ask your content writing company if they can adjust! Plenty of companies are fine with shifting to a different schedule or adding/removing services, and would rather maintain a client if they can.

There Are Signs of Shady Operations

While there are a lot of good content writing companies and marketing agencies out there, there are also scammers and shady companies trying to get a slice of the pie.

If you think the agency you signed with is potentially one of those shady companies, you might be better off cutting the contract before they do damage that lingers.

I wrote a whole post about the signs of a bad company here, and another about breaking away from predatory marketing companies here, but in short, some things to look for include:

• Guaranteed results that aren't something you can guarantee without spam.
• Strange definitions of services, like defining a "blog post" as 500 words - which often produces thin content that hurts your rankings.
• Requesting access or control over systems they don't need.
• Extremely long and locked-in contracts, often with early cancellation fees.
• Forced use of the company's proprietary infrastructure.
• Retaining ownership and copyright over the content they create for you.

Any of these should be grounds not to sign a contract in the first place, but a lot of novices don't know any better.

When They Aren't Maintaining Communication

A common reason I've had cited for clients firing their old agencies and coming to mine is that their old agency is not very communicative. Maybe they can only be reached by email, or they have limited business hours, or they just never pick up the phone.

It's usually not this way when you hire them. That could be because they put a lot more effort into getting clients than into retaining them. It could be that your account manager left, and the new one isn't as receptive. Maybe they're even busy and short-staffed. There are plenty of reasons communication can falter.

The problem is, communication is essential to solving problems, and if you're having problems, the worst possible experience is trying to reach out to solve them and being met with a wall.

If your content marketing agency is not receptive to communication or takes a long time to respond, that alone might not be enough reason to fire them, but it's very much a multiplier for other issues that could come up. For example, poor communication can make it much harder to track content updates in WordPress or stay aligned on what changes are actually being made to your site.

When They Start to Miss Deadlines

Deadlines aren't always set in stone. But one thing I've been harping on for years is that in the world of blogging, consistency is key. If your content writing company is failing to meet deadlines and publishing content days or weeks late, it can cause all kinds of problems.

Is it make or break? Maybe, maybe not. Some companies don't care much for their specific schedule, or maintain enough of a backlog that a little variation won't hurt anything as long as there's some leeway.

On the other hand, if you're trying to chase a trend, time the market, or release a large content push at the same time as other marketing efforts, not having that content ready to go when you need it can be a huge wrench in the works.

There are ways to deal with a little bit of variability in schedules, and not everyone can be perfect 100% of the time, but the more often they miss deadlines and the more they miss them by, the more likely it is that you should consider firing them. If you're concerned about the health of your existing content in the meantime, tools like the Content Decay Detector can help you spot pieces that may need attention.

When They Refuse Revisions and Updates

Most content writing companies have clauses that give leeway for revisions, updates to old content, rewrites to outdated content, or changes for whatever reason changes need to be made. Ideally, you won't need to use those clauses very often, since your company should dial in the voice and style they need for your brand and have it on lock, but these things happen.

When you do need revisions, if your company refuses them (or tries to charge extra for them), it might be time to fire them.

There's a lot of variability here, though.

• If the company is cheaper but has a no-revision clause and charges extra for them, that's something you should know ahead of time and plan around.
• If the company has a limited number of revisions before they charge for a new post, it's likely because excessive revisions get in the way of other work; if you're running into that limit, there may be other problems, on their end or on yours.
• If the company has cut you off from revisions, they might view you as a problem client, and the relationship is bound to break down further regardless.

I know I've worked beyond what my contract says for clients who are respectful and have reasonable requests. I know I've also stuck directly to the terms when a client is troublesome. It's all contextual, but it also all goes back to proper communication - and that applies whether you're dealing with content revisions or broader SEO strategy concerns.

When They Can't Provide Reports on Performance

This one may or may not be relevant, and it depends on whether you're handing over control of your marketing to an agency or just outsourcing content and doing the rest yourself.

If you're handing over control of your marketing, you expect to be given reports on the performance of the efforts they put out on your behalf. If those reports are few and far between, less than stellar, or couched in confusing terms that make it difficult to tell how effective they actually are? Time to sever.

On the other hand, if you're just outsourcing content to a writing company or a multimedia agency, but you're expected to handle publishing and promotion yourself, then the reporting is on you. Don't fire a company over something that isn't their responsibility. Tools like our Content Optimization Scorer can help you evaluate performance on your own terms.

When They Repeatedly Make the Same Mistakes

Feedback is important. As the owner of a content marketing agency, I always strive to pin down what my clients want and need. The first few months are usually full of little requests, growing pains, adjustments, and the like. It's all part of figuring out what they want and what they need, and how I can best provide it.

At the same time, I am an expert in content creation. I've had a lot of clients make requests for things that would be meaningless (fine), harmful to the content (bad), or even harmful to the site or brand as a whole (terrible). I always try to educate my clients on why I reject a request or do things in a particular way.

Sometimes they dig their heels in and want things a certain way. That's fine, but if it's a lot of extra work for a worse product from me, I'm going to push back. It might just mean we aren't meant to be.

At the same time, there are a lot of mistakes and issues that might be made that need fixing, from typos to formatting problems to the wrong tone of voice to getting facts about a niche industry wrong. Learning all of that is part of my job as a content creator. If I wasn't capable of learning, and I kept making the same mistakes over and over, then yeah, I'm not doing my job, and I would deserve to be fired for it. Tools like a content formatting fixer can help identify recurring issues before they become patterns.

When They've Shifted to Bad AI Content

This one is becoming increasingly common. LLMs have promised a shortcut to content production, but even the best LLMs still don't hold a candle to skilled content creators.

A lot goes into good content beyond just getting words on a page in the right shape.

You have to think about user intent. You have to think about how the subject relates to other coverage on a site and planned future coverage. You have to think about content clusters and pillar posts. You have to think about consistent voice, perspectives, and tone. You have to be aware of the facts and draw conclusions.

LLMs can do none of that. They produce output that takes the same shape as content that already exists, but they don't have the capacity to reason, draw conclusions, or think contextually.

A lot of content marketing companies have shifted to a partial or total AI approach, and let me tell you, I've seen a lot of sites have their quality drop off a cliff. You don't want to be one of them, so if you start seeing your blog trip all the flags in the book about AI content, maybe reconsider your contract. A E-E-A-T content audit can help you gauge how far quality has slipped before you make any decisions.

When You See Signs of Spam Techniques

Sort of related to the above, you need to keep an eye on your site and the various metrics that matter, independent of the reports your marketing agency is giving you.

If you start to see signs of spam or underhanded techniques being used to make your results look better than they are, you need to ditch that company before they get you deindexed.

What should you look for?

• Content copied or spun from other sources, especially if it triggers Copyscape or other plagiarism detectors. There are also dedicated plagiarism checker tools worth keeping in your toolkit.
• Backlinks from suspiciously PBN-like domains. You can use an anchor text analyzer to spot unnatural link patterns, and a high Moz Spam Score can be another warning sign worth investigating.
• There are signs of spam techniques on your site, like keyword stuffing or cloaked text.
• Traffic is suspiciously abrupt, like it's driven by paid campaigns instead of organic growth. Obviously, if the company is supposed to be running paid promotions as well, this isn't bad. You may also notice unusual traffic spikes from unexpected locations.

There are plenty of other issues, but these are some of the most common ones you might see from a content agency that's trying to bamboozle you.

When You Just Aren't Seeing Results

Sometimes, you've been at it for a while, and you just aren't seeing the growth you expect from your marketing.

This one is tricky because the hard fact is, blogging is a long and slow method of growth. Once it picks up traction, it can snowball forever. But it does have a long runway before it gets off the ground.

Too often, I see clients quitting before their blog really has a chance to take off. And I don't really blame them, we live in a world of instant gratification and instant results, but that's just not how blogging works. The only people with instant results have to put a lot of money behind it.

On the other hand, if you've been at it for years and haven't even seen a blip on the ol' analytics graph, maybe it's time to stick a fork in that particular business relationship, because clearly something isn't working. If your service pages aren't ranking on Google either, that's a sign the problem may run deeper than just your blog strategy. It's also worth checking if your pages are trending down in GSC Insights, as that can reveal underlying issues affecting your entire site.

When You Want to Hire Mine Instead!

Studies show that the #1 reason businesses cut off their current content marketing agency is because they want to sign a contract with mine instead. With millions of clients under my belt, it's astonishing I'm able to even keep up with the demand, but somehow I manage. Not only that, but I even have room for another client right now, and that client could be you!

Want to see what high-end, human-driven content marketing can do for you? Just drop me a line and I'd be happy to show you our client results.