Beyond Hourly: Creative Ways to Structure Content Strategy Projects
/This article was originally an issue of my weekly newsletter on all things content strategy. Subscribe here.
Rachel Kennedy, a member of the Content Strategy Lab*, recently told our Slack channel that she’d pitched a mentorship as an add-on to her strategic content retainer.
A mentorship! I’d never heard of this type of offering, and I was intrigued. I had to ask Rachel how she structured it.
The bulk of her retainer focuses on monthly content strategy direction, Rachel said. But she’d added 1:1 mentorship time blocks each month on the client’s request. The client has a young marketer on the team that needs help understanding content strategy. That marketer especially needed help connecting individual content projects to the bigger picture.
So each month, Rachel will meet with the young marketer and help them see the forest through the trees.
(By the way, Rachel has a great newsletter with “juicy content tips” that you can subscribe to.)
Rachel’s creativity in offering her content strategy expertise got me thinking of all the ways to structure a project.
So, today, I’m recapping the primary ways to structure freelance content strategy work.
This was a helpful exercise, personally, and very top of mind. I’ve been experimenting with new project structures: Advisory and coaching engagements.
I hope I can encourage you to experiment too.
Remember: There is no one way to do content strategy. There is no one way to be a freelancer.
Build the project structures that work best for your clients, of course, but that also work best for you. You’ll deliver clients the best possible value when your projects support your skill sets, your ways of thinking, and your priorities.
*The Content Strategy Lab is a two-week workshop to get you ready to sell content strategy. You can join the interest list for the next one here.
COMMON STRUCTURES FOR CONTENT STRATEGY PROJECTS
HOURLY
You set an hourly rate and bill by the hour. With hourly engagements, you don’t need to define a scope or fee ahead of time.
I recommend against hourly: It sets the stage for a client relationship guided by time management, not by long-term partnership and trust. It also penalizes you for being efficient and good at your job.
MICRO PROJECT
You pick one focused, straightforward deliverable to complete in 1-2 weeks. This is an easy way to see what working with a client is like — and vice versa.
Ideally, micro projects lead us into longer, ongoing work. I like micro projects that clarify the strategic work that needs to be done. For example: Conduct a content audit in 1-2 weeks. Then, if that goes well, you can tackle the audit learnings in a bigger engagement.
PROJECTS
You define a desired outcome, scope of work, fee, and timeline ahead of time. The scope and timeline is finite. I like my projects to last 4-8 weeks. Any shorter, and it’s a micro-project. Any longer, and it likely needs to scale down or shift into retainer work. Otherwise, scope creep will come creeping along…
For example: Conduct a traditional content strategy project with a research, strategy setting, and activation component.
RETAINERS
You define the ongoing value that you’ll deliver for a monthly fee (i.e. I oversee all content creation for $6,500 per month.”). I do not recommend pitching retainers as buying a bundle of hours (i.e. “You buy 20 hours at $150 per hour for the month”).
Retainers can feel nebulous to scope. How are you supposed to know what you’d work on each month?
I could spend an entire newsletter talking about this. In short: I like to transition to retainers after I’ve worked with a client already. The trust is there and we’ve likely built a roadmap for the coming months. It’s a natural transition for me to assume responsibility over the roadmap as my monthly retainer scope.
CREATIVE STRUCTURES FOR CONTENT STRATEGY PROJECTS
UPSELLS
Add ons to existing projects or retainers that make sense as a one-off or ad hoc chance.
ADVISORIES
You’re available and on-call for calls, emails, Slack conversations, etc for a set monthly fee. You don’t have a list of deliverables — access to your expertise and guidance is the value offered.
MENTORSHIP OR COACHING
This is where Rachel’s idea comes into play. I envision this being more about teaching an individual team member or giving them tactical guidance. It could be an add-on to a project or retainer, or an engagement in its own right.
GROUP TRAININGS
I envision this as mentorship to a small group — you provide training, education, and/or Q&A sessions on a specific topic.