Two friends of mine launched their fractional consulting practices recently, which got me excited. I often encourage senior experts to hang out their own shingle, as it can bring them greater revenue and control over their time.
Your first few clients as a solo consultant will likely be referrals from previous roles or friends and family, but eventually you might hit a ceiling. It’s best to start thinking about how to grow beyond word of mouth, so that your revenue remains under your control.
Marketing is key, and it’s built on content. Both of them asked me what type of content they should start thinking about, and I wanted to share the advice I gave them here.
There are five types of content your new practice will need to hit the ground running. While writing this piece, a few more came to mind, so I’ll include those bonus content types toward the end.
The content types listed below are arranged in rough order of importance, but you can start anywhere and work your way through the list as time, money, and bandwidth allow.
Landing page copy
I’ll assume you’ve already got a basic website (or are planning to get one). After you’ve bought your domain name and hosting (don’t forget SSL), you’ll need some copy for that website. This tells the world who you are, what you do, and how to get in touch with you. You only need a few basic pages to start:
- Home: quick overview of how (and who) you help
- About: context on your background and expertise
- Services: your offerings and pricing, where appropriate
- Work: case studies and testimonials
- Contact: routes inquiries into your inbox
You could theoretically condense all of these into one web page, but I’ve found that giving them their own pages helps with navigation, layout, and search engine optimization (SEO).
Expect to pay roughly $500-$2,000 for landing page copy, with a 1 week turnaround time (often less).
SEO strategy + blog articles
Most consultants build a website that turns out to be a glorified business card. You want your website actively working for you 24/7, and one of the most useful types of content you can publish is blog content.
Blog content helps you rank in search engines for relevant keywords, driving meaningful traffic to your service and contact pages. It’s also crucial to getting your content mentioned in AI tools: by answering relevant questions your ideal clients may be asking, you raise the chances of being quoted in an answer by ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. We call this Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO for short.
SEO strategy has many moving pieces, but the easiest way to think of it is in terms of funnels and topics. In SEO, we talk about creating content for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. The top of the funnel features more general questions, the middle targets customers in consideration mode, and the bottom of the funnel helps push them closer to action. You then build and divide topic clusters according to these strata.
Let’s say you’re a marketing consultant launching a new practice. Depending on your niche, you might consider a blog strategy with the following topics and titles:
- Brand strategy for SaaS startups
- Top 5 branding mistakes startups make
- Marketing strategy consultant pricing
- [city] marketing consultant
- [competitor] alternatives
The first blog post is a top-of-funnel piece—offering basic information about brand strategy for SaaS startups (or whatever your industry is). The second is a middle-of-funnel blog post, as it assumes the reader knows about brand strategy and is in the middle of putting together a strategy for their brand. The next three are bottom-of-funnel pieces, because if someone is searching for pricing information or looking for a vendor (or their alternative), they’re likely in buying mode.
Early SEO work for your practice will involve keyword research, building topic clusters, and crafting 3–5 pillar posts (1,200–1,800 words each), starting from the bottom of the funnel up. This sets you up for quick wins and long-term inbound traffic.
LinkedIn content
If you haven’t yet built a website or set up a blog, your next best bet is LinkedIn, especially if you’re targeting the B2B space. LinkedIn helps you build trust fast, as you can connect with future clients, share content related to their problems, and engage with relevant posts.
LinkedIn content projects typically involve:
- A profile rewrite (headline, About, Featured section)
- Weekly thought leadership posts (1-2 posts a week)
- Case study posts
- Other announcements (events, life updates, people you’ve met, etc.)
Try to avoid recycling canned advice and instead build authority around your lived experience. We’ve published several guides on LinkedIn over the years—start with this piece on LinkedIn post ideas for consultants.
Expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 per month for LinkedIn content.
Sales deck and presentation templates
As you take on more projects or add new offerings, it can get pretty complicated to communicate everything effectively. This is where a sales deck and proposal template can come in handy.
Decks and templates help you automate much of your sales process, especially if you offer services with different configurations and price points. With a sales deck, you can include key stats from previous projects, logos of past clients, press snippets, and more. And as you start getting invited to speak or do workshops, a workshop slide template will make your life easier.
Expect to pay roughly $500 to $2,000 for a set of well-designed templates.
Case study pack
When selling high-ticket offerings, it helps to have documented evidence of how previous clients have benefitted from your services. You only need 2-3 case studies to start with, and you can anonymize the companies if you’re under NDA or otherwise constrained.
You want to publish case studies of companies similar in size and type to the future customers you want. For example, if you’re targeting enterprise clients, it may not make sense to put up an SMB case study, as their needs and considerations may be different.
What’s more important is the case study structure. You want to frame the problem, goals, solution, process and results clearly and concisely. Bonus points if you can include quotes from the previous customer.
Case studies are versatile, and you can publish them in different formats and use them in different ways. For example, you can publish a case study as a page on your website, or as a PDF for internal sharing. You can create a video summary of the case study and use it on social media. As with your website, your content should be actively circulating among your ideal client base, not merely gathering digital dust.
Expect to pay anywhere from $600 to $2,000+ for a set of case studies, depending on the scope.
These five content types will cover your bases and get you up and running. But if you want to accelerate your growth, you can take it further.
Other content types
Pricing guide
Having to explain your pricing repeatedly can get tedious. A good solution is to have a pricing or service guide that outlines your packages, engagement models, timelines, and investment ranges. This saves time by filtering poor-fit leads.
You can create a pricing guide in Google Docs or Slides and save it as a PDF for easy dissemination. If you’d prefer a professionally designed pricing guide, expect to pay anywhere from $500 upward.
Lead magnet
A great way to build an owned audience is to invest in lead magnets. A lead magnet is a resource you offer in exchange for a prospect’s contact details. The goal is to provide something useful that increases the likelihood of them buying from you down the line. Lead magnets take different forms, like checklists, templates, benchmarks, and quizzes.
For example:
- “Brand audit checklist for early-stage startups”
- “Marketing roadmap template”
- “Cloud cost benchmarks for SMBs”
Depending on the lead magnet you choose, you might need a:
- Landing page on your website
- Downloadable asset (e.g., PDF)
- 5-7 email nurture sequence
Expect to pay anywhere from $600 to $1,500 for a targeted, well-designed lead magnet.
Technical content
If you deal with a longer sales cycle, you’ll need some more firepower. Credibility building content can help tip a buying committee over the finish line, as such assets tend to be more in-depth and signal your expertise.
For example, an AI consultancy could create an:
- Industry benchmark report
- Original survey with insights
- Data-driven white paper
- Competitive landscape analysis
Even a small, well-designed data piece raises your profile from freelancer to expert (or serious agency). Technical content pricing can vary, but expect to pay anywhere from $2,000+ for a report, white paper, or other form of authority content.
Content is your edge
When you’re starting out solo, a common concern is how to multiply yourself without extra work. You lack the luxury of sales reps or marketing team, so you must find leverage points. Content is one such type of leverage—an edge that sharpens your wedge in the market.
Starting with even two or three of the items in this guide will put you ahead of your peers, making it easier to attract, close, and retain high-paying customers over the long term.
If you need help, reach out today to chat about your content strategy.
Mo is the founder of Column, a technical research and content agency. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
