Topics: Inbound Marketing
You know that your company website needs fresh and engaging content. As a marketer, you will need to deliver content that will stand out above the rest in order to grab (and keep) your audience’s attention. But with so much content creation and social media traffic happening on the web, how will you expand your online presence with your content on a tight budget and limited time? Here are 7 tips to assist you with mastering the skill of fast, effective and inexpensive content delivery... and turn you into a content ninja!
Past pieces
Most companies have at least some content archived from past campaigns and drives that could be recycled and refreshed to be used again. Clean house and catalogue and evaluate the content in your existing database. Then decide which pieces can be deleted, which need a few changes to make them relevant again and which can be used as is. In this way you will also be able to determine where the gaps in your content are i.e. what topics aren’t you covering? This will be the first step with generating ideas for creating new content from scratch.
Day-to-day interactions
Conscious commentary is the key. Make the most of your daily interactions like commenting on blog posts or your activity on social media and message boards. Bear in mind that every opportunity to “speak” on the internet is a chance to promote. Make sure that your words leave a footprint.
Keep blogging
If you already have a company blog then make sure that you keep it alive by blogging regularly. Don’t worry about writing 600 word articles every time, just keep it relevant with current happenings and lots of photographs. Write less about your product and yourself and aim to educate your audience with other related information.
Referrals and testimonials
If you don’t already have customer referrals then ask for it. Referrals and testimonials are great additions to your website that adds authenticity.
Case studies
Write articles about case studies that potential clients can relate to. Using the same framework you design a solution for a potential client that incorporates your product or service and present it to them.
Guest bloggers
Approach other experts or people of interest to contribute to your blog by writing a stand-alone article or even a themed series of articles. A new voice could generate new interest and may spark interesting conversations which could mean new leads.
It means dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Poor grammar and spelling can be very off-putting and tarnish your professional reputation. Hiring a professional writer or at the very least, an editor to polish your content will give it the edge it needs to stand out. Make sure that all pieces are informative and well researched and educate your target audience as a matter of course.
Creating an editorial calendar to time and plan which content to publish when is important when keeping track of your content. Your aim should be to identify all areas of your organisation where information needs to be shared, such as sales, customer service and product development and turn all communications into possible content marketing opportunities. When planning what to publish try and develop marketing and corporate content content at the same time to save costs.
Tackle distribution next. In order to effectively distribute the content over multiple platforms you have to make sure that content is tweaked to be contextually relevant for a particular platform. Most importantly it should contain a call-to-action that will lead reader to the next step in the purchasing process.
Invest time in creating one long lasting lead generator such as an e-book. It should be of an exceptional quality and speak directly to your target audience. If done properly, it will be a well spent investment that will serve you for an extended period without dating.
Apply your search engine optimisation skills when developing content. This means writing with a purpose, making use of titles and descriptions and linking to G+ for authorship. Have Google analytics set up and start measuring some important KPIs but don’t get too caught up in the numbers. Make sense of the most important to your business model and only look for those, especially for sites with low traffic in the beginning.
Instead of having a superficial presence on many platforms and not making much meaningful contact with individuals, select one or two major social platforms and learn how to take advantage of them fully. If you master a single platform you will will get the most out of that for your own marketing purposes but also be able to train others on it.
