This article was initially posted on my LinkedIn account. I’m just sharing and cross-posting here.
I developed this list with a professional marketer in mind, someone who might already be working on some of these things but not all. Or maybe someone who has been asked to create more content to “increase the digital footprint”. Or perhaps it’s someone who is just getting started on their Content Marketing journey. It’s a rewarding one if you can do it well.
I can’t say these things will be the end-all, be-all for your program, but in my experience they are must-do items for a successful and sustained content campaign.
1. Start with a documented plan
Every day it seems like I see a company’s post or read their latest material and I have no idea if anyone at all is manning the helm. No rhyme or reason on the material’s topic; it doesn’t lead to a message that’s at all consistent with the brand; the tone and voice are unique from other published material… and on top of that there’s no regularity to their publications, it’s totally sporadic and random.
A 2021 survey by SEMRush, a company that develops Marketing tools for content, analytics, research and more, showed that 97% of respondents claimed that content was “a tactic that formed an important part of their overall marketing strategy” and yet only 57% of respondents had a documented content marketing strategy. Don’t leave your audience confused — or worse, frustrated — by a lack of cohesion.
Create a plan for what (and who) you want to be. Pick a personality that is consistent with your brand. Then consider what messages do you want to convey? And to whom? How often is “often enough” to communicate? For some services and brands, daily is ok. For others weekly is more than enough. And consider which platforms are the best to use regularly: web, email, social, direct (via sales contact), video, etc.
Once you have all these types of questions figured out, THEN you can set sail on a smooth trip. And it’s not to say that plans can’t change. But have a solid foundation (and a strong backbone!) and you can withstand any potential changes in navigation. So long as they remain true to your brand and personality.
2. Repurpose your material
Make life easier on yourself. You don’t have to start fresh with every post or every piece of content. Let’s face it – the only one who is reading every page, every word, every minute of your content is YOU.
Your real audience is skimming and catching the highlights here and there. If you were to take just a 30-second clip of that larger 14-minute video and repost it somewhere, it’s going to be fresh material to someone who hadn’t see it yet. And it might be really appreciated as a small sound byte rather than a larger commitment of time and energy from the audience.
If you have a great webinar presented by your expert on a topic, cut that up into pieces and make dozens of separate social posts or blog posts. Pitch it as an article to industry publications. The information is the same, but if you can remodel it some and repurpose it you’ll get a lot more legs out of your content. And that’s critical because we all know how difficult it can be sometimes to get expert content –- especially if your experts are billable to customers.
My advice is that whenever possible, start with an eBook or a large white paper or FAQ. That way you can grab bite-sized pieces for many weeks and months to come. And then hit all of your new followers over that time period with the original book again because they will not have seen the full version yet.
Consider this “Content Pillar” approach shown below. From one eBook you can map out 100+ pieces of content that will set you up as a thought leader for months. I love this graphic. It’s what I first leaned on when I started with Content Marketing over a decade ago and it still resonates today. I found it online (today you can find it here) and I really appreciate whoever the original creator is for developing this clean, simple example.
3. Don’t be afraid to fail
There’s a chance that your content is gonna bomb. Not BE the bomb. Just plain old-fashioned bomb. Either no one is going to click on it, or it’s just not going to convert the way you hoped it would. That’s ok. Learn from it and move on.
Actually, let me break those two things out. 1) Learn from it. 2) Move on.
When I say learn from it, I mean learn why people weren’t interested. Was it a bad title or description? Did you promote is differently or to a different audience? Did, for some reason, someone do a half-hearted job of promoting it and getting it out there? Did the content simply miss the mark from what your audience is looking for or what they’ve grown to expect from your brand? Lots of things can happen that will determine success or failure of a particular piece of content. Understand it and learn from it.
As for “moving on”, I say that with a bit of a cavalier attitude toward things. Just because one piece of content wasn’t a home run – whether that be a video or a technical paper or a blog, whatever it is – you have to move on to the next piece as though THAT one is going to be the best one you’ve ever done. Have a short memory. Don’t take things personally. Again, there are lots of reasons why something might succeed or fail in this game. You have to be ready to move on to the next piece regardless of how great or how big a bomb your last one was. Just keep moving.
4. Nail your keywords
One of the reasons number 1 above (“having a plan”) is so important is that you have to know where you’re going with this campaign and you have to know what messages you need to convey. That also helps you identify what your keywords are, i.e. what words or phrases are most likely to align with what your customers are looking for.
If you’re posting a new video to YouTube, you better write a really strong description that has ALL the juicy keywords that your audience is potentially using in their search. If you’re posting a new blog entry, the copy needs to use exactly the right words that your customers are searching for and it needs to use them again and again and again.
This isn’t an SEO 101 class, but you won’t have a successful content campaign without good SEO. That starts with knowing your keywords. And know how the customers use them, by the way, not your internal terminology. I see a lot of companies fail to perform in their content and in their search results because they’re using internal buzzwords or acronyms and not the customers’ words. Know your customer and know their keywords.
5. Turn Your Experts Into Rock Stars
Your subject matter experts (SMEs) have something that your audience wants: information, insights, inside secrets, technical “how-to” info, etc. There’s something that they can give your audience that the audience by themselves cannot get.
That’s the perfect case for doing content marketing. But now you have to take that information and make it widely available. And, if you’re really looking to build an ongoing relationship between your SME and your audience, you’re going to need to turn your SME into the full-fledged rock stars that they are.
This means headshots. Social updates. Meet and greets. More social updates. Speaking engagements at conferences and tradeshows. On-site seminars. Virtual “live” events. Even MORE social updates. You get the idea.
Credibility is one of the most important factors in a successful campaign, and if your SME has a strong a reputation and familiarity with the audience already it’ll be a natural extension that the content will be credible.
If your SME is relegated to second-class your content will be viewed in similar fashion, i.e. good but not great. Don’t take that chance. Set the expectations high and then work like hell to meet them.
6. Track Analytics
For many this is a no-brainer. Not just because it’s sound marketing but because you might not get the budget to do your NEXT campaign without first showing the successful analytics from the first campaign. That’s fine. Just be sure to accurately convey what your goals are and what the campaign is supposed to accomplish.
For example, impressions is one of the first things you’ll see in most analytics reports. They’re important but they don’t tell the full story. I see lots of things throughout the day that I don’t pay any attention to, couldn’t recall the names or services that were promoted, and I definitely didn’t engage with it in any way. So take impressions with a grain of salt. It’s a big number that’s very deceiving.
“Engagement” is a much better metric because it tells you not only who saw it but who was moved to DO SOMETHING with it. Did they like, comment, share? At least there’s some action that was taken rather than just seeing it. Downloads, views, form completions, subscribes, forward-to-a-friend are all possible actions. Track them and understand which campaigns performed well in each category.
You’ll be able to take this information back to the c-suite and show that not only did 95,000 people see your post but that 800 people clicked on it, 600 downloaded it, 75 liked it, and 65 completed the form to learn more. That means 65 warm leads for your sales team to follow up with and hopefully generate orders — all because of your campaign.
That’s a much more powerful story. Know those numbers. And if you don’t have access to them or if your CRM doesn’t connect them, work with your Finance team. There is always a way to connect the dots.
7. Try New Platforms
It’s good if you know that your bread-and-butter is blogging, or if your best campaigns are technical papers, or if your 5 minute DIY videos on YouTube are all the rage. Take that info, continue with it, but always try something else too.
Put your video on Instagram or TikTok. Turn your technical paper into a 700 word article that you can pitch to editors. Or edit your expert’s 80-slide powerpoint presentation into a series of LinkedIn posts.
The idea here is similar to number 2 above related to “repurposing your work” but is more about the technical platform or the medium rather than just the information. Stay up to date with new media trends and technologies. You have to meet your audience where they are, not just expect them to come find you.
Keep trying new platforms as you hear about them. There’s no telling which will be the dominant one in the future so try them all. Keep learning. And keep your audience guessing where they might see you next.
8. Consider Quick hits and TL:DRs
Are you producing long-form content such as technical papers, on-demand webinars or how-to videos? Are they a substantial investment of the audience’s time? That may be ok, especially if it’s really powerful information that they cannot easily get elsewhere. But you might be able to switch it up a bit – likely to the delight of your audience – simply but reducing the content into chapters or segments.
If you’re drafting a multi-page paper, consider a TL:DR (or “too long: didn’t read”) entry that sums up the salient points in a couple sentences. Turn your 18 minute “how-to” video into a series of 6 three-minute chunks. Of course, you should always make the full length version available for those who want to invest the time, but more and more we see our audiences looking for shorter alternatives.
Give the customer what they want. Trim down your content into bite-sized pieces.
9. Share, Share, Everywhere
Don’t assume that people are going to see every post you put on LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or whatever platforms you’re using. They won’t. At least not always or when you first get started.
Your audience’s time is as fractured and sporadic as your own, which means you get to open Twitter for about 60 seconds, see the most important posts in your feed, and then close it out and get on with your day. Also, our timelines or feeds often default to “top posts” rather than “most recent”. Don’t be fooled into thinking your promotional video about your new smart litter box is going to rank higher than posts by NBC News, ESPN, the Wall St. Journal, etc. Those accounts have millions of followers and get piles of likes, shares and comments within seconds. The platform’s algorithm is going to prioritize those posts ahead of your Automated Meow Box, regardless of how clever a product it is.
So, with that in mind, share your posts everywhere and keep sharing. Daily, weekly, again and again. Your audience might not see it on Monday when it first gets posted, but he/she could see it on Thursday. Or they might not see it on Facebook but maybe LinkedIn is a better fit on that particular day.
Bottom line is that don’t expect to post something one time on one platform and expect to get results. Diversify across a wide range of media and social platforms, and stick with it for whatever duration you planned on running your platform. (You did PLAN something, didn’t you? And document it? Excellent, let’s keep going).
10. Be prolific. Write, record, or produce every day.
This one flows naturally from number 9 above but it also stands alone for a few reasons. Most importantly, keep creating content. Or if you’re not creating it directly/personally, plan to keep getting it created daily, weekly, monthly.
Be sure you are posting material every day. Your audience isn’t always going to see it every day so you need to be there when they ARE scrolling and attentive. Also, the more you write or create, the better you’ll get at it. And you’ll have tons of material that you can continuously repurpose (see number 2 above).
Good habits and excellent results are born from repetition so no time like the present to start creating content every day. Plus, you might realize while preparing to share yesterday’s content that it’s not conveying what you hoped or maybe it’s way off brand for your campaign’s personality. You could either try to get your SME back on the calendar to redo it, or just look forward to today’s material and keep plowing full steam ahead.
Keep writing, keep producing, keep uploading, keep connecting with your customers every day. If you can’t do it yourself, consider hiring a Content Marketing manager. If you can’t afford a dedicated Content resource, try to share the responsibilities with others on your team. Or look to outsource it to an agency who will only charge you for the time spent working on your material.
The Wrap-Up
Well there you go. Ten things you can start doing TODAY to either get your Content Marketing programs up and running, or to help make your existing one be a little more successful. I’m certain there are more than just ten things. Maybe I’ll do a list of 11-20 one of these days, but I think most of us will have our hands full just executing 1-10.
Just remember that Content Marketing is one aspect of a strong promotional marketing campaign. Your advertising, PR, web SEO, tradeshows, literature, and other branding material have to round out your activities, and only you can determine what percent of your time and budget should go toward Content Marketing. Again, it has to align with your greater sales & marketing strategy overall.
And don’t be delusional — less than 1% of all content and social campaigns “go viral”. Expect that your material is going to be more blue collar in that it’s going to do it’s job every day, have an important role, and be one part of the overall solution.
At the end of the day, your content should be three things: useful, memorable, and measurable. And if you’re achieving those things you’ll be on your way to a great content program.
TL;DR – Content Marketing can help you grow your business and build your brand if you plan it out, repurpose/recycle material, have no fear, know your customers’ keywords, promote your experts, track everything, and above all else start today and keep moving forward every day.