So you have a content marketing strategy. You have lots of insightful, interesting information to share with your target audiences, distributed through a variety of different channels. That all sounds great on the outside. There’s only one problem: everyone else has got a content marketing strategy, too.
With so many businesses realising that content marketing is essential, there’s an increasingly fierce battle taking place to get customers’ attention. It’s harder than ever to stand out from the crowd and rise above the noise, and smaller businesses and marketing teams in particular are finding it tough to compete and get the traffic they want and need.
The answer to this problem is scaling, which in this case means improving the quality of your content without sacrificing the quantity and frequency of it. But if that sounds like it’s going to be a time-consuming job that your marketing team just won’t have the capacity to execute, then don’t worry. The following three tips are easy to execute and can help you take your content to the next level.
Repurpose your content
One good piece of content can often become several good pieces of content very easily, by splitting it up or reformatting it into different asset types.
As an example, imagine for a moment that you’ve just developed a new eBook, based on a survey that you’ve recently run with your customers. That eBook stands as a strong asset in its own right, but within it is the potential to do so much more. With a bit of creativity, that eBook can be turned into:
- A blog that summarises the findings of the survey or the key takeaways from it
- An infographic that visualises some of the most important results
- A video that combines visuals and commentary to present the findings
- Social media posts that explore individual results in turn and drive traffic to any or all of the above, including the eBook itself
All of this means you can create substantial amounts of quality, relevant content quickly, and maximise your visibility across multiple platforms simultaneously.
Interview your SMEs
Your business will inevitably contain people who know their industry and products inside-out, and have original views on the past, present and future of your particular sector. Delivering those Subject Matter Expert (SME) views to your audiences through content marketing is an excellent way to stand out and establish your business as a true thought leader in your industry. In fact, we think it’s the only way, as we discuss more here.
The simplest way to develop this content is to book a meeting or video call with a particular SME and interview them for a period of time (half an hour is usually plenty). Try and ask them a few open-ended questions that give them room to think and respond with long, expansive, detailed answers. Sending them the questions in advance helps too, as SMEs often need time to formulate and organise their thinking before they can convey it effectively.
By recording and/or transcribing the interview, you then have a treasure trove of insights that can be used as the basis for some genuine thought leadership content. And you may even find that one interview can generate subject matter for several different pieces of content across a number of different topics.
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Don’t be afraid to curate
Original content is obviously very important to attracting interest from your audiences and establishing your company as a “known” leader. However, that doesn’t mean you have to ignore all the other content that’s out there. It’s always worth looking for external sources that you can link to within your content (although you should avoid linking to your direct competitors!).
If done well, content curation can make your newsletter or social media channels a trusted source of information for your readers. While not all the content is your own, this will keep customers coming back, naturally consuming more of your original content in the process.
This curation work can be carried out fairly quickly, giving you the opportunity to create deep, meaningful content in a relatively short space of time.
In summary
Quality and quantity don’t have to be mutually exclusive when it comes to content marketing: the best operations combine the best of both worlds to hit audiences with engaging information on a regular basis. The three tips above demonstrate how to achieve that in the most efficient ways possible: repurposing content, interviewing SMEs and curating other sources can all be achieved quickly, and can vastly expand the scope of the content you produce.
We have a proven track record of helping clients become known authorities in their fields - turning their expertise into high-quality thought leadership content. Contact us to learn how we can help fuel your growth.
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