My last post 3 PR tactics to boost your sales in 2013 promised more ways to decrease the time spent on content marketing.
There are some business owners and corporate climbers that make content marketing seem simple, but for many the concept is utterly overwhelming. How do these people pop up on blogs, Twitter, the media, speaking engagements and still manage to succeed at their jobs or as business owners? Are they sitting up all night writing or do they have a team of ghost writers squirreling away to produce their content for them?
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The answer is no. Well maybe some do, but the smart ones certainly don’t. They are skilled multi-taskers. They have mastered the platforms they use to distribute, engage and share content and and they are (usually) experts in their fields. They dedicate considerable time to reading and producing stellar work but definitely don’t sit up all night writing new material simply for marketing purposes.
Many people I work with are experts in their field and have worked for decades producing vast amounts of research, content, templates, reports and tailored approaches and solutions to their clients’ problems. This is the gold.
Rather than starting from scratch, good content marketers use what they already have at their fingertips, tinker with it and streamline the distribution of this content simultaneously through multiple online channels.
So before you start furiously hitting the keyboard and creating content, make a cup of tea and ponder these six questions:
- Who am I promoting?
- Why do I need content marketing?
- What do I want to achieve?
- Who is my target audience and what are their online behaviours?
- What work have I developed throughout my career that my audience needs, wants or might like to access?
- How much time do I have to devote and how engaged do I want to be?
The beauty of content marketing is that you can go at your own pace and build your engagement as you establish a pattern and feel comfortable. Once you start, ideas will flow and you’ll be on a roll.
Which tools to use?
Next, decide which tools you you’re going to use and which you aren’t going to use. This is clearly linked to answering the questions above, especially the one about your audience. You obviously want to place content where your audience is. Here are just a few channels to choose from:
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- Website
- Blogging
- Electronic mail distribution (online newsletter)
- Video
- Podcast
- Slide shows
- Webinars
- Social media
Maximising existing content
Before you start scheduling blocks of time to tinker with piles of content you already have, look at your calendar for the month. Are you speaking publicly? Are you due to put out a media release? Is your website up-to-date? You might be speaking next week and if so, don’t leave without your video camera!
You may not realise it but the media release you have written or the speech you have prepared is already content for your other channels.the media release you have written or the speech you have prepared is already content for your other channels
Giving a speech? Video it and post it on your website. Post your notes as a blog or e-newsletter story. Want to go further? Edit it in to an Opinion Editorial and send it to an editor to publish. Once all this content is available via your website, promote it through LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook – whatever channels you choose that are right for the audiences you wish to reach.
This example applies to any content you develop in your day-to-day business. Some reports and research my clients have developed can even be turned in to five separate blogs or opinion editorials. In one work task they have actually achieved the possibility of five published pieces in the media.
Recycling your content and specifically tailoring it for your audience and, delivering it to them through the channels they want to receive it from will not only make you more visible online, it will permit you to share your knowledge for the benefit of others and engage and participate online, at your leisure.
Set up your website to automatically distribute your e-news and house your blog. You can set up your social media to automatically promote new content on your website and so on. If you structure it well, you can basically create one item for three channels and promote via ten platforms all at the click of a button!
Once you’ve answered the questions in this article, set aside some time to timeline activities and dig through the work you’ve done over the past two or so years.
Let me know what hidden gems you uncover!
Felicity Grey
Founder and Managing Director of The Theory Crew. Felicity contributes to PR and Marketing section. Melbourne, Australia.
Featured image: Victor1558