Even Small Businesses Can Master Content Marketing
Content marketing is the latest online marketing trend, but what is it and can small businesses employ it? Content marketing is the process of sharing information to acquire customers. This information can be in the form of white papers, social media, video, podcasts, blogs, images, and many other items. Although you may think content marketing is easier for big businesses with its team of employees who can publish a variety of articles, even a one-person business can pull off a solid content marketing strategy. Let’s get started:
#1: Go Through Your “Content Closets”
Humor me and play a theoretical game of “What is Content?’ Do you have a blog? That’s content. Do you have a website? Content. How about sales sheets? Content. An article you’ve written? (Ok, that one was easy.) Definitely content. Are you one of those clever folks who create diagrams and infographs? That’s very useful content. If you are hip and trendy, you have video and audio files. Content. Content. You get the idea: you have content to be used.
#2: Organize What You Have.
The next step is pulling your content together into a functional spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet should have the following columns: the content’s title (“How Bees Communicate”), where it lives (blog post), what form it is in (5 minute video), and if it needs revision or is up to date. This last point it vital; it encourages you to pull together ALL your content, even the stuff the college intern wrote up years ago that needs a wordsmith.
For your last spreadsheet column, come up with ideas on where else this content could be useful. Could you break up an article into pieces, making five or six interesting Facebook status updates? Can your rewrite it with a new slant and pop it on your blog? Maybe you could do both. Do this with every piece of content. If the content is really lame and needs to be left out, that’s fine. Label it as such and move on. But at least think it through first.
#3 Make Your Content Schedule.
This is where you see the fruits of your labor. Look at your media schedule and editorial calendar. Figure out what can go where. Spec it out and then be extra organized and put it on your weekly calendar. If you have a team of people, delegate the list so someone is accountable for each part of the process.
Before you know it, you will have a wealth of steady blog topics, articles, and tweets for the next 6 months. Now you will have not just created a Content Marketing plan, you will have solved your social media woes too!