Blog courtesy of Jacob Seal from Bridge Global Strategies

This blog post is the last in a four-part series, describing the steps to execute a successful content marketing strategy.

In our first three posts in this series, we described the steps to develop your content marketing strategy, including building buyer personas, mapping content and creating editorial calendar. Now it’s time to fire up the presses and start producing content.

This is the most challenging part of your journey as it requires dedication and a little bit of editorial prowess. But there are plenty of tricks of the trade that you can leverage to keep the quality content churning. Here are some tips to get you
started:

Follow Industry News – You can find plenty of fodder for developing blogs, white papers and other content just by reading industry news. You can make it easier to identify relevant news by subscribing to RSS feeds from bloggers and news sites and setting up Google Alerts.

Monitor Social Conversations – Social media can be a reflection of what your audience thinks about your brand. Use the comments posted on social media sites as the jumping off point for generating story ideas. Tools such as HubSpot’s social media tool, TweetDeck or HootSuite can help you monitor social media and measure your social media marketing performance.

Build a Team of Content Creators – It can seem overwhelming for one person to manage the content marketing efforts of an entire company. Consider conscripting other team members to help you create content. This not only prevents you from burning out, but it also invites fresh perspectives that can improve the quality and breadth of your content.

Setup a Style and a Content Bank –There will be days when you just can’t seem to come up with good ideas for content or when you need something to ‘punch up’ the piece you’re working on to make it more appealing to readers. That’s why it helps to keep a content bank of completed stories that you can send out at a moments notice and a style bank of design templates and ideas you can use to keep things fresh.

Repurpose Content – Over time, you will develop a sizable repository of content. Instead of letting it collect dust in cyberspace, look for ways to repurpose this material. For example, you may consider using old white papers as the basis for a series of blog posts on a particular topic; or vice versa, you can use old blog posts to create a new white paper. There may also be opportunities to repurpose content from videos into other collateral.

Take Your Video Camera Everywhere – Any smartphone equipped with a video camera is an instant content marketing tool. If, for example, someone tweets a question you think would be of interest to your broader range of Twitter followers, answer the question with a short video and post a link to it in your response. If you’re at a trade show, pull out your video camera to conduct mini interviews with thought leaders who stop by your booth. Or, ask people to give you one of their Top 10 [any topic you want] list answers and post those to your website after the show.

Write Annual and Best of Features – People love lists, especially “Top” lists, “Best of” lists, “Year in Review,” or “What’s Next?” lists. Plan to do some type of list every quarter to boost your readership.

Conduct Original Research – Tools like SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo offer free and paid services where you can quickly craft surveys about topics of interest to your customers. By using the conclusions of your research to create new content like blog posts and social media updates, you can potentially improve visibility of your brand.

Look Beyond Your Industry – Sometimes you have to look beyond the goings-on of your industry to find ways to engage your customers. Monitor current events that are relevant to your customers and look for opportunities to join the discourse around these topics in a way that could benefit your business.

These are just some ideas to help you get started, and you will probably find that some of these tips work better for your business than others. The most important thing is to remember that you don’t have to be a wordsmith to produce content that appeals to your customers. The better you understand your buyer personas and how different types of content aligns with different stages of the buying process, the better your chances of developing an audience and converting that audience into paying customers.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with public relations, marketing or crisis communications, contact Scott Public Relations.

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