Wouldn’t life be great if we could press an “easy” button and bypass all the things we don’t like?
We wouldn’t need to idle in traffic, clean the house or sit through another boring PowerPoint presentation. We also would never wonder what to blog about next. We could just press the button and – boom – have an amazing blog post.
Unfortunately, there’s no “easy” button for a well-planned content strategy. However, there are ways you can save time while producing high-quality content that engages your customers.
Here are five content marketing hacks that will help you get the most bang from your 2015 content:
1. Use themes to easily plan your content.
Working within a monthly or quarterly theme makes it easier for you to come up with content ideas and fill your editorial calendar. The themes can align with your customers’ top challenges, product launches, industry trends or key events.
Themes are also useful if you work with advertisers or allow guests to contribute to your blog. Advertisers will want to know your themes so they can align their ads with your content. Guest bloggers can also write posts that support your themes.
2. Capture content ideas in Evernote.
Great ideas usually come when you’re least expecting them – like when you’re running on the treadmill. Using an app, such as Evernote, allows you to capture all your ideas anytime and anyplace. You may end up with enough ideas to fill your editorial calendar for the entire year. Just be sure to pause the treadmill before jotting down your latest idea.
3. Turn your blog posts into landing pages.
A HubSpot study found that the more landing pages you have, the more leads you will get. According to HubSpot, companies see a 55% boost in leads if they increase their number of landing pages from 10 to 15.
Add more landing pages to your website by turning your blog posts into opt-in opportunities. Create custom resources that directly relate to your blog posts and include an opt-in form at the end of each post.
For example, if you write a blog post about disaster recovery, ask readers to download a disaster recovery checklist. Since your readers are interested in this topic, they will likely opt in for more information.
4. Repurpose your existing content.
It takes a lot of time and resources to produce a major piece of content – such as an ebook or white paper. However, many B2B marketers don’t get the most value from their investments. They often bury content on their websites and hope customers will find it.
Repurposing content will help you reach a wider audience and attract more leads. Plus, you often don’t need to put much time or effort into repurposing content for different channels. For more ideas, read “How to Get 3 Months of Content from a Single Resource” and “21 Places to Share Your B2B Case Studies”.
5. Get quick content wins.
Your best source of content inspiration is your customers. Every tweet, email and conversation has the potential to be turned into content. What questions are customers asking you? What are their biggest concerns? What are they complaining about? Address all these topics in your upcoming blog posts, ebooks, videos and webinars. You can even go to other departments and find out what conversations your co-workers are having with customers.
Another great source of content is the news. Your editorial calendar should be flexible so you can address relevant topics as they happen in the news. Subscribe to Google Alerts to receive notifications whenever something newsworthy happens. You can also use a service such as Alltop to follow your industry’s top blogs.
Producing great content can help you attract high-quality leads and turn them into customers. Using these tips will make it easier for you to produce the type of content that gets results.
3 Ways to Apply This Information Now
- Download the Content Repurposing Worksheet to map out how you will repurpose your content to reach more leads and customers.
- Read “21 Places to Share Your B2B Case Studies” for ideas on how to repurpose your case studies and share your successes with a wider audience.
- Share this post on LinkedIn. Sharing quality content increases your visibility and credibility with your existing contacts, creating conversations and potentially new business.