HOW TO MAKE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING WORK HARDER
What’s the number one reason you’re not putting content marketing as a priority for your business? I’m willing to bet that it’s because it’s either “time consuming” or seems “daunting”.
But let’s think about other areas that are time consuming or daunting for your business - responding to emails, doing client work, creating new products or offers. Those things don’t get pushed to the bottom of the list, so why is your content marketing process not deemed as important as these things?
The reason that your content marketing strategy gets relegated is because we don’t see how hard it can work for us. It can sometimes feel like you take three hours to style one picture that someone will spend all of three seconds looking at.
But when you look at how to make your content marketing work harder for you, it becomes easier to see the value, it becomes less daunting and you can justify the time you spend on it.
Because really, content is the thing that’s going to last the longest in your business. Clients and products will come and go but once you’ve got content created, it’s there forever. It’s yours, you own it, and you can use it in lots of different ways.
So rather than thinking of content as a time-consuming, daunting thing that you put out into the world once and then archive, think of it as a member of your team. Yes, you’ve invested into it, but now you can put it to work in other areas of your online presence.
Psst…want my “Blog Post Template”? It’s a free download you can get by entering your info below. It’s a great asset to save and keep handy whenever you go to write a new post.
SO WHAT JOBS CAN YOU GET YOUR CONTENT MARKETING TO DO?
#1 | Customer Acquisition
Content marketing is one of the best ways to get discovered online. Think about it: the phrase “google it” is universal now in our vocabulary. How many times a day do you use search to solve a problem?
Every single thing you find when you google something is driven by content, which is where SEO comes into play. So when it comes to making your content strategy plan work harder for you in the SEO stakes, you need to spend time on your keywords.
Your best best is to aim for niche keywords that have a medium to low competition that you want to show up for. For instance, “blogging for beginners” rather than “blogging”. Then you can go back to some of your popular old posts and pimp them with new keywords.
Here are a few guidelines:
Add the keyword in naturally throughout the post
Change the title if necessary to include the keyword
Make sure you internal links set up (these encourage new users to stay on your site and stay engaged with your brand)
Now, this won’t get you to number one on Google overnight, but it will set you on the path to increase your rankings in search.
Don’t forget about another big search engine - Pinterest is amazing for SEO too. This is the place where you will see the quickest increase in your traffic. There’s a full training on this in the Busy To Boss Method where I teach you how to turn Pinterest into your number one traffic referrer (seriously, it works magic!)
Here are a few things you want to make sure you’ve got when it comes to using Pinterest as a content marketing tool:
Get a business account and set up rich pins
Create a pinnable images for your blog posts and pages (a vertical image usually with text overlay - you can create these on Canva)
Use the Pinterest search function to research the keywords you want to show up for
Put these keywords in the SEO description of the image of your site
Pin away!
Again, if you want to be taught a Pinterest SEO strategy in more detail, you can apply for the Busy To Boss Method 1:1 Coaching Programme here.
#2 | Email Marketing
Content marketing for small businesses has to involve an email marketing strategy, because content is what gets people to sign up for your email list.
Here are few online marketing tips when it comes to using email:
Include a sign up form at the bottom of each SEO-rich post so that new visitors to your site have an immediate action to take.
You can also look at what your most popular content has been and create an opt-in based on it to incentivise people to subscribe. This doesn’t have to be something brand new. You can tweak an existing blog post, put two together or focus in depth on one particular element.
Once you’re gaining new subscribers, you can use your existing content in your newsletters. Include links to popular posts, show a behind-the-scenes of your latest Instagram photo or repurpose a recent blog post in a reduced form.
#3 | Social Media
Most of us create new, specific content for social media (especially Instagram). But there are lots of ways you can repurpose your existing content into your social content.
Image-wise, you’ve probably noticed that I used all the same images across all channels. I don’t take different pictures for Instagram, blog posts and Pinterest - I use all the same ones, usually more than once.
The same is true for written content inside of your content marketing plan. We don’t think twice about scheduling the same tweet multiple times, but for some reason, we’re hesitant about doing it elsewhere.
Can you remember what you posted on Instagram on 1st June 2018? If you can’t remember, then your audience isn’t going to either. If a caption or photo did particularly well the first time around, replicate it and repurpose it. No one will notice. Why continually try to reinvent the wheel (we go into this in WAY more detail in the Busy To Boss Method).
We often overlook our blog content when it comes to social media. Let’s say you write a blog post with five great sections in it - that means five great Instagram captions and five great Facebook posts. Rework the points you make in a blog post to fit natively to your others channels to help you get the most use out of it.
#4 | Outreach
The channel that can potentially have the biggest impact for your business is outreach. By this, I mean guest posting, collaborating with other business owners, and podcast appearances.
The great thing about outreach when it comes to content marketing is that it allows you to get in front of your target audience on a channel where they’re engaged, and that they trust. It allows you to piggyback on the reputation of that channel, whilst providing value to their audience.
Outreach is usually the thing the scares my clients the most, probably because it can make you feel very exposed. It’s safe and comfortable hanging out on your own channels. Heading over to someone else’s feels more risky.
But your content marketing can help with this.
When you’re pitching a guest post, again, don’t reinvent the wheel. Use one that you’ve already written and know is popular. You can rework the content to suit the publication but still be confident that it will be well-received and valuable.
This is the same for podcasts - talk about things you’ve talked about in your blog posts or captions before. You don’t need to come up with new concepts to talk about when the ones you already know are great.
Content marketing doesn’t have to be daunting, time consuming or difficult. It’s all about repurposing and knowing how to make your amazing content work harder for you to get you better results.
What other jobs are you going to get your content to do from now on?
Yeah, this is a lot to remember. Which is why I created this Blog Post Template. Enter your info below to download it so that you don’t forget any of the steps in this post!