Breaking through the inexpensive art of content creation
Save your budget for execution
Creating new content takes a lot of time and as we know time is money. But by thinking more creatively and practically about your existing assets, you can save a lot of this time and spend it on your campaign execution instead. Here we tell you how.
Repurpose your assets
Re-reading your content from the customers viewpoint may highlight that it’s actually pretty close to the mark. Maybe a few tweaks are needed to bring product descriptions fully up-to-date but other than that, it’s not ready for the bin yet! Some content, often blogs, might be just as relevant today as they were a year ago; there’s no harm in re-releasing them with a new date stamp.
Grow your own
There’s a lot to be said for growing your own network of sharers. In fact, most will welcome your help. Take Salespeople; they love receiving new material for sending on to customers – it gives them the all-important “reason to call”. And Partners; they’re always on the lookout for new material to update their websites and it gives them a great opportunity to start conversations and create new opportunities. In return they’ll link to your webpages and that helps with your google ranking so your content kills two birds with one stone.
Don’t re-invent the wheel
As well-versed marketers, experience has taught us not to fall into the familiar trap of re-inventing the wheel – and that goes for content too. Take time out to review your content and judge it in line with reporting analyses so that you have a 3600 view of its usability including; customer feedback, usage rates, number of shares, click thru data etc. A thorough content audit (include link to “Keep Calm and Write a Tailored Content Plan”) is a good place to start and it gives you a great springboard for successful content planning. Once you have a good overview of what has worked well and what hasn’t, you can make decisions about where to focus next. You’d be surprised at how often the answer is as simple as re-sharing existing content that you know was well-received.
Variety is the spice of life
Regardless of how well you know your target audience, always remember that everyone’s different. Different people consume content in different ways. Some prefer to dive into a nicely packaged presentation or white paper when they’re thinking about their IT roadmap. They like to see expert commentary, case studies and plenty of “how-to” information. Others will prefer to spend short bursts of time looking at snippets of technical information such as data sheets and videos that answer specific questions. In reality, a mixture of both is always good.
Different media appeal to different personalities
With a plethora of media to choose from these days the possibilities seem almost endless when it comes to deciding how to present your content; blogs, press articles, infographics, tweets, white papers, presentations, webinars, podcasts, the list goes on. It’s impossible to know for certain the “perfect” combination because, as we’ve already said, everyone’s different. Saving costs and time comes into its own here because there’s so much mileage in putting together your baseline set of content assets and then replicating them in different formats of differing lengths. In doing this, you are providing the content that you want to share but your audience are consuming it in a format that they like to use.
Bitesize is best
Whatever you decide, it’s important to make sure that your content doesn’t overload your website. So when you know that customers really want the full-on White Paper make sure if you link to it, make it downloadable and only provide a short but sweet introduction to it so they’ll know they’re in the right place and what they’re going to learn.
Replication not syndication
Make the most of your assets sometimes the unwieldy ones are the best. Continuing with the White Paper example; they’re an excellent source of content but can often be very lengthy too. The beauty is that White Papers can feed a variety of other medias such as blogs, infographics, animations, and of course you’ll take excerpts from them to create your LinkedIn posts, Facebook posts and tweets.
Keep it in the bank
Following our content advice will keep your marketing budget in the bank but make sure you bank your content too. It’s a good idea to categorise your assets so that you have an easily navigable library; industry verticals, key benefits, product / solution, media format and date gives you a starter for ten.
Expensive NOT!
As the old English proverb says “look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves” we like to think that by looking after existing content, marketing budgets are freed to create even better campaigns.