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Why is homemade the best way to go? Because it is genuine. People are more likely to read and benefit from your content when it comes from professionals in that industry. Who is better to write about your business and topics surrounding it—you or an outside contractor? Even if you don’t have the writing skills, contributing your knowledge and ideas to your marketing agency can be extremely beneficial. Take a couple of hours each month to brainstorm ideas with your marketing agency and provide your valuable professional input.
The Recipe to Good Content Marketing
Real Ingredients
A meal is only as good as its ingredients. If you use artificial, low-quality ingredients, it won’t turn out as good as it could have been. That Wal-Mart Great Value cheese isn’t going to have the same flavor as real cheddar from that specialty shop. You are your specialty shop. Running your business has made you an expert in your product or service. If you provide the ingredients—the ideas, facts, personal stories, advice—your content marketing project will be more successful and genuine.
Know Your End Goal
Usually, you don’t cook blindly. You have a finished product as your goal: leaving your consumer satisfied or highlighting a main course. You have to establish your end goal. It can be an infographic that explains your product with the goal of educating prospective consumers, or an on-going advice blog that keeps your consumers as a regular visitor. Are you trying to generate leads, help your sales team close sales more quickly, generate interest in your product, or develop friends and fans who interact with your brand regularly?
Successful Project? Make It Again.
A chef has a signature dish that people rave about and come back again and again. If you have that signature dish, you should continue to make it again and again. Continue making it, and then make a new version of bite-size pieces. If you have had a successful content marketing project in the past, you should continue doing it. You can even revamp it into something new and fresh that may fit the palate of a different group of browsers. Say you had a popular blog that received a substantial number of shares and likes. Take that topic and recreate it into a new medium. That advice blog can become a new video series or an infographic. Different people digest information differently and you can reach an entirely new audience.
Distribute it to Your Audiences
You don’t try to feed beef to vegetarians. Once you have that piece of content marketing that you’re oh-so-proud of, you need to share it to the right audience. Do the research and find out where your target lurks. What websites do they frequent? What links do they click on? Join discussions. Join communities. Get the word out through your social networks. Once you’ve got enough people sharing it, it’s like having a five-star review for a restaurant on Yelp. These shares are recommendations, fueling a constant flow of new visitors to your high-quality content marketing.