Content Strategy - Express Writers

Why Your Small Business Needs a Content Marketing Strategy (& 6 Steps to Start Building One)

June 19, 2024July 10, 2018 by Adam Oakley

If you’re an entrepreneur or a small business doing content marketing, but you’re not seeing the amazing results you’ve heard about, ask yourself one question: Are you missing something? Here’s another question. …Could you be missing a small business content marketing strategy? Every content marketing endeavor, no matter how small or low-budget, NEEDS a strategy. (Not “needs,” lower-case, but “NEEDS” – all caps, in-your-face. A small business content strategy is that important!) Without a strategy, content marketing is like a pile of puzzle pieces. They make no sense… …Until you put them together and form the whole picture. That is the strategy, and that is exactly what you need to make content marketing work. Because, when content marketing works, the ROI can be enormous. Think about these facts: A big chunk of buyers (47%) said they look at 3-5 pieces of content before talking to a sales representative, according to a 2016 study by Demand Gen Report. Strategic content marketing is the key to 67% more leads for B2B companies who use it, via a HubSpot study. Content marketing’s worth as an industry has skyrocketed – by next year, it will reach hundreds of billions of dollars according to the 2017 Global Content Marketing Forecast. (Don’t you want a piece of that?) If you want in on this action, a strategy is the lynchpin. Here are even more reasons to begin building your own content marketing strategy for your small business. Once you’re convinced, continue to the next section to learn the six steps you need to get started. [bctt tweet=”47% of buyers said they look at 3-5 pieces of content before talking to a sales representative. Learn why and how to set up a #contentstrategy for your small business. ” username=”ExpWriters”] 3 More Reasons to Create a Small Business Content Marketing Strategy 1. It’s Not Just for Big Brands with Even Bigger Budgets You do not need a big budget to create a workable content marketing strategy. I repeat: You. Do. NOT. Need. A. Big. Budget. (Check out my case study discussing how content marketing is higher in ROI than traditional, main-stream marketing.) You can (and should) scale your strategy to work for the size of your business and your resources. For instance, maybe you need to start by dedicating a few hours every month to content creation. It’s totally doable if you teach yourself some basics first, focus on putting out quality over quantity, and stay committed to building your authority on one platform. Center your content around keywords that are low-hanging fruit – the ones that people are searching for, but still offer the opportunity to break into the rankings. Start small. Then, as you build your gravitas, slowly increase your efforts. (Duct Tape Marketing has more ideas for strategizing on a budget, proving it doesn’t take much money or time at all.) One high-quality article published every two or three weeks is a better investment by far than putting out two or three sub-par, rushed articles weekly. Plus, according to original research from Kapost and Eloqua, content marketing costs 31% less than paid search for mid-size businesses. That means a content strategy is a more cost-effective route than funneling money into ads. 2. It Takes the Guesswork Out of Content Creation Overwhelmingly, one of the top roadblocks many marketers face is hitting a brick wall at the content ideation/creation stage. In Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, 63% of B2B marketers rated their project management workflow as “good,” “fair,” or “poor,” while only 37% felt confident enough to rate theirs as “very good” or “excellent.” It’s a concern for most of us. BUT, that’s why a content strategy is so awesome: It makes your project management workflow and content creation a breeze. This is because your strategy maps out a game plan for creating content, including finding the right keywords, generating topics, and determining content types you should focus on. It also tells you who you’re writing for, and helps you determine where and when to post. Best of all, the plan is a framework you can follow again and again. No matter what type of content you’re creating, you can repeat the processes your content strategy lays out over and over. I call each pillar of the framework a content strategy “core.” Once you have these down, you’re golden. I teach these six pillars, step-by-step, in an intensive 6-week content strategy and marketing course and book. Learn more about the course here. 3. Small Business Content Strategy Makes ROI Not Just Possible, but Probable Your content strategy isn’t just a plan to use to attack content marketing – it’s also a map to ROI. According to HubSpot, businesses that blog strategically scoop up leads faster than businesses that don’t blog. Specifically, in a study of 2,300 businesses, those with blogs saw 126% monthly lead growth. Additionally, according to CMI’s 2018 Benchmarks survey, B2Bs with a documented content strategy reported higher success levels than those without one. Think about it this way: You wouldn’t attack any big goal and expect to reach it without first putting a plan in place. If your goal is to see results and ROI with content marketing, you need to approach it with a strategy. It’s just plain common sense. 6 Steps to Start Building Your Small Business’ Content Marketing Strategy Yep, you agree – you NEED a small business content marketing strategy. You’re ready and raring to go. Let’s not waste any more time. Here’s how to dive in headfirst: 1. Define What Makes You Stand Out In business, your uniqueness is a major selling point, if not THE major selling point. What do you offer people that no one else does? Your stand-out factor doesn’t have to be wildly different from your competitors, either. You even can differentiate based on one little detail – the important thing is to figure out what that is. For example, look at the ice cream brand, Ben & Jerry’s. They started … Read more

The 6 Steps You Need to Build a Rock-Solid, Lucrative Online Content Strategy Framework

June 19, 2024May 15, 2018 by Adam Oakley

Want to know the #1 way I grew Express Writers? Two words, five syllables: Content marketing. Or, more specifically, consistent, strategic content marketing. Online content strategy, a real, firm strategy, became my best friend to get to the “serious growth” phase. The thing is, it took YEARS to figure out and perfect. All the pieces had to come together, and I had to test, re-test, and test again to find out what worked (and, what didn’t). When I figured it out, things snowballed. Our income from Express Writers boomed to six-figures, and then to seven-figures ARR, inside just two years. Here’s the story, and how I used my experience to get clear on EXACTLY what I needed to reach bigger, better, bolder success. After that, I’m going to share the 6 steps I used to hone my online content strategy to a razor-sharp edge: the exact same system you can use to get crystal-clear on your own content and start seeing real results. (What you’re about to read is a sneak peek into the six pillars of content success that I discuss and teach at length in my intensive content strategy & marketing book and course.) Online Content Strategy Clarity Equals Success: From Near-Failure to Six-Figures after Getting Strategic I started my business, Express Writers, from basically nothing – I was a college dropout with a dream and a mere $75 of pocket cash. The beginning was hard. Here’s what that looked like, 2 years into the game: By that time I had published 215 blogs, had 141 keywords ranking on Google, about 500 visitors/day to my site from organic traffic, and was earning around $29K/month. I was creating content, but the results were lackluster. I was doing a few things wrong: My content quality wasn’t consistently high I often published content just to “get it out there” I was trying to push out TOO MUCH content (at least one blog post a day) I was doing cold outreach to get more clients – and not earning any ROI for my time spent (read: the cold emails I sent out turned up nothing but crickets chirping) I was trying to boost growth on every channel possible In short, growth from content marketing was slow. I was hustling every day, snatching at leads wherever I could. And, the leads I did get from my content weren’t that good. And, all of this was happening while I was a wife, a mom of a two-year-old, and had an understandably busy family life. Bottom line: I was overworked and not seeing the results I dreamed of from my content. The Turning Point: Enter Content Strategy The turning point came in 2016. Our low-profit, high-expense months were not sustainable. We were making an average of $65K/month, but were lucky to take home 35% of that total. Then, in May 2016, I discovered my two managers had been embezzling from the company for months. I fired them. After that, some reassessing happened. I had to rebuild my business and my team. It wasn’t until a few months later, while we were still slowly recovering, that I finally started implementing a content strategy. With the combination of that strategy and better members on the EW team, we started seeing returns, slowly but surely. We even started setting records for our monthly gross income. Before using content strategy, I was publishing an average of 4 blogs/week. We had about 3,900 keywords indexed on Google, and we were making $65K/month, with some lower months after the embezzling fiasco. One year later, and only a few months after implementing a content strategy, we hit our first $71K month in income. We also reached 6,000 keywords indexed on Google, which was nearly double the amount from the previous year. And that momentum kept building as I refined my content strategy. We continued having record months. Our Google presence kept building, and our online visibility skyrocketed. We started ranking #1 for hot keywords, and our traffic jumped to thousands of visitors per day. Today, our content marketing continues to work and build on itself. Without the strategy, though, none of it would be possible. By now, you’re probably dying to know what that strategy looks like. Listen up, because I’m sharing the 6 steps to my content strategy framework next. These steps build out the foundation of a rock-solid strategy. 6 Steps to Build an Unstoppable Content Strategy Framework This is how you do content marketing that wins. 1. Understand the Basic Fundamentals of a Content Strategy Content strategy defines as: If you don’t understand what a content strategy is, go back and get clear on this. It’s the only way you’ll also understand how content strategy fits into content marketing, and why the two cannot exist without each other. Think of it this way: It’s impossible to succeed at any activity without a thorough base knowledge to guide you. Content strategy is no different. You should also know what you’re talking about, and how to branch out into topics your audience wants to hear about. Finding your topic area is a fundamental first step in a content strategy. Along with that, know your CDF – your Content Differentiation Factor. What makes you different than all the other content voices out there? 2. Know Your Audience and How to Lead Them to a Sale (Bridge the Gap) Knowing your audience is one thing, but knowing how to turn your audience into customers is another. If you don’t understand how to bridge that gap, you’re missing out on one of the biggest first steps involved in putting your content strategy in place. Of course, before you can connect the dots, you must know who your REAL audience is – not your imagined audience (only research and having actual conversations can tell you this!). Once you know your persona, you can create content that matches the lifecycle stages of awareness, in the sales cycle. Example: 3. Use SEO (and Understand Its Importance) Want to … Read more

The Ultimate Guide: How to Start Your Career as a Content Strategist

June 19, 2024November 2, 2017 by Adam Oakley

$73,000. According to The Creative Group, that’s the average salary of a content strategist in today’s market. And, if you’re working in a bigger market, the map below shows us that this number can climb as high as $100,000. But you’re not just getting in this industry because you’re attracted to the high salary potential and strong benefits. You’re getting in it because you love telling stories. You’re doing it because you understand the power that great content can have on people. Above all, you’re doing it because you want to build a rewarding career for yourself where you can use your skills to impact the lives of others. The salary is just the icing on the cake. And while you’ve wanted to get into this industry for awhile, you’re just not quite sure how to do it. What do you do if you don’t have any experience? Who hires content strategists? How many jobs are available? Where can I build the skills needed to become a desirable candidate? The answers to these questions, and more, lie within the sections below. Let’s dive in. Content Strategy Career Guide 101: Why You Need a Growth Mindset to Succeed The first thing you need to understand about starting a career as a content strategist is that it’s essential that you develop a growth mindset from the start. Stanford professor and renowned psychology expert Carol Dweck defines someone with a growth mindset as: “An individual who believes their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others).” Someone with a fixed mindset, on the other hand, would be an individual who believes that their talents are innate gifts and cannot necessarily be improved upon. The world of content marketing changes frequently. What was considered “great” content in 2010 certainly isn’t the same as what it is today. For this reason, deciding to become a content strategist means also deciding that you’re willing to improve, grow, innovate, and change as the industry demands. While that doesn’t mean that you should simply follow in the footsteps of others in the industry, it does mean that you have to be willing to grow and develop your skills along the way. Before you move forward, I strongly encourage you to make the decision to develop the growth mindset that will allow you to prosper as you move through your career as a content strategist. 9 Key Skills Needed to Become a Top Notch Content Strategist As you begin your career as a content strategist, here are a few of the main traits that you’ll need to succeed. 1. Content Strategy Fundamentals The ability to develop a Content Differentiation Factor (CDF), set content goals, and understand how to create high-ROI content are all important foundational pieces. 2. Develop Audience Personas Audience personas form the basis for who content will be written for and about. 3. Develop Content Marketing Funnels By understanding which type of content should be created for each type of the marketing lifecycle or sales funnel, you can increase the effectiveness and conversion rates of a content marketing campaign. 4. Keyword Research and SEO Knowledge A focus on long-tail keywords and SEO helps ensure that your content marketing strategy maximizes its long term ROI potential. 5. Create and/or Manage Creation of Authority Content With so much content being created today, you need to know how to put together content that separates itself from pack. 6. Content Promotion Understanding how to successfully promote content is arguably just as important as your ability to help create it. 7. Develop an Editorial Calendar Building a content calendar helps to ensure structure and efficiency throughout a content marketing campaign. 8. Track Content Marketing ROI The goal of any marketing campaign is to maximize ROI. In order to determine the ROI of your strategy, you need to know which metrics to track and how to track them. 9. Set Up and Manage a Content Budget Understanding how to maximize content strategy budget will put you in a position to increase ROI potential for the companies and clients you work with. In total, these are summed up in the graphic we developed for my online course, the Content Strategy & Marketing Course curriculum. (See above.) If you’re just getting started, this list might look intimidating. After all, how are you supposed to find the necessary resources to develop all of the above traits before even starting your career? Keep reading. How to Develop the Necessary Traits to Start Your Content Strategist Career If you were to attempt to scour the web to find the resources needed to develop the traits outlined above, you’d likely be looking at a learning period of 12-24 months. How do I know? Because, in the past, I was a self-taught content strategist. And not only did I take over a year to attempt to learn these things on my own, but I had a very minimal understanding of each concept even after that prolonged period. That all changed after 7 years of day in, day out, learning and applying myself to the field of content marketing and content strategy, and finally making my way to the top of my industry through a ton of self-taught content marketing. But, once you develop the necessary traits, how do you actually go about getting a job in the industry? Let’s find out. 3 Different Ways to Work as a Content Strategist One of the most exciting things about working in content strategy is that there are several different ways to build your career. And, the salary of a Content Strategist is holding steady across every major U.S. city: Image Source Let’s take a look at some of the main options at your disposal: 1. Companies Hiring In-House Content Strategists Take a quick look at job boards like Indeed and Glassdoor and you’ll find that there are thousands of companies looking to hire in-house content strategists. 7,716 Content Strategist jobs are currently posted on Glassdoor The salaries are great, … Read more

Becoming a Content Strategist: A Hard Knocks Success Story, & the Strategy Skills You Have to Have to Survive in Content

June 19, 2024July 6, 2017 by Adam Oakley

I’m the CEO of a content creation agency that has completed over 17,000 projects in content services (blogs, web pages, content planning), since 2011. In my line of work forging and leading content creation to power many content strategies, I’ve heard just about every complaint and frustration you could possibly hear from content strategists, marketers, and content practitioners: “I’m not sure this content is worth it.” “Where do you recommend I publish my content?” “I’m not sure I can do more than one month of blogging. I’ll look at the budget and get back to you.” “I can’t afford an industry specialist writer.” This is a small percentage of the clients that come our way, but I’m still ready to pull my hair out, every time I hear these phrases. Why? Because I personally know the value that a great content marketing strategy, and consistent publishing, can bring. But I also know what it takes to get there: the path isn’t easy. It requires investment, time, and most of all, commitment. The skills involved in the workload of a content strategist aren’t easy to learn. But here’s the cool news… Content can truly bring you 100x what you put into it. I’ll talk more about that in a moment, but first, here’s a look at what I’ve managed to achieve here at Express Writers solely through high quality, original content creation. A Content Strategist Success Story: Express Writers, Fueled Completely By Organic Content [bctt tweet=”Content can truly bring you 100x what you put into it. Read all about @JuliaEMcCoy’s venture into #contentstrategy ” username=”ExpWriters”] Today, under my direction and content creation as a self-taught content strategist and CEO, my little self-funded content creation agency and staff of 40 at Express Writers has managed to outrank competitors that have $9+ million in outside funding, by an immense 3%+ higher visibility in Google. We rank organically for over 11,000 key terms, with a presence worth $57,000+ monthly in organic search. And we haven’t paid a penny in ads—across six years—to gain the majority of our leads and clientele. They’ve come straight from these rankings. Question… How well does this content convert? Because you can’t just have high-ranking content, right? It has to return. After optimizing my strategy and increasing my content investment this year, we hit the highest sales month we’ve ever had this January. Now, we’re on track to break our first seven figure year as an agency. 99% of our leads come through organic content marketing. I’ve never invested a single dollar in PPC. The secret is all in how you go about it (your strategy), and your commitment. It’s not an overnight game, and it’s a steady, slow, but sure process. It can feel like hard, low-return work in the beginning, but in the long run, content is the best marketing you’ll have ever done. Content Strategists & The Proven Worth of Content to Advertisers Today, SEO has basically merged as a part of the wider picture that is content marketing. When you do SEO, you’re optimizing your content for high rankings in the search results: in content marketing, you market your product or service through high-value, audience-targeted content campaigns. Optimizing your content for search (SEO) is a crucial, integrated part of content marketing itself. It’s a big part of the skillset of a great content strategist. If you have the right strategy, the right SEO and the right content consistency in place, take a look at these success statistics that can happen. Per dollar spent, content marketing generates more than 3x the number of leads than paid search does. (Kapost/Eloqua) Content marketing costs between 31 and 41% less than paid search, depending on the organization’s size. (Kapost/Eloqua) Website conversion rate is nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9% vs. 0.5%). (Aberdeen Group) Content creation ranks as the single most effective SEO technique. (Marketing Sherpa) 61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog. (FactBrowser) Small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that do not blog. (ImpactBnd) A Content Strategist Skillset Wheelhouse: 7 Keys to Success Your content strategy is everything in achieving high-performing, high-ROI content. Follow these critical steps, in order, for a baseline sense of how to navigate through and set up your strategy so that your content is knocked out of the park and you know you’re getting ROI when you publish content. (PSA: These steps take time. Don’t jump around or rush through them. PSA 2: This takes time. Don’t expect overnight success.) 1. Know your position of authority and differentiation in your field. It all starts here. Know where your expertise lies, own it, and ten find your Content Differentiation Factor so you can officially stand out in your industry. To get to that, ask yourself, “what would make a customer choose me over my competitor?” Your answer is your CDF. Condense it to one or two key sentences to showcase on your home page (you may need a conversion copywriter to help you express this perfectly). Brands that have a standout CDF in a variety of niches (scan their home pages—it should, quite literally, stand out there): Uber: ”Get there: Your day belongs to you” Stripe: “The new standard in online payments” Grammarly: “Your writing, at its best” Moz: “5 billion searches are performed every day. Be found.” Zuke’s Dog Blog: “Live life off leash” Better Bites Bakery: “All joy, no worries” My agency: “Better content in your marketing.” This is the first step of a true content strategy, and this step is a discovery that could take some time. But it’s absolutely worth it. Too many brands starting out don’t take the time to make sure they have a standout factor. To set yourself up for content success, you have to have a reason for the reader (buyer, audience member, lead) to choose you and your content. Don’t skimp here. Having a CDF will 10x the results you’ll get when leads start finding your content. 2. Know your content goals. … Read more

I Launched a Content Strategy Certification Course! How It Can Help You Succeed In the Industry

September 19, 2022May 9, 2017 by Adam Oakley

Seven years ago, I delved full-force, head-first, neck-deep into the industry of content marketing. Throughout my seven-year, full-time career as a self-taught expert, I’ve been hands-on in creating, producing, and training on internal content services that have answered a demand and fulfilled a need for our clients, with the help of an amazing remote team I assembled. To date, my agency (bootstrapped and on zero outside funding) has sold over $4 million worth of content services to over 5,000 clients. I was born with a natural love for both “writing and the internet” – a writer by 12, and an entrepreneur by 16, writing books, creating companies, and learning how to make money online when I wasn’t in school. But at age 19, I found myself in college trying to get a degree I didn’t even want (R.N.). I think I would have made a terrible nurse – the trade just wasn’t for me. So I dropped out, went and followed my heart, and taught myself online writing. I became a top freelancer fast, and within three months had more work than I could handle. Within 5 minutes of that realization, I created an agency at age 20, and Express Writers was born. And now, one of my 2017 goals has just happened. After five months of hard work, and over 400 hours of heart, soul, energy and 5 a.m. mornings, my ultimate industry course is finally here. It’s targeted to the entrepreneur, freelancer, and agency staff member: and within this course, I’ve created an entire curriculum with practical advice on how to build, execute, track and maintain content that works – from A to Z. We’re talking all the way from finding your audience and building a persona for any audience, to planning out your keywords, building an editorial calendar, promoting your content, publishing, analyzing, and auditing – from beginner level, all the way to advanced. I created this course because I believe that with the right strategy and execution knowledge in place, anything is possible through great content marketing. By itself, content marketing has fueled my business the past 6 years. (Here’s a case study I wrote about that late last year. Neil Patel wrote about my agency as an example of a content creation business that does what they say.) We physically live out what we preach – content drives 95-99% of our agency leads and has brought over 5,000 clients right into our doors. Beta launch of our Content Strategy Certification Course is complete! The course launched as a school September 1, 2017. Check it out here. Why There’s a Tremendous Industry Need for a Practical Content Strategist Certification Course In the industry, here’s what I’ve come to realize: 1. Businesses today know they need content marketing more than ever. Back when I was on the phones in 2011, I had to convince people why they needed it. Today, 89% of B2B marketers now invest in content marketing – and we see it. My staff and I have to “convince” on the “why content” question a lot less. 2. But, businesses don’t know what they need in content, or how to make their content marketing work well for them (read: ROI). I think of great content marketing like a well-oiled, rotating water wheel. You have to show up daily and consistently put content out to get something back. If you have your process, people and a source of amazing content ideas down pat, success happens. (For me, content marketing produces 90%+ of my business leads.) But getting there is such a struggle. What do you invest in, how often, where do you put it – and how do you know if it’ll net rankings (or brand awareness/traction – whichever goal you’re going for)? Wait – do you have a goal? All of that is the meat of content strategy. And if you don’t know strategy or have a working one implemented, your content marketing return on investment (ROI) is going to be much, much lower that it could be. The cool part: if you do know it, returns can be HUGE. To date, I’ve created products instead of “knowledge.” But it’s time to delve in, head first. I believe that knowledge is power. Personally, my road to success has been self-carved, and self-created. What I taught myself fuels my expertise. And since the landing page for the course went out in early May, I’ve gone so much more indepth than I said I would with the course content. This insane task is, easily, the best thing I’ve ever done in my industry. I’ve considered renaming my course “Ultimate Content Marketing Certification,” because my students are going to learn everything in the fundamentals of brand content marketing. I’ve even slated top experts to appear on video with me which will go in certain modules of the course to give my students that much more depth on the subject. While building the course, I put in days that started at 5 a.m. and ended only when I crashed in bed at 10 p.m. Easily, you could start a content marketing agency after you take my course. Easily, assemble your own content team. Easily, teach your clients (or your boss’ clients) amazing content techniques that result in trackable ROI. Show them who to target, what to create, what to track, how to measure, how to update = for tangible, working, worthwhile content results. Check out my new course, live at: www.contentstrategycourse.com Exploring the Content Marketing Ecosphere: How Does Content Strategy Fit In as An Integral Part? Here’s a few crazy stats about this industry of content marketing: It’ll be worth $313 billion by 2019. Billions of funding have been put into content marketing startups by now – VC investors realize the value of the industry and SaaS creators/entrepreneurs within it. And 91% of B2B marketers that are “very committed to content marketing” see success (CMI). But… Only 61% of content marketers have a documented content strategy. Yikes! And out of the 89% … Read more

How to Upkeep a Consistent, Productive Enterprise Content Strategy

September 5, 2022September 21, 2016 by Adam Oakley

For large brands that publish a great deal of content to maintain a hefty enterprise content strategy, figuring out how to develop a consistent voice can be difficult. It’s easy to think of how to direct content creation if you have a blog or two to write, but creating great content gets much harder as your blogs or articles start numbering over 100 each month if you’re doing enterprise level content productive. Luckily, just because consistency may be difficult, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Massive brands with lots of content can develop a consistent, productive content strategy that returns in huge ROI, fans, readers, and interactions. Here’s a few that write a lot, and have a great presence: The Huffington Post–back in 2013–was reported to be creating over 1,200 articles per day. BuzzFeed published over 6,100 posts this April 2016. (More volume content stats from Buzzsumo’s recent study on why the future is more content, not less.) Let’s explore how enterprise level brands can win at great online content production. Why A Lot of Content Works For The Enterprise Content Brand If you’re a major brand not creating a great deal of solid online content, you could be significantly missing out. In 2013, Hubspot found out that 82% of marketers who blog daily won a new customer solely from their blog; as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog per month. With an average of 54% more leads generated by inbound rather than outbound, and $20,000 saved per year by investing in content marketing instead of outbound, there’s big reasons why brands should favor investing big-time in content creation rather than other marketing methods today. And Here’s Why Quality Still Matters More Than Quantity While modern brands understand that posting often is critical to online visibility and success in the search engines, it’s imperative to keep in mind that quality is still more important than quantity. All too often, the big brands of today get in a hurry to pump out content, and then they get sloppy. While it’s happened to virtually every company at some point or another, it’s bad form that can ultimately harm the company’s reputation and even cost an enormous amount of money. Need an example? Consider some of the most expensive spelling and grammar mistakes ever to befall major companies. While it’s all well and good to pump out a lot of content, the content you publish is only worth as much as its quality, and little things like proofreading and hiring an editor truly make all the difference. Because of this, enterprise brands that want to excel in the world of online marketing and advertising must take a pointer from their smaller counterparts: quality over quantity. Rule of thumb, even for the massive brands: you can’t afford to publish sloppy content. A big body of bad content never helped anyone, and a small collection of great content is worth its weight in gold. 5 Tips for Developing a Consistent Enterprise Content Strategy As the process of living life and running a business gets crazier, creating a consistent content strategy can get even harder. Luckily, there are several tools enterprise-level companies can use to streamline their content creation and help things run more smoothly from the get-go. 1. Develop an editorial calendar & rely on a content crew to organize efforts Editorial calendars are some of the most valuable and under-appreciated tools in all of online marketing. Designed to help companies organize their content efforts and plan content well in advance, editorial calendars are a great way for a company to see, at a glance, what it has going on with various distribution platforms at any given point. What’s more, a well-planned editorial calendar can also take a significant amount of the daily planning out of a good content strategy. Good tools for editorial calendar management: Google Docs (don’t underestimate the power of a live, shared Google doc – it’s what I use to keep our consistent content scheduled and topics created) Scheduling & management from CoSchedule can help big content brands efficiently plan, develop, and post their content Here’s an example of what the Minnesota Business Magazine’s editorial calendar looks like. I love how cleanly everything is divided into months, with a focus, industry watch topics, and it even includes events to cover for the month: Hand-in-hand with a great tool is a great content crew. Let’s face it: you can’t create massive amounts of content without massive amounts of content writers! At our company, we’ve written as many as 300 pages all in a week – if you can count press releases, social media posts, a bio or two, blogs for dozens of companies, web pages, a resume… as “pages.” We write a lot of content that’s consistently varied–and we’ve built a massive, proven team over the past five years who handle every single project with creative care. Our team is relied on by many brands who need a variety of content amounts. If you’re looking for a content backup crew, ours is the one–we’ll prove it! See more about us. In the long-term, having a great process and a solid crew to rely on helps nail down a consistent, predictable content schedule upon which readers can rely. 2. Conduct relevant keyword research for your brand Keyword research is not a tool often associated with brand consistency, but it’s a critical piece of the puzzle. By conducting quality keyword research, brands can target (a lot of) long-tail keywords that are most relevant to their company and their message. This, in turn, helps the company create consistency by ensuring it’s always on the cutting edge of the industry and that the keywords posts and other content focus on are relevant and interesting to readers. And, the ranking results are huge when you create lots of consistent long-form keyword focused content (we’re living proof). For best results, use a powerful keyword research tool like KWFinder or BuzzSumo. 3. Build unique, custom graphics for your content Custom graphics are essential for any brand that’s serious about creating a consistent content strategy. In addition to doing simple things like perpetuating your company’s branding, design, and color scheme, custom graphics also help … Read more

Your 12-Step Guide to A Small Business Content Strategy

January 1, 2021February 11, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Imagine this: you’re an NFL player headed into the biggest game of the season. Everything is riding on you and your coach’s expectations are high. Your teammates are depending upon you. You’re out on the field now and they all look to you for direction and, guess what? You don’t have any because you never took the time to develop a pre-game strategy. That would never happen, right? Right. In sports, strategy is everything and it would be crazy to enter a game without knowing how you wanted to play it. Believe it or not, the same goes for content. When it comes to your small business, developing a content strategy is an important step toward success. From drawing customers to helping you establish yourself as an authority, content strategy is the foundation upon which everything else is built. You can build yourself upon content, as a business–with a good strategy. A Guide to Small Business Content Strategy: 12 Essential Tips Here’s what you need to know about small business content marketing and how you can make yours better. How Do You Define Content? First things first – what is content? To put it simply, content is the material you produce to further your company’s goals. In many cases, it acts as the vessel for content marketing, a practice within which companies use content to create and distribute valuable information to their fans, customers, and readers, thus driving profitable customer interaction and helping establish themselves as authorities in the field. According to a recent Content Marketing Institute report, 86% of small businesses are currently using content marketing and 40% say that the approach is effective for their companies. 5 Key Types of Must-Have Content: Strategy for the Small Business When you’re building your small business, one of the most important things you can do is take some time to invest in content. While it may seem more important to jump right into selling, focusing on building content first will produce higher-quality results in the long run. Here’s are the five main types of content you should build when you start your business: 1. A blog Blogs are huge right now and they’re not fixing to slow down any time soon. Companies that build and maintain a blog earn more leads, gain visibility, establish themselves as authorities in their industry, and expand their customer base at light-speed. In fact, marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI than those who don’t. This is due in large part to the fact that blogs are a great way to help your company get found online. According to HubSpot, customers will undertake 85% of their company relationships without ever talking to a human by 2020. This means that it’s hugely beneficial and important for companies to start blogging as soon as they start functioning. 2. A web page Think of a web page as your home base: it helps people learn more about your company, gives you a great place to showcase new products, goods, and services, allows customers to locate your contact information, reviews, and purchasing options, and provides a platform that all of your other content can meet on. There are many different options for building a small business web page, and in most cases, it can be done for only a few bucks in only a few minutes. Most platforms today allow for drag-and-drop website building, which makes designing a beautiful page easy, even if you’re not a pro. 3. Great keywords If you’re doing anything online, you’ll need to learn about search engine optimization (SEO). Specifically, you’ll need to learn about keyword research and how it can benefit your company. In order to rank well in Google’s indexes and make yourself more visible online, you’ll need to research and target relevant keywords. This helps you appear prominently for relevant search queries and ensures that customers looking for a company like yours can find you easily. 4. Social media While Google still rules the roost, it’s important to remember that social media platforms are search engines, too. If a customer is attracted to your brand or products, it’s likely that person will search for you using social media. If they can’t find you, it’s likely you’ll miss out on business. If customers can find you, though, they’re more likely to engage with your company. For this reason, it’s important to focus on building up a social media presence from the get-go. This means selecting 1-2 social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram, for example) and building your presence there. This allows you to expand your reach with your customers and make more connections. 5. A buyer persona Before any of the above tips can work out well for you, you’ll need to establish your buyer persona. A buyer persona defines who you’re trying to sell a product to and why. It looks at your target demographic and answers questions like: who are these people? How old are they? Where do they live? How much money do they make each year? What are they worried about? Knowing the answers to these questions is a fantastic way to set yourself up for success and to target your content marketing more effectively from the beginning. Building Your Content Strategy: 7 Actionable Tips Now that you’ve got some types of content to work with, it’s time to start building out your content strategy into a functional machine that helps you drive sales. Here are seven key steps. 1. Segment your audience You used buyer personas to identify your audience, but now it’s time to segment them into individual groups. If you’re like most companies, you have several sets of populations you’re trying to target. In fact, Content Marketing Institute reports that the average small business targets four separate segments of customers. Segmenting your customer base will allow you to target each segment more efficiently and to tailor your content accordingly. 2. Decide on your topics What do you want your … Read more