When it comes to creating a content marketing strategy, it can be easy to get carried away with exorbitant plans, but bigger doesn’t always mean better. Everyone wants that perfect program that includes high-quality videos, long-form blog posts, whitepapers and daily social media posts. However, it’s better to recognize your capacity to deliver that content rather than trying to do too much, particularly for smaller teams. If you find yourself struggling to keep up with your content marketing strategy, it’s likely because you haven’t created a realistic roadmap. Without a roadmap, it’s easy to get lost so follow these tips to create a successful content marketing plan by keeping things simple.
Determine your Bandwidth
How much time and energy you have available will dictate the type of content marketing plan that works for your brand. If you have a large team with hundreds of employees, chances are you can be as extravagant as you want with your strategy. If you have a smaller team with only a handful of helping hands, extensive plans probably aren’t for you. Build your strategy around the resources you have available for optimal content creation and distribution.
Getting members of your team in front of a camera to share their wealth of knowledge with your target audience is a great addition to any strategy, but it doesn’t have to be a massive production. A simple live stream with a mobile device or laptop camera can be just as effective in a fraction of the time. A detailed whitepaper will go a long way toward establishing your status as a thought leader in your industry, but then again, so will a well-written blog post. Something attainable that you can actually publish is always better than a plan you can’t fully execute.
Make it Worth Your Time
Your time is valuable so be smart about how much of it you spend on your content development. Just because you have the bandwidth to create a video that would make a Hollywood director proud doesn’t necessarily mean you should. While you may have the time to spend 50 hours working on that perfect whitepaper, meanwhile you could have created multiple blogs and a series of social media posts offering the same insight. The goal is to get as much bang for your buck as possible.
Spending days or weeks on content that is only seen by a handful of people could be a misuse of your time and money. If you aren’t sure that your work is going to get the reach and engagement that would warrant such effort, implement a less time-consuming plan that can still accomplish your goals. Simple, consistent social media and blog posts can be just as useful in creating brand awareness that will in turn generate more leads. Work smarter, not harder.
Reuse, Reuse, Reuse
Much of the content that you produce for any strategy will be evergreen, meaning it can be shared with your target audience over and over again. This is great news for the development of your content marketing plan, because the creation of one video, blog, podcast, etc. will provide content for multiple messages over time. Even something as simple as a post on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn can and should be reposted multiple times with slightly different language. There’s a lot of information being published at all times of the day. Publishing just once will significantly reduce the number of people you are able to reach.
For example, take a Facebook post that you published at 11 a.m. on a Monday, tweak the language and maybe add a new image. Then, repost at 3 p.m. on a Thursday to reach a whole new audience without spending hours of your time creating something altogether different. This process can be used with all forms of content. Videos can be trimmed into smaller clips to share across several days or weeks. Podcast interviews can be transcribed into Q&As or blog posts. People aren’t always going to see everything that you produce, so you should constantly be reusing and evolving your content to achieve your goals.
Be Consistent and Stick to Your Plan
Developing your content marketing strategy is a trial and error process until you accurately determine what works best for your team. In the beginning, you might be publishing too frequently, making it difficult to maintain your desired output, or you may not be producing as much as you could in the time you have. After you have discovered the happy medium of a content creation schedule, stick to it.
You’re playing the long game with a content marketing plan and nothing will cause it to fail more quickly than abandoning the program before you have time to build brand awareness. Content that is good, consistent and available is better than a one time post here and there. Remain steady and regular in your content production and you’ll be well on your way to reaping the rewards for your brand.