Your content – Web site, blogs, social media posts, videos, white papers, case studies, customer testimonials – is your most important marketing asset. By keeping it updated and using best practices for “in-bound” marketing, you can use your content to tell, and sell, your story.
Here’s a spring refresher course:
- Make a plan. Ask the questions: How much time will it take? Who’s responsible? Do we need to get outside help? What marketing goals does it support?
- Mark your calendar. An editorial calendar will help you stay focused and keep from repeating yourself. Create a content timeline. Do it at least quarterly.
- Get smart. Deliver content that is relevant and makes your reader more intelligent.
- Create and curate. Keep up with what’s trending in your industry and develop content around it. Or quote and link to other sources.
- Tell a story. Make an emotional and personal connection with your reader. A story can help you engage and inspire action.
- Keep it short and sweet. Write in an approachable way and break up your content with subheads, graphics, photos, etc.
- Get to the point. Keep the most important things at the top. Readers will drop off, so get your message across as quickly as possible.
- Mix it up. Employ a variety of content types to engage different audiences. Podcasts, videos, social media to link back to your blog, your Web site, and your YouTube channel.
- Know your SEO. For the best results, use SEO tools to organize, analyze, and act on your SEO keywords. If the search engines can’t find you, what’s the point?
- (Don’t) forget about it! No matter what type of content it is, update it periodically to keep it fresh.