Profitable content marketing
Let’s be honest: Consistent content creation can be a huge pain – We know. The more you blog, the more likely you are to build a foundation of traffic and leads over time.
The real question burning up most marketers is this: How do you know if your content is truly paying dividends? How can you be sure that you’re getting the most bang for your buck given the sheer amount of time and resources it takes to craft a new piece?
If you’re a marketer that’s putting their blood, sweat, and tears into your content yet see little to no ROI, you’re certainly not alone. Only 41% of marketers actually see a positive ROI for their content marketing efforts.
There are many reasons why your content might flop, but there’s one particular problem that plagues most marketers I work with. Hint: it’s probably not because you’re a lousy writer.
Ultimately, it comes down to how you spend your time.
Most marketers are horribly inefficient when it comes to the time they spend on any given piece of content.
After all, you can be doing everything right in terms of on-page optimization and still see little to no engagement from readers and the SERPs alike.
In an era where more than 2 million blog posts are published per day, promotion is the crucial piece to the marketing puzzle that’s so important but also so easy to screw up.
If you aren’t taking the time to squeeze the most out of your content in terms of promotion, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
If you want to see actual results from your content, from more shares and comments to “likes” and leads, perhaps it’s time to rethink how you spend your time creating content.
Stop Thinking of Content in a Vacuum
First and foremost, ask yourself: What am I trying to accomplish with my content?
Although the goals for any given brand will be different in terms of creation, the goal of promoting your content is straightforward.
Your ultimate goal should be to get every piece of content in front of as many readers and potential leads as possible without sacrificing time.
You’re probably already familiar with the 80/20 rule- which notes that 80% of our results spur from 20% of our efforts.
You should apply the 80/20 principle to your content strategy, but don’t get it twisted.
If you’re spending 80% of your time creating content and only 20% of your time promoting it, your pieces will never receive the exposure they deserve.
In other words, fewer comments, fewer leads, and a negative ROI.
On the flip side, if you spend the bulk of your time promoting your content through the right channels, you’ll inevitably get your pieces in front of more eyeballs, grow your readership, and save yourself time when creating new articles.
Attack the Promotional Channels That Make Sense
Although social media gets a bad reputation for being a time-sink, the fact remains that 66% of marketers net positive lead generation benefits via social according to Hubspot.
Remember: Efficiency is the name of the game. You should only pick and choose platforms that bring you closer to your audience.
The more channels you try to dominate, the less time you can spend on effective promotion.
Any and all businesses should be pushing their content onto Facebook, that’s a given. Since most people spend nearly an hour a day on Facebook alone, it’s likewise the platform where most of your audience is digesting content.
Thankfully, posting to Facebook isn’t rocket science. It’s easily the most straightforward social channel to leverage for content promotion. All you need to do is tick the following boxes:
- Choose a relevant feature image that grabs the eyes of your audience (as posts featuring photos get as much as 120% more engagement)
- Double-check to make sure your post preview shows up properly
- Couple your posts with some sort of unique caption comment to further encourage readers to click.
By noting and responding to the comments on your posts, You will know exactly what’s on the minds of your audience and ensure that your topics are meeting their needs. Positive feedback from your readers is perhaps the best indicator that you’re writing is on target.
Twitter, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast.
The nature of Twitter is both a blessing and a curse for marketers. Although hashtags can be an awesome opportunity to get your content in front of new readers, it’s equally easy to get lost in the noise.
Given that you’re fighting against approximately 350,000 tweets per minute, you’re not truly taking advantage of Twitter if you’re only posting your fresh content once or twice. Chances are, 99% of your followers will miss it entirely.
Don’t be afraid to post your pieces to Twitter again and again.
Due to the fast-paced nature of the platform, social media scheduling tools such as Buffer are must-haves. Over time, you can recycle your content and experiment with different imagery and hashtags to understand which types of posts are clicking with your audience.
Do they want listicles? How-to’s? The only way to find out is to experiment.
By queuing up your posts in advance, you essentially put Twitter on autopilot and focus on other aspects of your marketing.
Repurposing Your Content
Much like social media promotion, repurposing your content just plain works when you choose the right channels.
Although repurposing requires a bit more legwork than simply publishing your work to social sites, presenting your content in multiple formats is absolutely crucial to expanding your reach and scoring new leads.
This is especially true in an era where text-based content simply isn’t enough anymore.
- Tweets and Facebook posts including imagery receive twice as much as engagement than those without
- Info-graphics are liked and shared three times more than other social media content
- Three-quarters of marketers note that investing in video marketing has a direct impact on their business.
But what about repurposing your content into video?
YouTube is exploding right now with its massive base of over 1 billion users. Meanwhile, 92% of mobile users share videos with each other. In short, there’s viral potential in video marketing.
Also relevant for bloggers: We live in a world, for better or worse, where our audience would more likely watch a video than dig through a blog post, especially when covering a complex or boring topic.
Turning your blog posts into videos not only gives your content a new channel of exposure but also allows you to tap into a potential SEO gold mine as you double-dip your keywords.
Shooting video is probably easier than you think. If you have a blog post, you already essentially have a script in your hand.
Meanwhile, the new wave of informal, “talk to the camera” style of vlogs are all the rage right now.
If you have a smartphone and a camera, you have everything you need to tap into the power of video marketing.
Conclusion
Given the amount of time it takes to produce on-site content, a surefire way to ensure a positive ROI is through republishing and repurposing each and every piece you put out there.
If this seems daunting at first, don’t worry. The more time you spend promoting, the more you streamline your process. Promotion quickly becomes second nature.
Smart promotion creates a snowball effect as you quickly figure out which pieces of content perform the best and how you can use that information to influence your strategy moving forward.
Your content isn’t finished when you hit “publish.”
If you aren’t taking the steps to ensure that your pieces are being discovered and rediscovered time and time again, it’s time to rethink your approach.