Whether you’re relying on professional content writers or have to create your inbound marketing content on your own, a systematic approach helps keep things relevant and interesting. Let’s take a look at six useful steps that can help you create great content.
1. Research: You knew this would be number one, didn’t you? It always boils down to starting with good research. Use online tools like Google Alerts, Reddit and so on to look for new and hot content on topics related to your brand or campaign. Find out what formats are doing well – do people in your target audience prefer blog posts, videos, presentations or something else? What topics are emerging, what topics are perennial favourites? Conversely, what important topics are failing to be highlighted in the existing content mix? Finding out all these factors can help you determine a lot of factors that will help ensure successful content creation
2. Ideas: The ideation phase should precede actual content creation. Try and find new and unique angles on the same topics. Experiment with unique ways of presenting content: can you mix media, using audio, video, text and images? Can you tell your story with infographics or a comic strip? How about an animation? Can you use a podcast format, can you use a new content sharing method to good effect, creating a Pinterest pinboard around your topic or starting a specialized Tumblr blog?
3. Placement: Where are you going to place your content? What’s the most heavily trafficked site amongst your target audience, and how can you place your content there? To achieve the best placement in search engine, you might want to start your outreach activity in advance, connecting with sites that you would like to place your content on or building a presence on a platform you want to use.
4. Creation: Don’t rush this. Take the time plan out an effective, attractive flow of information. Remember, you’re not writing as a reporter or an academic; find ways to draw your audience in, telegraph why this content is of interest to them and keep them reading or watching or listening. Explain things, give out as much helpful information as you can. Be entertaining, to the extent relevant. Be sure to include outbound links.
5. Publishing: If you’re getting published on an external site, make sure you know when and can highlight the same to your audience. If you are using your own platform, make sure you establish and follow an editorial calendar. Once you’ve published, stick around and take part in any discussion or commentary that ensues.
6. Promotion: The story doesn’t end with publication. Continue to promote your content, using as many channels as possible. Build solid linkage back to your content and reach out to key influencers for their opinions and responses.
Creating great content and making sure it gets read – and that it achieves your business goals – is a part of our daily endeavour at i-Vista. If you’re interested in finding out how great content fits into your marketing exercise, drop us a line!
