You don’t need an endless supply of ideas to create content that interests your customers. We’ve got a better way to do content smart.
Ever feel like you don’t create enough content to sustain your marketing strategy? Or you don’t have enough new ideas to keep the content flowing week to week, medium to medium?
You don’t need an endless supply of ideas to create content that interests your customers. We’ve got a better way to do content smart. But first, let’s discuss what smart content is, in terms of marketing.
What is “smart content” exactly?
Smart content is creating a primary piece of content to sell, followed by smaller pieces of content to support that primary piece.
People make the mistake of thinking they need hundreds of ideas and dozens of hours to create a steady stream of content. And by “content” they think words, such as blog posts or ebooks. But content is visuals, audio, and video also; it’s whichever your customers respond to best.
We know having consistent content is important, especially when marketing online because every company is shouting at customers to open their wallets. They see content as a means to closing a sale. And while it does do that, it also:
- Gives social proof and validity of a product
- Reveals the company behind the logo
- Shows if the company really gets their needs
- Connects to your customers with two-way communication.
Who’s it for?
Everyone.
Especially people feeling like they have limited ideas for their marketing strategy.
With this method, you can create multi-content for big projects. They work better when you’ve designed an ebook, online courses, or a series. The smaller content supports the money-making project.
How to content smarter
To start, create a piece of content. This could be a video series. Or an ebook. Maybe even an infographic.
This ‘primary piece’ is created with a purpose -- to bring awareness of a new project or service or connect with customers.
Once the primary piece is created, it’s time to make content to support it.
If you’ve written an ebook, design a blog series emphasizing key points from several chapters in the book. Publish these posts weekly or every day -- whichever will provide the most engagement with your customers.
Then create an infographic. Use it on social media channels (Pinterest loves them). Create a strong call-to-action, directing readers to your blog posts or the ebook.
And take quotes from the ebook and make little graphics for Twitter and Facebook. Cycle through the quotes, blog posts, and infographic.
The point is, you’ve created plenty of content from one key idea. These new mini content pieces can be published on social media, your blog, and additional sites like LinkedIn.
What’s the point?
The smaller pieces of content act as ‘teasers’ for the ebook (primary piece). They’re used over multiple channels to connect with customers and increase intrigue for the ebook.
Engagement is higher, people understand the benefits of the ebook from the teasers they’ve read and watched, and it’s now easier to reach out and market the ebook directly to these interested parties.
Because content marketing can feel overwhelming. To ‘keep up’ with competition, it feels like you need a pool of endless content ideas. This isn’t true. While it can help to have a continuous flow of content from new ideas, it really depends on your marketing goals.
Using smarter content can give you a month of content from one principle idea. This cuts down on brainstorming, idea trial and error, and creation block -- similar to writer’s block.
Image: GaudiLab/Shutterstock.com
