Content Marketing has always been important in the online marketing world, but unfortunately, so many people are still looking for the shortcuts and shiny solutions that they miss this most important aspect of marketing, namely, putting great content on your website or blog, and distributing it to all the right places, in all the right formats, so it gets you exposure, leads, and sales.
Without a content marketing strategy, neither your SEO or your social marketing efforts will be successful, as social signals are critical to SEO success, and good social content is critical to your company or brand.
The problem, of course, is that it seems like WORK. That nasty four letter word most marketers are allergic to. But here’s a strategy we use called Content Arbitrage, that will do the following things for you:
-Take the best ideas from your head to the marketplace with the least amount of work
-Create killer “link sucking” content that will raise your site in the search engines
-Give you a constant stream of social zingers you can blast the web with
-Impress your clients and entice them to trust you and buy from you
So, here’s how it works, step by step.
1. Think of the best current idea you have about your product or service that you know your prospects would be interested in, Google it to find great ideas and tips about it.
2. Do some light keyword research, to determine how people would search for this particular information.
3. Create a title and description for your content, that includes the key word.
4. Record, or write out, your best thinking on the subject. Breaking it into steps often helps, “5 tips” or “top 5 mistakes” articles are always interesting to people.
5. Distribute your content to as many different places as make sense for your niche. Once you have a great article or recording, you can easily create a video, PowerPoint presentation, article, podcast, and info graphics.
6. Create a new page or blog post, incorporating your writing, info graphic, video, etc.
7. Advertise your new page or post on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and any other social networks you participate in.
8. Rinse and repeat weekly.
This method will help you create your best content, get it distributed to places that have their own built in traffic sources, with links back to your site, and give you several great social postings for the next week or so.
The key to this strategy is time and consistency. While most other online marketers are still dabbling in “tip of the day” marketing, you can be implementing this solid strategy that, over time, can pay massive dividends.
