5 Ways to Make More Time for Content Marketing
Prioritize content creation & development with these easy tips
Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires a long-term, strategic approach to build strong content assets like blogs, whitepapers and webinars and get them in front of your audiences.
Content marketing initiatives often fall on the back burner to accommodate more urgent obligations like sales or operations. However, you can’t expect to grow without delivering useful information that addresses customers’ needs and concerns, raises awareness of your products and services and differentiates you from competitors. Here's how to maximize your content marketing effort.
5 CONTENT MARKETING TIPS FOR 2023
Great content that aligns with your strategy isn't built or distributed easily. If you’re questioning the sustainability of your content marketing program, use these tips to help you manage your to-do list.
Tip #1: Work smarter, not harder
Does your content marketing ecosystem function like a well-oiled machine or could it use a tune-up? Many brands produce content without a strategy or editorial plan. Too often, this leads to wasted time and effort, and likely won’t garner positive results.
At Muse, we believe quality is better than quantity. Set yourself up for success with these activities:
- Complete a Content Audit: Determine what’s worked in the past versus what’s not worth touching again. During this process, review key metrics like page/video views, click-through rates, downloads, etc. and see what rises to the top. You can also add some subjective metrics to the mix like headline, image and copy quality.
- Create With Impact in Mind: Now that you know what content and topics work well, act on it. It’s important to create a few high-impact pieces (videos, trend reports, whitepapers, etc.) that give you a substantial bump in web traffic.
- Practice Content Atomization: Once you've created your content, get the most mileage out of them. A single webinar can be turned into a blog, newsletter, multiple social media posts, video clips – the list goes on.
Not only are these practices helpful for the marketing team, but they help communicate to C-Suite or board members the rationale behind decisions made.
Does your content marketing ecosystem function like a well-oiled machine or could it use a tune-up? Many brands produce content without a strategy or editorial plan. Too often, this leads to wasted time and effort, and likely won’t garner positive results.
At Muse, we believe quality is better than quantity. Set yourself up for success with these activities:
- Complete a Content Audit: Determine what’s worked in the past versus what’s not worth touching again. During this process, review key metrics like page/video views, click-through rates, downloads, etc. and see what rises to the top. You can also add some subjective metrics to the mix like headline, image and copy quality.
- Create With Impact in Mind: Now that you know what content and topics work well, act on it. It’s important to create a few high-impact pieces (videos, trend reports, whitepapers, etc.) that give you a substantial bump in web traffic.
- Practice Content Atomization: Once you've created your content, get the most mileage out of them. A single webinar can be turned into a blog, newsletter, multiple social media posts, video clips – the list goes on.
Not only are these practices helpful for the marketing team, but they help communicate to C-Suite or board members the rationale behind decisions made.
Tip #2: Plan your content calendar in advance
Ensure your content is planned in an organized way with an editorial calendar. This tool creates a more seamless process to keep you organized and goal-centered. Leverage an editorial calendar to delegate weekly or monthly responsibilities across your team.
We recommend mapping out monthly themes twice a year and creating content around that. This helps you avoid content chaos and establishes your thought leadership in specific areas. It’s impossible to be an expert on everything!
We take this approach for functional medicine client, Infinity Wellness Center. Twice a year, we determine monthly themes and then brainstorm topics for content. Here's a peek into what that looks like:
- Monthly theme: Parasites
- Content topics
- Most common parasite infection symptoms
- Safe home remedies to soothe symptoms
- Why parasites are more active at certain times of the day and month
- Functional medicine tactics to eliminate parasites
- Benefits of a functional medicine parasite cleanse
These topics are used to create blogs, newsletters and educational social media posts. With 80% of the content planned for the month in advance, the Infinity team has time to post in-the-moment content about their practice.
Your editorial calendar document - whether it lives in Google Sheets or a tool like Airtable - should include your goals, quarterly themes, topic breakdowns, abstracts, deadlines, subject matter experts and more. Reference our latest editorial calendar guide for more support.
TIP#3: REPURPOSE OLD CONTENT
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel and create brand new content every time. Old, yet high-performing content can easily become relevant again. You can reference new studies or statistics, tie in current events or offer an alternative perspective. Just don’t forget to update the publish date!
We practice what we preach: this was a well-performing blog in 2021 that's been updated to reflect changing best practices!
TIP #4: OUTSOURCE TO THE EXPERTS
If time and budget allow, an experienced consultant or writer can help you build a robust content library quickly. Especially if your team is weighed down by other priorities, a writer can take these items off of their plate.
They can interview team members or customers to capture the topic’s most important takeaways. The only thing for you to do is review the final pieces and populate content on the proper platforms.
TIP #5: LEVERAGE PARTNERSHIPS
Partnerships allow you to extend your reach further than you can alone. It also gives you the chance to take advantage of their expertise, knowledge and network.
Perhaps you can team up for a social media Q&A or a webinar, like this one we participated in with a digital marketing agency partner, Web Talent Management. Or, you can exchange guest blogs for each other’s websites. For example, we’ve invited some of our clients and colleagues to participate in timely and relevant guest blogs, such as this one on How Culture Sets Your Brand Apart featuring branding and culture expert, Caroline Barni, CMO of Tech Elevator.
Regardless of what type of partnerships you form, make sure the benefits for each party are clear and achievable.
SET YOUR MIND AT EASE
Content marketing gives you a platform to engage your audience, become a continuous part of their lives and, ultimately, drive sales momentum for your business. While content strategy and development tasks can seem overwhelming at first, these recommendations offer simple ways to establish a successful and sustainable program.
Are you ready to kickstart your content marketing efforts? Our team can lay the groundwork with a solid strategy and editorial plan. Contact us to help you get the ball rolling.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Megan Factor is a Content Manager at Muse and a passionate creator, both professionally and personally. She developed her content marketing skills working in a wide range of industries and pulls inspiration from her diverse experiences. Her keen eye for design, penchant for writing, and love of good storytelling work together to create meaningful content that provides value to clients.
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