Content for the Time Poor
We have all probably heard content is king online, yet many businesses still struggle to create content that produces results. Part of the problem is probably the way we often define content. When most of us think content we think text.
While text is very important there are many other forms of content we really need to consider as a cornerstone to our marketing. When you think content, you should include video, podcast, photography, diagrams and graphics. For me, content is anything a business produces to communicate a message or story.
Re-work, Re-create, re-purpose, re-imagine
Most businesses produce potential marketing content without even knowing it. Think about the emails and proposals written, the phone calls made, the Powerpoint presentations made, it’s all content. The problem is it is often one-to-one. That is, it is created once to be presented to just one recipient. What if you could somehow capture this content and repurpose it as marketing content. You could transform your content so it becomes one to many. Sure it might need a little tweaking to suit your market and it may need to be a little more generic but the bulk of the hard work is already done.
For example, if you are doing a presentation to a small group of people you could:
- Record the presentation and post it as a audio download on your website. If you have a podcast you could also include it there.
- Transcribe the presentation and adjust it into blog posts, articles or an ebook
- Take the powerpoint you created for the presentation and convert it to video with the voiceover and publish it on all the free video sites such as YouTube.
- Post your video on your website along with the ebook version, powerpoint download and audio version.
- Create a brochure with the powerpoint and text material
It’s basically the same content just in a variety of formats so a larger number of people will consume it.
What to consider when re-imagining your content
It’s often helpful to think more like a publisher than a sales person when it comes to producing content like this. Sure, sales letters and the like have their place but that isn’t the kind of content I am suggesting for the time poor. Content for the time poor can actually be produced by an administrative assistant or even a virtual assistant who can do a lot of the hard work for you.
You need to take your raw content and adapt it so it is engaging and interesting for your target market. Publishers consider the seasonal timing, current events and news in order to engage their audience. Often marketers miss these opportunities. If you can create interaction with your content, for example provide comments sections on web content you will also benefit from the user generated content. Google loves this fresh, interactive content.
Tell the story and build upon it. Co-creating the story with people involved along the way is a great way to add interest to your content. For example if you were to take a proposal and adjusted it into a case studies you could ask for feedback or testimonials from the customer to highlight and feature throughout your content, giving it more life.
The opportunities are endless!
