Leveraging content is a key piece of the equation when it comes to building brand awareness and engagement. You’re likely investing marketing time, effort, and dollars creating content: but how are you using it? For content to truly make an impact, people need to see it!
But first, what is content?
In marketing, content is any form of informational or brand materials that provide value for your prospective customers and clients. By offering valuable content, such as blog posts, videos, social media posts, podcasts, eBooks and more, you engage your audience in your brand and create the perception that you a knowledgable expert.
While the goal of content is to give something of value to your audience (and not to bonk them over the head with a sales pitch), drawing them in through carefully crafted content ultimately generates opportunities for them to become—or remain—a customer or client. Effectively marketing this content is essential to elevating your brand.
The good news is this: leveraging content may be simpler than you think. By applying a single piece of content to a variety of mediums as a part of your overall marketing strategy, you can make the most use out of everything you write and share, driving clients and prospects towards even deeper brand engagement.
Social Media Updates
Sharing your brand’s blog posts to social media is one of the primary ways to distribute your content. In doing so, your customer base can move beyond simply seeing your content, and can directly engage with it through likes, comments, and shares. This type of engagement has the potential to widen the net and increase your visibility and thought leadership presence by initiating a conversation around your brand’s topics of expertise. It can also drive more traffic to your website (when readers click through to a blog post or landing page), where you can work to keep readers engaged and drive them toward becoming a customer.
In considering how to approach your social media presence, it is important to take a look at which platforms make the most sense for your business. Here are some questions to get you started:
- Who is your target audience?
- Which platforms do they frequent?
- What times of day do they check these social media platforms?
- Which types of content are you posting?
- What is your strategic goal with sharing the content?
Creating an editorial calendar is a great first step to mapping out your social media strategy, weaving in your brand’s articles and other primary pieces of content along the way. Over time, you can track and analyze times of day that garner the most post engagement so you can strategically schedule your content moving forward.
Email Campaigns
Use your database to your advantage! Promoting your content in an email campaign is another simple—yet effective—way to ensure that your content reaches the hands (or screens) of your clients and prospects. With this method, you will reach your existing audience: people who have already signed up to receive updates on your brand. Because these individuals already have a vested interest in your company, there is a high likelihood that they will be interested in checking out the additional insights that you have to offer.
There are two ways you can go about this. First, you can simply link to your piece of content, including it within a pre-existing, larger-scale email campaign. If you want to emphasize your content more prominently, another option is to craft an email campaign specifically around the piece of content you are aiming to promote. Ask a few engaging questions that your audience may have about the topic of your article, and highlight a few key points that will pique the interest of your readers and direct them to your website, where they can learn more.
Email Signature
Another way to weave your blog content into your overall marketing strategy is to simply add a link to the article in your email signature as a call-to-action. Studies have shown that professionals send out an average of 40 emails per day, so why not take advantage of this opportunity to build content promotion into your virtual outreach and relationship building? For maximum effectiveness, ensure the blog link is in line with the overall style of your email signature, and that your links are trackable.
Client/Prospect Outreach
Finally, don’t be afraid to talk about your content with your clients and prospects openly and directly! Developing a library of brand content is about so much more than simply reposting and linking. Take it one step further and use your content as a tool to directly help your clients and prospects understand not only your brand but the depth of insights and resources you have to offer.
Is a prospect interested in your services? Sharing your content can be a great way to give them a tangible sneak peek of what your brand has to offer in terms of knowledge and resources. Is a current client asking for insight on a specific subject matter? Share your content with them so that they can increase their knowledge, and you can dive even deeper when you converse and strategize with them one-on-one! Having relevant content available for your current clients not only drives traffic to your website but can also save you time and energy that can be used to help your clients in even more meaningful ways.
