Structuring your content will help reduce your weekly stress and increase lead generation
If you’re experiencing a headache with your content creation, it’s time to focus on the content you’re putting out and the time frame in which you’re doing it.
To do this, build a new editorial calendar to put everything in perspective.
I am currently in the process of doing so myself. Every few months my current editorial schedule comes to an end. I typically have the ideas in my head of what needs to be created and when to do it, but putting it on paper – or an Excel document – makes it much easier to remember and keep up-to-date.
What’s on your content calendar?
Content calendars will vary depending on your focus. B2B calendars will likely differ from B2C calendars, in either the frequency or the content.
I currently am plotting my calendar to have four editorials a week, two promotional emails, a hybrid that usually promotes for a free product, and a week in review that culminates all of the content for the week.
I aim to base my personal editorials around the product or products that are my main focus for the specific time frame. For instance, a webinar will typically have a promotional period of four weeks, while a Mequoda Summit or in-person seminar will have months of lead-time.
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A key component to all of your content
Each editorial piece should have a “sponsored” product behind it. If the content is similar to that which will be found in a webinar, then that webinar should be the sponsoring product.
My email correspondence always has the information and an image of the product in the right nav, and has an interrupter ad in the middle of the content. This way, strong content can urge a reader to register right then. The interrupter ad should be focused in its call-to-action.
Since the editorial content is playing off the product’s life cycle, the sponsored product will remain as an integral part until a new product is introduced into the mix, or until the event that has been promoted for takes place.
Generating leads with your content
After producing content, you can take the process a step further by promoting for it externally.
Our recent Online PR Tips, Tricks and Traps webinar discussed how to create and execute online PR campaigns. After weeks of content has been created on a topic, that content should be put together and offered as a free product.
Create a landing page for that freemium and execute an online PR campaign around it. You will be reaching out to new audiences that have interest in the topic you’ve been covering, but may not yet know about your company. By promoting to press release distribution websites and search engines, you will be gaining visibility to these unknowing audiences.
After pulling these audiences in, they will become leads for future products, and recipients of not only your editorial content, but your promotional pieces as well.
For more on content marketing, join dozens of experienced content marketers at our Mequoda Summit Boston 2010.
