Even in 2018, content is still king (or queen). I know I often struggle with taking a big pie-in-the-sky strategy concept like content marketing and really putting it to work in my content planning and creation. Maybe you struggle with that, too. But don’t worry — I’ve done the brainstorming for you! Below I’ve come up with some concrete examples and ideas to get your creative juices flowing when it comes to content marketing.
Do you work for a nonprofit or company that releases goals or priorities every year? Maybe you’re at a nonprofit that sets out legislative priorities to advocate for in a given year. Or perhaps in a public relations effort, your company releases strategic pillars to increase its sustainability or release a new product.
In each of these scenarios you can use a technique I call “packing and cracking.” All of the legislative priorities, sustainability pillars, or new products can be “packed” into one press release or larger story to be rolled out all at once. This may be a pretty standard practice for you already.
As a next step, try “cracking” each thing apart into different pieces of content. Each legislative priority for your nonprofit could be a blog post to give it a deeper dive and show the real impact you’re having in the target audience. Every time your company unveils a new plan to meet one of its sustainability goals, do an additional press release. Don’t forget about video. According to Cisco, video traffic made up 73 percent of all internet traffic in 2016 and is expected to increase to 82 percent by 2021. For your small business client, you could create social media videos showing off each product individually. Just be sure these blog posts and social media videos each link to more information, a donation/contact landing page, or a product page to be more effective. Content marketing is all about keeping everything connected to your overall goals.
Lastly, you can get even more creative and introduce other marketing techniques into the mix. Maybe your nonprofit executive director wants to get in on the blog posts to position your organization as a thought leader in the field. Maybe your social media videos can feature customer testimonials. And don’t forget at the end of the year, the results of you and your organization’s efforts are fodder for ever more content!
Of course, these examples are just that, examples. This “packing and cracking” idea can take many permutations so there are endless possibilities. Just ask yourself as your put together your strategy: How else can I approach this content? How else would it be useful? Is there a way to repackage (or unpackage!) it? Hopefully this has gotten your creative juices flowing when it comes to creating or revamping your content marketing strategy.
