The BS-Free Guide for Creating Standout Content

A long-format slideshare that pr

ovides direct, to-the-point information about educating, engaging, inspiring users through content.

Published in: Marketing

The BS-Free Guide for Creating Standout Content from Onboardly

Transcript

• 1. The BS-Free
 Guide for Creating Standout Content presents
• 2. A few years ago, it was impossible to visit a marketing blog without coming across a piece singing the praises of a trendy new strategy: “content marketing.” Many thought it as a fad, but numbers have proven that content marketing is here to stay -- and it’s transforming the way we do business.
• 3. Don’t be fooled. Just because “everyone is doing it” does not mean its easy!
• 4. Creating mediocre content is simple. But if you want to consistently create standout content, the kind that converts and inspires, and the kind that makes a dramatic impact on your business’ bottom line, you need to invest in a solid content creation process. Let’s dive in.
• 5. What Does “Content Marketing” Really Mean?
• 6. “Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” –Content Marketing Institute “
• 7. Profitable Customer Action The term ‘profitable customer action’ that CMI uses can refer to a wide variety of business goals, including: Acquiring new customers, Improving SEO, Generating leads and referrals, Selling specific products, Building your list, & Increasing brand visibility and awareness. Establishing thought leadership,
• 8. Once you have business objectives (with measurable outcomes) in place for your content marketing efforts, you begin the process of creating, publishing, and promoting content, in nearly endless forms: • white papers • Slideshare decks • ebooks and guides • webinars • videos • social media graphics • infographics • podcasts • email newsletters • blog posts (including guest posts) Next: Which platforms are best to reach your objectives?
• 9. Stay laser focus on the customer! What do they want to see? How can you deliver content that inspires your customers to act? Before we get into what makes for truly standout content, let’s look at some common mistakes -- and how to course-correct.
• 10. 5 Common Content Blunders (the Not-To-Do List) There are a number of reasons that well-intentioned content strategies fail. Once you know them, avoid them!
• 11. There is no clear ‘why’ Your WHY has to go beyond business objectives and needs to speak to something deeper, like building community, inspiring people, or being of service. These intentions will be the framework for all the decisions you make as you develop and execute on your strategy. 1
• 12. The ‘why’ and the goals are not communicated or understood Every single person who will be touching your content, from web developers to your CMO, has a clear grasp of the ‘why’ the specific corporate goals driving your content marketing efforts. This can help prevent your strategy from being diluted, or being taken in an unplanned (often irrelevant) direction. 2
• 13. A lack of preparation Before you start brainstorming topics and assigning pieces to your team, ensure that all the technical and human resources are in place to get the job done right, workflow has been established, and plans are in place for scaling your processes when demand for your content increases. 3
• 14. A failure to understand the target audience We’ll say it again: if the customer isn’t the focus of your marketing, you won’t get the results you want. Don’t make bold assumptions about who your target audience is -- research and take the time to craft customer personas that will inform your content creation process. 4
• 15. Being boring In a crowded online world where users are spoilt for choice and almost everything’s already been said or done, you have to push past vanilla and get bold with your ideas if you want to stand out. 5
• 16. Let’s Review the Content Blunders Now, let’s talk about the pillars of standout content! 1. There is no clear why 2. The “why” and the goals are not communicated 3. A lack of preparation 4. A failure to understand the target audience 5. Being boring
• 17. 3 Pillars of Standout Content Educate, Engage, Inspire
• 18. Your content should either teach something new or provide a new perspective. Offer insider knowledge! This establishes you as a credible source of valuable information. Always go back to your audience. What do they want to learn? Educate “Educating prospects about the products you sell and underscoring your own expertise actually increases your credibility and fosters trust. Ultimately, it allows you to unapologetically charge what you charge. You show that you know what you’re talking about. Those who dig your stuff become more educated and sales-ready leads.” – Anne Handley, Content Expert
• 19. Keep people coming back. Whether it’s readers leaving a comment on your blog post, subscribing to your list, or starting a conversation around your content via their personal social networks, your content needs to encourage engagement. Reward your audience by putting them in the spotlight. Engage “Put their responses to your content front and centre, by either grabbing them from your social properties to showcase them using tools like Storify or by writing a post about a hot topic that asks them to submit their own relevant content for you to publish.” –Megan Brown, Social Media Strategist
• 20. Inspire readers to the action necessary to reach your strategic goals. Weave compelling calls to action (CTA) into your content. What ‘next step’ would you like the reader to take? Subscribe to your list? download that whitepaper? Register for your new eCourse? Keep this goal in mind the entire time and focus your content around that central purpose, making the CTA at the end all the more compelling. Inspire With three firm pillars in mind, you’re ready to embark upon the laborious, but rewarding process that is content creation.
• 21. 5 Steps to Standout Content
• 22. Some of the most important work in content marketing happens long before any actual writing takes place. There are 5 important components of setting the foundation for a solid content strategy. Flip on. Laying the Groundwork1 “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”–Ben Franklin
• 23. Start big, end small. Identify the larger outcomes you hope to achieve. Example, “We want to establish ourselves as a thought leader in our industry.” Next, ask yourself the question “how will I know when I have achieved this goal?” Answering this question will help you to identify key markers of success. Transform these milestones you’d like to reach into SMART goals that will drive your campaigns. Goal Setting
• 24. Involve people from different areas of your business in goal setting. This will help you identify business objectives that your content efforts can support. It also promotes collective buy-in, which is key to long-term success. Once you have identified your goals, share them. A word to the wise:
• 25. Now that you know what you want, the next step is to identify what customers want, and what they aren’t already getting elsewhere. There are three facets of research for content creation: 1. Audience research 2. Competitive research 3. Keyword research. Let’s explore. Research2
• 26. Audience Research Do you already have an audience? Engage them with a survey or personal ask for a brief 10-minute phone conversation. As this great post from Marketing Land suggests, ask open-ended questions and non-leading questions, like: • How do you like to receive content? • Where do you like to hang out online? • What inspires your trust? • What makes you choose to share (or not share) a piece of content? • If you could change anything about our website, what would it be?
• 27. If you don’t have an audience, you can still figure out what your future customers want! 1. Using a tool like Hootsuite, listen to what others are already saying about you or your industry on social channels. 2. Comb through your old pieces of content and note which ones are most frequently being shared. Take note of common characteristics. 3. Note who is sharing the content and what other types of content those people are sharing. 4. Look at what similar brands are doing. Using this information, create target audience personas (fictitious profiles) for whom you will create individual pieces of content.
• 28. Competitive Research There are 4 key things that you can learn by doing some basic competitor research: 1. What strategies and tactics are popular in your industry, 2. What is already being said, 3. Which mistakes you should avoid, and 4. Where the gaps are in your industry. For a run down of the tools you can use to complete this analysis, check out this post on the Onboardly blog.
• 29. Keyword Research Next, head on over to the Google Keyword Planner and start identifying the keywords that you should be planning your content around, from titles to tags. Just getting started? Here’s a handy guide to this fantastic tool. With research complete, it’s time to move on to the third component in setting the ground work for creating standout content.
• 30. Choose your channels (ex: blogs, podcast, vlog etc.) based on how your audience likes to consume content. The channels you choose should be directly related to the business objectives that your content strategy is tied to. For example, if you’re selling seats to a workshop, a webinar is a great tool, but if you’re trying to increase sales for your eCommerce store, a visual platform like YouTube or Pinterest might be the way to go. Remember: don’t bite off more than you can chew. It’s better to do an amazing job on two channels than a mediocre job on five. Selecting Channels & Tools3
• 31. Gathering Resources You need to get a firm handle on your resources. This means making sure that the backend of your website is ready to handle increased traffic, ensuring that your team (both staff and freelance) is in place and everyone knows what their role is, and lining up all the additional tools you need, like social media dashboards and analytics platforms.
• 32. At Onboardly, we use a very specific content process for ourselves and for our clients that has been honed and perfected through years of experience. This simple yet specific 7-step process is designed to minimize miscommunication and errors and maximize speed and efficiency. Active Creation4
• 33. Step 1: Develop the content brief This one-page document, usually in a shareable Google Doc, includes: The mission of the piece A few bullets on the points to be covered Notes on the format of the post (length, headings, etc.) and Any other requests of the writer.
• 34. Work with talented freelance content creators to complement your existing team. Taking an extra few moments to determine which writer or designer is best suited to each job can help prevent time being wasted in back-and-forth edits on the back end. Step 2: Choose the right writer or designer
• 35. Often we will ask for an outline of the piece (even if our own team is writing it) before it gets drafted, in order to catch any misunderstandings or errors. Another time saving measure in the long run! Step 3: Research and outlining
• 36. Once the outline has been approved, we typically allot anywhere from 3-7 business days for drafting. Step 4: Drafting
• 37. Our writers -- both internal and freelance -- know who to submit their pieces to (our content editor), and know to wait to receive the final word that the first round of editing is complete before jumping back in to make changes. Using Google Docs makes an otherwise complex editing process virtually seamless. Step 5: Review and revision
• 38. Once the final edits have been made by the writer, they alert the content editor, who will give final approval. Step 6: Approval
• 39. The final step is an important one, as it can help increase the reach and visibility of your piece. When a post is uploaded to WordPress, our team carefully selects the right URL, chooses the most effective tags, and writes a meta description using Yoast. Step 7: Uploading
• 40. Follow the rule of 3: Promote every piece of content in at least 3 places. This could include syndicating or reposting content to sites like PR Daily or Medium, turning it into a Slideshare deck, or sharing it on an industry message board. Lastly, after you send your educational, engaging, and inspiring content out into the world: observe and learn. The process of creating standout content is ever-evolving. Post-Publication5
• 41. After all that, a reminder: break the rules
• 42. Here’s the thing: the internet is still a bit of a wild west, and it truly belongs to those who innovate and aren’t afraid to take risks. When you feel yourself settling into a content marketing groove, that is the exact moment that you should push yourself to do something just beyond your comfort zone. After all, the worst content sin of them all is to be boring.
• 43. www.onboardly.com Now go forth, and create great content! Want more? Check out the 50 Best One-Sentence Content Marketing Tips from the pros.