What are some of the biggest things that you think are holding you back from being successful in content marketing? If you’re like most, you’re immediately thinking about things like time, resources, creative ability, and so on.
Today, I want to see if I can help you tear through some of the obstacles and figure out how to make this thing work for you once and for all. I won’t say it’s going to be easy, but I will say that all it takes to get things moving is a plan of action, and that is what I hope to assist you in developing today.
1. The Time Factor
Let’s just get this one out of the way from the beginning.
You are never going to have more time than you do right now. We all get the same 24 hours every day. The question is how you spend them and how you use them. Are you spending them worrying about how much work you have to do before developing a content strategy, or are you focusing on how you can also have a solid strategy in place in the amount of time you have to produce it? The latter is the better recipe for success, so here are a few suggestions for you.
Start liberating more of the time you have by outsourcing whatever you can. Stop making excuses for why you can’t do it. You can’t do it because you don’t have the time and possibly don’t have the ability. Not everyone can write good copy or produce killer visuals or develop a working ad strategy by him- or herself. Get help with these things where and when you can, and find people who are experts in the areas where you need help the most. This means hiring copywriters or a copywriting company; contracting with graphic designers, web developers, photographers, and videographers … and the list goes on from there.
2. The Money Factor
So how do you assemble this dream team without crippling your available resources? I suggest that you determine a budget and then start pricing services. Figure out what your immediate needs are and spend the money on them first. In most cases, that’s going to mean finding a copywriter and a web developer who can get you started with some good ad and sales copy and start building good SEO on your pages through content. You can always use stock visuals until the money shows up to start developing more branded content, but make sure that this is worked into the plan from the beginning. You don’t want to rely on stock visuals long-term.
3. Keeping Your Content Unique
The key to good branding is to keep flooding your brand space (your website and social media channels primarily) with a steady stream of engaging, interesting, and shareable content. The problem that many content marketers find themselves mired in, though, is the use of too much curated content. If people have seen it before, they’ve probably already shared it. This is why having original, branded content is so important. Don’t rely on other people to produce your content for you. Be the one that gets copied, not the one who copies.
This is also an important consideration when dealing with copywriters. You want to hire a copywriter who writes copy, not copies what’s already been written. Find one that’s not afraid of doing research and developing content that defines your brand and speaks in your voice. Also, be willing to pay for the time it will take to develop that kind of quality. Not to slight any other service out there, but try hiring someone to write an article on a given subject on that five-dollar site and then hire an experienced freelancer for $50, and you won’t be able to help being impressed at the difference it makes.
4. Getting Your Content Seen
There is no way to shortcut this process. SEO can take months or years to deliver sustainable results, and you just don’t have that kind of time. What I’m saying is that paid ads are the way to go. Find a good ad network, and test some of your content out on it. If people respond, you know you’re in the right place. If not, try another. Different kinds of content will appeal to different audiences, and sometimes it’ll be more popular on some networks than you would expect.
I also recommend getting some expert training on Facebook advertising and start harnessing the momentum that already exists there. Facebook is one of the most accurately targetable platforms there is, and your chances of getting in front of more of the right people there are higher than anyplace else.
I think that once you get over these hurdles, you’re going to have a much easier time of things. You will also be amazed at the amount of time it will free up when you put your content creation and marketing efforts into capable hands. The vast majority of the time you think you’re spending on this now is time spent planning and thinking about the particulars. Leave that to the experts. You have a business to run.