5 Ways Your 2016 Content Marketing Is Costing You

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities

Missed 2016 Content Marketing OpportunitiesIt’s the mid-point of 2016. Have you missed 2016 content marketing opportunities?

If you’re like many of your peers, the answer is probably.

Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.

Ensure your second half, 2016 content marketing is on track to succeed. This will lay the foundation for 2017 success!

Even better it’ll save your content marketing budget.

Take a deep breath.

Think: I can do this.

You still have time to be a 2016 content marketing star! (BTW, here are our 2016 Content Marketing Trends including relevant charts.)

BUT you have to act NOW!

5 Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities

Examine these 5 missed 2016, content marketing opportunities. They can help you improve your content marketing ROI, especially #4!Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunity 1:
Plan, create and use content across your company

If you’re like many marketers, you only consider the content your team creates as part of your content marketing.

This mindset is myoptic!

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities

Chances are your firm’s non-marketing functions create content and communications. This includes sales, customer service, product, human resources, corporate communications and investor relations.

Unfortunately, this content focuses on basic information and is often sub-par.

Translation: No one reads it!

You’re missing a low-cost opportunity to transform and extend these efforts into quality content marketing.

For example, a car marketer can improve its owner manual and make it more useful. Convert this information into a mobile app. The app can find local dealers based on the car’s current location. This helps owners and drives additional service and parts sales.

Actionable Marketing Tip to Avoid Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities:

  • Determine where content and communications are created across your business. In the process, collect copies of the content and communications. The first time you do this, it’ll be a major effort.
  • Audit non-marketing content. Determine what’s good, what can be improved, what can be expanded, and what can be deleted. Also keep track of what is missing.
  • Set up a process to assess content and cooperation. Streamline your organization’s content creation and distribution processes. Incorporate ways to incent employees to work together.
  • Add relevant metadata to make all of the content intelligent and findable. You want to be able to curate and use it when the need arises.

 

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunity 2:
Enhance existing content (AKA Plan content reuse)

Have you examined your existing content marketing recently? 

There may be hidden gems you don’t remember.

Vox, a ComScore Top 50 media site, improved the results for their old content. During the period around Christmas, Vox writers reviewed and changed 2+ months old articles. Changes were minor and major.

The result:

Vox ran 88 of the updated articles during a 5 day period. Together, the articles brought in 500,000+ readers!

Alternatively, your content marketing may have been created in a rush. As a result, no one considered developing related content for different uses.

 Take a page from LinkedIn’s Jason Miller. He created LinkedIn’s The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to Content Marketing with the help of Lee Odden and his Top Rank Marketing team.

Since it’s first iteration, Miller has rewritten much of the content to support 2 different content marketing goals. The guide has expanded to over 100 pages!

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities

2016 Edition of LinkedIn’s Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide To Content Marketing

 

Long Playing Core Content Type

linkedin-soph-guide-refresh-20151218_pdf

What piece of major pieces of content or series of blog posts can you transform into high quality mega content with limited budget???

Actionable Marketing Tip to Avoid Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities:

  • Assess your current content assets. Consider content for each customer segment along the purchase process. Also maintain brand consistency.
  • Set regular existing content updates. At a minimum, pre-budget season and pre-holiday season. These tend to be quiet times.
  • Allocate resources for enhancing existing content.
  • Have brand guidelines. 

 

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunity 3:
Maintain your company blog as a corporate asset

Blogs get a bad name. Don’t take my word for it.

81% of marketers use blogs but only 59% found blogs effective!!

B2B Content tactic used-US-Chart-2016_B2B_Report

B2B Content tactics-Chart-US-2016_B2B
YIKES!!!

Blogs should be 100% effective. Blogs should provide the information your prospects and customers crave.

Why does this happen?

Because content marketers, especially B2B, make blog posts like cookie cutter content. In following a set format, they loose their brand personality.

The reality is that a quality blog contributes to your firm’s balance sheet in the same way that branding does. It also helps build your email file.

Actionable Marketing Tip to Avoid Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities:

  • Answer all of your customer questions. Don’t forget to explain your pricing. Optimize this content to rank on search. (Here’s the full case study on River Pools.)Fiberglass Pool Prices_ How Much is My Pool Really Going to Cost?-1-3-1-1-1-1
  • Define who you don’t want for a customer. Take it from The Sales Lion Marcus Sheridan. Everyone wants to belong.customer-focused core content type
  • Put your customers in the spotlight.
  • Link to your product where appropriate. Make it easy for prospects to purchase directly from your blog content. (Don’t forget to schedule updates to product links when you change product.)

 

Download the Ultimate Blogging Checklist

 

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunity 4:
Think beyond the content asset (AKA Support content ROI)

Most marketers focus on creating new content. They find they’re on an endless trend mill: “I have to create more new content.”

Unfortunately, most of this is orphan content  since there’s little relationship to existing content.

To get potential readers to act, your content must yield related metrics.

  • Consume your content.
  • Take action. Sign up for email or share content.
  • Make a purchase.

Measuring content marketing ROI is a key marketing challenge. Check out Michael Brenner’s The Content Formula. 

B2B Marketers Have Trouble Measuring Content ROI - Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs

B2B Marketers Have Trouble Measuring Content ROI – Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs

But if you start measuring, your results improve significantly.

Measure COntent Marketing ROI-Hubspot state of inbound 2014

Actionable Marketing Tip to Avoid Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities:

  • Create the following 3 pieces of tailored content that continue the scent from your content.
    • Landing pages. They should relate to your content. Skip the one-size-fits-all.
    • Prospect bait. Of course, take care not to ask for too much information. Prospects will bail or fill in fake responses.
    • Welcome series. Guide prospects into your process. Take a page from Pat Flynn and qualify your prospects with your first email.

      Qualify your email recipients with the first email - Smart Passive Income by Pat Flynn

      Qualify your email recipients with the first email – Smart Passive Income by Pat Flynn

  • Create related landing pages, prospect bait and welcome series along with each content marketing effort. You must be able to drive potential readers into your purchase funnel and email list.
  • Incorporate related metrics. Don’t assume that your results will magically appear. You need to include metrics and tracking in your content.

 

Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunity 5:
Schedule all content repromotion at the same time

Most content only gets promoted for a few days or a few weeks then it’s on to the next shiny piece.

But this doesn’t give your potential audience time to see or experience your content with sufficient iterations to cause them to take action.

Rand Fishkin found that a Moz promotion takes 7-8 impressions before a potential prospect is willing to sign up for a test.

We’re so focused on the new and evolving technologies that we forget the established notion of message repetition. It’s Mad Men school advertising.

Advertising Saturation Yields Diminished Returns Chart (Similar to Content Marketing)

Add to this the fact that human attention spans have diminished to that of goldfish. (Note: I’m not sure how you measure a goldfish’s attention span.)

Follow Social Triggers’ Derek Halpern’s Rule: Spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% of your time promoting it.80-20 Content time rule-1

To this end, schedule your initial content distribution. Even better include some test versions to determine what’s best.

Then assess your content performance after the initial week.

Schedule your high performing content for a longer timeframe based on your results.

Actionable Marketing Tip to Avoid Missed 2016 Content Marketing Opportunities:

  • Plan for content distribution testing. Try different titles or timing.
  • Batch schedule content for a month or longer. Use different media, tools and social media platforms.

The missed 2016 content marketing opportunities bottom line is:

Be strategic with your 2H2016 content marketing plans. Set your corporate content marketing mission and editorial plans across your organization.

Avoid siloed content and processes.

Think corporate content cooperation, especially with regard to content creation and distribution.

This will help you to eliminate redundant content efforts and extend and improve key content marketing.

In the process, you’ll look like a corporate star for being a team player and showing better content ROI.

What do you think are missed 2016 content marketing opportunities and why do you think so?

Happy Marketing,
Heidi Cohen

Heidi CohenHeidi Cohen is the President of Riverside Marketing Strategies.
You can find Heidi on , Facebook and .

Photo Credit: 

Piggy Bank: Fabian Blank via https://unsplash.com/photos/pElSkGRA2NU

Eyeglasses: Saul Venegas via https://unsplash.com/photos/OhIfU2AczOg

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