In an interesting post on the Fast Company blog, Lisa Lacour calls out five ways to craft a killer content marketing strategy— without creating any content.
While she acknowledges that original content sets the tone for content marketing efforts, she points to two factors that mitigate the angst that often accompanies the idea of that creation: one, that the investment of time and money it takes to create great content doesn’t have to be a barrier to entry for businesses; and two, that the sheer amount of free content online makes activities like curation arguably more important than content creation itself. “The key is the way you distribute and supplement (original content) with other, lower touch tactics,” she says. Here are five she recommends as among the best:
- Seek
Professional Help
While it’s important that at least one person in your organization is creating content, outsourcing some of the work is an easy way to supplement your overall output and incorporate new perspectives. Consider adding the skills of a professional writer to augment your internal resources.
- Repurpose
Earned Media
If you’re already investing in PR or getting coverage in the press, you should absolutely be getting extra mileage out of media placements. An incredibly easy way to do this is by including coverage on your blog (check the original publication’s reposting guidelines first). Also, you can drive traffic to it through content recommendation tools that will link to placements on other relevant sites.
- Curate,
Curate, Curate
The role of curation is becoming increasingly important as the sheer amount of information continues to proliferate. As a business, you’re in an ideal position to help your customers make sense of all the content on the web, particularly if you’re in a highly specialized market.
- Partner
Up
The basic idea: get guaranteed eyeballs for your content by leveraging someone else’s audience. As more brands and businesses get involved in content marketing, a content ecosystem has developed that opens the door for creative partnerships among non-competitive businesses. Cross-promotion through social media and email marketing, content sharing, and exchanging of ad space are all examples of potential partnerships that can help expose your content to a new audience.
- Crowdsource
It
Similar to earned media, you should be incorporating crowdsourcing into your content marketing strategy if you’re already investing in social media. Storify is a great tool for this purpose— it enables you to turn social interactions into beautifully designed content. So conversations with your Facebook or Twitter followers can easily be repackaged for another channel.
These are excellent ideas. Send us an email if you’d like some more from our experience and perspective.