As a small business owner, I know your time is precious so creating marketing content can often be a real challenge, especially if writing and visuals aren’t in your comfort zone.
So, making the most of any content that you do produce will take the pressure off a bit, right?
What do I mean by that?
It’s time to review it, refresh it or repurpose it!
Firstly, your marketing content should be crafted to resonate and attract those ideal customers (that you want to work with and can help the most! (You will have taken the time to define who they are of course?)
Here’s some ideas to maximise your marketing content, save time AND get those customer enquiries rolling in:
Your Brand
This is way more than just your logo and your colour palette as it should include your tone of voice as well as your key words and phrases (think regularly used hashtags, straplines and brand wording) in your blogs and posts/tweets as well as videos, images, graphics, key words, straplines, hashtags and even your use of certain emojis.
These should always be consistently reflected no matter which marketing channels you favour – website, social media profiles and content, brochures, advertising, infographics, e-books, video, audio, business cards, online directory entries…I could go on, but you get the gist!
Having this focus will make producing content much quicker because you’re working to a tried and tested, established style. It also means you can pick and choose content already created and re use on repeat!
Brand Messaging
With your brand messaging, it’s not about using the same actual words or phrases repeatedly in every social post, blog or email campaign, its more that everything should consistently convey the sentiment of those brand messages.
Used over time, your brand and brand messaging combined will build immediately recognisable content associated with you and what your business offers.
Use a theme
Rather than random, unrelated social content which looks ad-hoc and reactive, choose 2-4 themes for each month so you can cover different elements of your service. This means there is some consistency of message which will give more clarity and have more of an impact with your intended audience.
And you have to remember that not every post/tweet/video you push out is going to be seen by everybody that follows or is connected with you! Sharing variations of the same message in a month means there is more likelihood that your content will get in front of more people.
Always Add Value
Here’s some pointers so your content engages with your ideal customer and gets them wanting to know more:
Share your knowledge and experience – this builds the all-important 'Know, Like and Trust'.
Focus on how your service solves their pain points and what the pleasure points then are – what's in it for them?
No hard sales pitch and definitely not all about you!
Focus on advice, ideas, education
Follow the 80/20 rule – 80% adding value & advice + 20% focused on any kind of 'soft' sales.
Evergreen content
This type of content stays relevant and valuable over time and is designed to drive long-term engagement and also positions you as an expert. It can include social posts and short form video eg. Where you are promoting a service for example, or testimonials, which generally have real longevity.
The real power for evergreen content is to think blogs, long form video, tutorials, e-books – more in-depth pieces that don’t date. So, if you do include stats or facts – before re-using just check those and update but other than that, evergreen content is designed to be used over and over again alongside current/ad-hoc and other more transient content.
Repurposing your content
I’ve saved the best for last this time around!
Here’s some easy ways to repurpose your content – designed to save you time and give your audience a consistent message across your marketing channels.
So, let’s take the good old blog or long form video and see how you can repurpose these.
Create the blog/long form video in such a way that you can easily take out sections/paragraphs and sentences and use these as a series of standalone social posts.
Add the blog or video to LinkedIn as an article and feature it on your profile.
If it's a blog, tools like Lumen will create a video for you (OK with a bit of time refining the video and adding images, on brand of course!)
Load the video to your YouTube channel.
Add the video to your website in addition to the blog (Google loves videos on websites BTW).
Create short form video from the above and add to your stories, reels etc on socials too.
Use the blog/video as the topic for your latest email newsletter – drive traffic to your website/social pages.
Share the blog/video link in your social groups as a way of engaging with other members.
Package the content maybe with a short workbook and offer it as a freebie download – so a lead magnet – on your website to generate new sign-ups to your email list.
If your blog/video is evergreen – that’s a whole batch of evergreen content in the bank to use over and over again!
Phew! That’s a lot of marketing content, from one single blog or video.
I hope that’s given you some food for thought, however if you need some help in getting clarity on your brand or messaging or how best to create content that will get those customer enquiries coming in, I am here to help.
I offer a FREE no obligation 30-minute review tailored to your business and designed to be a fact-packed session to help you review, refresh or repurpose your marketing content.