4 Ways to Streamline Your Content Marketing Efforts

Streamline Content Marketing

It's the end of February 2019, and businesses are already gearing up to launch their greatest marketing campaigns of the year. All these marketing campaigns all have one thing in common: the consumer.

Customer Experience - or CX for short - is reportedly the biggest differentiator between success and failure of modern marketing and branding strategies.

Why? Because consumers like to feel heard and cared for. In a capitalist society where the dollar seems to rule all - though it really doesn't — consumers like to feel that the corporations they work for are really run by people just like them. However, this is a rare experience as only 7% of consumers state that companies they regularly engage with exceed their customer service expectations.

While consumers are generally satisfied with experiences that meet their expectations, when they have a bad experience at a corporation, it takes 12 positive experiences to repair any damage caused by a negative one.

How do companies plan to provide those 12 positive experiences? Through content marketing.

Content Marketing to Play the Biggest Role in 2019

Content marketing is the game changer which takes businesses from being a faceless money mongering corporation to being a friendly teacher whose sole purpose in life is to provide the best education to anyone and everyone.

Content marketing is most commonly shown through blogs, infographics, newsletters, ebooks, and online courses. All that content aims to educate clients not just on the brand representing the information, but on the industry and the world as a whole. This shows the company's care and concern for the consumer as well as allowing the brand to represent its core values.

SEO - or search engine optimization - is the key way to engage with customers and should always take precedence over PPC - pay per click - advertisements for these very reasons.

Content marketing is the ultimate way to create the best CX possible. Not only will your consumers walk away feeling informed, but they will also feel empowered to make the right decision on their purchase - and personal endeavors as well!

How to Bring Your Content Marketing Efforts Up to Speed

1. Tools That Help With the Editorial Calendar and Content Production Scheduling

Just as every business needs a plan to get off the ground and continue to soar, so too does your content marketing strategy need a solid plan. This plan begins by choosing the right platform to organize all your ideas: when deciding on the right editorial calendar for your needs, it is imperative to pick the right one.

Google Calendar is ideal for imputing your daily tasks and due dates for jobs. However, if you're looking for something a bit more detailed, Evernote is an all-encompassing tool which allows you to input your dates, keep track of your content ideas, and monitor your editorial needs. This can be accessed from a computer, iPhone, or tablet.

Once you've chosen your editorial platform, you need to map out a list of content ideas and the research to back them up. If you're struggling to think up content within your niche, never fear, Quora is here.

Using question forums is the perfect way to figure out just what you need to write and develop. Not only are keywords - for SEO - built right into the question, but you will truly get a feel for what your target audience needs to know by reading the questions and comments below. Additionally, once your brand has a blog post on the subject, you can comment on some shrewd advice and link to your content as further information on the subject. This easy form of link dropping will gather you more readers.

Other platforms to search for content ideas are Twitter, Reddit, and Alltop.

2. Tools That Help With Centralized Content Creation and Transparency Across Departments

Centralized content creation is essentially a cloud for all of your content to ensure it is backed up in the case of an emergency server short fuse. Having a content center is a good system which provides easy collaboration, so your entire company can access the content whenever needed. This makes annual planning, strategizing, and distribution easy across departments.

To truly have a centralized content center, working with online backup solutions like OneDrive is essential. Not only are these good for backup purposes, but are the best option to ensure that all of your information is accessible whenever it's needed, and safely stored in multiple locations for safety. Other cloud storage options include DropBox, IDrive or pCloud. OneDrive is often a go-to solution, however, since it comes as part of the Office 365 Suite already.

3. Platforms for Finding Dedicated Content Writers

Perhaps you are not the wordsmith other bloggers are. To alleviate this problem, content creation sites like Textbroker, Textmaster, Contently, and Compendium provide top-of-the-line content creators to provide you with the best quality content money can buy.

Note that all of these websites have very strict and high standards for their writers, ensuring that your content will always be ready to publish upon reception.

4. Tools to Optimize Workflow With Agile

Optimizing workflow is also incredibly important when it comes to consistently generating high-quality content. While high-quality content creators do not necessarily need to publish a new blog post on the daily, workflow needs to be consistent so followers know when to expect new content. This consistency needs to be across all platforms - the blog, the social media accounts, and any other marketing campaign in play.

A strategy that helps keep workflow in tip-top shape is Agile. Agile is a system that gives your marketing team the needed flexibility while maintaining the structure. It enables them to quickly adapt their communication across the organization based on the newest insights and data, and ensure everyone is working together to get the content up and running.

Final Word

Overall, optimizing your work sphere is absolutely essential for establishing powerful content creation. While the above tools will not create content for you, they will do everything else you need to help you organize your thoughts and get them out into the world. Beginning work with content creation takes effort and tenacity, but in the long run, quality content will help establish your brand as one of the top best CX providers.


Guest Author

Eric Gordon

Eric Gordon is an independent business development and marketing specialist for SMEs. He loves sharing his insights and experience to assist business owners in growing their revenues. You can find Eric on Twitter @ericdavidgordon