If you own a company and are interested in starting a blog, what should you know?
Content creation (see also: blogging) can be overwhelming if you’ve never done it before. There are many questions to be answered, such as:
Where do you start?
How do you decide on what kind of content to publish?
Should you write it in-house, or outsource the work?
As an experienced content marketer with more than eight years under my belt in this space, here's what I’d recommend.
Building a content marketing strategy
First things first: Before you even think about writing your first post or reaching out to a freelance writer, you have to define and document your overall marketing strategy.
This includes:
Identifying the target audience
Defining goals and objectives around your content
Outlining your brand style guide plus general dos and don’ts
Having these pieces in place is essential to creating impactful content.
Here’s why: As a writer, if I’m asked to work on a piece for a company that doesn’t have its marketing strategy set up yet, I consider it a red flag. It means the company hasn’t yet done its homework to get these basic foundational pieces in place.
In those situations, I usually direct the person I’m speaking with to either a professional content strategist or content strategy templates; both of which can help build out those detailed content strategies.
This way, when they come back to me with a project, they can give me all the information I need to do an excellent job. I’ll know exactly why I’m writing the piece, what the call to action is, and how to structure the piece.
What content should you publish?
Once you have your overarching strategy in place, you next need to figure out what kind of content to blog about to drive traffic to your site and attention to your product.
How? The best way is to ask your audience members.
Ask them what kind of content they’re interested in seeing from you. They're the only ones who know. Asking them will help you prioritize your content creation based on what they want.
“When it comes to what content to create, first, go to your users and ask them what they want to learn about. The rest of the time, you’re just guessing and making assumptions.”
In doing this, you may discover there are gaps in their knowledge you can fill or questions they have you can answer.
You may think you already know what your customers want, but I guarantee there’ll be some surprises if you put in the effort to survey them.
Educational and trend-focused content
If you’re still feeling stuck, look to educational content. It’s a fairly safe bet. Educate the customer on what you’re selling, how to get the most out of it, and tips and tricks. This approach is usually the foundation of a Knowledge Base that lives on the site long-term with valuable “how-to” style content.
Another strategy is to publish content that centers on the trends within the ecosystem where the product lives. By creating content that goes beyond your own product, you can position yourself as an authority in the niche your product sits in.
“Become a go-to source for news and trends in your niche. You know what’s happening there, so comment on it and position yourself as the expert.”
Staying on top of trends, emerging patterns, and news affecting your niche ecosystem will allow you to provide an extra layer of value for your users that is separate from the product you’re selling.
Not only will these two basic approaches help differentiate you from other companies, but it can also open up a huge new area of topics for you to explore on your blog.
Promote and repackage: a multi-pronged approach
While I don’t generally help to promote the pieces I write, I work with teams who do. To start promoting content, most leverage email, social media, and personal outreach to the people referenced (either as examples or experts) in your posts.
The most effective methods to promote content today are multi-pronged, so keep in mind that it’s a good idea to work with different formats to promote it across multiple platforms. This is another instance where customer surveying is valuable: Knowing where your customers spend time and what platforms they’re interested in checking is crucial if you want to reach them.
Next, when it comes to repackaging content, there are a couple of ways you can tackle this:
Repackage content into new formats. Some companies I work with repackage the posts I write by using alternate forms of media to make them into something new, whether that be videos or visual infographics. For podcasts, you can easily turn those into narrative-style recaps with a service like Content Remix.
Refresh old blog posts on your site. Another way to repackage content is by updating your old blog posts. There are so many ways to freshen up content to make it interesting for the reader:
Editing the post with updated research
Adding in new perspectives from new sources and experts
Challenging the original point of the piece based on new data or insights
Going deeper with new research, findings, etc.
By doing this, your initial piece of content becomes even more valuable.
In my opinion, not enough companies take advantage of the content they already have sitting in the backlogs; opting instead to create entirely new content.
But what’s the point of investing money into quality content if it’s not going to serve you well over time?
Invest in quality content
When I think about the pieces I’ve written over the years, the ones that are the highest performing two and three years post-publishing are the pieces that took the longest to research, develop, write, and edit.
To me, this is a testament to investing in quality, long-form blog posts; ones that will build authority in your subject niche and that have an evergreen aspect to them.
Why work with freelancers?
Far too often, companies get so used to doing everything on their own that they end up overextending. They forget to outsource work, even when doing so could free up valuable time for their employees to work on more pressing tasks.
There’s no reason your in-house employees should have to spend entire days writing content if there’s an option to outsource the work to a freelance writer who has expertise in the subject matter. Find someone who can draw from their specific pool of knowledge and effectively streamline the creative process for you using your company’s marketing guidelines. (If you need help with this, let’s talk.)
My last piece of advice: if you’re interested in working with a freelancer for the first time, try to get a referral from someone you know rather than through cold leads (Twitter and Slack are good places to put out feelers). This ensures that some kind of validation for the freelancer’s work has gone on behind the scenes.
Your content strategy: Quick recap
To sum up:
Identify your marketing strategy
Ask your customers what they want to read from you
Be creative and multi-pronged in your approach to content promotion and repackaging
Invest in the creation of quality long-form content
Keep these in mind and you’ll be creating quality blog posts in no time.
