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How do I produce all of the content required for marketing automation?
What are some ways to produce all the content needed for marketing automation?
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6 Answers
Linda,
That's a very complex question as content takes various forms:
White papers
Articles
Data sheets
Webinars
Podcasts/Vidcasts
Live events (such as panel discussions and seminars)
These elements would work together to attract prospects and inspire conversations along a unified theme. So, your strategy is key. Check out this discussion on webinars:
http://www.focus.com/questions/marketing/are-webinars-important-part-lead-nur...
In some cases, you need to have someone write and layout the content. In others, you'll have to organize or (depending upon your internal resources) outsource the organization and production of events. Each form of content has its own process for production, but it should all be based on strategy that considers evolving prospect need and position in the buying cycle. If this is what you seek, the article, "Thought Leadershp To Support The Entire Buying Cycle" (http://landing.propelgrowth.com/thought-leadership-to-support-the-entire-buyi...) may be of interest to you.
As the experts will tell you, content marketing is hard work. You'll need a team focused on developing the content. Odds are that you'll have to outsource. For insights into this, read "8 Tips for Outsourcing Lead Management" (http://www.propelgrowth.com/2010/11/08/8-tips-for-outsourcing-lead-management/).
If your question relates more to producing marketing automation campaigns, that will certainly depend upon your marketing automation platform. The common denominator regarding content in the context of marketing automation is that your content will be offered through an email/landing page campaign with applied logic such as lead scoring and funnel assignments. You could have autoresponders that confirm registration success, provide a download link and links to other company offers.
It would help if you could be more specific about what you mean by producing all the content needed for marketing automation. Then we can focus in on the details.
Thanks.
Content can be scary and is often the biggest bottleneck to successful demand and lead gen programs. It is hard to develop good engaging content. Development requires the buy in and time of the experts, not to mention the costs for writers and layout. Let me share a couple tricks that I have found useful over the years:
1) Don't feel the need to create Moby Dick. If you are using marketing automation and tracking behavior not every content piece needs to be big, meaty and expensive like a white paper, webcast or ebook. Short one-pagers or checklists work very well inside lead nurture programs.
2) Serialize a long piece of content. Rather than using one large piece, break it into three pieces. This has the added benefit of keeping the prospect engaged as they wait for the next chapter.
3) Make one great idea, many content pieces. This is one of my favorites. Take one idea and develop many different pieces that can be used in various marketing programs. There is no reason that a long article or white paper can't be altered into a webcast, podcast, 1-pager, blog post, and other items.
4) Refresh old content. Don't feel that everything needs to be brand new. Did you develop a good webcast 6 months ago. Refresh it and bring it up to date by adding new graphics and data points.
Hope that helps.
Mac McConnell
www.bluebirdstrat.com
Linda,
Phil and Mac have given me some great ideas, so thanks for posting the question.
I would add testing your content and method of distribution. E.g.:
- If you are targeting different audiences, does the same content style and distribution work for each?
- Does a white paper bring you more/better leads than the same content in a podcast?
- When you break a piece into installments, what is the distribution and timing of hits for each installment? Can you tell if people who read the first installment return for the second or are you drawing new people?
- Do you get the same results with different content?
- What happens if you announce a new installment via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter? Better results if you use all three in tandem?
When preparing your automation requirements, work out some of the tests you want to run and then find the automation technology that let's you accomplish that. There are many tools that provide detailed feedback.
Hi Linda,
Actually, In our experience, it's not so much about producing content for marketing automation as it is about using existing content in a new context. I purposely avoided saying "repurpose" content, since we usually don't even do that.
Our approach, instead, is to create proactive sequences of existing content that will move names from lesser states of interest, knowledge and qualification to greater states of interest, knowledge and qualification. We also make extensive use of outside content sources to fill any gaps in the sequence. This has the dual benefit of imparting some impartial objectivity to the content series as well as reducing the content creation burden.
Utilizing existing content also has the added benefit of making sure it gets to names who have some degree of interest in your product, service or organization. We've found that once a name has been gathered, there is no guarantee that it continues to revisit the website and explore whatever content is posted there.
Highlighting individual pieces of content and offering it to them provides the names with a more in-depth preview before they have to make a download commitment. And based on how they respond to each piece of content and where that piece of content is in the sequence tells us how far along the name is in its buying process and how soon it should be ready for in-person follow-up.
Linda,
All the suggestions above have been excellent.
In addition, I've found that conducting primary research (a survey on an issue important to your audience) is extremely helpful in generating the content you need. You can use the results from just one research project to generate enough content for a year's effort -- reporting the results, drawing conclusions, making forecasts, promoting best practices. And you can deliver this information in just about any form imaginable -- white papers, top 10 lists, webinars, articles, industry briefs, etc.
Linda
To the great mix of marketing products listed in this thread I'd add:
-- creating ecourses
-- turning audios/notes into a CD that is easily mailed to top prospects. (I like that it hangs around for a while).
turning audios/notes into sellable products
-- placing articles on a few targeted article banks
-- being a guest blogger on a complimentary businesses blog.
-- I've turned some of my answers on this forum and LI into articles.
-- I've turned questions I asked on such forums into articles (with everyone who answered knowing I was doing so; and I sent each of them the article that listed their name)
One of main things I do is called "The Power of Ten(TM)" Basically take 1 item I created and turn it into 10 pieces. Then pick one of those pieces and turn it into 10 others.
Even 1 article can turn into three with the right writer by your side. Back in 1999 when I started writing, I could write an article a month and it still would have writing mistakes. Now I write 5 or more (between other tasks) because a proofreader or editor can easily fix what I've written.
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