Your content strategy has been around the block a few times. It’s time to give it a breath of fresh air.
The reasoning is quite simple. Everybody is already doing content marketing.
If you want to remain out in front of the competition, you can make the absolute most of your content marketing by turning it from the duty of a small team to a company-wide strategy that brings your top talent into the fold.
The Power of Industry Experts
Your business enterprise is like a clock. It’s comprised of many intricate moving parts, all of them working in tandem towards a singular purpose.
Your leaders call the shots. Your industry experts solve the problems. Your marketing team gets your product in front of customers. Your sales team closes the sales.
In the age of search engine optimization (SEO), SEO companies face a critical core problem of expertise. They are masters of marketing and wizards of traffic, and they are well-versed in the language of the sell.
But, they are not industry experts. The core problem is one of dissonance. Simply put, the experts possess a lot of insider knowledge that the marketers do not.
Business is a rush and every company has to remain at the top of its game to compete. There isn’t time to dawdle. This means that all too often, marketing is rushed out the door.
This leaves out a vital ingredient that waters down the toolset the marketing team has to work with. But what if the experts were brought into the marketing fold? What if the experts were the ones interfacing with customers directly?
What if the power of industry experts could be leveraged in the content marketing strategy?
Building Bridges Between Teams
It’s far too common for teams to be managed, and the managers to communicate on behalf of their teams. When it comes down to it, this is a communication strategy that misses potential.
When playing the numbers game it’s easy to rely on managers and supervisors to handle communication between teams. After all, it’s been done that way for longer than anybody can remember.
But that approach isn’t good enough anymore.
Many organizations have already begun the shift with online employee portals. Instant messaging services like Slack and collaboration portals such as Trello allow employees to collaborate in real-time. Video calls and scrums are commonplace.
Even so, whether for a small business enterprise or a multi-national corporation, there’s a lot of room for improvement.
A Company-Wide Content Strategy
It’s time to redefine your content strategy.
Here’s the crux of it: The SEO team drives traffic, while the industry experts engage with warm leads. Content creation becomes a part of company culture.
Let’s break down why this approach has such potential with a thought experiment.
You’ve interacted with a customer service agent in the past. Everybody has. But everybody has also been saddled with a generic, ‘cut and paste’ answer to a question. It might as well have been a lifeless, soulless chatbot.
Imagine a similar scenario, but this time, in the midst of your inquiries about a particular SaaS product, the person in front of the other screen is the core programming lead.
Every question you ask is given a perfect answer. Every doubt you have is removed. You practically sprint through the sales pipeline in the blink of an eye.
Now, this doesn’t mean your time-strapped software engineers need to double-up as customer service agents. They’re far too expensive for that — not to mention, they don’t have the time in the day if they want to maintain a healthy sleep cycle.
However, it’s not inconceivable to involve them somewhere in the process of converting marketing leads into customers when the lead is strong.
This doesn’t mean training them up in sales tactics. Content is diverse. Content is found based on search intent by potential leads. Content doesn’t have to be restricted to your own platform.
Your content strategy needs to involve everyone, so here are four tips for getting started.
Tip 1. Get Leadership Involved in the Dialogue
This one should be a no-brainer.
Your managers, CEOs, CMOs, CTOs, CSOs, and board of directors are all heavily invested in the company. It’s crucial that they’re involved in the dialogue for two reasons.
Firstly, they call the shots and set priorities. They’re the ones who know how big the time budgets of their teams are, and who need to sign off on any company-wide strategy.
Secondly, they’re high-level leaders with good reason. They know the product and possess valuable potential insight into the content.
Tip 2. Schedule Interviews Between Content Marketers and Industry Experts
Schedule bi-weekly or monthly collaboration interviews between the marketers and the experts.
Your marketers might have critical questions and knowledge gaps. Experts might offer off-the-cuff insight for content that your marketers might not even think of.
Having those responsible for your content strategy pose straight questions and get straight answers will help to clear up confusion.
Tip 3. Get Your Technical Experts on Social Forums
Your engineers and experts know more about how your products work than anybody else. That’s their job.
Open forum platforms are common go-to places for people to find honest answers to questions. Reddit and Quora are two of the largest social platforms on the internet, yet they’re often overlooked in content strategies. Github and Stack Exchange are great outlets for technical, software-related inquiries.
Google My Business is another option – many companies are listed there automatically without catering to the details. Unlike your FAQ pages and company website, all of these platforms are also trusted as sources of objective, down-to-earth opinions.
Don’t leave questions on such forums floundering, or worse, answered with misinformation. Encourage your tech teams to be active on such sites, answering questions directly. It’ll allow you to put your best foot forward in places marketing can’t reach.
Tip 4. Reward Employees for Content They Generate
Company culture is a powerful tool.
If you’re having difficulty freeing up enough time in your employee schedules to involve them in your content strategies, consider rewarding those who make content in their free time.
It could be as simple as a tweet or social media post. Rewards needn’t be monetary or even physical in value, either. If you curate your employee content, then sharing the best posts to your company’s Instagram feed is a great way of making employees feel special.
Involve Every Voice
Everybody is already doing content marketing. To get ahead of the game, you need to think a little differently.
Be inclusive in your content strategy. Involve everybody who works for you, and don’t be stingy with rewards and shoutouts. Bring your industry experts into the marketing fold. Their product is their baby, and they’ll only be too happy to see it spread its wings and flourish.
Set up a quick chat with me for a consultation on your digital marketing strategy.