When it comes to marketing, content is still king. Whether you’re creating an email campaign, posting to your blog, or putting together a presentation for a potential partner, it’s important to understand how to use content to your advantage.
One of the interesting realities of online marketing, especially B2B marketing, is that a large percentage of the content produced is unused. This is an inefficiency that you need to remedy, especially if you want a better ROI out of your content.
How Much of Your Online Marketing Content Do You Use?
A couple years ago, I was asked to provide articles for a website that was getting ready to launch with educational articles. I wrote several articles (and was paid for them) over the course of three months. Only about half of the articles were published because the client decided to take the site in a different direction.
I’ve been in a similar position with another client. After ordering two specific articles, and paying for the work, the client change the focus and had me split one of the articles into two different articles, with different angles. They had to pay for the extra work involved.
These clients never got mad at me; I did what they asked me to do. However, they did wish that they had thought about the content before assigning it. Other clients have also not used some of my work. It is delivered and paid for, and then sometimes sits forgotten as other things come up. You can build a great online marketing content team, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t use the content.
Perform an audit to see that you are using your content. If you find unused content, look for ways to incorporate it into your online marketing efforts.
Create a Plan for Your Online Marketing Content
One of the best things you can do is create a plan before you create content. You want great content for your online marketing efforts, but that content also needs a purpose. What will it do? Some of the different purposes for content might include:
- Attract traffic to your business website
- Increase conversions
- Sell a specific product
- Encourage interaction with your customers
You might have other purposes for your content. Before you create content, define its purpose and figure out how it will be used to fulfill that purpose. A plan for your content not only helps you decide what to create, but it also ensures that you have a place for it as soon as it’s completed.
Content is still very important in online marketing. However, you need to make sure you know what you plan to do with it — and then you have to use it. Otherwise, it’s just so many wasted words.
