Take it to the Limit. Content Marketing Strategies for Beginners.

Without a content marketing strategy, your message may be lost in smoke signals and sandy bottles found on the beach. Here are some tried and true ways to boost your content marketing.

1. REUSE YOUR CONTENT IN MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA FORMATS You pay for content to be created – whether you spend the time yourself or you hire an outside marketing firm to write it – so why not use it over and over. Great content multi-tasks across multiple platforms, so take that great quote or an inspirational photo post it on instagram. Post a company culture video on facebook, start a conversation about it on twitter, or create a group to table ideas that you have expertise in on LinkedIn.

2. SAY "NO" TO WRITER’S BLOCK Don’t let now knowing what to, or how to, write a blog get in your way.You need to be generating interesting, relevant, thought provoking and timely content consistently. Get keywords into your blog materials and get these up on your website as soon as you can. Promote these blogs on your social media feeds, add them to your sites, share them with others and email them to your contact lists. The more people that read your information the more chance you have to build a following and become an influencer.

3. MIX IT UP Don’t get stuck in just presenting text as content for people to digest, you want to make sure you are changing things up and including images, infographics, videos, pod casts and other ways designed to catch the eye. Make sure that your visuals are interesting and relevant to your subject or have enough “oomph” to get someone interested in what you have to say.

4. FOCUS ON TEACHING NOT ON SALES Rarely will a person remember that you sold something to them as much as they will remember if you taught them something. Just think of the last time you were in Home Depot or Best Buy, and asked a salesperson for help. Was the experience different if the salesperson actually knew what they were talking versus someone who just was an order taker. If your interaction somehow increased your own knowledge, how likely would you be to return to that store and buy something else? Most people are life long learners.Be a teacher with regard to your field of expertise and share this information in all different mediums and market channels. Think of podcasts, webinars, articles, seminars, white papers and blogs all as part of your teaching materials and the sales will follow.

5. WATCH YOUR ANALYTICS The beauty of working with materials on the internet is that you can change on a dime, and craft different versions of your messages, or serve them up in different mediums and compare them. As you craft content, try a different title, or a different image, maybe play with the amount of content. Too much and you’ll turn off a reader, too little and you don’t present enough value. Don’t be afraid to test your versions and pull the losers and tweak the ones that are performing to perform even better.

6. BE COMPREHENSIVE If you are writing about a topic, be thorough. The school of thought for short and sweet blog content has changed. Today, blogs should be about 1,000 words to cover the material.

7. CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY SEO is important. Write for your audience and mindful where you can include those words that can help improve your SEO whenever it makes sense.

8. THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CAN ALSO BE SOLD You may be creating blogs for free to get your name and your expertise out there, but you can create longer documents and content like podcasts or webinars that you charge people to register and attend. You will have to be worth whatever the price of admission is here, so make sure you prepare rock solid content that is worthy of the fees you charge. Indeed, content is king, but a king without a kingdom, or in this case a strategy, will not last long on the throne. Create a content strategy that helps you deliver messages to your “people” and the kingdom may just be yours!