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Seven Tips for Maximum Impact Content Marketing

It is hard for me to write consistently. Once I’ve faced that blank sheet of paper and actually completed an article, I want to get the most benefit possible from it. For me, that means reaching the most people, with stories they find interesting, useful, or beautiful. Other people might have goals of maximizing donations, registrations for a class or event, or sales of a product.

[bctt tweet=”Once I’ve faced that blank sheet of paper & completed an article, I want to get the most benefit. Here’s how.”]

My strategy is to provide interesting information many different ways, and to let it spread, like ripples on a pond. Here’s how I will do it for Kim Schlossberg Designs. These tips might help you with your own content marketing process.

1. Develop a list of topics and put them on a calendar, so I’ll know what I’m writing about every other week for the year. I don’t need to be afraid of that blank sheet of paper because I’ll know my topic before I sit down to write. Of course, I have to be flexible – it’s already changed a few times. That’s OK. The calendar will be a living document. As I think of good topics, I’ll schedule them in.
2. Write the articles. There is a lot of great material out there about how to write a good article, and from time to time I’ll be sharing some tips with you. Outlining is a great way to get started in just a few spare minutes. By the way – some people hire a writer instead of creating it themselves. If you want to go that route, I know people.
3. Post the article in a permanent location on the blog (which usually lives on the website). Use categories and tags so that searchers can find for what they’re looking for. (Note to self: write an article about how blog content can help boost SEO.)
4. Send out the article in an e-newsletter to the subscribers list.
   • Consistently work on building an opt-in list through all other marketing platforms – including mentions on email signature lines, business cards, advertisements, personal contacts, etc.
   • Use a service like MailChimp or Constant Contact to do all the hard work of distribution and at the same time keep me legal.
   • Experiment to learn what works best for this particular audience. Try different days of the week and different times of day. Try sending the whole article or just a “teaser” with a link to the blog. Try different types of content.
5. Distribute the article every other place that makes sense. I will initially share links to the blog post on LinkedIn (profile and relevant groups) and Facebook (my page and relevant groups). Tweet out a link with a short teaser. If it looks like my audience is on these platforms, I might eventually try Google+, Instagram or Pinterest. Your audience might be different places, so it makes sense to pay attention to where they might find your content. All these platforms will point people back to the blog, and therefore, the website. Make sure that everyone gets to see a sign-up link if they like what they see.
6. Pay attention. Pay attention to comments and respond as promptly as possible. Don’t post your article in so many places that you can’t respond to feedback. Pay attention to what works – and do more of that.
7. Explore other publishing avenues, such as guest blogging and syndication.

This is my current plan, and what I recommend for clients to use as a starting point. Like any good plan, it must be flexible and will evolve based on what people respond to.

I hope you find this article helpful for you and your business. If you do, please help it ripple across the community – please share it with your friends and colleagues. And please send me any suggestions for topics you’d like me to address in future articles. I would love to hear your feedback!

Until next time, I wish you maximum impact for your efforts. Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Kim