Leveraging Content MarketingPresented by: Michelle Chance-Sangthong for the Jacksonville Online Marketing Meetup

What is Content? The simplest way to define content in this context is to say ANYTHING that can be viewed on a device.There is offline content marketing, too, but that’s not a part of this discussion.

Google changed the way we approached the content for our websites.

In the beginning web content was left to only those who could create it.

Google wanted the web to of a “democratic” nature, but not everyone could build websites - so it was left in the hands of those who could.

You were either part of the web priesthood or you weren’t.

Much has changed in the more than 20 years that I’ve been doing this

We blinked

And then there were Content Management tools like Wordpress

And then social began to arrive … all at once Web 2.0 was here.

We had to face it… the world of content development changed right before our very eyes.

In this room you have kids that can build better and code faster than you can. Probably from their phones, they can do it better than I can, too.

There was a power shift, a transformation, ESPECIALLY in Web Marketing.

As marketers we used to only compete with those who were qualified to be in the race.

Now compete against anyone who has a keyboard, a camera, or a phone

Content was set free. And Google welcomed that change

The hackers, crackers, spammers, and even legitimate white hat SEO practitioners had the stuffing kicked out of them with the onslaught of the algorithm updates.

By the time Farmer, Pandas, and the Penguins bulldozed through, the web ranking was gutted for MOST of the professionals that had started a decade before.

The web used to be a limited production - like folks coming to the theatre to see the movie. But now its all on all the time, it’s Happy Hour, 24-7

Unless you want to buy all your traffic, you simply can’t attract buyers without consistently generating content.

If your customers are going to hear you or see you, you have to be visible where they are,

And when they are looking.

With content that interests them.

People buy from people they know like and trust.

You need to understand who they are, and they need to know you, too.

You have to BECOME the BRAND

But, wait … this sounds like marketing.

Can you really tell the two apart?

We started measuring it all separately.

But it’s all still MARKETING

CONTENT SYSTEMIZATION

Source content ideas

Hire writer to create content summaries, abstracts, or opinions

Manually post to blog

Edit / Add Images

Share to social media

You need ideas.

You need writers. You can try Fiverr

Or Upwork - formerly ODesk

You need a content management system like Wordpress.

If you don’t want to give the writers editorial or author access to your site, then you need a person responsible for posting and scheduling.

Once it’s on your site - you can use a tool like DLVRit or Hootsuite to tell the Social Sphere.

Tools like Buffer even allow you to create repeat postings, manually.

Your audience isn’t online looking for you 24 hours a day -- it’s OK to repeat stuff. Now I’m not saying the same exact story day in and day out. But if you’re generating enough content - you could reshare once or twice a month.

Repurpose that content, too. I use a mail software to send the “latest posts” to my list.

How much new original content are you creating each week?

How many pieces of great content do you need a week, a day?

Every business is different.

More will always be better … over time

Every business is different.

When you have too many customers...worry. meantime, create content.

One client that I have worked with started out with 2 pieces a month, and now does 12, and I am hoping to move her to 24 pieces a month.

The dividing vertical line is when we increased the amount of content, and that’s only organic, which is just 30% of her overall traffic

The traffic isn’t just from organic because we amplify the new content on the social channels, too. Some is Paid on Google and Paid Social, but only a small portion.

But you have to put the work in.

You can’t go deeper if you stop shoveling.

You can think about content just like you would a long term savings account, it grows, over time.

Imagine that you want to take a trip to Hawaii, and for easy math it costs $5,200, and you’re a Dave Ramsey fan, too, so you’re not using a credit card to take the trip

You and your beloved agree to save $100 a week for 1 year, and THEN and ONLY THEN will you book your vacation.

But if you stop saving after only a few months … how will you ever get there?

Content marketing works the same way. You are building a nest egg of content on your site. And if you’re smart, it’s evergreen content

The challenge is that if you don’t have a system in place, content marketing is hard.

How I helped my client get their growth was systematically.

Then we were able to leverage that system through automation.

And with continual tweaks and improvements, we’re able to create an original, hand crafted post, of a few hundred words for less than $1.50 each.

THE SYSTEMIZATION

Source content ideas

Hire writer to create content summaries, abstracts, or opinions

Manually post to blog

Manually Find, Edit & Add Images

Share to social media

I was spending SEVEN hours per month manually implementing the “systems”For just 4 posts a month

The purple line is where we added systems.

Then January Arrived...

My friends and colleagues at Marketer’s Braintrust introduced their automation software to a limited audience.

RESULTFLOW

What Is RESULTFLOW?

Software that allows you to

leverage the SCALE of Amazon MTurk&

the Power of Workflow Automation

The purple line is where we added systems, the blue line is where we added automation.

THE AUTOMATION

Human selected content ideas - by assistant

Hands free content writing and publishing - by humans

Image automation - by plugin

Social amplification - by machine

Repeater pattern for evergreen content - by machine

CONTENT SELECTION

By leveraging RSS Feeds, my assistant can easily select stories for content ideas within ResultFlow

WRITING ISN’T LIMITED TO ONLY A FEW PEOPLE

Original abstracts and summaries are written & validated using crowd sourcing.

PUBLISHING CONTENT AUTOMATICALLY

Approved content is then dripped into the website on a scheduled basis

AUTOMATICALLY ADDING IMAGES

Use a WordPress plugin to automatically assign featured images from a pool of pre-uploaded images that I curated.

SOCIAL AMPLIFICATION

Using the magic of RSS again, new content flows into Result Flow and can be amplified to the Social Sphere.

REPEATER PATTERN

I can assign my best content to a repeater loop to reshare, hands-free, on a schedule,

DELAY SHARE

THE RESULTS

We tripled our content posts while cutting our production time in half, while doubling the organic traffic.

When you’re working with only a handful of resources there’s only so much they can do.

When you add automation, it becomes scaleable.

THE SCALABILITY WITH RESULTFLOW

I can create 4 times the content, in half the time for just $36 more per month in writing costs

THE SCALABILITY WITH RESULTFLOW

If I want more content, there are enough people to handle the requests, and for the same internal people hours I can create 10 times the original content for about $150 in writing costs.

If you’re interested in learning morea about ResultFlow or seeing a full case study go here: http://marketersbraintrust.com/automated-selling-machines/

Key takeaways for Leveraging Content Marketing

Content & Results will grow, over time.

Start working on your content marketing now

Build Systems & Processes to make it more efficient

Add automation to make it scaleable

ABOUT Michelle Chance-Sangthong

www.onlinemarketinggoddess.com

As a life-long entrepreneur with 20 years experience in online marketing, Michelle brings a unique perspective to making the most of the opportunities available when it comes to truly Leveraging Content Marketing. Her goal is to always leave the audience with key takeaways that they can use right away in their own business.