Does Your Content Marketing Solution Offer These 5 Key Components?
I recently read an article titled “Marketers regularly use over 100 software programs.” When I saw the headline, I paused and thought, “How can that be true?” After reading the article, I got a better appreciation of his intended message. There’s an abundance of software solutions that we can purchase to help us do our jobs.
Let’s just focus on content marketing. There are hundreds of companies in market serving the needs associated with content marketing. As marketers, we look for a “best of breed” offering. Ideally we want something that can provide a complete “end to end” workflow so that our ROI objectives can be achieved without integrating disparate tools.
We all have a slightly different slant on what is meant by content marketing, but no matter: content marketing is our attempt to find the most efficient/economical way to deliver the right content at the right time through the right channel so we can engage, retain, and build trust with our audience.
To find the right solution, you must identify the key components that will meet the needs of your content marketing team. There are five key components associated with a content marketing workflow:
- Content discovery
- Content curation
- Content distribution
- Content amplification
- Content analysis
1. Content Discovery
Today it is nearly impossible to create enough content to be and stay relevant. With so many channels of distribution, a continuous flow of highly relevant content is now table stakes. If you are not keeping your audience interested in what you are saying, you can bet that someone else is.
Discovery is different from curation. Many point solutions say they can curate content. But they forget to tell you something important: You need to “bring your own content.” In other words, you need to find and create your own content for distribution.
Robert Rose recently remarked:
And trust Robert when he says it is “technologically difficult,” which is why so many companies don’t really provide the power of discovery aside their curation capabilities.
2. Content Curation
Curation is about choosing the right content to share with your audience. It is also about making sure that the content is optimized to create the experience you want.
Curation is an art. It takes a keen creative mind to decide what content to share, when to share it, and where to share it. The capability to co-mingle created and curated content in your workspace, and then choose the appropriate content predicated on audience and intent – that is what curation is all about.
Many point solutions will say that they “facilitate curation.” But how many provide seamless discovery from the Internet, as well as from behind corporate firewalls? How many provide an easy taxonomy to organize and prepare the content for curation? And how many – in the same interface – allow the curator the ability to make all the required edits and annotated comments to ensure the content is optimized for maximum impact?
At Addvocate-Trapit, we can do that.
3. Content Distribution
Distribution of content seems simple. However, there are so many ways to reach your audience. We have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, email, web properties, and – let’s not forget – TV, Billboards, radio, etc. It seems never-ending, if not completely overwhelming.
“Hunt, cut and paste” is just no longer a viable option. Social media publishing alone requires regular frequency. What organization can afford to search, cut, and paste to Twitter 10-15 times/day, Facebook and LinkedIn 5 times/week, and Pinterest 10 times/week? With content that is meaningful to the intended audience?
Make your life easy, efficient, and effective. Find a solution that gives you “push of the button” publishing – from one application.
4) Content Amplification
Fill your organization with “everyday” marketers. Leverage the power of your people to get your voice heard.
Employee advocacy is real, and it should be an integral part of your marketing strategy. Some organizations decide to empower their employees to leverage their personal social media networks and encourage them to share content. Other organizations prefer to moderate the content that their employees share. Either way, they recognize the need to amplify the brand voice through employee advocacy.
The most effective application will allow you to choose the approach with which your company is comfortable, while taking advantage of the content that was discovered and curated by that same application. So whether you want marketing-discovered and curated content, or employee discovered and curated, note that the best solution will offer both.
5) Content Analytics
And let’s not forget ROI. We need to know how our content is performing. It is important to see how much engagement we are creating with the content that we publish and share. We also need to measure the effectiveness of our employee advocacy activity to ensure that our teams are engaged and their content is being acknowledged.
This is really all about building our brand, cultivating awareness, and generating leads. Metrics are a key part of any great content marketing solution. Without this, it is virtually impossible to gauge the effectiveness of your content marketing plan.
In Case You Missed It…
This week Addvocate and Trapit came together in a very important merger to deliver the first complete content marketing solution. Providing marketers what they need to discover, curate, publish, amplify, and analyze relevant, personalized content is our mission. We hope you agree that we do it best.
Want to Learn More?
You can read more about how Trapit works and how Addvocate works. If you’re interested in either product, feel free to contact us to request more information.
We look forward to hearing from you soon!
-Pat Hume, President of Addvocate-Trapit