Content marketing is the best way to reach a large and diverse audience. But unless you have an unlimited budget, how do you scale it?
This post is going to show you how to scale content marketing strategy. We’ll walk you step-by-step through every detail of the process so that you can take it and apply it in your own business.
What Is Scaling in Content Marketing?
Today, marketers are struggling to create a lot of content with less time and resources. One of the main reasons for this is that times have changed. People’s attention spans have been getting shorter and shorter.
And if you aren’t able to craft your content in a way that gets readers engaged, you’ll lose them.
Content marketing is all about reader engagement. Your challenge is to attract a new audience and establish an ongoing relationship with them so that they will come back again and again.
You do this by writing blog posts for them, answering their questions in videos, doing AMAs on Reddit and so much more.
One way to avoid having to produce more content is by scaling your content marketing strategy. What does that mean? It means working smarter not harder with the content you already have so that you can generate even more valuable content with less effort from your team.
How Do You Scale Content Marketing?
The way to scale content marketing is to focus on proven strategies that work. But what does it really mean to “scale” your content strategy? Well, scaling is a term that comes from the world of software development. It means making something bigger or better by expanding.
This is exactly what you want to do with your content strategy. You’re going to scale it so that you can get bigger results faster and with less work from your team. That sounds like a great win-win scenario, doesn’t it?
Before we dive into the details of the process, let’s take a look at some of the strategies you can include to make your strategy more effective and efficient. Then we’ll give you step-by-step instructions on how to get it done.
When people talk about scaling their content, they’re usually referring to one of three different things:
Audience reach: This strategy is all about increasing the size of your audience. The more people you can connect with, the better
Revenue generation: If you’re writing content to promote a product or service, it makes sense to try and find ways to generate revenue from that content.
Opt-in conversion rates: Whenever someone visits one of your blog posts, you want to make sure they have a chance to opt-in for resources, special offers, and more.
Three Main Steps on How to Scale Content Marketing
The strategies we’re going to cover in this section will help you increase all three of the above metrics. Let’s take a look at each one so that you know what scaling really means.
Step 1: Content Acquisition Strategy
The first step to scaling your content marketing is to develop a strategy for acquiring content ideas. If you don’t know where to find good topics, you will struggle to come up with enough material for a large audience.
Because it requires so much time, energy, and effort, you need an acquisition plan that can scale without requiring extra resources. Here are some of the things to do to find content:
Google Alerts – Google Alerts is a simple service that notifies you whenever someone in the media mentions one of the terms you specify.
To use it, set up an alert for every keyword related to my niche and industry. Then write down any article ideas or blog post ideas you can find in the alerts.
Feedly – Feedly is another tool that allows you to save content from a variety of sources and blogs for later reading. You can use this service to keep up with what’s happening in your industry, as well as see what popular bloggers are saying about various topics.
Blog comments – Blog comments are a great way to get content ideas and start conversations with other bloggers. We recommend using Disqus as your commenting system so that you can tie comments to their author, which creates more opportunities for follow-up articles or interviews.
Step 2: Develop an Editorial Calendar
Once you’ve collected a bunch of ideas, it’s time to incorporate them into an editorial calendar. We recommend using Google Calendar and planning your content in blocks of one week for each piece so that everything is clearly organized by date.
Here are some things to consider when creating your calendar:
Plan ahead and be consistent. If you don’t have time to write the awesome content you want to create right now, look ahead and schedule your writing for a later date.
Content marketing isn’t an overnight success formula. It takes time to grow your audience, so make sure you plan accordingly and get started with an editorial calendar today!
Use templates for recurring content. If your website covers a niche or industry that has common topics, write template articles to use for those posts and save yourself time later.
Keep an editorial checklist. You should always keep track of the other tasks that need to be completed when you’re writing an article so that things don’t get forgotten at the last minute.
This keeps all of your ducks in a row and ensures that everything gets done.
Step 3: Recruit and Train Writers/Contributors.
Once you’ve got an editorial calendar set up, it’s time to start filling your blog with content! Because it takes time and effort to create useful content for your audience, getting other people involved is crucial if you want to scale your content marketing.
Since it can be expensive and time-consuming to find, recruit, and train writers, you should look for people who are already familiar with your niche and industry. Bloggers, journalists, professors, students, or anyone else who has expertise in your field is a good candidate.
To get started recruiting writers, you can set up an email template you can send to prospective contributors. Make it clear that they will be expected to produce a certain amount of content and make sure to set boundaries so they don’t over-commit.
Conclusion
Content marketing is a great way to create content for your target audience, but it can be difficult and time-consuming.
Luckily there are ways to make the process easier by developing strategies that scale without requiring more resources.
With effort and forethought, you can create an effective content marketing plan that will help you to achieve your business goals.