Content marketing is not easy—the pressure of deadlines combined with the need to be creative on a daily basis can be overwhelming. Almost 80% of marketers say they are overloaded and understaffed, making it difficult for them to produce high-quality, relevant, and original content it on a consistent basis.
With 93% of business to business (B2B) marketers now using content marketing to grow their business, you can’t afford to lift your foot off the gas—you have to find a way to keep going.
Don’t worry, I’m not going ask you to work more hours or hire more people. Instead, you can use these avenues below to improve your content production.
In this article, we will be focusing our attention on the last point. Here are few ways to create less content, but with more impact.
Be reactive to trending events.
Over 2 million blog posts are written daily. Coming up with new, unique, and relevant content that drives visibility requires a lot of resources—competing with the rest of the content out there is even harder.
To keep up, marketers should incorporate reactive content to their content strategy. As Liam Corcoran describes—this is the practice of tailoring your content to the water cooler conversation topics of the day, hour or even minute.
Reacting to a trending topic doesn’t require as much research as conventional content, and it isn’t always long form. Check out this tweet by Snickers after Uruguayan footballer, Luis Suarez bit a player from the opposing team during a World Cup game.
Here are a few things you should remember while incorporating a reactive content strategy:
Getting reactive content right can result in traffic, brand visibility, and press coverage—all in a matter of few hours. The added benefit—it helps your brand stay relevant.
Supplement your content creation with content curation.
Content curation is the collection of relevant content on the web presented meaningful and organized way. It is one of the best ways to fill your content voids.
“One of the most successful blog posts on my own blog was a round-up about how to start an SEO company”. – Krystian Szastok, Digital Marketing Manager at RocketMill
Usually presented as a compilation of useful articles related to a particular topic from around the web, they must be relevant to your followers or your target audience. Add a small summary or review of the articles to add context to your post. Always let the author of the post know before compiling the round-up.
You can also implement the same tactic for your email newsletter campaigns. Here’s an example from Intercom:
Curated content works on your social networks too, there are even a lot of curation and discovery tools to help you out.
Another large benefit is that it gives you a platform to connect with some of the major influencers in your niche. They might even share your round-up post on their website or social networks.
Try out newer forms of content.
When you are short on content ideas, take this proverb to heart, and try out new things that require less time and effort.
“Necessity is the mother of invention” – English Proverb
Here are a few interesting ideas that you can try out:
New content formats have dual benefits. Firstly, you are keeping your subscribers engaged by delivering meaningful and relevant content on a regular basis. Secondly, it curbs the need to produce more content.
Repurpose and update old posts.
With so many touch points available to content marketers, repurposing content has become really popular.
Instead of blindly repurposing content on different platforms, find channels that drive the most impact. Analyze each channel by relevant metrics like reach, audience type, and engagement before choosing one for repurposing content—the goal is to reach a new audience.
Pick an article from your blog that didn’t perform as well as you’d hoped. After updating the post, you could use these tools to create an infographic and distribute. Check this out to learn more on how to repurpose efficiently.
Updating old posts does not generally require the same kind of effort as repurposing. Identify content that performed well in the past but is outdated at present, then make necessary changes to improve its relevancy. This will help extend the shelf life of your best blog content and you will be able to continue to benefit from its high search rankings.
Here is a checklist from the experts at HubSpot on updating content:
Get others to do your job.
Yes, you can actually get other people to create content and distribute it for you. All you need to do is let people know you are interested in collaborating with them.
Here are a few ways in which you can get other people to help you create content:
Content marketing cannot be a stop-start activity, it has to be consistent. Implementing these tips will help ensure that your content engine doesn’t stop and you can keep going even during those times when you feel like you’re in a content slump.
Niraj Ranjan Rout is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hiver, a tool that has all the features you need in a Help Desk. Right in your Gmail.