Alan Draper
A few weeks ago, our team here at Weidert Group offered a few of our basic templates that help organizations think and act like publishers and streamline the process of creating content that addresses their targets’ needs:
- A prospect profile
- A content questionnaire
- A content worksheet
- An editorial calendar
- A content meeting checklist
If you haven’t downloaded them yet, you can do so here!
Now we’re going to make the process of becoming a quality content provider even easier for our readers by recommending some additional tools to have on hand.
Tools for Implementing A Content Marketing Strategy
- Image library: Gather images that accurately and positively represent your product or service, as well as images that speak to your competitive advantage (time-saving innovation, added functionality, unique capabilities, etc.). With an approved stash ready to utilize, you’ll prevent guesswork and mistakes.
- Brand Overview: Every content creator should pin this on his or her wall: a short statement (your positioning statement, if your organization has one) that clearly identifies your target audience, what your company’s products/services represent to them, and what your company does better than your competitors. This is a simple yet powerful reminder of why they’re creating content and what each piece needs to communicate.
- Content Inventory: Dig into whatever content archives exist of your company communications – newsletters, videos, reports, sales materials – and put them on a list that also indicates the target and purpose of each piece. Content creators can reference this list when coming up with a topic to write about, or to reference for supporting information.
- Style Guide: Most medium- and large-size organizations have created style guides that include “official” usage dos and don’ts: the corporate color palette, approved typefaces, photo guidelines, preferred ways to refer to products and services, etc. These are critical in ensuring consistency and maintaining brand integrity.
- Proofreading Checklist: Before any content gets published it should be checked for accuracy. Create a checklist that verifies that all facts, spelling, grammar, keywords, URLs, etc., have been reviewed for accuracy.
- Idea Generators: Provide a one-page list of idea-generating techniques to help content contributors identify and create new content. If regular blogging causes writer’s block, download our “13 Ways To Keep Your Blog Stocked With Great Content.”
- Approved Content List: If your list of Idea Generators don’t ignite a spark, content creators should have a list of pre-approved topics to choose from. The list can be fairly basic, with topics like, “How Feature X Reduces Downtime,” or “When Refinancing Makes Sense.”
- Opportunities Calendar: Use upcoming company and industry events to come up with a topic. Create a calendar that includes events like your next trade show, upcoming product introductions, industry conferences, the release of study findings related to your product or service, etc.
- Effective Writing Tips: The importance of being concise, interesting, conversational and accurate can’t be overstated. Take a look at Weidert Group’s “10 Tips For Effective Blog Writing” post from a while back for ways to make your content optimally readable.
Now that you have the tools for organizing and creating great content, take time to walk through them with everyone on your content team, and make the tools easy to use and access online.
Success with Inbound Marketing requires that your organization acts like a publisher, providing regular content that demonstrates all you can do for qualified prospects. Getting that content right takes discipline, and these tools should help you do that.
Learn more about creating content for Inbound Marketing from our FREE Step-by-Step Guide to Inbound Marketing:
Read more:
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Alan Draper.
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Your links to “13 Ways” and “10 Tips” do not appear to be functioning? Can you please send these to me, thanks.
Rod…