|
A company’s public relations/marketing plan boils down to a main objective: create public awareness, which in turn generate leads to customers/clients. As part of this objective, your company’s marketing team will probably go buy radio spots, billboards, and sponsorships & even conduct media outreach. All these outreach methods are fine as long as they meet your company’s marketing goals. Outbound marketing can still be effective but people (not consumers) are also likely to be better leads if they come seek you out. Also, think about the amount of time it takes to send press releases, follow-up with media, secure interviews while waiting for those phone calls your outbound advertising should be generating.
Content creation is a pro-active approach for your company to build brand recognition & credibility while being apart of the communication process. I can’t stress enough how important it is for companies to understand their marketing message and be active in helping craft a plan to communicate your message. Content creation should be part of any company’s marketing plan. It is more time consuming on the front end to craft various types of content but from a long- term perspective you will spend less time searching for business. Instead, the business will come to you.
Choosing Your Content
Before we talk about your company’s different types of content creation, we need to figure out what kinds of content people would find interesting or informative about your company. Basically, people read content that is interesting, informative or entertaining. Your content can have one or all three of these values. People that generally like the content will then seek out the author to learn more about them or their company. Content that provides value will connect with people and keep your company top of mind. Keep in mind that in order to reach people, you have to figure out not only what your content will be, but also how to distribute it to your audience. Also, think about how your content can provide value and whom it can help. Your content will be ineffective if it comes across as self-serving or promotional. Content that is authentic and helpful will build better brand relationships. This can even apply to articles about your company in print or magazines. The more transparent and authentic your company is, the easier time you will have getting people’s attention. This boils down to how you want your company ‘s message to be perceived by the public. All your content has to reflect back to your company’s brand.
Make Your Content Stand Out
What types of content does your company already produce? Press releases, brochures, emails or even direct mail? This type of content is more or less information about your company. This is a good building block. Now, let’s build another value into your company’s content. How can you make your content stand out from competitors or other similar information? Interesting content can involve positioning your company as a thought leader in your industry, which also helps with brand credibility. Or, you could look at creating content that shows off how innovative your staff or company is in your industry. If your company is more general consumer or lifestyle oriented, find an entertaining angle to your products or services. Sometimes, your own great content can even spawn more business ideas for your company. There are some companies that produce such compelling content they are more known for their forward-thinking ideas as well as what the company provides. To get your creative juices flowing, write down unique adjectives that describe your company’s brand. Now, think about how your content can reflect those keywords.
Now that you constructed your content’s values, evaluate the content you already produce for your company. In the previous paragraph, I mentioned a few examples of typical company content. Are you currently measuring your content’s effectiveness? How many leads or referrals have you garnered. To make it a little easier, you can start with what you already have and build more content ideas from there. Also, every company has a website. Think about updating your site’s content on a more regular basis with articles, buyer personas, and white papers or even embedding your company’s e-newsletter. This will keep people coming back to your site regularly for fresh content as well as help with your SEO. Also, think about putting your media release on the company site as well. When people (or even journalists) search for keywords related to press release’s content, they will have an easier time coming across the press release and your website. This is a little easier and less time consuming than sending out press releases and hoping to get a journalist to jump on the story. If your company produces a newsletter, include action items in your newsletter that can be “how-tos” tips or even personal stories or thoughts from company staff & CEO. Be creative with this approach and create themed content for your newsletter if it’s published regularly. If you want to venture into other types of content, make sure it fits into your content strategy and whom you want to target. If your company is thinking about blogging, have some ideas in place on what kind of blog you want to write and then create a timeline that will keep you focused on your writing and help generate blog ideas. Do some research and find company blogs you like to read. Figure out what your targeted audience would like to read and start writing. As far as content distribution, post & link your content to social media sites, news wires, your website and other content hosting sites like Slideshare.
Have good tracking tools in place to see how many people are clicking to your content, length of time spent consuming content and then sharing your content to their networks. Also, track where your prospects are coming from in terms of how they are finding your content. Ultimately, everything needs to link back to your website so prospects can take the next step to find out more about your company and want to talk with you.
|
