Here’s how you can put out great content at a price that won’t cause discontent.
Your content marketing budget might be small, but who said you need to compromise on quality? You might be struggling to stand head-to-head with your competitors, but who said you have to make a dent in your company’s finances? Challenging times are upon us, but it’s how we deal with adversity that really counts. So, while you may believe that content marketing is unattainable, we’re here to show you how it can be done economically. After all, it is the backbone of any marketing strategy. Don’t you agree?
If you’re an individual or a business attempting to learn more about producing high quality content on a shoestring budget, take a look at Word Hatter’s easy to implement guide!
Build Your Blog
A blog is a highly powerful and engaging medium for individuals and businesses to leverage with ease. It costs close to nothing to set it up and get it rolling. Inexpensive and extraordinarily effective, a blog helps all sorts of brands – corporate and personal – achieve their specific marketing objectives. For instance, blogging can help build brand awareness, whilst providing relevant and useful information to the target audience. It is also an affordable way of creating engagement, driving traffic to the host’s website, as well as attracting prospective customers.
How to get started:
- Create an editorial calendar, outline your topics, develop a simple writing guide and assign responsibilities.
- Post at least once a week. The more frequently you publish content, the more likely you are to generate buzz and community around your brand.
- If you’re an individual, write the blog yourself. After all, you are the ultimate authority on your own brand. If you’re a business, use in-house writers. This will free up your budget for other important expenditure.
Focus on User Generated Content
User Generated Content is any form of content such as images, text, audio or video, that is created by users rather than brands. It is then shared by brands on their respective marketing channels – websites and/or social media platforms. This serves as excellent social proof for brands, as content from real customers increases credibility and highlight’s the brand’s authenticity. Testimonials, blogs, vlogs, and social media posts are just a few examples of UGC. The best part is, the target audience is providing you with all the content. All you need to do is present and publish!
How to get started:
- Build a content library with unique ideas for UGC generation.
- Determine which social media channels are most relevant for your target audience.
- Ensure that your social media channels are accessible to your target audience.
- Run a poll/quiz/contest, encourage creative responses, and offer something in return.
Streamline Your Social Media
Whether you’re a small start-up or an established business, social media is an incredibly diverse and cost-effective medium to help navigate the world of content marketing. It offers an exciting opportunity for companies to increase brand awareness, build and strengthen brand credibility, expand audience reach, and drive revenue by influencing customers and prospects at all stages of their decision-making journey. During budget strapped times, especially, brands should reallocate their marketing funds from traditional to digital platforms.
How to get started:
- Set up an idea bank, create a reminder system, and schedule posts in advance.
- Post regularly. For Instagram and Facebook, 5 posts per week is optimal. For Twitter, 3-5 tweets per day.
- Use a social media management tool to view a compilation of all the activity on all your networks.
- Handle the copy and graphics in-house, as outsourcing can be expensive.
Repurpose Your Content
Repurposing content is the practice of recycling elements of existing content into diverse formats that can be leveraged across various mediums, for a range of marketing objectives. For example, converting a blog post into an infographic. Or, a webinar into a YouTube video. It’s not about reposting the same piece of content, rather, adapting it creatively and strategically for maximum impact and reach. This in turn, saves time and money, as a new idea doesn’t have to be conceptualised and executed from scratch.
- Identify potential content buckets that can be repurposed.
- Convert your data analytics into interesting case studies or publish the statistics as Twitter posts.
- Transform old blog posts into newsletters or comprehensive guides.
- Remodel PowerPoint Presentations into slide decks.
- Transcript interviews, and create advice eBooks.
As you begin to start earning money via your nascent content marketing efforts, you’ll be able to invest that money back into your budget. Which means, you can keep improving, until you reach the potential you so desire. Once you’ve established a certain level of stability, you may slowly begin to increase output in order to scale up and that’s when you’ll need us the most. Until then, we wish you all the luck in the world!
