Scaling content production is more doable — and beneficial — than you might think you think.
As social media algorithms change and privacy updates threaten marketing attribution, more and more businesses are flocking to organic content. Perhaps you’re one of them.
As you quickly discover, content marketing takes a lot of effort and involves a lot of different skill sets. To scale your content, you need to strategically plan your content calendar and execute on proven best practices.
It’s not an easy task, but it can be done.
In this article, we break down some of the top tips for scaling content marketing efforts.
Most businesses have a marketing budget that allows for advertising, including content creation. Perhaps you have considered how to make new content more engaging or even how to make existing content better than your competitors.
You are at a pivotal stage of marketing where scaling content creation could be a benefit to you, especially when executed with careful planning and proven best practices.
Here are some reasons to prioritize scaling content in your next promotional boost.
What is content scaling?
Content scaling is the act of creating new content, refining current content, and repurposing old content to increase its organic reach. It’s not just about creating a large volume of content. Rather, it focuses on creating intentional content for a variety of purposes that can stand as the authority in your niche.
What are the benefits of scaling content?
1. Keeps you competitive
Scaling content of the highest quality makes you the authority on any subject you write about. If you are in a highly-competitive industry, one of the things that can help you stand out is quality content that’s more engaging and informative than other brands in your niche.
2. Drives brand awareness
Eighty percent of marketers say they use content to create brand awareness. If you can make content that engages visitors, they will be more likely to remember you (even from their first visit to your site!) This makes content a natural fit for new companies, startups, or legacy brands with innovative product launches that have yet to be widely received.
3. Boosts your SEO
Well-written content that’s optimized for SEO can help bring a lot of organic traffic to your site. Does your content contain all the keywords you would want customers to use when looking for solutions to their problems? Great content considers the exact words people use when they’re looking for educational or informative content.
Make sure to also add reviews, and definitions, optimize your content for Google snippets and use other SEO best practices to improve your search rankings over time.
4. Creates additional opportunities
Content at scale earns more leads and, eventually, sales. Consider how a series of blog posts can be stitched together to make an ebook that can then be used as a lead magnet. Another example is the white paper you outsourced that can now be broken up into actionable chunks of advice for an ongoing email newsletter. Your best-written content provides inspiration for other lead-generation content, making it an incredible investment with almost immeasurable ROI.
How to scale content
A successful content marketing campaign requires an ongoing, active strategy that you refine over time based on new data and the results of your efforts. The plan should include:
- Checking analytics to see that your content is reaching enough people
- Regular content updates with new information, links, and calls-to-action
Scaling content is never a one-and-done event, and there are a lot of elements that go into it. So be sure you have the resources to commit to the process for the long term.
The basic steps of scaling content include:
1. Create a content plan
First, you need to create a content plan. You may already be experienced in creating a content strategy, but developing a content plan is a bit different. You’ll need to plan out all the pieces of content for your campaign, including items you want to refresh and repurpose.
This should happen before you ever start writing content. Your plan should include goals you hope to achieve, the types of content to outsource, and who will be responsible for each type of content.
2. Use a content calendar
When will each piece of content be due? How long will you wait for revisions? What social media posts will happen at the time of publishing? All of these questions can be answered and documented on a content calendar, an essential tool in content management. Even if you will be having freelancers write your blog posts, put their duties on the calendar so you can keep track and ensure everyone is staying on deadline.
3. Promote and repurpose
Every piece of content you create should be shared to as many channels as possible. Create separate content for every place you post and use best practices for that channel. Tweets, for example, will follow different rules than LinkedIn or Medium posts.
Time your promotions so that your shares are spread out to get the maximum coverage for every piece you publish and encourage resharing and engagement among your teams and stakeholders. Don’t forget to make it easy for visitors and customers to share, too!
4. Regularly update
Old content material should never be left to get stale and die. It can almost always be updated with new stats, product information, or customer testimonials. If you need a quick way to freshen up an old blog post, consider adding quotes from subject matter experts (SMEs). If you choose freelancers who are well-versed in a topic, hire them to give new life to old pieces. You may be surprised at what they come up with!
5. Measure and adjust
You should already be tracking your content’s success in several ways, from page views to shares to time spent on the page. Surprisingly, 9% of marketers do not track data, meaning they miss out on potential opportunities.
If you have a lot of data and aren’t sure what to do with it, you may find marketing tools with analytics reporting to be a big help. Don’t forget to measure your performance against Google’s rankings. Is there a piece of old content doing well in search? Can you update it, repurpose it, and share it across social for added traction?
This is the beauty of a solid content scaling plan, as it continually refines your content to get the best ROI for the time and effort you’ve already put into it.
How to tackle the content overwhelm
If it seems like scaling content is a big job, it’s because it is. Not only is there the initial investment in content creation, but the continual tweaking, measuring, and refining can be a full-time job.
The good news is that your efforts will most certainly pay off in terms of creating an authority voice in your industry. With the help of an agency like ClearVoice, you can save time and resources, plus get access to a team of freelancers well-versed in content ideation and creation. Get started with ClearVoice today!
