As Content Marketing continues to grow as a way for businesses to market their products and services, the process of the creation of the content is becoming more and more important.

Content creation can be time-consuming, not to mention the need for marketers to produce content that consistently engages with customers while also staying on brand. We're going to discuss some tips and tricks on how you can streamline your content creation so you can produce more of the right type of content in less time, drive more sales, and send the perfect ratio of free vs promotional content.

Your Content Marketing in an ideal world should be showcasing you as omnipresent on social media in your niche. The more you can show customers that your company cares about them, the stronger their connection to your brand becomes and the more likely they'll want to buy from you.

Plus – frustratingly for marketers – we've seen over the years that the number of times a customer needs to “see you” before they make a decision has increased from an average of about 7 times upwards these days of 18+ times.

If you didn't already know, Content marketing is a great way of using free information (that you'd typically tell clients throughout the sales process anyway) as bait for potential sales or promotions by adding one offer per week into an email newsletter while also producing other forms of free content such as blogs, infographics, videos, webinars etcetera.

TIP 1:

Create templates that allow for quick formatting options. This can be graphic templates, blog templates, social media templates etc. (theres actually a lot you can template these days). These templates also make it easier to produce more of the ‘right' content, because they're pre-set with your own style guide so that your content will be uniform throughout all social media platforms where you are publishing as well as emails, blog posts and any other places

TIP 2:

Make use of headline tools such as https://www.thehoth.com/headline-generator/ or even conversion.ai ‘s headline analyser.

The HOTH is an excellent, free tool that allows you to see how a potential visitor would perceive your content based on their browsing history. This can be very helpful when brainstorming titles and headlines for posts because it helps you think about what the post will do either way: help them or not!

Conversion.ai's headline analyser generates up to 500 different versions of your title so people have a better chance at finding something they like in those first few words of your blog post without having to scroll down. I've found this really helpful with our content creation process – and particularly where there are limited characters available per ‘post' like on twitter. It also saves time because instead of creating one great worded piece from scratch and agonising over how long it can take you, you can get pieces of it written almost in the blink of an eye!

TIP 3:

Make a plan before you write, and work out what information will be the most valuable for your audience. (a great way to short cut this even more is to ask your audience what they wanna hear from you)

TIP 4:

Once you've gone through a content creation process once – document it & record it, so you can outsource it or pass it off to another staff member next time. This will make your job easier moving forward, and having the process already done ensure that more efficiencies can be found.

TIP 5:

If you're faster on the desktop computer – use a desktop to create your content. If you're faster on your mobile – then use your mobile to create your content. Don't try to change who are for this stuff if it's not your zone of genius – you'll just get frustrated and likely not even complete the process, and then of course you won't get any results!

BONUS EXTRA TIP! 

Consider using an outside agency like mine who understands how to create great social media graphics and videos on top of their marketing expertise. We'll take care of everything from getting content ideas started, writing blog posts that translate into sales opportunities, taking care of distribution across all social media and even making it look super professional with the right graphics and branding for you company. I mean who has time to learn all the platforms, the sizes that needed – let alone has the time to upload it everywhere with the right hashtags and graphics AND run your business?

So at the end of the day the key to streamlining your content creation is identifying the most valuable information you can share with your customers and then deciding which parts of that content creation process are right for you.

Remember, if it's worth doing at all – its worth documenting or outsourcing! (I feel like I could create a whole movement outta that one line… Hmmm… )