Your content is the foundation of your digital brand. The content your company produces drives social media, influences your search rank and feeds your website. It builds your company’s credibility by demonstrating your firm’s capabilities, personality and values. And it builds relationships by engaging your prospects, clients and centers of influence. Without a steady supply of content your digital brand is dead in the water.
Keeping up with the relentless demands of new content is overwhelming for many firms. Who has the time to blog everyday? Not many. At least not many without dedicated marketing and writing resources. And on top of blogging, who has time for the ongoing content demands for social media, newsletters and video? A well rounded content marketing program that drives sales results is a big endeavor.
What is a firm to do? Many people complain, “I don’t have enough time to write and create all this content.” That may be true, but time is not the issue. The issue is money.
If you’re serious about building your firm’s brand online then you’ve got to invest in content marketing, and that requires time or money. You can create the content yourself, you can hire staff or contractors to create it, you can outsource it or you can use a combination of these tactics. Whichever way you create content there will always be a required investment to drive the content machine.
Time is money
There’s a hard cost for investing strategic staff and management resources for content creation. You’ve got to determine if that’s the best use of their time, and if they’re the best people for the job. If it makes strategic sense for key members of your team to create content then by all means make it happen. If not, then value the effort and get it off their plate.
There are oodles of excellent writers, videographers and other content creators available in the market. The challenge is developing a strategy for how you’re going to engage your targeted constituents online, and determining the appropriate types of content to build those relationships. Once you have the strategy you can identify the resources to develop and distribute the content.
Quality sells
Avoid cheaping out on content creation. Linkbait, keyword laden, SEO-style content does not sell. It’s obviously promotional. It may bring a visitor to your website, but it doesn’t readily demonstrate capabilities, build relationships or convert into sales.
Content is the heart and soul of your digital brand. It’s what your prospects, clients and centers of influence are interacting with online. So set the bar high. Your online experience should reflect the offline experience. Your content should demonstrate what it’s like to work with your firm so people have a comparable experience no matter how they interact with your business.
You don’t have a choice
You can’t avoid content. No matter how you approach marketing online it always ties back to content. Accept it and invest in it. And it’s ok to acknowledge you don’t have the resources and capabilities to create the content inhouse. Focus on what you do best, and budget accordingly in content creation to drive your sales funnel.
