Tag: create content

Five Ways Content Can Boost Referrals

Five-star Content boosts referralsAmong B2B marketers, referrals are often the lifeblood of a business. Yet too often, we don’t take the time to educate referral sources about our business. For example a property manager may know about your tuckpointing service, but they may not know you also clean brick. Remember that customers aren’t the only audience for content. Content marketing can educate referral sources about your business and keep your brand top of mind. Here are five tips for boosting referrals with content:

1) Make it clear what you do and for whom.

If you are a builder, it is probably easy to figure out that out from your website, but do you communicate the types and scale of projects you work on. Are they single family homes or commercial buildings? Do you specialize in starter homes or high-end custom homes? Will you remodel a space, or do you only construct new buildings? These are all important questions for anyone who is thinking of recommending you.

2) Play up your affiliations and third party credentials.

Use photos, logos and text to make it clear what industries you are involved in. List any special credentials your firm might hold. Are staff members LEED certified or is your business a member of a professional organization? This is all important information to include on your website.

3. Keep top of mind with referral sources.

Use email marketing to reach out to referral sources with relevant information and details of your referral program. Create content that appeals to a broader audience and make your content easy to share through social media. Make incentives memorable and relevant to your audience. Follow your referral sources on Twitter and connect with them on LinkedIn. Keep track of them through job changes.

4. Let your referral sources brand your content.

Would it make sense to share content with your referral sources’ customers? Offer the opportunity to co-brand your material. Who wouldn’t be happy to get good quality content for free.

5. Give recommendations on social media sites.

Still, the best way to get recommendations is to give them. Use sites like Linked-In and Yelp to spread the word about the people you enjoy doing business with. Consider adding a list of businesses you recommend to your website.

Let content help you build your referral network.

Tis the Season: Content Strategy 2012

December calendarA content strategy is a long-term plan that guides practitioners in planning, creating, positioning and measuring content to achieve defined business goals. Its success depends on designating a leader who will make content a priority, not a second thought.

Like most business strategies, begin your content strategy plan with a mission statement that defines what the purpose of your content is. For example, Google’s mission statement is: “’To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Note that this is a short, memorable and clear statement. When in doubt about context for your content, return to the mission statement for guidance.

Plan. Conduct a content audit and analyze your results from 2011. What are its strengths and weaknesses? What gaps need to be filled and what opportunities are available? What can pose a risk to executing your content and having it be received well by the intended audience? Have a goal for each piece of content created. Set goals using the SMART technique: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Another part of planning requires an editorial calendar identifying topics.

Create. Why are you creating content and for whom? To promote, engage, inform, or entertain clients and prospects are common reasons. To be successful, turn to professionals who know how to engage an audience. Blogging is becoming more widespread among all industries. Be sure to create content that is useable, shareable, findable and customer focused. Sources for content are writers, subject matter experts, and existing material that can be curated.

Position. Identify the right channels for content and the right time in the sales cycle.  Something every business should be considering for 2012 is setting up a mobile version of their website. Also, if not already done set up a dashboard to combine multiple views of social media sites, blogs, and websites. You can use a single display to see important information that supports your goals. Stay in control by monitoring.

Measure. Will you measure customer engagement or customer satisfaction? There are many ways to use key performance indicators – metrics to measure progress toward your goals. The new Google analytics will provide easy visualization of audience engagement in 2012. However, to measure meaningful impact requires a personal review of the interactions, not just a calculation of numbers.

Your content strategy plan will get you through the year with measured results on how you have added value to the company’s bottom line. Anything else you will rely on to make your content strategy plan successful for 2012?