Get More with Less: Boost Your Digital Marketing Without Producing Endless Content
“I have too much time for fun.”
“I wish I could spend more hours writing blog posts.”
“I want to work more.”
These are the three sentences I have never heard in my life. In fact, I hear that there’s never enough time or energy to finish everything. Everyone is busy, and too many of us are straight-up burnt out. Luckily for us, the trick to better marketing results isn’t working longer hours or hiring five more staff members. It’s to better leverage the content we produce. In the world of marketing, we need to work smarter, not harder.
First, let’s talk about what tools should be included in your digital marketing.
8 digital marketing tools for your content promotional strategy
Working smarter means using all the tools at your disposal. Recently, I talked with Michelle Tresemer, a marketing pro who helps SMBs develop strategic marketing plans. She told me, “Leadership teams talk about digital marketing like [it’s all] social media. That’s not true digital marketing.” To be truly effective, we need to leverage eight different tools:
Content Marketing: This category includes all the different channels where you produce in-depth, informative, and engaging materials. For some companies, this will be blog posts. For others, webinars or podcasts. For the strategy we cover in this article, content marketing drives the messaging for the rest of the process.
Website: No matter how much you use Facebook or LinkedIn to promote your brand, having a website is important because it’s a channel where you’re in control. On your own site, you’re not beholden to the algorithms or content limitations of your favorite social media site. Your website is the home of your content marketing, even if you’re cross-posting to other channels.
Search/SEO: Do you remember the days where SEO meant squeezing 100 keywords into a blog post like some kind of clown car? Those days are behind us. Google has gotten smarter and better at recognizing high-quality content, but we still need to optimize content so that search engines can parse it.
Email Marketing: If you have a list, use it. People who subscribed to your email list are interested in your content. Think about ways to reuse that precious content marketing material in your emails. Whether you convert a blog post into a nurture sequence or include a teaser and link to your latest webinar recording, make the most of your subscriber list.
Social Media: Most social media users aren’t looking for long-form content, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to learn. You can pull highlights from a blog post for a series of informative social media posts. With social media, though, it’s important to remember the social element. Make engaging through your social media channels a priority.
Paid Advertising/PPC: There are opportunities for paid advertising at any budget level. Consider spending a small amount to boost social media posts. With a larger budget, you can also run paid search campaigns to highlight your cornerstone content.
Digital PR: Think of PR opportunities that expand your audience, while still addressing your ideal customers. You can pitch content to trade publications in your industry, interview an industry leader, or invite a connection onto your podcast. Those associations can solidify your position as an expert in your industry and broaden your reach.
Analytics & Tracking: It’s easy to get into a publish-and-forget mindset with your marketing efforts. To really ensure that our marketing efforts are paying off, we need to come back and look at the results. Over time, we’ll find out what works best and what we should drop.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that digital marketing is just Facebook posts or only paid advertising. Cover all eight areas.
Big results with less content production
Nobody wants to spend more time working just because. We want results! Here’s how to spend less time on content creation while getting better results.
Start from a single, strong piece of content.
Producing less content isn’t the same as producing no content. We still have to create something. Focus on a core piece of content (AKA pillar content) that can be repurposed. I’d recommend a blog post, a video, or a podcast. Once you have that core content, you’ll create clusters of related and repurposed content.
Since this is the center of your digital marketing, you want to invest some time in it. Your core (sometimes called pillar content) content will depend on your audience. It needs to provide tangible value for your ideal customer.
Core content is typically long-form and informative. It answers questions that are important to your customer, or helps them to accomplish a goal related to your business. A financial planner might create a webinar with tips on refinancing a mortgage, for example.
Core content can’t be sloppy. Think of your digital marketing as a house that you’re building. This core content is the foundation and framing. The rest of the content cluster is drywall, windows, flooring, etc. If you don’t make the foundation substantive enough, you won’t have a structure strong enough to support the rest of the house.
Repurpose and amplify your content across different channels.
From that single piece of core content, create as much repurposed content as possible. That doesn’t mean social media posts that just say “go read our new blog.” The repurposed content needs to be valuable on its own. Here are a couple of ways to do that:
Create video content by reading portions of a blog post. You can create a single longer video for YouTube and shorter snippets that are ideal for Facebook or Instagram stories or Instagram reels.
Repost blog content to Medium and LinkedIn. It turns out, you probably don’t need to worry about search engines punishing you for duplicate content when you repost to these platforms.
Transform a livestream video or webinar into a blog post. Want to know more about this? Check out my post on repurposing video content.
Reach out to trade publications. They may be interested in featuring your content. You can also interview people in your industry. When you quote someone or invite them onto a podcast, they’ll likely want to share the final content with their own circle.
Create social media posts that feature pull quotes or tips from your core content.
Use the content in your email marketing. You could write a shorter version of your piece for email subscribers, or incorporate it into a nurture campaign.
Choose a repeatable cadence and process.
What’s the secret sauce when it comes to marketing? Consistency.
It’s impossible to grow a social media following or build leads when you’re only publishing once a week or once a month. Your audience won’t see every one of your posts. You need to post frequently and consistently to get real traction.
Think hard about how often you want to create core content. Setting the goal too high leads to frustration and burnout, so choose something that you’ll definitely be able to follow through on. As a starting point, Michelle Tresemer recommends creating one excellent blog post per month. Since that single blog post is stuffed with valuable information, you’ll be able to create at least a month's worth of social media posts, plus the other repurposed materials. If you’re squeezed for time, repurposing content is a great opportunity to outsource some work.
Better results with less content creation? Yes, please.
Here’s Michelle Tresemer’s ultimate advice on getting more with less: Spend 20% of your marketing time creating content. Spend the remaining 80% distributing that content to all the channels where you can reach your ideal customer.
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