Bright thinking: five ideas for keeping your content fresh

A 2017 roundtable discussion hosted by Econsultancy found that the toughest test professional content marketers face is maintaining a consistent, interesting and relevant stream of content.

From our experience with clients, we’ve found that the pressure is even higher on individual brands to develop fresh, relevant copy that drives sales and social media engagement while maintaining brand image.

A consistent content marketing strategy begins with careful planning. Here are five ways we have helped our clients to produce a regular and engaging content stream:

 

1. Stay relevant

Whilst some brands find it beneficial to create content around keywords, this approach can be fleeting since search terms change and evolve constantly. An alternative way to making your content future-ready is to do research into the topics your target audience is interested in hearing about. Use data from events, social media, audience feedback and analytics, to make an informed decision on the type of content that solves problems, answers questions, and provides unique value for everyone visiting your website.

 

2. Content marketing calendar

Topical and time-sensitive content is important but there are also key dates and times throughout the year around which you can plan content. These might include days as diverse as the World Book Day, Earth hour or annual conferences. Scheduling these in a content calendar allows you to identify possible content gaps in advance and plan accordingly.

 

3. Content is not just copy

… and its place is not just on a company’s blog section. You should consider truly integrating infographics, videos and animations to make sure you not only grab but also retain your audience’s attention. Everything you produce and distribute – from websites and blogs to your social media output, as well as printed content like newsletters and magazines – has the potential to be part of a bigger campaign that amplifies your message to a wider audience, for longer.

 

4. Repurpose old content

According to Google’s ex CEO Eric Shmidt, humans now create as much information in two days as we did from the dawn of man until 2003. In an era of content saturation, it’s more important than ever for you to resurface, tweak and repurpose previously produced content. One way you can breathe life into old blog posts, is by either updating them with new information, when applicable, or completely rewriting the article. You could also repurpose written content into an animation or commission a larger piece of research based on that animation you created in the past. Just because you produced a piece of content a while ago, it doesn’t mean that you can’t reuse or repurpose it!

 

5. Ask your audience

Sounds like simple advice, but often overlooked. Your readers are one of the best sources of ideas that you have at your fingertips. Discover what challenges they have, what issues they are concerned with, and what solutions they are looking for. By providing content that is relevant to their needs, and by showing an interest in delivering content that they want will result in a happy, loyal, audience. And, you are more likely to generate revenue based opportunities.

When you produce engaging content, you boost your customer loyalty, improve SEO scores, establish your brand as an expert and a thought leader, and so much more.

We hope the above tips will help you keep the content you produce fresh but if you are looking for tangible advice, you can drop us a line on hello@wardour.co.uk, or give us a call on 020 7010 0999