Category: blog

Is there a place for “canned” content in your firm’s marketing?

Are you using canned content? On one level, I’m surprised how often I see professional service firms relying heavily on content from third party providers for their content marketing. I understand why firms choose to use this content. They appreciate the value of providing regular information to their clients and prospects, but they don’t feel they can do that work themselves. As a content marketer, I try to convince them they can and should produce their own original content. However, is canned content all bad?

The first issue is defining canned content. The term itself has a negative connotation, but encompasses a wide-range of information from different quality sources. This is content created by various publishing, website and marketing companies to be licensed for firms to use on their websites and in newsletters. These companies often focus on providing content to specialized and regulated professions. The material is not custom content developed for a particular client and it is not licensed content republished from premium publications (think NY Times, Reuters, etc.).

What are the pros and cons of using this content?

Pros:

1. Regularly delivered, solid information. It’s important to stay top of mind with clients and prospects and constantly sending them promotional material will just annoy them. These services allow you to provide some useful information on a regular basis. Assuming your source is top-notch, the content should be well-written and accurate.

2. Specialized content may be available. As mentioned above, you can often find providers who specialize in content for your profession or subject area, such as accounting, finance, tax or employment law. In the case of some regulated industries, like the financial industry, the material may even meet strict compliance requirements and be pre-approved for use.

3. Less investment. It takes less time, money and staff to license third party content, than to create it yourself. However, pricing does vary greatly.

4. Copyright is not a concern. If you want to republish all or substantial portions of third party content, then licensing is the ways to go. You don’t have to worry about fair use, getting permissions or other rights issues. The information can also reside on your own website so you’re not linking off to other sites and sending readers elsewhere.

5. Other benefits. Some of these services provide everything from design templates, to email platforms and tracking.

Cons:

1. Generic content. By its nature, canned content is meant to appeal to a wide-range of people. Therefore it tends to be very generalized, providing information that is more of an overview for a broad audience. It’s less likely to be targeted or relevant to your audience’s needs and wants. So it will be less interesting and thus, probably not very effective as a tool to attract and retain business.

2. Impersonal. Since the material is written by someone else, it won’t have your “voice.” It also won’t reflect your unique message and help build your personal brand. Most likely your audience will recognize your content as canned and wonder why you sent it. People are inundated with too much information as it is. Providing them with something they could get elsewhere and you didn’t put any personal effort into, won’t make them feel you really want to engage with them.

3. Not a differentiator. Since the content is generic and impersonal, it won’t differentiate you from your competitors. Some of those competitors may even have the identical content on their site. Worse, they may have great content and yours is canned. You will miss an opportunity to stand out and position yourself as a true expert, thought leader and trusted advisor.

4. No SEO benefit. This is duplicate content that appears on multiple sites so it won’t help you be found online by search engines. Google rewards sites with original content and penalizes low quality sites with duplicate content.

5. Limited rights. It’s likely you have restricted rights to edit or modify the content. This means you can’t repurpose and leverage the material in different ways to get more value out it.

Is there a role for canned content?

I believe firms that use such content realize there is value to content marketing, but need to fully appreciate how important it is to be different when there is already an overwhelming amount of information available to people.

If you want to use some canned content to help get your content marketing off the ground, then use it selectively and in combination with your own material. First, look closely at what your vendor is providing to you. Make sure the material has some value for your particular audience and then consider how you can make it more useful. Is it basic introductory content? Then organize and label it that way so those who are interested can easily find it. Then look at ways to enhance it. Write up your own commentary and takeaways. Provide related checklists, tips and case studies. Use the canned content as inspiration for writing your own pieces that take the subject matter to a new level. Think about how it applies to your specific audience and your own expertise.

The point is you can start small. You can bring in original, personal and targeted content a little at a time while you phase out the use of canned content. In the end, you’ll do a much better job of differentiating yourself and building stronger relationships with your audience. And that will drive your business success.

Why you should give away the secret sauce

Many professional service firms I have worked with tout their superior experience and knowledge as the reason they should be hired over their competitors. Yet those same firms are concerned about truly demonstrating their expertise through public writing and speaking because they would be giving away their “secret sauce” for free. The end result is they put out a lot of bland generic information that sounds like everyone else, instead of specific helpful content that would differentiate them from the pack.

Now I agree you don’t want to give away proprietary information. However, before you produce another mediocre piece of content (or don’t produce any content at all), ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Is it really your secret sauce?

Everything you know is not proprietary. Just because you provide some helpful advice, tips, or other information doesn’t mean you’ve given it all away. For years I recruited attorneys and accountants to author 500+ page tomes, yet I never heard anyone complain they lost potential clients because they wrote a book and clients didn’t need them anymore. There are plenty of ways to provide meaningful insights without solving every potential problem your audience might have.

Your real secret sauce is being able to understand and analyze your client’s specific issues as well as the big picture. It’s putting together and implementing a plan of action to help them. Those skills are harder than you think to translate into articles or presentations. Don’t worry about giving it away for free. Focus on showcasing the underlying knowledge and unique value you bring to your clients.

2. What are prospects really going to do with your content?

Professionals fear people will take their advice, do it themselves and they will lose business. But if it was that easy for others to do it themselves, then why did you need all that extra education, training and years of experience? Okay you know they can’t handle it, but they think they can do it themselves and so now you lost the client. But did you really want that client? The one who thinks they can figure out what you do by googling their problem. Do you think they were genuine prospects for you? Most likely they wouldn’t have hired you to do the work anyway. However, when it becomes too much to handle or if they have a future problem, they may remember the useful information you provided them for free.

Educating your audience is a good thing even if it doesn’t result in immediate business. This is the essence of content marketing. Consistently producing and delivering practical and informative content is an excellent way to gain visibility and engage and retain your prospect’s attention. In the professional services world the sales cycle can be very long or very short. Either way you want to become a trusted resource so that when prospects are looking for help, you are top of mind.

3. Can your content help you bring in or solidify new business?

Publishing useful and targeted content is an excellent way to get found by search engines. In fact, content creation is the most effective tactic for search engine optimization (SEO) and B2B marketers rank SEO as one of the top lead generation tactics. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Websites with lots of real content show up higher in organic search rankings so it make sense to put out information that will help bring prospects to you.

What about where someone already knows about you? Maybe they were referred to you or met you at an event or even worked with you on another matter. Word of mouth, referrals, and networking are top lead sources. However, it’s very likely those prospects will also google you and look at your website and LinkedIn profile. Showcasing high-quality valuable information helps give you credibility, enhances your reputation and establishes you as uniquely knowledgeable, trustworthy and client-centric. The reverse is also true. In a recent Hinge survey, 52% of respondents ruled out referrals to professional service firms before even speaking with them. Many of their top reasons focused on the fact that the firm didn’t demonstrate online how they could help clients. Unclear marketing materials that were too sales-oriented and poor quality content all contributed to keeping a referral from following up with a firm.

When you’re thinking about preparing that next article or speech, ask yourself these 3 questions. Hopefully your answers will lead you towards producing the kind of content that will get you noticed and grow your business.

10 dos and don’ts for creating a great presentation

In the last few weeks, I’ve attended several seminars with lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors as speakers. Most of the time, they presented a PowerPoint or gave handouts to go along with their program. Unfortunately, too often they didn’t make the most of those written materials – a lost opportunity considering that in-person events are one of the most effective marketing tactics available. (Source: CMI) With those seminars fresh in my mind, here’s my list of 10 dos and don’ts.

1. Don’t bury your best points. Often I see great information lost within a lot of content that is of less interest. Not everything you say is created equally, at least so far as your audience is concerned. Therefore, you shouldn’t put equal emphasis on all your ideas in your written (or spoken) materials either. The real problem here is not being sure what you want to say and how to say it. Make sure you understand your audience’s interests and your message. Organize your thoughts and focus on delivering and highlighting your strongest points in your presentation.

2. Don’t go into too much detail in writing. Your slides don’t need to restate everything you want to discuss. You want this to be an outline and your speech will fill in the blanks. Remember too that if you have a lot of text, your audience may be reading it instead of listening to you. Or else they may feel they don’t need to listen to you because they’re getting all the pertinent information in the written presentation and they can read it later.

3. Do leave them wanting more. In many ways, this is the flip side of writing too much, but also brings in the point that you want to engage your audience. You don’t want to answer every question in your presentation. You want to start a conversation. Give attendees reasons to ask questions or make comments during or after the program. You also want to let the audience know how to follow up with you and about where they can look for additional resources, including your own site. This is a great way to bring people to you and drive traffic to your website.

4. Don’t clutter up your slides visually with too much text or images on a page. I know if you are doing a lengthy program, the tendency is to want to put a lot on a page to make the PowerPoint fewer pages, but it’s better to add pages. There is plenty of advice online about fonts, line spacing, number of words per page, etc. Feel free to google it and find what looks best for your presentation. You can also go to SlideShare and look at what other people/companies are doing in your field.

5. Do incorporate charts, infographics, photos and other visuals. Not only will your presentation look more appealing, but it will have more impact. Studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual.

6. Do use handouts when necessary. One of the events I just attended had dozens of charts and graphs. The speakers showed them onscreen where they were hard to read with lots of detail and explanatory text in small print. Giving everyone a print copy during the program would have helped.

7. Don’t make everything a handout. No one wants to carry all that paper so they’ll just throw it out. Also when you provide handouts, people may focus on reading them instead of paying attention to you. Your materials can always be emailed to attendees afterward.

8. Do check for typos. You should always have someone else proofread it. Few people can actually check their own work well.

9. Do have some fun with it. I know some of these topics can be pretty dry, but try to inject your personality and humor into both the spoken and written materials. It makes it more engaging and memorable for your audience.

10. Do invest time and resources in creating good presentation materials. Too often I think slides are done in a rush. I don’t know if it’s because the importance is underestimated or if the speaker just doesn’t know better. You want it to reflect well on you at the time of the presentation. Just as importantly though, those slides can be repurposed and promoted via different channels to give you additional exposure after the event. The PowerPoint can be posted on your website, on SlideShare, on your LinkedIn profile, emailed to clients and prospects, broken into smaller chunks of content and otherwise reused and distributed. Therefore, if possible, get the help of writers/editors and designers. Ask others for their opinion on your slides.

Remember your written materials are an important part of your whole presentation. They should complement and reinforce your speech. Spend the time to do it right and make the most of it both during and after your presentation.

Hitting your content marketing sweet spot

In a recent study reported by MarketingSherpa, business owners were asked for their biggest criticism of the information they received from vendors. Not surprisingly, the majority said it was too sales-oriented.

Clients want help with their problems from people they trust, not sales pitches. The way to prove you can be their trusted resource is by providing material that’s interesting, relevant and useful to them. But the problem is coming up with content that is both compelling to your audience and promotes your brand message and expertise – aka your sweet spot.

 

In his book, Epic Content Marketing, Joe Pulizzi defines the sweet spot as “the intersection between your customers’ pain points and where you have the most authority with your stories.”

So how can you hit your sweet spot?

Identify your unique value proposition.

How would you describe your expertise? What are you more knowledgeable about than your competitors? Have you worked with particular kinds of businesses or industries? Do you have experience with certain types of issues? Are you well-versed in regional or local concerns? What special skills, education or training do you draw on in doing your work? What passions, values and point of view express your brand and make you stand out?

The good news is it isn’t as hard to figure this out as you might think. One of the easiest ways to start is to consider in what situations do you feel the most comfortable and confident answering questions and giving advice. Also think about when and for what reasons people turn to you for help. When you really know your stuff, you share useful information readily. You can talk at length and people find you helpful.

If you’re still not sure what sets you apart in the marketplace, ask others – colleagues, clients, industry experts, peers – for their thoughts.

Your goal is to be able to clearly explain your unique value so your content marketing consistently expresses that.

Understand your target audience(s).

In a previous post, I talked about making sure you identify the audience(s) you want to target with your marketing and then research their interests and pain points. You should take this even further and actually create buyer personas – that is, develop profiles for each type of buyer you are targeting. What are their key demographics and behaviors? For example:

• Job title and responsibilities
• Role in the purchasing process
• Company size
• Industry
• Location
• Budget and priorities
• Concerns and stressors
• Level of knowledge about your products/services

You should also have a good understanding of their decision making process. What issues or circumstances cause them to look for help with their problems? Where else do they turn to for information? When do they hire you and why do they like you?

Also think about what stage in the buying process is your marketing going to target. Are you trying to attract prospects doing initial research online? Or are you nurturing a lead and trying to move them closer to a sale? Your audience may have different needs and interests as they move through the sales funnel and your content needs to be targeted accordingly.

Don’t skimp on the research. Survey your market, monitor industry developments, and look at what your competitors are doing as well as what the competitors of your customers are doing. Also analyze your own data – email and social media statistics and website analytics – to determine what topics or content types are getting better results with your audience. If you have multiple audiences, then make sure you understand each one in this way.

The point is the more you know about their needs, the better you can tailor the substance of your message as well as how you promote it to them.

Bringing it together.

Going back to Joe Pulizzi, think about “where can you be the leading expert in the world that truly matters to your customers and your business?” Your content won’t resonate unless you can speak credibly (and passionately) about topics your audience cares about.

So where do your expertise and audience’s pain points collide? Hopefully this exercise will help you hit your own content marketing sweet spot.

3 reasons why you didn’t achieve your marketing goals in 2014

As 2014 comes to a close, it’s time to look back at what you wanted to accomplish this year with your marketing and how well you succeeded. Disappointed in the results? Well, here are 3 common reasons why.

1. How well did you target your audience?

Most businesses have multiple potential audiences for their marketing. The problem is understanding and prioritizing the markets you want to go after and making sure your marketing is tailored for and promoted to that group.

How well did you select your target audience? Did you analyze what market segments were the strongest candidates for your business? Which ones seemed likely to grow or contract? Where you had the strongest relationships and expertise?

Maybe you knew clearly who you wanted to pursue, but how much did you know about them? It’s important to research and gather information about your audience’s needs, interests, challenges, etc. Explore the best ways to reach them. Be as specific as possible. For example, if typically you have to go through several gatekeepers before being hired by a company, identify the decision makers within these companies at each stage in the process. Then understand the pain points they are experiencing. How can you help them with their problems and build trust?

The better you understand your market, the better you can adapt your marketing materials and distribution so you can deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.

2. Did you set specific goals?

Sure everyone’s ultimate goal is to grow their business, but how did you break that down? Were you specific about how much new business you wanted to bring in? How about client retention? What about profit margins and return on your marketing investment? Did you plan for which business areas had the most potential for growth? Which ones were stagnant or declining?

Along the way to growing your business, there are also other goals you might have set. Some examples include building brand awareness and trust, generating more or better quality leads, showcasing your thought leadership, educating clients and prospects, driving traffic to your website, engaging audiences through social media and many others.

Each of these goals has corresponding metrics to help measure your progress. Some of them are fairly straightforward, but others need to be well-thought out. Do you want to increase your website page views by 10% or do you want visitors to spend more time on your website and view more pages? How do you define whether you’re getting better quality leads from your marketing? Your metrics aren’t about whether you succeeded or failed. They are about helping you continually test, compare, revise and hone your tactics so you can improve results.

My point is that you should have had very particular (and prioritized) objectives in mind that you wanted your marketing to help you obtain. This helps you to understand where to focus your marketing efforts and create benchmarks to monitor how you’re doing. Without that, your marketing was probably less effective and directed than it could have been otherwise.

3. Did you have a strategic marketing plan?

In a strategic marketing plan you set out your goals and target audience as well as look at your business and financial situation. Then you identify and outline appropriate strategies and tactics. A marketing plan lets you think about your priorities and where and how you should focus your resources for the most impact.

Without a plan, you run the risk of spending time and money on an assortment of different tactics without a clearly defined purpose. Maybe some of those efforts will work. But what about the things that don’t work, or more likely, you’re not really sure what worked or what could have worked better. When you act without a marketing plan, you’re more likely to make ad hoc decisions. For example, let’s say you want to start a blog because everyone is doing it. If you start by thinking of your audience, goals and business situation, you can now more easily strategize what topics you want to cover, how you should promote and distribute it, and other ways to leverage the content. Or you may decide to go in another direction completely that fits your plan better. The plan helps you look at all the pieces in a logical way to maximize your investment.

What should you change in 2015?

Before you dive into the New Year, take some time to think about where to focus your efforts. Creating a marketing plan doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking especially if your business is small to mid-size. Start simple. Decide on a limited number of priorities with a well-defined market segment and develop your strategies around that. Determine a few tactics you want to test and establish metrics to gauge your results.

If you already have several marketing efforts in progress, think about how they fit together into an overall marketing plan. For example, let’s say you already have a monthly newsletter. What are your goals for it? Who is the audience? How does it fit into your overall strategic plan? What can you do to get better results? By thinking about it in this way you may see ways to tailor and exploit the newsletter in new ways.

Start 2015 right. Plan upfront for marketing success.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

Get inspired. Invest for success in content marketing.

With 86% of B2B marketers using content marketing, you would think making a business case for investing in it would be easy. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

Content marketing is a long-term strategy and successful professional service firms realize that returns are measured in more than just dollars. What are some of the benefits these firms are realizing? Here are 5 success stories to inspire your own investment in content marketing.

1.  InsideOut – 388% more leads

The global provider of leadership, management and corporate training began focusing on content marketing last year. The company developed visually appealing “bite-sized” chunks of information, including slide decks, articles and videos. It put special emphasis on featuring material from the company’s thought leaders to give its content a unique perspective. Content was pushed out via email, social media, website and third party publications and press releases.

Results:

Email distribution of the content showed the most significant results. Compared to its sales-based emails, content-based emails had a 20% higher click-through rate, 87% lower opt-out rate and generated 388% more leads.

Takeaways:

• Your content has to be compelling and unique to stand-out from the crush of information your readers receive.
• Make the information clear and simple to digest. Focus on giving the reader the most critical points.
• Even if you’re getting solid results with your current approach, content marketing can bring better results.

2.  Fisher & Phillips – 51K page views

The law firm was part of a 2 month pilot project with LinkedIn’s publishing platform. Before being selected for the pilot, the firm was already actively creating and pushing out content and had embraced online content as a core part of its marketing strategies. The firm promoted the posts via its social media channels and encouraged attorneys to do the same through their individual accounts.

Results:

During the pilot, its 25 posts generated 51K page views, 5.5K interactions (likes, shares, etc.) and 380 followers. LinkedIn pulse channels picked up nearly half the posts. It was well received by potential clients. Within the firm, more attorneys are now publishing and sharing content.

Takeaways:

• Use LinkedIn as a platform for thought leadership and to build your network and credibility. It provides a great way to share knowledge and reach others who are interested in or need your expertise.
• Be consistent to build readership. You’re more likely to be noticed if you’re regularly putting out informative content.
• Introduce new hires to the publishing platform and encourage them to write and share content.

3.  Medix Dental – 37% open rates

The IT company, which provides technology solutions for dental offices, wanted to maintain a close relationship with clients as the company grew. It decided to commit to creating a monthly newsletter that would improve client retention and brand awareness. The goal was to make the newsletter friendly, personable and interesting and get clients reading it.  An important element of the newsletter was sharing relevant industry news and knowledge. Distribution was to clients and subscribers who signed up for it.

Results:

The company doubled its recipient list by promoting sign-ups via social media. The open rate for emails was 36.9%, which is 10% higher than the professional services industry average and got click-through rates of 10% compared to the industry average of 3.21%. Client feedback was also positive.

Takeaways:

• Clients appreciate a more personable conversational tone. Don’t sound like you’re announcing or selling them something.
• Focus on getting subscribers to read the content and on staying top of mind. You don’t want to get too focused on high click-through rates.
• Offering your industry knowledge for free shows you’re knowledgeable and helpful and when clients need someone, they will think of you.

4.  Crowe Horwath – $250K in revenue

The public accounting and consulting firm won the 2013 Killer Content Marketing Lead Nurturing Award for its content program targeting C-suite leaders at financial institutions over $1 billion in assets. The company developed 48 pieces of content in four different topic areas, including executive briefs, case studies, infographics, checklists, Q&As, and a video. The focus was on helping marketers to identify key prospects and track and nurture them until they were ready to make a purchase.

Results:

The campaign engaged almost 800 contacts with a 70% open rate and 2 engagements worth $250,000 in revenue.

Takeaways:

• Understand why your clients need your services, who makes the buying decisions and when, and what your competition is offering. You want to target the right audience with the right content at the right time.
• Start by looking at all the data you already have on what people are interested in reading and when, where and how they read.
• Use a variety of content formats. Different formats appeal to different readers.

5.  Heron Financial Group – 40% growth rate

Over the last few years, the RIA firm has been expanding its social media presence and making it an integral part of its marketing strategy. Social media drives traffic to its website and amplifies its content marketing efforts. Each piece of content is leveraged to reach a broader audience. For example, a 15 minute appearance on Bloomberg was shared via social media to thousands of followers resulting in 50 customer leads.

Results:

Heron has doubled its assets under management and has been growing in the 40% range since adding social media to its marketing strategy. Prior to its efforts, the firm’s growth was in single digits. The firm attributes its growth to multiple factors, but credits social media with being “a force multiplier” for a good marketing plan.

Takeaways:

• Dedicate at least 30-60 minutes a week posting content on social media platforms and use the top 4 social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
• Ask yourself if you would want to see your content on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. If not, don’t post it.
• Social media makes a good marketing plan better, but it won’t fix a bad marketing plan.

Hopefully these case studies will inspire you to look at the short and long-term benefits of content marketing to support your own investment. For more examples of metrics to help measure the success of your own initiatives, see Understanding ROI. Want more case studies? Here’s a good compilation from B2B Marketing Experiences blog.

Want your content marketing to succeed? Think like a publisher.

Thanks to social media and technology developments, professional service firms can publish their own content and attract and build their own audiences to grow their business. But to really be successful, they need to think of content the way publishers do. What does that mean?

Understand your target audience.

Publishers understand their readers. They develop profiles and gather information about who they are, what they read, how they read, their interests, concerns, etc. They also survey their audience periodically. The better you understand your own audience, the easier it is to attract and retain them.

Deliver relevant content for your audience.

Both content marketing and publishing are about providing useful and practical information targeted to a particular audience. Make sure your content is not about you. It’s about what will help readers and keep their attention.

Be reliable and consistent.

Publishers publish on a schedule. They also maintain certain standards for everything they produce. Readers develop expectations and if you want to be a trusted resource, then you need to consistently meet those expectations. Establish an editorial calendar to make sure responsibilities are assigned to specific individuals and publication deadlines are met. Create an editorial style guide to ensure there is a consistent writing style and voice.

Allocate sufficient resources.

Make sure you understand what is required to get the work done and set aside appropriate resources. You don’t want to start a content marketing campaign and find you have to abandon it because you don’t have the staff, money or other resources to continue. Even if you aren’t making money directly from your content the way a publisher might, you are looking to build your business and that means you need to make a real investment in content marketing.

Don’t skimp on editorial and design work.

You want to produce high-quality material. That means making sure your content is well-written and edited and is visually attractive. Bring in professionals to help if you don’t have internal resources.

Promote and leverage it.

Have a plan for how you will get your content in front of your audience. Publishers use multiple marketing channels including direct mail, email, web and social media to drive registrations, subscriptions and readership. They also repurpose content and look for opportunities to get more value out of it. When I worked in publishing, I would identify ways to use existing content to cross-promote, repackage or up-sell related content. Showing related content is valued by the reader and good for the publisher’s business. The same is true of your content. Linking to other relevant material keeps readers engaged and can encourage other actions – like getting them to give you their contact information. Remember to think about different formats for your content. Interesting content can be developed into a wide-range of formats including articles, blog posts, newsletters, whitepapers, webinars, video, live events and books. Different formats will appeal to different audiences.

Test and track results.

In both your marketing and your publishing, you want to know what is working. Publishers develop metrics to measure their marketing efforts against specific goals. They test constantly. On the content side, they also track what stories resonate better than others so they can deliver what the audience wants.

Develop your own distribution channels.

Publishers have a lot of control over how their content is distributed. Some license their content to third parties or use distribution partners, but they also make sure they have their own significant channels where they can build relationships directly with their readers. So make sure your content is always available on your site and that you drive traffic there. If you use content syndicators to increase your exposure, also invest in developing your own channels and compare results. What methods get you the most eyeballs on your content, the most visits to your website, or the higher quantity and quality of leads? Understand the pros and cons of each distribution channel in achieving your goals.

Have a strategy (really multiple strategies).

Creating, publishing and promoting content regularly is a significant effort and should be planned out. What kind of content should you produce? For what purpose? For what audience? How will it be promoted and distributed? What resources do you need? You’ll want an editorial strategy as well as a marketing strategy for each audience you want to target.

Thinking like a publisher in your content marketing will help you stay focused on delivering content that brings results.

7 tips for getting more value out of your client newsletter

Client newsletters are ubiquitous among professional service firms. They take a lot of time to produce, yet often, they are only sent to clients by mail or email and then forgotten. So how can you maximize your efforts and get more value out of your newsletter? Of course, having great content comes first. High-quality relevant content gets read and is well worth the investment. Assuming your newsletter is already packed with good content, here are some ideas for getting more out it.

1. Pay attention to design.

Not everyone has a budget for a sophisticated design, but even small changes can make a difference in readability. Lots of dense text will discourage reading. Adding white space, using bullets, changing fonts and including subheadings can help. You can also box off and highlight statistics, interesting quotes and takeaways from the text. You want to make sure readers can quickly scan it if they are in a hurry. It’s especially good to add visual elements to break up the text like charts, graphs, infographics, and photos. Studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. Remember to think about design in each format that someone will read the newsletter. Firms often create a PDF version of the newsletter for mailing or downloading as well as versions for email and web.

2. Distribute it through multiple channels.

There are lots of options here including regular mail, email, website, blog and social media channels. I know some people don’t want to print and mail copies anymore, but firms still have clients who like print and printed materials may get noticed over emails. Remember to get individual members of the firm involved in helping to distribute the content through their own networks. If you went to the trouble of creating the newsletter, you should be making sure your audience sees it. Different people have different format preferences. As with advertising, it also helps for people to see the same content a few times before they pay attention to it.

3. Include calls-to-action tailored to the distribution channel.

Entice your readers with some additional action. If you’re distributing the content via social media, you want to push readers to sign up for your newsletter so you get their contact information. If you emailed them, encourage them to download a whitepaper or sign up for an event or webinar. The idea is to continue to interact with your audience and build the relationship.

4. Test headlines and subject lines.

It’s hard to get attention when everyone is being bombarded with content. You only have a few seconds to get a reader’s attention. Make headlines and subject lines interesting and keep track of what types of language get better results.

5. Slice it up.

The newsletter can be pushed out in whole, but then repurposed and promoted as individual “chunks” of information for different social media channels. Articles can be shortened or rewritten for a blog or LinkedIn post. Even those charts and infographics can be separately marketed.

6. Reuse and repackage it.

Periodically you should go through your old content to look for opportunities to get extra use out of it. If you have good relevant content, find ways to update and promote it again. You can also pull together a bunch of related articles that were previously published. Revise them where needed with new developments, takeaways, lessons learned, etc. and repackage it as a multi-part series, a whitepaper or ebook. Looking at the content this way also may give you ideas for additional articles you could write in future months to help fill in gaps. It also may be helpful in identifying topics for webinars and live events. Those articles can then be distributed to attendees as supplementary materials.

7. Enhance it.  

It’s beneficial for design reasons to add visual elements like charts and infographics, but even more importantly it’s great for content purposes. It grabs attention quickly and gives the reader some useful content at a glance. A great visual also entices people to read the text that explains the picture. Some other ways to enhance the content include adding in checklists, FAQs, case studies, interviews, surveys and video segments. You can also curate content that your audience would be interested in – that is, give them suggestions for other great resources (beside you) they would find helpful on the topic.

Your client newsletter can be an excellent vehicle for content marketing. Start with great content and then make the most of it.

No one wants to write. Now what?

One of the top challenges of content marketing is motivating the people who have the subject matter expertise to share it with others. These individuals are often busy professionals with lots of priorities working in an environment where writing isn’t as highly valued as other work. Add that these experts may not have the greatest writing or speaking skills and it is easy to see why they aren’t the most motivated bunch. But how can you as a marketer or manager get past that?

Start with a good example.

Is there someone in the firm who is motivated? Begin with that person and explain to everyone all the ways his/her content is going to be distributed and promoted by the firm. Provide data on how many people are in the firm’s direct network and the additional reach via social media. Then make sure you showcase the results. For example – Is the content being viewed and shared? Are other sites linking to the content? Has the person or the firm heard from clients, prospects or the media? Are there improvements in search rankings and web traffic? Ideally your test case will also become an influencer within the firm and help get others to participate.

Promote the internal benefits.

It’s great to be acknowledged by clients and prospects for your work, but praise and recognition within the firm is pretty good too. You should make sure articles, speeches and other efforts are recognized by everyone internally. Even if there isn’t a tangible reward attached to writing, the internal exposure might be especially valued by those seeking raises, partnerships or other benefits.

Get them help.

Do people need help coming up with ideas? With writing? With research? There may be resources within the firm. Have individuals in the firm work together. Someone great at brainstorming ideas paired with a researcher who can fill in the details. A writer paired with a speaker who can come up with great presentations. A marketer or junior staffer can interview a more senior member and write up the interview. For topic ideas and research, there are online services and “social listening” tools to help curate information on a particular subject area and find out what your target audience is talking about online. If those options aren’t enough, consider getting outside help. Writers and editors can transform ideas into great content. They are a worthwhile investment to ensure your content pipeline is high-quality and consistently maintained.

Create a schedule and realistic targets.

An editorial calendar with clearly defined dates means everyone is on notice of their obligations. Guilt and a sense of responsibility about missing public deadlines can be great motivators. Remember to secretly build in extra time to account for late material.

Have them write about what they know and are genuinely interested in.

Not surprisingly, it’s easiest to get content from someone who feels very comfortable with the subject matter. But sometimes firms want to position themselves as experts in new areas or take advantage of media interest in a topic. Realize that you need an exceptionally motivated person who wants to develop that expertise to take on the project. That person needs to be really interested in the subject matter or it will never happen. Threats from above may work for a time, but it’s not a long term strategy.

Make it a competition or contest.

There are lots of options for this – most articles written in X period, article with the most page views or shares, etc. Rewards can include periodic parties, gift cards, day off, etc. Even just announcing the winner to the rest of the firm can be a good motivator.

Tie it to compensation.

For content marketing to succeed, it needs to be valued and treated as a firm-wide initiative. That means not just talking about the rewards, but also the consequences of not participating. Make it a part of each employee’s evaluation.

When I was in publishing, I worked with hundreds of professionals to get them to write for our publications or speak on topics. Even as someone giving them media opportunities, my role often resembled a professional nag. I used logic, polite reminders, motivational speeches, guilt, threats and anything else I thought might work. I learned that no one strategy works with everyone and even the same individual might react differently at different times. So try them all, mix them up, rinse and repeat.