Take an Omnichannel Approach
Imagine being able to drastically increase your reach with content for no extra charge. That’s possible with an omnichannel approach. This means the advantage of several platforms and content formats at once.
It’s not uncommon for a business to only rely on a single channel like their blog, YouTube channel, or podcast. In fact, 55% of businesses have no cross-channel strategy. Sound familiar?
Don’t worry. If you’re strapped on a budget, pursuing these other mediums are a great way to increase content performance.
The first step is to make sure that you’re active on all of the major social media platforms. Which ones you choose will change depending on your business and audience.
For example, LinkedIn is ideal for B2B as you can connect with professionals and executives while Twitter is effective for PR and connecting with customers.
Share content on the platforms you choose, engage in conversations and remain active. Remember, social networks are made to be social.
Next, don’t underestimate the power of email marketing despite it being a couple of decades old. You can use freely available email tools like Mailchimp to begin collecting subscribers and sending out newsletters.
Seeing as podcasting and video content has exploded in the last couple of years, I recommend growing a following on platforms like YouTube and Soundcloud, as well.
Get More Bang For Your Buck By Repurposing
Now that you’re on more platforms and have a better reach, what’s next? Repurposing. This is the process of taking an existing piece of content and turning it into other formats. The great part about this strategy is that 90% of the work is already done for you.
Since the topic, content, and main points are already completed, you simply need to reformat it. Let’s say that you have a blog post for example. You could do the following to maximize its potential:
- Turn it into an infographic for Pinterest.
- Make it into a video for YouTube
- Record it into a podcast episode for Google Play.
You’ve effectively turned one piece of content into several and also leverage the previous point about being on many channels at once.
Copyblogger is a great example of this. They wrote an article titled “The 3-Step Journey of a Remarkable Piece of Content” and later turned it into a slide deck for SlideShare.net.
That slideshow now has nearly 80,000 views! It cost Copyblogger absolutely nothing but some sweat equity to drastically increase their blog’s reach and you can do the same.
Don’t Let Content Sit Idle, Promote It!
You see it again and again. A business publishes a masterpiece of a blog post and lets it collect dust over time. Instead, they could’ve spent time promoting to increase how many readers consume it. That’s the 3rd strategy for today: outreach.
Look at the company TOAD as an example. A single cold email outreach campaign paired with content marketing netted them a 14% reply rate and five brand new high-quality backlinks. And that’s in one day.
It’s literally as simple as asking. No need to overthink it. If you have an amazing piece of content, it will do all of the talking. You don’t need new any fancy expensive tools, either.
Once you have that piece of content you believe influencers can’t resist, head to Google to find relevant blogs.
Use search terms like:
- Keyword + “blog”
- Keyword + “best blogs”
- Keyword + “roundup”
Organize websites you’d like to reach out in a spreadsheet, as well. You can then input the URLs into a free tool called Hunter which will find the email addresses associated with each website.
Begin by entering the URL of the website you’d like to reach out and selecting the “Find email addresses” button on the homepage.
This will then display the following results which you can copy and paste or export as a CSV file.
With emails in hand, it’s time to reach out! Use a template like below and customize it for each prospect:
Hey {First name},
I love the recent article you published on {Topic} and the angle you took on {Sub-topic}.
We just released a similar blog post on {Topic} that I think your readers would really enjoy since we have a similar audience.
Feel free to check it out at {URL} and share it if you believe it’s a great resource.
I also followed you on {Social network} to stay in touch.
Sincerely,
{Name}
The key to outreach is being personal and not using copy and pasted templates. You want to spend time customizing your email for each prospect to make it more sincere.
Additionally, don’t forget to follow up. Webmasters are busy people. They may see your email but not have the time to reply, so following up can catch them at the right time.
Wrapping Up Content Marketing On A Budget
Content marketing is a necessary strategy in 2019 and beyond. It builds trust, authority, and allows you to attract customers to your business organically.
Despite this, many marketers get discouraged since they don’t have a huge capital to scale content campaigns.
You can get around and start seeing results by first ensuring you’re on as many relevant platforms as possible. Social media, email, and forums are a great way to begin using omnichannel to your advantage.
Similarly, marketers should repurpose content into different formats for maximizing reach and the ROI of each campaign. Articles, videos, and podcasts are some of the most digested content right now, so consider repurposing in those forms.
Lastly, never let content sit idle. Find influencers and other blogs in your niche and reach out via email or social media. Share your content with them and you may very well land backlinks and social shares.
What are you waiting for? Start bootstrapping your content strategy today with these tips.
