Three Ways to Make Content Marketing More Efficient
What makes the most sense for you and your brand?
BY CHRISTOPHER SHULGAN, GHOST BUREAU PARTNER
If you’re reading this article you probably have decided that it makes sense for you to spend some part of your overall annual budget on content marketing. That’s a great decision. Now, the next step is determining the most efficient use of your limited resources.
There are lots of different ways to engage in content marketing, from brand videos to educational videos to blog posts and white papers. Not to mention webinars and podcasts. Ghost Bureau helps corporations produce it all. But what mix of all of it makes sense for you and your brand? And how can you do it efficiently?
Every corporation is different and we think it makes sense to talk with a content marketing expert to determine your overall goal, and how to assess return on investment for your content marketing dollars. (Click here to arrange a conversation with one of us.) To get you thinking in the meantime, here are three tips we’ve found to produce content marketing efficiently for people in exactly your situation:
Tip one: Lead with video for a content cascade
If you’re aiming to create a lot of content for the least amount of money, you should start with video. As our pricing shows, the cost of video production has fallen dramatically. Watching a short video is a low-commitment way for a consumer to engage with your brand. But the reason the Ghost Bureau team loves video is for the way it’s able to create a cascade of other content. Say you’re a marketing director and you’ve reserved an hour with one of your corporation’s key executives. In that single hour, it’s possible to record three different short videos. The dialogue said in the video then provides us with enough insight to create a blog post for each video created.
Tip two: Schedule many different video shoots on the same day
The single biggest driver of cost for video production is setting up and breaking down the shoot at a given location. Creating video with the production values your brand requires takes equipment, such as LED lights and lavalier microphones, and it takes a lot of effort to set up perfectly. Thing is, once that equipment is ready, it’s easy to whip through numerous different videos. So to minimize costs, arrange to shoot numerous different videos on the same day at the exact same location.
Tip three: Create many different social posts out of one single video
Each video you produce can and should be edited to create numerous different social media posts for various different platforms. In our experience, a one- to three-minute long video can easily produce three different social media posts, each of which can and should be customized to feel appropriate to various different platforms.
Using the above techniques, how many pieces of content is it possible to create in a single afternoon? Let’s be aggressive here. Let’s say the marketing department was able to plan for and schedule hour-long slots with three different executives in a single afternoon. If each executive is prepared, and relatively comfortable on video, each hour-long session could potentially create three separate videos. Plus, each video creates a single blog post. On top of that, each video could yield three different social media posts. That’s 15 pieces of content, per executive, times three executives, which means you’ve created 45 pieces of content in only a single afternoon. Way to make efficient use of your content marketing resources!
Christopher Shulgan is an award-winning content creator who has written ten books and produced thousands of pieces of video, audio and print content over the years. Wondering how to produce your content more efficiently? For a complimentary consultation on your content-marketing strategy, contact hello@ghostbureau.com.
