All this against the backdrop of a looming recession, it’s no wonder businesses are looking to tighten the purse strings. For many, marketing feels like a good place to start.
The temptation is to cut budgets blindly. But whatever the size of your budget, surely it’s better to trim costly errors and oversights and keep all the good bits?
More bang for your buck
By its very nature, marketing needs to create value. From strengthening relationships with customers to enhancing the brand, the benefits of content marketing can be lucrative. But recognising those benefits is only the first step; the challenge is how to realise them.
Research suggests 26% of marketing budget is wasted on ineffective strategies. Ouch.
But however limited your budget, you need to spend it wisely. One survey revealed that 53% of companies that were unsuccessful with content marketing spent less than 5% of their marketing budget on content.
You don’t have to be content marketing advocates like us to see what was missing.
Content is the backbone of digital marketing. It’s hard to imagine getting any ROI from your website, social media, SEO etc. without having quality content fuelling your efforts.
So, how can you ensure your investment in content marketing delivers a return over the year ahead? Here are three ways you can start optimising your marketing budget for 2023, starting now.
1 Focus on quality, not quantity
How do you get yourself heard? It’s a hard question to answer – especially for businesses just starting out.
Content helps give your brand its voice. But unless you’re saying the things people want to hear, that content will fall on deaf ears.
Creating a stream of low-quality content is a waste of everyone’s time and effort. From a business point of view, it’s ineffective because no one will read it. From a customer’s perspective, it’s wasting their valuable time.
For maximum reach, you need content that people will see and want to share. And content that will grab the attention of search engines. Let’s just say creating quality content is more of a science than an art.
2 Take content further
Thinking of writing a blog on a particular topic? Great. Want to get maximum value from that content? Of course. To achieve that, you need to see where your subject matter takes you. Could you use the content of that blog to create a short video? Or design an infographic? Or create a more in-depth user guide for your customers?
Repurposing content also allows you to reach a wider audience (some people like reading, others like watching, and who doesn’t love an infographic?) and catch their attention in the right format, dependent on their stage of the buyer journey.
Whether your starting point is a piece of original research or addressing customer feedback, be sure to think big and be playful with your formats.
3 Establish a content workflow
A surefire way not to get a return on your content marketing investment is by rushing into your content. Quick! Just get it out there.
We get it. You’re time-poor and there’s a whole load of other things to think about with a product or service launch before you get round to content.
But it really does matter what you’re putting out there. And making the time to get it right can have a huge pay-off. The trick is laying the foundations with a workflow.
At Q, that starts with us creating a list of topics and ends with us publishing and promoting the agreed content. In between, we make sure a comprehensive brief is written, expert insight is gathered and content is created, edited and reviewed in the required format(s).
The benefits include greater efficiency, planning and collaboration. Good for you, but even better for the end user who can enjoy content with real value.
If you want to get the most from your marketing budget in 2023, get in touch today using the contact form below.
Contact
Telephone +44(0)1225720099 | Email: info@qcontent.co.uk