Go Large With Your Content Projects & Ignite Your Content Marketing Strategy – 1 Minute Moment #98

Get them right, plan them well and you’ll be lighting the touchpaper on your content marketing strategy.

People will tell you that content marketing is a long-term strategy and they’re not wrong. You need time to build an audience and trust so that people will be comfortable buying from you.

And it works, chipping away slowly at your content marketing, consistent posting, a decent strategy will bring you new customers, nurture existing ones and get you referrals. But large-scale content can get you big results quickly.

My one minute guide to large-scale content…

And now for the comprehensive guide…

What do I mean – Large Scale Content Projects?

I’m talking about big projects, stuff that’s out of the ordinary in our everyday marketing. It could be the launch of a new blog, podcast or vlog but in most cases it will be more specific.

It’ll be an eBook designed to get you more email subscribers. A study designed to get you press coverage. An infographic with the goal of getting more inbound links (which results in better SEO)

All of these things have something in common: a specific purpose.

You’re building a list, getting coverage in the press, working on your website SEO.

Projects like this are fun because you have a specific goal that can be measured.

Choose your content type

This is in no way a comprehensive list of large-scale projects but hopefully, it will spark some ideas and get you started on your own content project

eBook

This can be a simple pdf download or you can offer it in ePub and Kindle formats.
Use it to address specific problems your ideal customer has. You could give it away for free, in exchange for an email address or sell it.

Use it for:

1. Building your email list/ retargeting audience for social ads
2. Sell it as a digital product
3. Introduce potential customers to your product or service

Measure:

1. Subscribers / Retargeting audience
2. Sales and revenue
3. Conversion rate of those downloading

Webinar

Webinars are an effective way to connect with and build trust with your audience. There are lots of options for running a webinar. You can use paid tools like GoToWebinar or Zoom or broadcast it as a Facebook Live.

Allocate time in advance of the webinar to promote it and attract subscribers.

Use it for:

1. Building your email list
2. Selling a specific product or service
3. Sell as a digital product

Measure:

1. Subscribers
2. Product/Service sales and revenue
3. Digital product sales and revenue

Infographic

Yes, infographics can still work. These graphical representations of data will attract social shares and are the kind of content that other sites will embed and report on.

You can create your own using free tools like Canva but for more impact work with a graphic designer.

Use it for:

1. Building inbound links to your website
2. Increase brand awareness by getting more social shares

Measure:

1. Inbound links to your site / Increase in domain authority
2. Social shares

Study/Survey

Barely a day goes by without a press report on a survey or study. Some days it’s frivolous stuff, others it’s more serious. Conducting a big, in-depth study with newsworthy results this is a great way to get press coverage and inbound links

Use it for:

1. Gaining press coverage to reach a new audience
   Increasing inbound links to your website

Measure:

1. Press mentions
2. Inbound links / Increase in domain authority

Big Social Competition

Think beyond your quick and easy Facebook giveaway. A longer running cross-platform contest is more work but will also get you more concrete results.

For inspiration look at The Nose Of Tralee from Pet Sitters Ireland.

Use if for:

1. Building your social audience
2. Building your email list / social retargeting audience
3. Brand awareness, get people talking about you
4. Getting press coverage

Measure:

1. Size of relevant social media audience
2. Number of email subscribers
3. Social shares
4. Press mentions

Online course

You don’t have to have a training business to run an online course. Will educating your audience help them make a more informed decision about your product or service? Is there a topic relevant to your business and target market that you can help with?

Give these courses away for free, as part of an email sequence or sell them as a digital product.

Use it for:

1. Nurture leads by educating a warm audience on your product or service
2. Build your email list
3. Digital product sales

Measure:

1. Conversion rate
2. Subscribers
3. Sales and revenue

Mega blog post

So far we’ve talked about adding new types of content to your strategy but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can use your existing assets for your project.

Writing a post 8-10,000 words long can seem intimidating but break it into chapters or sections as you would an eBook and it becomes a manageable project. These comprehensive posts attract inbound links, social shares and you can convert it into a download that readers can access in return for an email address.

Use it for:

1. Gaining inbound links and improving SEO
2. Brand awareness and social shares
3. Building your email list

Measure:

1. Inbound links / Growth in domain authority
2. Social shares
3. Subscribers

It’s time to plan

Our inner content gremlins will tell us that planning gets in the way of doing. They’ll tell us to just get on with it.

Always ignore the gremlins.

When you put a plan in place for your large-content projects you’ll know if it’s a success. You’ll know how much you can afford to spend on it. You’ll be able to anticipate results and strategise how you’ll attain those results.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Set your goals
2. Decide on the metrics you’ll use to measure success
3. Brainstorm, you’re mediocre idea could be great if you work on it.
4. Set the timeline for planning, production and promotion
5. Set a budget for producing your content and promoting it
6. Decide on strategies to promote your content

The false start

Content creation is fun. If you are like me you’ll look at the list above and your mind will fill up with ideas. You’ll want to do it all.

It’s overwhelming and that’s the problem. Having too many ideas can get in the way of actually creating large-scale content projects.

The solution?

Write down all your ideas and choose the best four. Assign one idea to each quarter of the year and stick to it.

Large-scale content projects have the potential to kickstart your content marketing strategy. Choose four for the year ahead, set your goals, timescale and budget and you will see a boost in your results.