Stiles Says: you want to get people into a habit of consuming your content. Consistency breeds trust.
If you’ve been following the content marketing space the last few years (I suspect if you’re a Brand & Capture reader, you are already well-versed in the area), you’ve heard the adage that “Content is King.” I wouldn’t argue that, but I feel the phrase has been exhausted and oversimplifies what content marketing really involves. Quality content is a requirement, yes, but how often are you putting quality content out there? Once a quarter isn’t going to cut it. If content is king, then frequency is queen, and consistency is, I don’t know, the Prime Minister? You get the idea.
What qualifies as good marketing content? Let’s do a quick review, as I think many marketers get caught up in the first two bullets below and forget that the possibilities are many:
- Blog posts that are at least 500 words
- Downloads like eBooks, cheat sheets, guides, and checklists
- Videos – professional or amateur
- Infographics – nothings communicates more clearly than numbers in a visually pleasing display
- Slide decks – sites likes SlideShare make it easy to share your slide decks from presentations, and audiences love to get access to them
- Webinars – live or prerecorded
- Photos – use sites like Flickr or even Pinterest to display photos from events or just around the office
- And more! What else can you think of?
Let’s also make sure we’re clear on the difference between frequency and consistency:
- Frequency refers to how often you publish. Get yourself or your team on a schedule, such as 4 new blog posts per week and 1 new download per month.
- Consistency means you keep up with the strategy you’ve laid out. You don’t publish 4 new blogs a week for 2 weeks and then abandon your blog for 6 weeks. It doesn’t take long for your visitors and Google alike to notice your inconsistency—and judge your site accordingly.
If you still think you can get away with once-in-awhile, when-I-have-time publishing, here are several reasons why frequency and consistency are so important:
- Google looks for fresh content; your site will be crawled and indexed frequently if you’re publishing frequently…
- Hence, you’ll rank well in search because Google rewards frequent publishing of quality content…
- Therefore, you’ll get more traffic to your website!
- You’ll also get more repeat traffic to your website. Visitors that have been to your site once and liked what they saw will likely return or, better yet, subscribe to your blog or email campaigns.
- You’ll see more inbound links, which Google likes. More content increases the likelihood other bloggers or websites will reference your content and link to it.
- You can capture leads, leads and more leads. Lead capture is one of the most important roles content plays in your marketing strategy. Encourage visitors to provide some information about themselves in exchange for a guide or ebook that offers them valuable or helpful information.
- You can nuture leads and qualify the best ones. It’s not really enough to just capture a bunch of leads. Your sales team wants leads qualified and ready to buy, so create content for each step of the sales funnel to identify Sales Qualified Leads.
Let’s take a look at an example: After a few months of frequent and consistent content publishing and promotion, a Kuno client celebrated its strongest month ever in terms of lead capture. Marketing KPIs were up dramatically by the end of the first quarter. This smashing success was followed by common internal roadblocks that caused a decline in the rate of content publishing and promotion. Leads were cut in half from the previous month. That’s how quickly the impact was seen. Four weeks. These are common hurdles marketers face, especially when there are many decision-makers involved or an extensive legal review process is required. However, marketers need to use numbers like these to push projects forward. When a drop-off in new leads occurs that quickly, time literally is money.
While it certainly can vary from business to business and industry to industry, we are intrested in knowing if you’ve found a sweet spot for content publishing that works well for your brand. Share your thoughts in the comments below!
photo credit: Whiskeygonebad 
