2016 has only just arrived so you've decided, as a marketing department, to make a push on creating quality content with a particular focus on the blog on your website. The next stage is to approach staff members to write content for your blog. But you've hit the all too common stumbling block: how can you make sure your new bloggers stick to the required tone and style without you having to go back and forth on drafts, versions and constant amends and ultimately complete the goals/targets you set out.
It is tough. After all, you don't want to recruit new writers only for them to take up more of your time. Even worse they can get annoyed with writing blogs and stop! Your key employees should be an amazing resource to expand your reach, introduce new content themes and really kickstart your blog engine. Not a burden, which needs more editing.
The best way to get started is to set up some rules and guidelines, so your future content creators know exactly what content you want to produce to achieve your SMART goals. Here are the 4 content creation tips to consider when setting your editorial guidelines for new content writers.
Clear objectives for your content creation
Creating content for your business needs to have a clear defined goal/target. Are you looking to increase conversions via content? Are you looking to increase website traffic? By writing blogs, are you looking to establish your company as the market leader and a source for information?
By defining clear SMART goals for your content you can make sure that you’re not producing content for the sake of producing content. Remember you are creating content to help achieve your business goals. Let your blog writers know what these are, so that they can ensure their work is aligned with these goals.
Establish your (buyer persona’s) - Why Defining Your Buyer Persona is Fundamental to Your Inbound Marketing Campaign
Whether your perfect persona is a CEO, director, junior sales people or stay at home parent, making this clear in your editorial guidelines means your blog writers will be able to tailor their copy to your buyer persona’s. It can be really helpful to also share your persona document with blog writers, so they know the problems, frustrations, likes and dislikes so that the content your writers produce meet all the needs of your buyer personas.
Style and tone of voice
The content style in a blog is just as important as the company branding. If you've found a particular tone and style of writing that's working well for your blog, then you don't want to be left in a position where you're trying to tweak other people's work to fit in with that tone of voice. Refer your content writers to the company buyer persona’s to get the best understanding of what style of writing is required to meet the needs of the company.
Get the best results with original content
Original content is key in search engines. By informing your writers that you require original content for the blogs not only helps ensure that you are guaranteed not to be penalised by search engines, but your buyer personas are reading fresh new content. Be up front about this with your writers and stress the importance of original content to the company success. You can’t assume that everyone else in the company understands the risks of duplicate content. Creating fresh content will also show that your company is a leader in the field and this can have a dramatic effect on your conversion rate from the blog.
Create a Content Plan
When deciding to write content for your business with a specific goal in mind, a content plan can really help you and your writers in the company achieve good quality content that meets the SMART goals you have set out. A content plan should be put together in a similar fashion to a marketing plan which you and your department work with on a regular basis to ensure that the content meets your goals and targets. Help keep your readers hooked when creating content - 10 Content Creation Ideas to Keep Your Readers Hooked.
Are you giving a general steer on relevant topic areas but leaving the specifics up to the individual? Or do you have a clear editorial calendar, with set blog titles that will be issued to each writer. Are you looking for your writers to provide their own ideas?
By producing the content plan in advance it allows all the content contributors in the company, in advance, have a clear idea of the upcoming content.
By following the points above it will ensure that you and your team produce high quality content you can be proud of.
To find out more about JDR's Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing services, go to: http://www.jdrgroup.co.uk/your-marketing-partner or call: 01332 343281.
