Now, look at your blog. Are you wondering what you’re going to write about today? Don’t you wish you had a “fridge” full of ingredients (aka, topics) and a tasty post simmering in draft mode, scheduled for publication in the morning?

You are well aware that blogging regularly brings new prospects in and keeps your clients coming back to your website, right? Interested and engaged clients and prospects = more money in your bank account. So why aren’t you approaching your blog like the pro you are?

Guess what? You do have a slow-cooker for content, and you can plan beyond just today’s post. In fact, I’m going to show you how to plan your posts for the next year.

Here’s how:

1. Brainstorm strategic topics

Your blog’s purpose is to establish your expertise, showcase your unique voice and approach, and demonstrate your professionalism. There are several content types that will support this mission. Here’s where to find and keep track of them:

• Start tracking questions you get from your customers and your prospects. Remember, you are blogging for your clients, not for your peers. What kinds of questions do you get in your e-mail or on social media? Even if the answers to those questions seem very elementary for you, the answer likely contains valuable information for your customers. 

• Start keeping a file in a notebook, a folder on your computer, or an e-mail folder. Whenever you receive questions from your clients or prospects, save the question in this folder or document. It can be a simple spreadsheet, a word document, or a group of saved e-mails. How you track this isn’t important — what is important is that you make it a habit to save this information in the same place whenever it comes in. 

• Actively seek out what people are talking about in your field. Search social media sites, blog posts, and forums to see what people are talking about in your industry. You can use Google to find these sites, and then simply bookmark the websites you find that tend to address what people are talking about in your field. 

• Brainstorm topics that will allow you to answer questions with a solution provided in your business. Your blog’s purpose is to promote your business! This is not a time to be shy or worry that you’ll offend people by making offers or by promoting your products and services. You are providing a logical solution to questions they have, right? Don’t worry about self-promotion, you’re not going to offend people — this is why you are blogging! 

• Think about the internal things going on in your business that might interest your customers. Depending on your business, showing what’s happening behind the scenes can help your customers in their own lives or businesses. For example, this approach works well for LKR: We run an online business, and many of our clients are also seeking to build profitable businesses online. By showing them behind-the-scenes action at LKR, we are teaching them the techniques, tools, and strategies we’ve used to build a successful company online. 

The more detailed your list of topics/questions the better! You can even break a single question down into content for more than one blog post. For example, answering a question about how to build your e-mail list could be broken down into a weekly series for four straight weeks covering multiple list-building strategies.

2. Narrow down your list of topics

Go through your list and refine it into the 24 most compelling topics. Good criteria for narrowing your list? Think about whether you LOVE the topic, if it’s a subject you have gotten questions about multiple times, and whether it aligns with any upcoming product or affiliate launches you have planned. Make sure they are fantastic subjects that you are excited and motivated to write about. At 2x per month, this is one year’s worth of topics!

3. Now, enter these topics into a calendar

Google Calendar fits our needs best; it’s easy to share, change, and can be accessed from anywhere. And, most importantly, you can easily automate it and set it on repeat – very useful for those goals that you want to make a part of your routine.

However, if you prefer a different system, such as software, or a big paper wall calendar, that’s fine, too. Go with what works for you. Make writing blog posts a part of your routine. For example, add an appointment to your calendar every Monday to write your post. It doesn’t have to be at a set time; it’s enough that you set aside time for it to happen every Monday. (Though this depends on the person. Maybe it works better for you if you schedule an actual time slot for it. Try it both ways and see what works best.)

Take the time to create a calendar of topics and commit to writing regular updates at least twice per month. There is no strict rule of thumb for frequency — but this should be your minimum guideline.

4. Commit to your schedule

Once the topics are entered into the calendar, you need to commit to actually writing about the topic when you say you will. That’s why it’s so important that you love the 24 topics you selected from your brainstorm list.

If it’s on the calendar, it’s on the schedule. Your schedule closes the gap between your everyday reality (writing blog posts and customer service) and your big goals (making more money and traveling). So set the expectation that you’re going to be there regularly and show up like the professional you are.

Remember, if you stop blogging, people stop visiting. If customers come back to your site and you aren’t updating the blog regularly, they won’t likely return again.

Now, Take Action!

Just like you wouldn’t let the food you buy rot in your refrigerator, don’t let your intentions to create an editorial calendar fester.

Remember, here’s all you need to do to plan out your blog for the next year: 

• Start tracking customer questions and industry chatter.
• Brainstorm 24 great topics.
• Schedule twice-monthly blog posts using your 24 topic ideas.
• Commit to writing about these topics when you’ve said you will.
• Rinse and repeat. 

Take some time today to set up the systems that will help you publish content like a pro and draw in the website traffic, prospects, and clients that you need to fuel your business. We’ve used these same techniques to build a seven-figure online business, so we can say this with confidence: Follow this recipe and you can’t fail!

To learn more about blogging, check out our Ultimate Guide to Blogging.

That’s right, when you get right down to it, the process of marketing your content draws heavily from the process of marketing your products.

I treat each piece of content Eloqua publishes like a product. Every new asset has a target audience, a list “price” (gated, ungated, hybrid) and an upgrade road map. Most content we publish is supported by a PR push, a direct marketing element, and a media buy. Content that “sells” (is downloaded, shared, liked, commented on) gets more funding; content that doesn’t is retired. Sound familiar? It should. These are the basics of product marketing.

So what lessons can content marketers derive from our counterparts on the product side of the house? Lots. Here are three of the most essential:

Avoid “content in search of an audience”

The best products fill a real need, and the best product marketers collaborate with product management to dissect every element of that need. This process consists of studying analyst reports, interviewing customers, meeting with sales reps, even talking to people who bought a competing product — all with the aim of reducing the likelihood that the company will release the doomed “product in search of a solution.”

There’s a content marketing parallel, particularly as content becomes a service. Before you create your next supercool presentation, infographic, video or eBook, pause to ask yourself why you are creating it. Are you interested in the subject, or is your audience interested? Is it filling a discernable need, or just making noise? If you aren’t sure, vet the idea with customers, dig into long-tail search queries, and scour Q&A sites like Quora for interesting yet unanswered questions. Float a trial balloon on your blog. Just make sure you aren’t publishing content in search of an audience.  

Shorter, fresher, more visual

We’ve all heard it said: “Better, faster, cheaper . . . pick two.” The maxim, which is as old as tech marketing itself, reduces the universe of product benefits to three essentials and acknowledges that the baseline for success is achieving two of the three. Better, faster, cheaper can be repurposed for content marketing.

“Shorter, fresher, more visual . . . pick two,” should be content marketing’s answer to better, faster, cheaper. If the piece of content you aim to publish isn’t more succinctly written, more intelligently designed, and/ or it doesn’t contain a fresher or more unique perspective than what’s already out there, then it’s unlikely to take root. The social web is a crowded place. Make sure to meet at least two of these three criteria if you expect your content to stand out.

Do you have “permission” to publish?

There is a funny storyline in NBC’s hit series, “30 Rock” in which Alec Baldwin’s character, the revenue-obsessed programming honcho for a Podunk cable network, decides the company should manufacture sofas. He implausibly argues it’s a natural fit for a television network to make furniture because viewers sit on furniture while watching TV. 

Baldwin’s absurdist vision for product marketing not only makes for must-watch television, but it also provides a useful lesson for content marketers. While your content shouldn’t necessarily center on your product, it should focus on subjects reasonably connected to your goods or services. Be sure to ask yourself if you have “permission” to create a particular piece of content. Does your organization have the authority required to publish a definitive guide to a topic? Would your followers look to you to make predictions about how a particular industry will change or evolve? In other words, just because you might want to make sofas, it doesn’t mean buyers will consider you to be a credible manufacturer that they would buy from.

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

Image via Bigstock

Last year I led a content marketing project involving more than 700 pieces of original content developed by 15 writers across three continents in 60 days — a careers and industry guide for the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) online jobs board. In two short months, I learned the do-it-or-die essentials for a large-scale content marketing kick-off.

Writer guidelines are essential

Well-written writer guidelines keep a diverse group of writers moving in the same direction and should be tackled first.

Distributed workforces rock

We used writers in several time zones, an unplanned but happy accident. With 15 writers spanning 15 time zones, someone was always working on the project, day and night. Importantly, I was able to write copy briefs and edit submissions while most of the team was in bed, avoiding the normal editing bottleneck that occurs with a large team of writers.

“Horses for courses” applies to writers

We used a majority of freelance writers, a couple students, and one full-time employee to develop the content. It became apparent very quickly different writers had different strengths — and most of my assumptions about individual writers were wrong. Head off surprises by giving a mini assignment before full-blown production begins.

Money can’t buy you love

I learned quickly hourly rates do not equate to talent. The most expensive writer on the team was my biggest headache and required the costliest rewrites. Conversely, a couple of young turks turned out to be lifesavers. One even became my “fix-it” writer for the team when I needed rewrites.

Rush jobs cost

Most good content producers — writers and designers — are booked six to eight weeks in advance. While I had some of my best people on standby, they still expected top money to drop everything and work on our project, along with a 50 percent deposit before starting. If you want things done well and done quickly, expect to pay a premium to your service providers.

No one does it like you would

With 15 writers developing copy and a couple designers working alongside, I had no choice but to relinquish my inner control freak. Not a single one of the 700 articles was the way I would have written it. But you know what? So many of them are better. The ones that weren’t could be brought up to speed. It’s entirely liberating to let your team do it their way.

Workforce composition

Getting the right mix of skills and talent on your team is integral to success. I never want to do another project without these skills on my team: 

• Web journalist – You can’t beat a journalist when it comes to telling a story and working to a deadline. They can crank out quality copy like no one else.
• Researcher – We didn’t hire any researchers, but we did have a couple writers who love the research end of writing. They were assigned articles requiring a lot of in-depth industry information.
• SEO copywriter – If you’re developing online content, having as least one heavy-duty SEO writer on your team is a big help. Get them to do the keyword research for the whole project.
• Generalist – If you’re up against a hard deadline, you need as many writers as possible who willingly write to spec on any topic.
• Editor – Even if your writers are providing professional editing as part of the service they provide, you still need an overall editor, if only to ensure consistency and adherence to guidelines.  

Nothing is ever done

I had visions of a big launch followed by a good break to catch up on sleep. That never happened. No matter how clear your vision, a large piece of content like the Careers and Industry Guide needs constant attention. Our audience is driving a lot of the change but we also see things we want to do differently every day. We’re also seeing early indicators that the investment AMMA made in content marketing is paying off. That’s one thing that hasn’t surprised me.

This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free print subscription. 

Deadline image from Bigstock

• “Your car needs a whole new exhaust system,” your mechanic tells you.
• “There’s no way to fix that tooth except with an implant that may cost $3,000,” says your dentist.
• “This tax deduction is entirely legal and none of my clients has been challenged on it,” promises your accountant.

Do you go ahead with their recommendations? Probably — provided you trust them. Trust is huge. If you’ve got the trust of another person, they’ll follow you, buy your products or services, and recommend you to others. If you don’t, they’ll push back, demand concessions on price or terms, and take their business elsewhere.

So, any way that your content can build trust is golden. One way to do this is through what I call the “how-to-work-with” (HTWW) type of content. HTWW content provides advice on how a prospective client can get the best possible results from a company like yours.

HTWW content is particularly useful in the case of a commodity product or service. Say you’re driving your vehicle on an empty gas tank, and you arrive at a place with three gas stations. Reward cards aside, you’ll likely choose the one with the lowest price. That’s because there’s a low-perceived difference among brands of gasoline.

So if you have a “me-too” product or service (a commodity), one of the most potent ways to stand out from the competition is by providing your clients with content that helps inform their decisions. By making this content available (whether it’s text, video, audio, graphics — they all have a role to play), you show your willingness to help customers achieve their desired outcomes.

Think of your clients’ worst fears

Imagine you’re a home renovation contractor who genuinely tries to do good, honest work for a fair price. Yet, at every social event you go to, you’re regaled with horror stories of contractors who started projects and abandoned them half-completed, or of cost estimates that kept increasing. Maybe a roof collapsed or a basement flooded due to a contractor’s error. You’ve found that trust for contractors often is low.

So, you need a way to show that you’re trustworthy. Getting past that barrier is key to getting a chance to show what you can do for your clients, and this can be achieved through HTWW content.

Your first task in generating this content is to determine what tends to go wrong in working with a company like yours, or what clients fear might go wrong. In the case of a home renovation contractor, this might include the homeowner not being aware that summer is a particularly busy time for contractors, and that jobs may take longer then than they do in winter. So, the content you develop might point out that projects carried out in the winter may mean a shorter period of disruption, dust, and noise.

Describe the games some renovators play to keep expanding a project’s scope (“We can put a new roof on the whole house, not just the extension”). Be open in talking about fraud — how some contractors invoice for high-quality materials while substituting lower-quality. Regardless of the situation you use as the foundation of your content, you can follow these steps to help narrow your focus:

• Think of the most common situations under which projects or transactions in your business tend to go sideways.
• Determine the causes of the problems.
• Develop recommendations on how clients can help avoid those problems, or fix them when they occur.

What allows your company to provide really great service?

After you’ve detailed some nightmares, think of your “dream” projects — ones where you or your company really rocked. What went on between you and your client to make this magic happen?

For a home renovator, this might include the contractor and homeowner agreeing ahead of time on realistic costs and deadlines. The client provided input but didn’t micro-manage, didn’t ask for major changes halfway through the project, and was available to answer questions promptly.

Steps for creating this type of content include:

• Thinking of situations that resulted in a satisfied (or delighted) client.
• Listing the factors that led to this joyous state of affairs.
• Describing them in terms of ways clients can influence the process in a positive direction.

Be sure to tell your clients how they can save money on a project (wouldn’t that work for you?), such as outlining which parts of the work they can do themselves if they want, or when it’s possible to use lower-cost materials without negatively affecting project quality.

Generate content

If you’re generating content in text form, bullet points are a good way to communicate HTWW information. Organize your content in a useful way — maybe categorizing it as actions to take “before the project starts,” “during the project,” and “at completion.”

In my opinion, video is a particularly good medium for HTWW content — the idea is to build trust, and this is best done if your spokesperson is able to present ideas in a face-to-face way. It doesn’t matter if they’re not telegenic (and it may even be better if they’re not). Just as some people think that anyone who’s physically attractive can’t also be smart, viewers may assume that anyone who comes across as “too slick” may be lacking in ethics.

Content that is generated in cooperation with a satisfied client is perhaps the most useful and credible. For example, you can create an interview — in a video or audio format — in which the client describes the factors that made for a successful project.

An added benefit of the HTWW content process is that it can be used for your company’s team building and internal development efforts as well as for leads and sales. Perhaps your leaders have never sat down and thought about what strategies are more likely to result in successful transactions or projects, or what factors to attribute problems to. Developing HTWW content is a chance to think through these issues. The result can be better service, and a better work environment for yourself and your colleagues.

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

Image courtesy of Carl Friesen

Under the right circumstances, many professionals are capable of preparing great content for blogs, books, and online sign-up incentives. But only a few can consistently produce quality marketing content on a daily basis.

Those who do usually have a system or process in place to help them meet the daily deadline challenge.

There are three productivity tips I would like to share from the world of writing and publishing (where deadlines are absolute). Use them as the core of your own system for preparing content on an ongoing, stress-free basis.

1. Study the right examples

Resist the urge to reinvent the wheel.

Content marketers often waste time by starting from scratch with a blank screen, rather than looking for models they can use as the basis of their current project. Save time planning your next content marketing project by looking for examples of what’s worked in the past.

Bestselling business and personal development books offer a wealth of ideas you can easily adapt to meeting your content marketing needs — regardless of the types of projects you’re currently working on. Here are a few examples:

• The three-act structure: An excellent starting place is to analyze the three-act structure Carmine Gallo used in his book, “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.” Gallo organized his book around the same three-act structure Steve Jobs used for his famous MacWorld presentations — a structure adapted from many of Shakespeare’s plays.

  There are a lot of ways you can use the three-act structure. For example, you can set the stage in Act 1 by describing a challenge your market frequently faces (for example, the need to come up with fresh content ideas each week). In Act 2, you can show how to take action, such as identifying several core topics that can be addressed from different perspectives. And in Act 3, you would describe the outcome and share tips for optimizing the results — perhaps by delegating content responsibilities, crowdsourcing content, or repurposing existing content.

• “7 big ideas:” Another classic way to organize a complex topic is to base your content marketing project on a few major principles (such as “best practices” or your key observations), and list out your recommendations for each principle.

  One of the best examples of this is Stephen Covey’s perennially popular book, “The 7 Habits of Highly-Effective People.” It’s a great example of how a complex topic (i.e., human behavior) can be simplified by organizing it around a few key ideas. (“You mean, there are only 7 things I need to know?”) Grouping your message on a few key ideas makes it easier to plan and write your content. The numbered key ideas also help readers track their progress through your content. (Bonus:After you’ve identified your key ideas, you’ll also have the foundation for an autoresponder-delivered e-course or a “sticky” series of weekly blog posts.)

  And remember, there’s a bit of magic to titles with numerical specificity. (Look what happens when you remove the “7” from the title — “The Habits of Highly-Effective People” has far less impact.)

• The procedural: Another classic book approach is to help readers solve a problem or achieve a desired goal by breaking a complex project into a series of tasks that readers can address one step at a time. Used as a title technique, this approach adds urgency by emphasizing how quickly readers can achieve their goals. Examples include Jay Conrad Levinson’s “Guerrilla Marketing in 30 days,” which shows how firms can improve their marketing by completing one step in the process each day. Likewise, Lorrie Thomas’s “McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Online Marketing” shows how firms can gain improved results from their online marketing in 36 one-hour sessions.

• The almanac: If you want to share a lot of short, detailed ideas and tips, consider an almanac, or one-idea-per-day approach. Few of today’s time-strapped prospects want to read marketing content that reminds them of textbooks and encyclopedias; but, they willrespond to relevant information that is concisely delivered in short, bite-sized chunks.

  An excellent example is “Thou Shall Not Use Comic Sans: A Designer’s Almanac of Dos and Don’ts: 365 Graphic Design Sins and Virtues.”

Each page is devoted to a single idea. Designers can jump in at any point, and still be rewarded with fresh inspiration and perspective.

Other resources, such as  “#Book Title Tweet: 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Compelling Article, Book, and Event Titles,” provide easy access to examples you can adapt to the requirements of your projects, with brief discussions of each example. 

2. Choose the right tools

Content marketing success involves using the right planning tools — especially those that visually illustrate your ideas and their relationship to your project’s “big picture” before you begin to write.

Knowing the structure of your content marketing project before you begin writing helps you avoid false starts and wasted time. Think of it like this: Although you could drive from New Hampshire to Los Angeles without a map, you’d probably waste a lot of time and resources along the way, arriving tired, broke, and hungry.

In the past, authors and journalists have used planning tools like index cards, sticky notes, story boards, and white boards to visually organize their ideas before they begin to write.

Today, however, mind mapping software, like Mindjet’s MindManager, can help you display the structure of your articles, blog, books, and eBooks in a format you can export to your word processing and presentation programs for writing and formatting. With these programs, you can also schedule, delegate, and track your progress using the same mind map you use to plan your project.

Speaking of Word processors, don’t assume that your current word processor is your only writing option. You may be thrilled, for example, to discover highly focused writing tools like IA Writer, with its uncluttered writing environment. Or, if you want to keep your ideas and online sources in front of you as you write, explore Scrivener, which uses an index card motif. 

Until recently, authors and journalists had to carry notebooks and pens with them to capture ideas wherever they were. Today, mobile apps running on smartphones and iPads permit you to capture your ideas as mind maps wherever you are. (In fact, I began this post on my iPad, before I got out of bed this morning.)

3. Master the right habits

Your habits determine your success. Whether it’s diet, exercise, or content marketing, your habits either work with you or they work against you.

Unfortunately, many of us have gone through life without developing the habits needed for efficient, stress-free writing.

Here are some of the ways you can replace the stress of last-minute deadline-driven writing with habits that can contribute to sustainable content marketing success.

• Execute daily: Many are seduced by the caffeine-like “rush” that can accompany last-minute deadlines. Yet, the thrill of all-nighters and “binge” writing also contributes to wasted effort, embarrassing mistakes, and lost opportunities. The key habit in sustainable writing success involves short, daily, scheduled writing sessions. Schedule 30 to 45 minutes a day, turn off phones and Twitter, and watch your ideas take shape. View these “sessions” you spend with your content to be as unbreakable as your appointments with your most important clients.
• Keep your brain engaged: In addition to your daily writing sessions, cultivate the habit of short beginning-of-day and end-of-day review sessions. All you need is a few minutes of quiet time at the end of each day to review what you’ve written and preview what you want to write tomorrow. In the morning, review your writing goals for the day. These sessions can be as short as five minutes, but that can be enough to keep your brain engaged so you can make the most of your upcoming writing sessions.
• Know when to edit: There’s a time to write, and a time to edit. Avoid the temptation to self-edit while writing. Instead, let your ideas flow; concentrate on finishing the first draft as quickly as possible. Once you finish the first draft, you can put on your editing hat — or pass your content on to others for comment and review.
• Know when to stop: Another reason to schedule short, frequent writing sessions is that your brain quickly tires, so productivity drops during long writing sessions. Explore resources like The Pomodoro Technique, which boosts productivity by reminding you when to take a short break.

Undoubtedly, as you cultivate the habits of writing success, you’ll come up with a system that works for you — one that you can use to efficiently prepare all types of content for years to come. And, in the meantime, please share your favorite content marketing productivity tips with us, as comments, below!

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

• You are considering changing content management systems.
• Your current system doesn’t meet your needs.
• You are stuck with a legacy CMS solution that refuses to evolve.
• You are not engaging visitors with your content.

Whatever the reasons you have for looking farther afield, here is some guidance for embarking on a search for a new CMS.

Don’t get distracted by the bells and whistles

There is a wide range of content management software out there, from boxed solutions that are ready to go (but are usually barely extensible) to more flexible platform options. There are pure web engagement front-end platforms, and more document management-oriented software. With so many options, it is tempting to dive into the feature list of each product, starting with a long and detailed analysis of all the functionalities and making your choice based on whichever product looks the coolest. In the end though, you may not focus on your own specific needs and end up choosing the wrong product. 

You want to avoid a haphazard decision-making process like that at all costs. Instead, you need to start your search by clearly identifying your needs and system requirements. I am frequently astounded to find that people are evaluating content management technology when they aren’t able to say one word about what they want to do with it! 

Before considering a purchase, it’s vital to ask yourself what business challenges you hope to overcome with a new CMS — when you get behind the wheel of a car, you should know your destination before you hit the gas pedal. And just like a road trip — where you might need to travel straight ahead through the flat Nevada desert or on twisty roads in the Rocky Mountains — finding a CMS that suits your needs can take you along one path among many choices. 

In the best case, once you know your particular set of needs, you might find a technology that fits straight out of the box. But if not, you’ll have to plan for some customizations. Don’t panic, though. Some systems are designed for just that purpose.

Once you’ve defined your needs, do your research

Once you know what you are looking for, then it’s time to look at the systems on offer. You can easily get lost analyzing the features of all the available products. The stereotypical feature-driven RFP is another occasion for losing sight of the forest for the trees. You’re better off assessing the system you choose by testing it, building small prototypes, or asking the technology provider to implement a proof of concept. Even as a prototype or with simple access to a demo, you can evaluate the system with real users and developers.

Additionally, keep in mind you aren’t just choosing technology, but also the people making, selling, and servicing the solution, as well as the whole community that revolves around it. From the sales representative to the support engineer, from the executive to R&D, make sure the fit is what is best for your business.

For instance, some vendors might offer very procedural and organized technical support, with different support lines and service-level agreements (SLAs). Others might offer a much simpler support organization that is flat and based on friendliness, simplicity, and availability. Depending on your business and technical capabilities, one or the other may be a better match for you. You should also find out how their sales and support teams are structured, as some will have the sales team as the gateway to the vendor team, whereas others will allow direct access to customer relations. Some may be flexible, others more strict. Once again, we are not so much concerned about the technology itself here, but with the fit of the CMS company with the culture and personality of your organization. 

Don’t overestimate the migration phase

As a last piece of advice to guide you, don’t under or overestimate the migration phase when moving from one system to the other. By this, I mean to say that push-button migration doesn’t exist. There is always work to be done, changes to be managed, and unplanned issues to resolve. 

You should plan cautiously, yet also not overestimate or be scared of the process. Even first-generation content management systems can provide decent technical access to content and document. It is extremely rare that you will be blocked.

Consider content migration to be a sub-component of your complete CMS decision. Consider utilizing a professional for this process because, aside from skill set, a professional’s experience with migration will help avoid common pitfalls — such as not properly backing up information — and can account for potential, unforeseen issues that might pop up if you did it yourself. 

Treat both the system and the process side with equal importance, but don’t forget to include your users and involve them in the process, as well. They should be the first to take up the migration project. In the end, it is they who will make or break your project.

Remember to ask yourself these questions

I’d recommend any technology decision-makers ask themselves the following questions before looking for a potential CMS vendor or system:

• What are the main drivers for changing the current system, and are they really impacting my efficiency?
• What are the main opportunities a new content management system would bring to my business?
• Do I know what my needs will be in 6 month, 2 years, or 5 years?
• How does the answer to the previous question impact my decision?

Please don’t hesitate to reach out or comment if you have a recipe for success to share with us!

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

But unlike marketing a book, you don’t have to market your white paper for months before you publish. If you start your marketing push a week or two before you plan to publish, you should have plenty of time to generate excitement and prepare to engage your readers.
The tips below will help you prepare for the big launch:

1. Have a distribution plan at the ready

Before you launch a white paper, you need to have a plan. You shouldn’t just publish on a random day when it’s ready. You need to make a plan and set a publish date ahead of time and stick to it.

Have your white paper ready at least a week or two in advance. Make sure it is proofread, edited, reviewed, designed, etc. This will ensure that when the day comes you won’t encounter any problems. You won’t need to postpone the publishing date, clean up any errors or oversights, or go through the stress of publishing your paper in a last-minute rush.

2. Create a landing page

Don’t wait for the white paper to publish to go live with your landing page. Rather, it’s good to publish your landing page about two weeks ahead of time. The aim of the landing page is to get the reader to provide contact details. It should be short and persuasive. This study by Website Magazine shows that 80 percent of the visitors to a blog are new visits, while only 20 percent are repeat visits. Which means that most of the people who visit your blog on a certain day will probably never visit it again, and they might never find or read your white paper. But if you publish your white paper landing page in advance and collect email addresses, you will make sure that your white paper gets read by more people.

The call to action for the pre-landing page should let readers know that if they register with their names and email addresses, the white paper will be sent to them as soon as it’s published. Using this technique will help ensure that you have a list of readers waiting to read your paper.
After the paper has been published, you can tweak the call-to-action to reflect the immediate gratification: “Register below to download the white paper now!”

3. Write a series of relevant posts to support and promote the paper

Attract traffic to your blog in preparation for your white paper launch by writing a series of relevant blog posts.
At the end of each post, have a call-to-action that informs the reader about your upcoming white paper and links to the landing page. This will increase landing page traffic and encourage more people to sign up to read the white paper.

For example, if you’re publishing a white paper on inbound marketing, write a series of four to six posts over two weeks covering related topics. For example, you could include an article on tips for writing blog posts, or one on using social media to generate buzz and interest. Some of the content you use in your blog posts can even be excerpted from the white paper itself. At the end of every post, be sure to include a link to your landing page and a call-to-action that asks the reader to register.

4. Write guest posts

Writing guest posts on popular blogs can be another fantastic way to help launch a new white paper. If you want this strategy to work, make sure you target blogs that focus on the same niche or topic as the one your white paper covers.

For example, if your white paper is on a technology-related topic, you can write a post for submission to popular tech blogs such as VentureBeat, Webware, and GigaOM. Just as with posts on your own blog, don’t forget to include a call-to-action and a link to your white paper to increase your landing page traffic and drive registration.

You will want to try to get some of these posts to publish before your white paper goes live and some on the same day on which your white paper is published. This can help boost your readership both before and on your launch day. This may require you to work with blog editors well in advance of launch, to make sure they can accommodate your launch schedule, but doing so can be highly beneficial, especially if you have specific days in mind for your guest posts to be published.

Writing all these posts will also have some long-term benefits — it will help establish you and your company as an expert on the subject and convince readers that they will find your white paper to be helpful.

5. Get reviews

One amazing way to gain traction for your white paper is to get people to review it. If you know an expert on the subject or someone who has a popular blog in the same niche, make a preview copy available and ask them if they would write a review and post it on their blog. The association with an established expert or thought leader can significantly increase your white paper’s credibility.

If your connections are too busy to write a full review, ask them if they would be willing to read it and provide a short, four- or five-line blurb. You can add these short reviews to your landing page, which can help make it more persuasive and add additional legitimacy for your work.

6. Invite experts to guest post

Publishing guest posts on your blog, written by experts on the same subject as your white paper, can help drive a lot of relevant traffic to your website. Posts from experts can help attract users to your blog who might be interested in reading your white paper.

Experts usually have a following on the internet who read their newsletters, tweets, social bookmarks, etc. When they write posts on topics they specialize in for your blog and share them, their followers will visit your website, read the post and notice your white paper. If it interests them, they will download it or sign up to receive it when it’s available.

7. Email it to your subscribers

Having a long list of newsletter subscribers can make it really easy to launch a new white paper. You can inform your newsletter readers about your paper a week or two before you launch it. You can let them know about the pre-publishing landing page and ask them to sign up if they are interested.

You can also send them an email on the day your white paper gets published and ask them to download the paper by visiting the landing page. If you already have their contact details, you can send them a direct link to the PDF.

These are a few ways to optimize the launch of your new white paper. If you want to launch with a bang, getting hundreds of people to read your paper as soon as it’s published, make sure you follow these tips.

How do you launch new white papers? Have you got any tips you would like to share? Please leave your comments below.

As a former journalist and reporter, this subject always tends to hit home with me. When I first heard the term “content marketing,” my initial impression was that the goal was for companies to start taking over the role of content publisher, effectively cutting out the middleman that they previously relied on to advertise with and gain new leads. It also struck me as a golden new career opportunity for folks with journalism and online writing backgrounds.

For the most part, this has turned out to be true. The focus amongst content marketers to become “a trusted source of information” has created a lot of competition for traditional sources like online magazines and newspapers. And more journalists have transitioned to marketing as economic lulls and cutbacks have made their typical career paths… well… let’s just say challenging.

Of course, that transition isn’t always easy, either.

Sure, hiring a bunch of converted journalists to generate quality content seems like a great idea for organizations that lack the skill sets to get their content strategies off the ground. But what I’ve found — and Rob alluded to as well — is that there’s a big difference between thinking like a publisher and actually being a publisher. As a result, journalists and writers seasoned in the latter are not always the best fit for a move to marketing. In the same vein, not all publishing concepts are amenable to a successful content marketing strategy.

In my opinion, there are three things that marketing organizations should consider when looking to add a former journalist or reporter to their team:

#1. Experience in online publishing

At this point, most journalists have at least some experience creating online content. That said, those who’ve specifically worked for online publications are often a much better fit for content marketing. One reason is that writing for online is a unique skill that not all writers possess. Common practices like keyword optimization and strategic link building require traits that need to be learned, and not all traditional journalists have embraced them.

It’s also important to have a strong understanding of the types of content your candidates are comfortable with. Obviously, you’ll want to review a collection of writing samples, but there’s a lot more to content marketing than articles and blog posts. Are you looking to hire someone with experience creating case studies or eBooks? What about multimedia content like webinars, podcasts, and videos? The more types of content a candidate is familiar with, the more expertise they’ll bring to your overall strategy.

#2. Editorial management experience

At many publications, most journalists and staff writers do just that — write. But there’s more to developing a sound content marketing strategy than writing. Editors that have worked in a management role are likely to possess a broader skill set that fits nicely into the content marketing model.

Not only are editorial managers excellent writers and content producers, they’re also more comfortable dealing with “big picture” stuff like editorial calendars, traffic reporting and, most importantly, working with the sales side of the business. On a personal level, this type of experience can lead to a much smoother transition to marketing when the time comes.

#3. Social media savvy

Obviously, social media marketing plays an important role these days. There’s brand awareness, customer engagement, content promotion, influencer marketing — the list goes on. While some companies have a single person designated as the social media point person (or “buzz marketer”), I believe that everyone on the marketing team — or at least the content team — should play a role here as well.

Ideally, the person you hire will be at least somewhat involved in social media. This doesn’t mean they need to have thousands of Twitter followers or belong to a host of LinkedIn groups. But they should at least have profiles that show an understanding of the platforms and the value they bring from a content perspective.

If one of the goals of your content strategy is to position your company as a thought leader in a particular space, then the person creating that content needs to be comfortable in that role. While some journalists and reporters are self-promotional machines on social channels, others avoid putting their faces out there in a way that could jeopardize their integrity. Some are seasoned traditionalists that prefer to let their content do the talking. Others are lower-level reporters that don’t have the confidence to become part of the online conversation.

Either way, the ones who “get it” are more ideal to help take your content strategy to the next level.

Journalists need to know what they’re getting into, and companies need to know who they are hiring.

As Rob points out in his article, there are a lot of publishing practices that align very well with content marketing. Editorial hierarchy, SEO, audience development, and a focus on unique, quality content are all skills that should be valued in the content marketing realm. But from a more personal standpoint, how journalists/ publishers go about their business is still very different — and it should be.

Understanding those key points can be critical when making your next content hire.

To all the other former journalists and reporters out there, what are your thoughts on moving from more traditional publishing to content marketing? Did you run into any particular challenges when making the transition? Sound off in the comments!

Yes, content works well when it comes to driving consumer demand. And, in turn, existing demand can create an ideal opportunity to deliver valuable, informative content. Yet marketers don’t always recognize how holistically these two marketing functions are linked to each other and to the various stages in the customer’s buying process — an oversight that needlessly complicates the job of any marketer.

Fortunately, there are some successful strategies for aligning and delivering content that will (to borrow a phrase from Hollywood’s latest storytelling success — “The Hunger Games”) turn the odds of a purchase ever in your favor.

During Content Marketing Institute’s latest webinar, Content to Customer: Aligning and Delivering Content According to the Buying Process, Eloqua’s Joe Chernov and Elle Woulfe shared a framework to help marketers address the most pressing customer goals and create the types of content that will work best at each phase of the purchase funnel.

What’s in a lead?

While many marketers simply identify any potential customer as a lead, according to Joe Chernov, Eloqua’s VP of Content Marketing, this term leaves out vital information about customers’ content interests, and their current mindset and motivations behind those interests. The broad usage of the term also fails to take into consideration important details you may have already gathered through earlier engagements they’ve initiated with your company. For these reasons, Eloqua uses the following four categories to more clearly define potential customers and help content marketers direct their communications more effectively.

• Suspects: A Suspect is every possible person who fits the criteria of your target market but hasn’t yet taken any action after accessing your content. These are people who could be interested in buying your products at some point down the line, or they may have just come across your content through an interest unrelated to a purchase.
• Prospects: When consumers in your target market have actively supplied personal information in exchange for more of your content, they become Prospects. This group includes consumers who have searched online for information on products that are relevant to your business, but who might not be actively engaged in the purchase process at the moment.
• Leads: In the Eloqua framework, Prospects that fit your consumer profile and have demonstrated a desired behavior or intent are referred to as Leads. At this stage, you know this consumer has an interest, and your use of content can help you determine if they are sales-ready.
• Opportunities: When your content has helped to put you in touch with a consumer who fits your buyer persona and is looking to make a purchase, you’ve created an Opportunity.

The right content for the right stage

Once you have categorized your potential customer, it’s time to create and deliver content. Whether they are ready to make a purchase now or are just window shopping, your goal should be to support their current informational needs and move them through the buying cycle.

Suspects

What information they want: Suspects are looking for companies to share what they know as an organization — not what they sell. So the content marketer’s goal at this stage is to get content to spread from person to person in the hopes that the more people it reaches, the better the chance that it will reach a potential prospect.

What content works well: According to Joe Chernov, a blog should be the hub of your content wheel in this phase. He also advises content marketers to avoid using forms when communicating with Suspects, as anything that interrupts consumers’ ability to view your content is a surefire way to blunt its spread at this stage of the marketing game.

Some content formats that do work well here include:

• Infographics
• Non-demo videos
• Curated lists (e.g., 20 Women who Rock Content Marketing)
• “Infotainment” content       

Best platforms for delivering content to Suspects:

• Blogs
• Social networks
• Branded outposts (e.g., your company’s video channel or other owned media platforms)
• Partner sites

Prospects

What information they want: In general, Prospects are looking for content that feeds their professional interests and provides a service, whether it be helping them solve a problem, giving them some targeted business tips, or arming them with information that can help them get buy-in from team decision-makers.

From the content marketer’s perspective, the goal at this stage is to collect information on people you haven’t established a relationship with yet, and to gather more information from those you have. This makes the Prospect stage a good time to start using forms as a gateway to your content.

As it’s all about conversions, at this stage, Joe Chernov recommends that marketers deliver content that speaks to Prospects’ fears and pain points. He also advises marketers to make sure they are pairing the channel they use with the role, as not all channels work for all titles.

Content that works well for Prospects:

• Email
• Advertising/Display
• Direct mail
• Events (both online and in-person)
• eBooks/Guides
• Chapters from physical books
• Licensed analyst reports
• Webinars

Leads

What information they want: Like Prospects, Leads also want content that addresses their business pains. But they differ in the types of information they will find most useful, and not all hand-raisers will turn out to be sales-ready decision makers.

At this stage, Elle Woulfe, Senior Marketing Programs Manager at Eloqua, advises marketers to focus on communicating with what she refers to as the sales-accepted lead — those with the Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing (BANT) to make a purchase decision.

Woulfe supports the use of progressive profiling at this stage — where you determine what information you already have on the lead, and then ask only for information that is missing. This allows marketers to gather more useful information without overwhelming the potential lead with repetitive requests. She also urges marketers to follow a Golden Rule of Content: Ask if the content you are pushing out is advancing the customer’s process.

Content that works well for Leads: Woulfe has found that product-related information works well here, as long as the consumer is comfortable with the level of content you are providing, and advises marketers that this is the stage where automated nurturing can begin to transition to an actual sales rep.

Preferred content formats for reaching leads include:

• White papers
• Case studies
• Demo videos
• Product comparisons

Opportunities

What information they want: Once your content has created an Opportunity, it’s up to you to help the consumer make a purchasing decision that they will be satisfied with, and to make that decision quickly. This includes providing clear, transparent pricing information because, as Woulfe says, you are better off supplying this information proactively than waiting for your competitors to do it for you. For content marketers, this also means staying involved — nurturing the buyer all the way through the close of the deal, and not relying exclusively on the sales rep to deliver content.

Content that works well for Opportunities:

• ROI calculators
• Pricing sheets
• RFP generators and templates

Woulfe also warns content marketers that just because these may be “dry” topics, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be presented in a vital, exciting way. She also encourages marketers to consider bundling their best Opportunity-stage content into a single buying center.

If you missed the live webinar, you can still benefit from these and other insights shared by Eloqua by viewing the archive version here. You can also download the slide presentation here. 

Sure, content marketing aligns closely with the makeup of a traditional publishing company: editorial teams that create content; sales teams that bring in business; and audience development teams that build an audience of active, engaged, and highly-qualified readers. But if I simply think like a publisher, I’ll likely end up like many of them — irrelevant and working hard to stop the Titanic from sinking.

There are, however, many lessons to be learned from publishers. Here are three of the more obvious ones from my 20 years in the publishing business.

1. Great content is king

Your content marketing team should look a lot like a publisher’s editorial staff, with a specific hierarchy and defined skill set, including a managing editor to oversee and coordinate the team’s editorial activities. You also need to engage as many people as possible at your company as staff writers to produce engaging content, which will keep readers on your website, differentiate your brand, and convert unique visitors into dedicated fans and, hopefully, longtime customers.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you work to create content that is worthy of its crown:

• The value of the written word. While many marketing departments don’t have professional writers on staff, the structure of good storytelling has also been largely forgotten, as texting and Tweeting have zapped people’s attention in lieu of content that is longer than 140 characters. Yet, great content is a valuable differentiator. Readers can find canned content on any website. They will come to you if you offer relevant content, deep analysis, and diverse opinions.

• SEO best practices. Solid SEO practices, including good keyword research, helps ensure that your content features the most relevant terms being searched for by your target audience. For example, if you’re a financial adviser who focuses on estate planning, knowing that “Whitney Houston” was trending on Twitter the week she died presents the opportunity to write an engaging blog post about Whitney’s estate plan. Google Trends is a great tool that can give you insight on popular searches and plenty of ideas for relevant topics.

Make sure your content contains relevant keywords so it can easily be found online. Use either your in-house PPC experts or your agency to train your content creators. It’s critical that your writers know what users are searching for so they can give people what they want. For example, if you know the term “HDTV” is more popular and less competitive than “high-definition television,” use “HDTV” in posts about high-definition televisions on your blog and throughout your website. Publishers work so hard at this, and content marketers have to do the same.

• Social media. Once you have perfected the art of creating quality, relevant content, it’s critical to use social media as a distribution channel so a broad audience can find your content.

Content marketers can take advantage of social media by empowering their content creators to be active with social media. Many publishers are not very good at social media because they focus on increasing quantity over quality, separating content creators from the people in charge of the social business.

Content creators need to build their own personal brands. Publishers struggle with this because legacy editorial staffs traditionally were unreachable. “Letters to the editor” would show up on a desk, rarely get published, and seldom earn a response. Every author should, minimally, link their blog posts to a Twitter account where they actively engage with their followers, and they should personally approve and reply to each and every blog post comment.

2. Match buyers with sellers

The job of a publisher is to match readers with advertisers. Content marketers are no different — their job is to get prospects into the sales funnel, find out more about them, and get them interested in your product or service. While publishers focus on demographics, content marketers rely on personas — a profile of each potential buyer of your product or service that includes their title, goals, job function, and pain points within their organization — and try to understand everything about each persona. The names may be different, but the aim for both is to reach buyers with products or services that fit their needs and interests.

3. Audience development

Publishers work hard to attract new readers without losing any of the ones they already have — known in the publishing world as “list fatigue”. List fatigue occurs because the communication you provide via email, social media, or in print is no longer what the reader is looking for. While publishers have become so focused on finding new readers, it is just as critical to make sure current readers find engaging content on the topics they are currently interested in. This means analyzing the stories, videos, and other content that readers interact with and discovering which content is bringing them deeper into the website, and which is getting left behind.

Content marketers face the same challenge. Make sure your messages are reaching people that have a specific interest in your products by understanding each persona type, getting feedback from individuals throughout your company, and interviewing actual people who most closely match your target audience.

However, it’s just as important that your content is relevant so readers don’t opt out because your blog posts, white papers, etc., are either too basic or too advanced for their particular level of interest at a specific stage in the buying cycle. Content that doesn’t fit with what the reader signed up for, or isn’t relevant, will ultimately lead to a subscriber looking for information from a competitive company. For instance, don’t just assume that every customer or prospect wants to receive that new e-newsletter that you’re about to launch.

It’s all about engagement

The goal for any publisher is to be able to prove to advertisers that they can engage a target audience. The same is true for content marketers. The key for both publishers and content marketers is to listen to your audience. Look at which sections of your website they spend the most time on and which stories they read, share and comment on, and then write more about these topics and share this information throughout your organization.

Most publishers struggle with analytics. Traditional print publishers would send 25,000 copies of a magazine and assume every page was read. Today, the ability to analyze content consumption by author, topic, time spent, and other metrics is commonplace, but remains a struggle for even the most innovative publishers.

So stop thinking or even acting like a publisher, and start doing more.