The London Marathon is coming up this weekend with runners hoping that all those months of training will pay off whether they just want to finish or improve their personal best. This got us thinking that training for and running a marathon has quite a bit in common with content marketing. Here are our key takeaways so you can create and share great content without breaking a sweat.
1. Reach your goals
When you’re in training for a marathon you need to set mini-targets in order to break through when you don’t feel your legs can go any further. Similarly in content marketing, you need to write a clear marketing strategy and set SMART goals. It’s a schoolboy error to just create content for the sake of it. Ask yourself, why does the brand need this article as part of our content marketing campaign? Is this video pitched at the correct stage of the buying cycle? Are we seeding with suitable platforms and publications?
2. Fuel your content marketing
When you’re burning off all those calories, you need to load up on your carbs to fuel you through your marathon training. As marketers, we also need to fuel our content. Allow your team time to create content or outsource to an agency. In the competitive environment, quality control counts, and it is worth making the investment.
3. Get into content marathon training
Start your content marketing training by setting up your editorial calendar. Twitter offers a tool called #ownthemoment to help get you started. Once timely events, key industry and brand related dates are laid out clearly, you can plan your content. By having a schedule you will have more time to engage with your customers, fit in your evergreen content, and maximise opportunities as they arise in real-time.
4. Find the right fit
Without suitable running shoes, a marathon is going to be tough, and trainers should be in their prime when you start the big race with 50 to 150 miles already pounded. For marketers it’s important to know what kind of content works and when to share it in the buying cycle, and you need to rely on strategies you know will work as well as testing out new creative.
In the onmi-channel marketing environment, you need to ensure that your content is strengthening your brand values at every touchpoint whether it’s a short-form Vine or Instagram videos to longer documentary content.
5. Healthy competition
To make it to that finish line, a spot of competition can motivate you to give it 101%. In marketing it’s vital to keep your eyes on what your competitors are doing. You can monitor your competitors’ social media activity via tools such as Hootsuite or Socialbro, and set up alerts for brand mentions.
It can also be useful to look at other verticals for ideas on content marketing. If you are working in B2B, for instance, keep an eye on consumer brands for inspiration, especially when you realise how much your customers are influenced by emotions.
6. Monitoring
With all the running apps available now, you’ll be tracking your progress up to the big day. Likewise you need to track your content marketing progress. If you’ve taken our advice, and set up your SMART objectives, this should be straightforward. With digital campaigns, you can track in real-time which gives all marketers the power to continuously improve their output.
7. Don’t forget your fans
Got people cheering you on in the side-lines? At last year’s London Marathon, the crowds were 10 – 15 people thick so there was plenty of encouragement. Brands need to engage their fans and never take them for granted. 92% of consumers trust brand advocates (Nielsen) so it is worth making your fans feel special to create further advocacy. Ideas to try include exclusive offers, early releases of content or invite your fans to create and share their content.
8. Pace yourself
It’s all about pacing yourself and managing when you make that sprint to the finish. With marketing you want to maximise your content. First of all, ensure that you’re sharing it effectively across all your marketing channels, and seeding it in the right places with relevant bloggers and publications.
Also, you need to take a long-term view about content marketing. You won’t gain brand loyalty and trust with one video or one article, but as part of your wider strategy you can build this. Your brand needs to keep its audiences interested and not bore them with the same old content, but there are clever ways to repurpose it. For instance, you could turn one of your blog posts into a video infographic.
9. Help your brand by thinking about others
Many of the marathoners at the weekend will be going the full 26 miles, not only for their satisfaction, but to raise money for charity. We’re not asking you to do all your content marketing for free… but we’d like to posit that thinking about others will help your brand. Content marketing works best when you’ve produced great, relevant content which stands on its own, rather than trying to overtly sell.
How to create great content
All that’s left to say is good luck to all the London Marathon runners on Sunday. On your marks get set…
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