Content development is a vital part of any education marketing strategy. It keeps your website fresh, boosts your company’s visibility and proves your value to customers. But even when marketers recognize the benefits of regularly publishing content, streamlining the development process can be a challenge.
While creating a robust content marketing strategy is time-consuming, there are proven best practices to alleviate the most common pain points. The key is to put the right team in place with a thoughtful plan. Here are four ways to maintain a smooth, yet powerful, content development process.
Create a Content Calendar
Deciding which topics to discuss is half the battle. Try laying out ideas 4-6 months at a time. Review trending topics in your favorite industry publications and blogs to inspire content ideas. This process also keeps you up to date on the latest news in your industry to share with customers and team members.
Another way to approach creative roadblocks is by scheduling similar topics within the same timeframe. Developing several articles based on a common theme gives the central topic a more cohesive presentation, and makes it easier for your team to work on multiple posts at once. Choose content topics that align with your education marketing strategy.
Work with SEO Keywords
One key benefit of maintaining a content pipeline is search engine optimization. Blog posts and case studies provide an easy way to build keywords into your website.
Deriving topics from your search engine keywords to build content calendars will enhance your search engine ranking. Focus at first on the keywords you’d like to boost, then try to write 3-4 articles using the chosen keyword(s) as a common theme.
Review Past Content
Review content that was created 8-12 months ago for posts that might be refreshed or repurposed. Much of what you wrote will be as relevant today as it was a year ago. You worked hard for that content, so be sure to promote it again and again. There’s a good chance much of your audience will be seeing it for the first time.
Audit Your Team
There are several tasks that go into developing a single piece of content – content strategy development, idea generation, content calendar mapping, content writing, editing, posting, promoting, and content analytics review.
Each member of your team has different strengths. While many teams have 2-3 people in charge of a single piece of content, it’s possible to break down the process even further. Reconfiguring how each piece of content is created and assigning tasks based on team member competencies may motivate your team to create twice the content in half the time.
Content development is vital to a successful education marketing strategy. But it doesn’t have to be painful or tedious if you pull together your resources, whether an SEO strategy document or your in-house analytics expert, and continuously streamline your process.
Looking for help defining your content marketing strategy? Reach out to us here.
If you enjoyed this CB&A education content marketing blog, check out these companion articles:
- Turn Every Call to Action into a Lead-Generating Tool: Without an effective call to action, your education content marketing efforts could go to waste.
- Creating and Maintaining a Content-based Sales Process: To sharpen your sales funnel with content marketing, you need to evaluate the role content plays during each stage of the sales process.
- Let’s Get Visual: The Power of the Infographic: Any brand can harness the power of the infographic in education marketing efforts to yield high-impact results.