There’s no doubt about it. When it comes to B2B marketing, a sound content strategy is critical. Globally, almost 90 percent of B2B companies use content to drive profitability, which is why companies spend 15.8% more every year on content related business activities. What these stats suggest is that there’s an insatiable appetite for content, particularly digital content. And marketers are under tremendous pressure to create a ton of it.

Digital marketing refers to any type of promotion or advertising that uses digital content across different online channels. Today, almost 70 percent of buyers say they use digital channels to research their business problems over face-to-face interactions. Content is the fuel for many digital marketing strategies, which may include the following:

  • Social media campaigns
  • Influencer marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Educational videos and online tutorials
  • Webinars and virtual events
  • Podcasts
  • Guest blogging
  • Search engine optimization (SEO)

Content marketing strategies and digital content strategies have a lot in common. There’s an insatiable need for high-value content that’s clear, engaging, and relevant to your target audience. But any content marketing professional will tell you how time-consuming it can be to produce just one piece of high-quality content — it can take hours, days, or even months. For example, Sprout Social claims that a 30+ page white paper filled with unique data can take up to three months with collaboration across marketing, design and sales. To publish more content at the pace of business today, you need to find ways to work smarter and more efficiently. In this post, we’ll look at some creative approaches to maximizing your work and scaling your digital content strategy.

Recycle and repurpose content

You don’t need to start from scratch for every piece of content. Recycling and repurposing content is an easy strategy to get the maximum return on your content investment. There are two ways to do this. First, plan how you can turn a content marketing piece into other forms of digital content. You can potentially turn a case study or long-form piece into something else; a series of blog posts, a social media campaign, or a video, for example. When you work from this multi use mindset, you’ll find your approach to content creation changes.

Another option is to audit existing digital content and try to give it new life. Maybe it just needs a refresh or a new angle. Or it could be that the information is still current, and you can repurpose it into a different format to make it feel fresh. Updating images and calls-to-action are a great way to boost engagement. After all, the best digital content strategy helps you work smarter, not harder, to get your content in front of the right target audience.

Use the right technology

There’s a lot of software and tech out there that can help scale your content strategy. Programs like Google Analytics and Ahrefs, for example, can help you conduct keyword research, and then show you top-performing competitor content that your target audience is interested in.

To scale up your digital content strategy, you need to start with well-written source material. Better writing means better results. You could have content on a relevant topic, presented with a fresh new angle. But a low-quality blog post won’t attract the organic traffic that your business deserves. Technology can help ensure that your content will drive the metrics that align with your business goals, in a highly scalable way. So you can actually predict and improve the impact of your content — from anywhere in your business — before you deploy it. Who said content strategy was just for marketers?

Software tools can also automate social media distribution based on buyer personas, and send out content at the optimum time to reach your specific audiences. You want to deliver your content through the right channels, at the right time, to the right people. And lastly, you can use analytics to see how your content performs post-publication, and direct resources accordingly. There’s no point in creating and publishing specific types of content if no one is consuming them.

Be more efficient

Having efficient and repeatable processes will save you a lot of time and effort. Your content strategy should include templates and workflows for each content format you publish, which helps your team spend more time doing the work and less time figuring out how to do it. Brand guidelines and a style guide can be invaluable tools to ensure that your message is consistent across the board. You want to remove confusion, speed up the process, and keep your content on point. Another good idea is to do regular content audits and inventory reports, so you can identify any missed opportunities and avoid duplication.

Scale up for greater success

There’s enough pressure to create fresh and interesting content day after day. That’s why it makes sense to get the most out of each piece of work, rather than starting from scratch every time. When you create great content, you want to get it in front of as many of the right people as possible. So whether you’re condensing an article into a TikTok video, a blog post into an infographic, or a research report into a webinar, you’re increasing your reach and visibility, and maximizing results, while working more efficiently. That’s a plan that should be music to every content strategist’s ears.

And finally…

To deliver a unified customer experience across all your digital channels, marketing needs to deliver a consistent content experience. Because every aspect of marketing relies on content to engage and motivate your target audience. If you’d like to read about how to improve the quality and impact of your content across:

  • Digital marketing
  • Product marketing
  • Demand generation
  • Customer marketing
  • Social media marketing
  •  Partner marketing. 

You should check out another blog post titled “A Guide to Marketing Content Creation” or our eBook “Content Strategy for the Modern Enterprise: The Ultimate Guide to Designing an Effective Content Strategy”