Most business owners understand that, in an increasingly online world, regular content production is advantageous. The problem many businesses face is in finding the time for content production. Developing original memes, blog posts, infographics, or videos can be time-consuming. And even if you outsource these endeavors to a content marketing firm, there is time required in providing content direction, approving topics, and reviewing the quality of work.

There are a number of ways in which content marketing can actually be embedded into the DNA of the company culture, making it a little more natural and seamless to produce new content on a regular basis. Here are a few ways to make that happen.

Make It Cross-Disciplinary

Too often, content creation is siloed to the marketing department. It’s a lot healthier, and more efficient, to make it a truly cross-disciplinary endeavor. Make sure that representatives from all parts of your company are weighing in with content ideas.

There are a number of benefits to this, but the most significant is that different team members will have different windows into the kinds of content you need. For example, customer service representatives can articulate some of the most common customer comments, questions, or complaints, which can provide some helpful avenues for upcoming content. And your sales team knows the customer journey from start to finish; they may be able to advise on content that aligns with each stage of the buyer journey.

The question is, how do you create a culture in which anyone and everyone feels comfortable voicing new content ideas? One idea is for the marketing team to have an anonymous “suggestion box” for new content ideas. You can also bring up content ideation in staff meetings (not just marketing meetings), inviting the full team to jump in with suggestions. Be sure to create an atmosphere in which all ideas are treated respectfully; the last thing you want is for people to fear that they will be ridiculed for “bad” ideas.

Expand Your Definition of Content

If your company defines content solely in terms of blog posts and white papers, then it’s understandable why many of your team members may be reluctant to get involved with the process. After all, not everyone is a writer, and not everyone considers themselves to be creative.

But what if your notion of content creation also includes staff members pausing to be “interviewed” for Instagram videos, or to share with you some customer testimonials you can use in future infographics? By broadening the parameters of “content marketing,” you can welcome more and more people to participate in the process.

Embrace a Full-Team Approach

As you embrace a more holistic, company-wide approach to content marketing, you’ll find a number of opportunities to expand your efforts and yield greater results. Consider just a few areas where having a few more hands on deck can significantly improve your content marketing efforts:

Social Media

It’s all too tempting for the marketing department to assume that social media is their territory and no one else’s. While your marketing staff may take the lead on developing brand messaging and voice, as well as creating a basic content calendar, non-marketing team members may be able to weigh in with suggestions for using social media to provide customer service, answer questions, and cultivate community.

Also, by getting feedback from other departments and asking them what kind of content they’d like to see, you can help them feel more ownership in what you’re doing on the corporate social media accounts; ideally, this will result in more team members sharing branded content from their personal accounts.

Video

Some of the most effective videos are simple ones that answer a question, demonstrate a new product, or provide some behind-the-scenes insight to the end customer.

All of these are areas where you can enlist team members from various departments, not only gleaning new content ideas but actually encouraging them to participate in video productions. This helps put a human face to your company’s content, and again, it may make your team members more interested in sharing videos from their personal accounts.

Email

A simple yet meaningful step you can take is to have the customer service team forward all customer questions/inquiries to the marketing department. This will doubtless provide you with some fodder for FAQ pages, tutorial video, etc. Simply put, you can use customer questions and concerns as launchpads for new content, providing information that directly addresses your most common customer pain points.

Make Content Marketing Part of Your Culture

Content marketing can be more than just a strategy; it can be woven into the fabric of your organizational culture, embraced by your entire team. That’s something we think can be highly beneficial, and it’s something we’d be happy to chat with you about further. Reach out to enCOMPASS with any of your content marketing inquiries.