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Time-Saving Effective Content Creation Tips

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Time-Saving Effective Content Creation Tips

Creating niche content is something all brands should do in order to catch their audience at various stages of their buying cycles.

Content diversifies your rankings, builds your brand’s recognizability, and helps create more conversion funnels throughout the site.

But there’s one huge problem with publishing new content on your site: Time.

Few brands can afford writing teams, and relying on freelancers brings in new risks like inconsistency in voice and lower quality.

How to teach your in-house writers to create more content faster and more productively?

Here are a few tips:

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Stop Agonizing About Word Count

Somehow “long-form” content became the best content creation tactic at some point. Just about any content strategy started evolving around “the more words the better”, and writers became stressed with producing 4000-word articles.

This slows down the process a lot.

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Don’t get me wrong, some content topics do require lots of words to cover. But these are very few topics.

When you need to address a popular question on your site, get to the point quickly. If you think about it, people looking for answers online, don’t need your long intros and definitions. They need an answer.

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Stop demanding long-form articles from your team. All you need is to ensure your content serves the user right. Encourage your team to search for every search query they are tasked to target, and read a few high-ranking articles. Chances are, those articles will be very well-focused to provide value right away.

Word count is not one of SEO priorities, as confirmed by Google. How well your content addresses the readers’ needs is.

Make Good Use of Artificial Intelligence

I don’t recommend using ChatGPT (or similar AI-driven tools) to write content for you. While the AI-generated content may sound fine and even be useful, it lacks voice and expertise. It is also detectable.

And yet, AI tools can greatly improve the productivity of your writing team if they:

  • Prompt a tool to create an outline for your future article
  • Ask it to create takeaways for your written articles
  • Prompt it to suggest popular questions to cover
  • Ask it to write an introduction or a summary to your article
  • Prompt it to suggest related keywords or concepts to cover, 
  • Ask it to proofread your article and suggest improvements,
  • Prompt the tool to optimize your content for search engines
  • Ask it to compare your article to high-ranking competitors, 
  • Prompt it to suggest related Q&A, etc.

There are also lots of interesting integrations for ChatGPT that will be helpful for writers. For example, Text Optimizer generates semantically-optimized answer to any question you type:

Time Saving Effective Content Creation Tips

Steal Your Competitors’ Ideas

Looking at what your competitors are doing is a great way to understand what’s working. Like I suggested earlier, make sure you or your team actually searches for your target keywords and read some of the content that’s ranking on top of Google. 

This will give you an idea of what your content should look like and how to make more productive and focused decisions when writing yours. WebCEO allows you to analyze your competitors’ content and creates a detailed keyword map informing you where your article is probably missing. This makes your team’s job much as easier as they write and optimize their articles:

1684596571 255 Time Saving Effective Content Creation Tips

Based on your blogging platform, there may be more ways to ensure your content is as well optimized as your competitors’.

Share A Commentary

Don’t believe the myth that you can’t cite articles published elsewhere. Nothing can be further from the truth. Just keep in mind that if you reference an article, you need to accompany it with your own opinion or commentary.

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Example: Forbes writes an interesting article related to the uptick in millennials in your industry. You copy and paste a large statistical finding and explanation from the article into a blog post. 

This content takes up the majority of space you would normally fill yourself. Essential to the success of the article, however, is that you then write your opinion regarding the information that you referenced. Tell us why you think the article is correct, incorrect, or perhaps reference your own statistic as a comparison.

Create Seasonal Content

The yearly calendar provides ample opportunities for seasonal content creation inspiration. Between the numerous holidays, people celebrate and the seasons themselves, you can easily increase sales using creative content marketing.

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For example:

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  • Focus content on the holiday spirit
  • Tie holidays back to your products, services, or markets
  • Cover local holiday events

Try putting together pieces focused on these calendar-related areas:

The change of seasons – Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

Popular Holidays

  • New Year’s Day (January 1)
  • Valentine’s Day (February 14)
  • Daylight Savings Time Starts (March 13)
  • April Fool’s Day (April 1)
  • Mother’s Day (Second Sunday in May)
  • Father’s Day (Second to last Sunday in June)
  • American Independence Day (July 4)
  • Women’s Equality Day (August 26)
  • Labor Day (First Monday in September)
  • Halloween (October 31)
  • Thanksgiving (Last Thursday in November)
  • Winter holiday round-up (Last week in November)

Wacky Holidays

  • Trivia Day (January 4)
  • Send a Card to a Friend Day (February 7)
  • Old Stuff Day (March 2)
  • International Moment of Laughter Day (April 14)
  • National Chicken Dance Day (May 14)
  • World Environment Day (June 5)
  • Embrace Your Geekiness Day (July 13)
  • International Left-handers Day (August 13)
  • National Good Neighbor Day (September 28)
  • World Vegetarian Day (October 1)
  • World Kindness Day (November 13)
  • National Cookie Day (December 4)

The following year, make sure to look back at your past seasonal content and update it for the next upcoming season. It’s not about always creating new content, it is also surfacing your old content. This saves lots of time!

To make this tactic even more productive, use one of the WordPress calendars to easier plan your seasonal content. Some of the WordPress alternatives have editorial calendars built-in.

Content creation requires a lot of time and effort but the more you experiment with topics, the faster you produce successful content. This skill won’t come quickly. Steal the above ideas to create content quicker!


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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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