Quality content for the site: where to get

You carefully looked at your site and decided that it would be nice to show visitors interesting and useful content (which we described in the previous article ). Where to get it? Not every company can afford a staff of marketers and PR-specialists who would do this, not all marketers and PR-specialists will be able to create such content. But these are rather issues of business processes and recruiting ...

Therefore, let's figure out where to get ideas for content, how to choose types of content for a business and who can create the materials you need. Even if you have already decided that you will outsource this task to an outsourcer, to know how this process is going on, it is necessary to build effective work with the contractor.

Where to get ideas?

Every business has something to tell, whether it is a solid marble factory with a 30-year history and a staff of 500 people, or a solo start-maker for the production of foil hats. But how to determine what to talk about yourself, and what is best left behind the scenes?

This is not about trade secrets, privacy policies and other information that future customers are better not to know. It's about stories and information about your work that will interest visitors to the site and make them buyers of goods and services. For this, as they say, you need to "fall in love" with the buyer. Or it is simpler: to give him such useful and interesting information free of charge so that he becomes interested in what he will receive for money.

So where do you get good ideas? Get a notebook or a file in which you will write down ideas, even the most delusional and boring. Some of them will then be eliminated, others can be developed.

• Ask yourself

What would you like to read about your company if you didn't know anything about it? Just answer honestly. Agree, this is not the year of foundation and the number of employees.

• Ask colleagues

They also have an opinion about this, rest assured. And they even discuss these topics at lunch or in breaks. And they don't tell you because you don't ask.

• Find a carrier of "sacred knowledge"

That colleague who is “in the subject line”, he has been working in the company for a long time, he knows many stories, the history of the “formation and development” of your product. Typically, these colleagues are looking for among technical experts and senior management.

• Monitor competitors

Most likely, they have already carried out such work and published something. Even if in the end, in your opinion, it turned out “not very”, then it’s better to fix for yourself what exactly you didn’t like, what was the mistake. Monitoring the “failures” of competitors is often more useful and more effective than success. Do not forget to see how things are with your foreign competitors.

• Monitor related businesses

Or not contiguous, but with good marketing. The idea for the promotion of waffle irons may appear after reading articles on the website of a private kindergarten or a company selling tracking systems.

• Ask customers

Yes, these are the best business ideas providers. And it does not always make sense to openly ask in mailings or social networks, sometimes it is enough to follow the process carefully and analyze, communicate with customers. Ask the manager to record “interesting things” from conversations with clients after meetings, record telemarketers (even if they communicate with clients exclusively by the script, at the other end of the line is a person who is not limited to the spelled phrases).

List of ideas compiled. What's next?

Then you will need to take the best ideas from a large list and make them even better. Do not drop your list, work with it: distribute topics, record how to open them, move ready materials to a separate “folder”, complete the list in any incomprehensible situation. It is convenient to streamline this workflow with the help of a scheduler or task manager.

But there is still work that needs to be done before writing and publishing texts, taking a photo and shooting a video.

• Think over the brand image

Imagine that a business is a person. What is he like? What does it look like and what does it like and not like? Answers to these questions will help determine the style of communication with online customers.

• Choose "brand face"

The main expert, and this is not necessarily the CEO. Many immediately come up with a mascot (character representing a company or brand). In the case of Mr. Proper (who is the “face” of only one P & G brand), Ronald MacDonald, who appeared in the 60s, and other popular characters, it worked. But to make a memorable mascot in 2016 and “promote” it, it will take much more money than to choose one of the employees who would fulfill this role.

• Spread content ideas by type and type.

To understand what content is missing, evaluate the resources required for publications and make a content plan.

Types of content:

• Text,
• Photo,
• Infographics,
• Illustrations
• Video,
• Podcasts,
• Presentations
• Webinars,
• Official documents, etc.

Types of content:

• News
• Expert
• Selling / branded
• Engaging
• Reputational
• Entertaining

• Make a content plan

It is not necessary to start with a short-term and detailed content plan for the coming week. To begin with - a plan "in a large cell." Do not forget to synchronize it with offline marketing, season, goals for the selected period, the target audience, which is currently focused on. And most importantly, not only display in it a list of articles for the next month or six months, but also list the goals of these materials, your expectations from them, indicate the emotions that the content should arouse in the site visitor. It will also help you not to miss anything, build a content policy in more detail and then analyze the work done.

Who makes the content?

If you decide to give this work (as well as the preparation and publication of content) or its part to an outsourcing, then before choosing a contractor, you need to decide what you can do on your own. Is there an employee in your company who can write well and competently, will you look for a photographer yourself, or just want to approve the finished materials before publication.

All companies are different, and in some situations attracting an external contractor can give a more tangible result than expanding the job responsibilities of one of our own specialists. For example, when money is paid for a job, some managers may find time to interview faster.

In the market of content creation services, you will come across a variety of proposals: someone will change printed quizzes to rubles, someone will offer a full cycle, which will include writing texts and creating media — photos, videos, infographics, someone selling SEO- texts with which the site will love search engines. As in any other field, the quality and cost will differ tremendously. Suppose that, in principle, you can expect from contractors "different order".

• Creative agency, digital-agency

"Full cycle" and "all inclusive". Typically, such agencies are involved in everything: analyzing competitors, drawing up portraits of the target audience, developing a content plan, preparing materials, publishing, analytics. They can also show cool cameras that will take photos and videos, will delight service and boast cases for large customers. Naturally, it is expensive. And not for every business necessary.

Promotional video for the Moscow residential complex "Zilart"

• Web Studio, Internet Marketing Agency

Conveniently, when you can order content creation for a site in the same place where you ordered the site itself. In this case, you will receive texts that will fit perfectly into the site design, they will be used in the right amount of keywords (if the studio provides services and SEO-promotion). They will help you to draw up TK for a photographer or draw / select suitable images. Be prepared for the fact that you will be asked many questions that you will need to answer to get a pleasing result.

Video from instagrama group of companies "PIK". To promote a new LCD for the developer, a viral advertising campaign was developed with the involvement of Irina Gorbacheva

• Freelance copywriter or journalist

"100 rubles per 1000 characters" - a familiar estimate? Any editor will say that thousands of characters can only evaluate bad text. Good text is measured in units of meaning. And the meaning conveyed to the reader. Most likely, using the services of such a copywriter, you will receive a rewrite of the boring text found on the competitors' website from the “About Us” section, supplemented with pieces from the texts of another competitor from another region. It seems to be written correctly and in terms of “fit,” but admit it: is it interesting for you to read? A visitor to the site even less. In addition, the oversight of work on the creation of photographs, illustrations and other content will fall on you.

• You yourself

You (the owner or employee of the company) have one advantage over all contractors: you know everything about your company: interesting cases, unusual orders, difficulties that you had to face. All of these are real living stories that are interesting to potential customers, current customers, competitors, and even people who happen to be on the site. Perhaps you would be happy to share it, but you do not know how (or are afraid) to write something yourself.

Or the opposite situation: you can get carried away and tell too much. Not everyone is interested in reading longrid about the types of marble. But such an article is an ideal “raw” material for creating a whole section on your website or an interactive article if you add, for example, photos of the city’s landmarks made of marble and small stories about each. You can go ahead and find out what this marble was formed from - limestone with an admixture of shells or interspersed with iron.

Astrakhan Dining Room No. 100 and Kubanzheldormash from Armavir conduct their websites and social networks on their own

Remember that you (the client company and its key employees) are extremely important for creating content on your own website. Even if you completely trust the contractor, you need to make sure that the understanding of the task is correct, and the action plan and your expectations are clear. And again: if you do not have the time and money to create good content, then it is better not to do it at all, invest, for example, in optimization.

In the next article we will look at the tools that will make your content better.