Content marketers weave a web connecting their websites to their blogs to their social networks and back again. They are not only managing a strong website and blog following, but they are also interacting with their audiences with the spread of great content via Facebook pages, Tweets, LinkedIn discussions, YouTube channels, Flickr photostreams — the list goes on and on.

Managing this web of information can be a daunting task for a small business. But it doesn’t have to be. Editorial calendars are a great way to organize blog topics, writers, publishing schedules, etc., so why not adapt that same tool for your social networks, too? It will help improve your content quality and reader retention to boot. Use a simple Excel spreadsheet or Google’s free calendar and build out content topics for not only your blog, but your e-newsletter, Facebook discussions, YouTube Channel, etc., all in one location.

By planning ahead with an editorial calendar, content marketers will see more connections in their content, ensure the information is well-balanced, and generate ideas on how to repurpose what they already have. For instance, if a blogger is writing about best practices for search engine optimization, they could pull out a discussion point, such as keyword analysis, to post on their Facebook page, tweet one of the blog’s takeaways and include a link to that post in their company e-newsletter.

Generating Content Ideas

Prior to a content brainstorm, first take into consideration your audience and objectives. It is crucial to consider niche demographics in order to develop content that appeals to your audience, while meeting your business objectives.

Editorial calendars work best planning content only a few months ahead to keep it fresh and timely. Here are some tips to consider when generating content topics.

• Start with your priority keywords. Developing content around these keywords will not only encompass your search-engine optimization objectives, but is also a great starting point to frame your expertise around topics that you know you can generate great content around.
• Take into account industry events, such as conferences or trade shows you plan to attend or partake in. Updates on your blog, pictures or videos from the event are valuable information for those who couldn’t attend.
• Consider seasonal trends, especially if your product or service is cyclical. During the off-season, content can be more generalized, while throughout the high-demand times, it can be instructional with step-by-step guides, how-tos, tips and advice.
• Schedule content topics around promotional activities. Content can be tailored to generate excitement or interest around a new product or service prior to its launch.

With a completed editorial calendar, content marketers can work ahead and plan their strategies, set up interviews if necessary, gather and research information and, perhaps more importantly, prevent those “writer’s block” days spent figuring out what to blog about, tweet or post through their social networks.

From Small Business Trends

Adapting the Traditional Editorial Calendar to Meet Today’s Content Demands

With an abundance of Website and social-media tracking software available today — including free analytics such as Google Analytics and Webstats BASIC — tracking online statistics has become more and more accessible for small businesses.

Digital marketers have access to in-depth measurements to track who’s visiting their site and what they’re doing once they get there; calculate their return on investment for both online and offline campaigns; and estimate their social popularity. But when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of your case study, choosing the right metrics to track and understanding what they mean are the keys to success.

Take, for example, an increase in unique visitors. This can be a positive indication, but if you look deeper into the stats and realize there is a high bounce rate due to visitors jumping right away, it’s not doing your business much good.

By aligning your metrics with your campaign objectives (see “5 Steps to Craft a Case Study’s Content Strategy”) and the buying cycle that your digital marketers are attempting to influence, however, you can achieve an in-depth picture of your case study’s performance. It’s a simple way to understand your metrics and evaluate your case study’s overall performance. Though there are hundreds of metrics to track, in the interest of time and space I’ve depicted a simplistic illustration below. Depending on the complexity of your campaign and its objectives, specific statistics likely will need to be adjusted.

Buying Cycle Stage 1: Company/Product Awareness

First, track metrics that indicate an increase in brand and/or product awareness. For example, analyze increases in Twitter followers, Facebook fans and other social connections. Track newsletter sign-ups, blog subscriptions and additional connections to company materials used to distribute your case study.

In addition, review traffic spikes on your homepage and the landing page where your case study resides. Look for increased page views here, an uptick in unique visitors and a jump in campaign-specific keyword rankings. If you’re running an AdWords campaign for the case study, be sure to review impressions and click-through rates, as well.

Buying Cycle Stage 2: Research and Consideration

Next, measure the amount and depth of customer interaction with your organization. Are visitors commenting on your blog, posting on your Facebook Wall or retweeting your case study? Are they clicking on links embedded in your newsletter and then downloading your case study?

Then, analyze the time spent by visitors on the case study landing page and homepage, and dig deeper to find out where they navigated from there. Most importantly, measure how many of those visitors converted into leads.

Buying Cycle Stage 3: Purchase

Finally, it’s time to measure your campaign’s overall performance. Track the number of leads that converted into customers and then determine your cost per customer (Total Case Study Costs / # Customers Generated). Also, calculate your campaign’s return on investment (Revenue – Cost / Cost) to determine its true value.

Now that you’ve designed a metrics system aligned with your campaign, you can tweak and improve its performance based on the results.

What other metrics have you found to be helpful? Do you use a specific campaign tracking software that you’d recommend to readers? Please share what you’ve found to be helpful in gaining the best possible results for your campaign.

From Small Business Trends

How to Measure a Case Study’s Performance

Therefore, once you’ve reviewed the first post, “5 Steps to Craft a Case Study’s Content Strategy,” in this three-part blogging series, developing a sound online distribution strategy is the next step to ensuring your case study gets found, consumed and shared.

First of all, take into account your target audience and choose the media that they prefer when consuming information. Also, keep your objectives in the forefront when defining your media channels. For example, if your objective is to drive media coverage, you may consider distributing an optimized press release through a news wire to get your case study in front of bloggers and editors.

Today, small businesses have access to a multitude of media-channel strategies:  They can launch a company or product blog, set up a YouTube Channel or distribute press releases through a news wire. By using a combination of several media channels to offer information in multiple formats, your chances of reaching your audience are far greater.

So when you sit down to hammer out an online distribution strategy, consider using this powerful combination of five media channels — website, social media, social bookmarks, news wires and search engines — to help achieve your objectives.

1. Website

Use the power of your website to drive traffic to your case study, as your site should already be optimized to attract your target audience. Build a separate landing page for the case study so it will not only be optimized for search engines to get found, but also offer a direct link for companies to use on their social networks, sales collateral, optimized press releases, etc. On the landing page, include a clear call to action above the fold to drive visitors to download your case study to consume and share.

In addition, depending on the objectives developed in your content strategy, consider implementing a lead form for visitors to fill out in order to download the case study. For example, if your objective is to generate leads, make sure to require contact information. But if your objective is to obtain media coverage, you may want to skip a lead form altogether, as it could deter an editor or blogger from downloading the case study.

2. Search Engines

As outlined in the fifth step of “5 Steps to Craft a Content Strategy,” use priority keywords to optimize your case study and landing page to get found by your target audience. Include the priority keywords in your case study’s headline, subheads and body copy, and include them in the landing page’s page title and meta data. In addition, when posting links through your social networks and news releases, be sure to use priority keywords as anchor text.

3. News Wires

Send an optimized press release announcing and detailing your case study across regional or national news wires to get in front of relevant bloggers and editors for potential coverage. News wires like PR Newswire or Marketwire are great tools to increase inbound links and generate a spike in traffic back to your landing page. Though it’s not a recommended strategy for building website strength over the long run, it’s a sound media channel to gain media coverage and generate interest around your case study.

4. Social Media

Use the power of your social networks and community to spread your content. Post a link to the case study landing page on your Facebook Page and Twitter account, and use the case study to answer related questions asked on LinkedIn.

In addition, be sure to blog about the case study’s content. For example, you could blog about how you arrived at the case study, offer additional background information or simply offer a brief overview of the case study.

5. Social Bookmarking

Lastly, social bookmarks enable users to organize and share information they find interesting and/or useful, and then share it with their community. Bookmark your case study landing page on social bookmarking sites, such as Digg and StumbleUpon, to share with your network. If your community of professionals, friends and family find it useful, they will then share it with their networks.

What combination of media channels do you use to achieve your objectives? Share your experience in developing an online distribution strategy by commenting here.

From Small Business Trends

How to Build a Case Study’s Online Distribution Strategy

A case study is only as effective as the metrics you use to measure its success. So how can a small business owner write, distribute and measure a truly effective case study? In this three-part blog series, “3 Phases to Turn a Case Study into an Effective Marketing Tool,” you will discover the necessary steps to create a valuable marketing tool that exceeds your objectives.

First things first: A strong case study begins with a satisfied customer depicting a detailed problem and solution, and ends with quantifiable results. But before you sit down to hammer out the problem-solution article, it’s important to craft a content strategy to understand your audience and objectives. These five steps will better position your case study to achieve your measurements of success.

5 Steps for Crafting a Case Study’s Content Strategy

1. Define Target Audience:

Determine the niche, segment or demographic group your company wants to reach. It is crucial to identify your target buyer persona in order to include content that appeals to them.

2. Conduct Discovery Work:

Once you’ve defined your target audience, it’s important to fully understand their challenges. Ask yourself, What other issues could be causing their problem? Could the problem shift? Then, list all the options your audience could use to solve the problem. Can your competitor solve it as well? If so, how does your product or service get your customer to the solution faster and more easily?

3. Choose Relevant Subject Matter:

The topic is the foundation of your case study. One way to attract readership from your target audience is to choose issues related to timely industry news or events. Also, use your discovery research from Step 2 to better focus the problem and solution that will appeal to them.

4. Identify Objectives:

Establish your goals, which may include building brand awareness, gaining media coverage, increasing website traffic and driving leads. From here, you can determine your measurements of success through quantifiable results. (Stay Tuned for “Step 3: How to Measure an Effective Case Study.”)

5. Research Priority Keywords:

Once you define the topic, research and select priority keywords to use throughout your case study for search optimization. Use tools such as Google’s Keyword Tool to identify what keywords your audience searches when seeking help with their problem. When it comes to distribution, optimizing your case study will help drive search traffic.

Tell me about your experiences in crafting a content strategy. Feel free to offer comments about how you positioned your case study for success.

From Small Business Trends

5 Steps to Craft a Case Study’s Content Strategy