10 effective ways to use 1 piece of content

This article is intended to be a practical exercise. Why? You probably already know that you need to get more content to market to grow your business, but you find this idea overwhelming. So I have a challenge for you, here today. Take a piece of content you’ve already created (it could be your industry stats, a newsletter article, a blog post, a case study, etc.) and ACTION on each step below as you read them.

Step one – Let’s start with an easy one. Place it on your website. Make sure you have some common search terms there so that Google can index them and increase your relevance for these terms.

Second step – Send it in your newsletter. Don’t have a newsletter? Set one up now. Constant Contact offers a free 30-day trial and has predesigned templates.

Step three – Post it on your blog. Don’t have a blog? Set one up now. WordPress is by far the leading blogging software and will allow you to set one up for free in 5 minutes. You can also get help and have it embedded directly on your site.

Step four – Send it to your sectoral or regional publications and to the media. Don’t have a list of relevant publications or media contacts? Call your library and ask if they have a recent copy of Gale’s Directory of Publications and Media, or if they have a local list of such publications (if your focus is the local market). Gale’s directories cover publications and media listings from around the world. See if the library can create a list; otherwise, make time now on your calendar to go there and compile the list yourself.

Step five – Submit it to online article sites like http://www.ezinearticles.com. Signing up is free and it doesn’t take long to submit and link the article to your site.

Step six – Take 5-10 small fragments of a sentence and create small posts. Post these snippets on Facebook and / or your Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Google + business page. If you don’t have any of these profiles, set them up. If you want to make posting to these sites easy, set up a tool like HootSuite (again free) to send posts to all of your social media sites with one click of a button.

Step seven – Insert into a Word file titled “MY Book” or “MY eBook” or “Another Great Free Report”. Put it in the chapter it would belong to so that over time you have created a larger post and also to start putting topics around future content (to fill in the blanks).

Step eight – Create an online ad: this could be in an online newsletter of the Chamber, Google, Linked In or Facebook. Go back to the article on your site and have a call to action at the top and bottom, such as subscribing to your Free Tips or a Free Evaluation or a trial product or service. Set it up for one week only and allocate a small budget like $ 40 – $ 50 and then watch the traffic to your site and measure the results.

Step nine – Mail it to potential customers. Include a nice cover letter describing your interest in serving businesses like theirs, a special offer, and this helpful article. Don’t have a mailing list? Try InfoCanada or InfoUSA and create one today. Dun and Bradstreet also has excellent lists.

Step ten – Use it at your next live event (networking, trade show, sales presentation). Think of it as a great business card and include your contact details and a call to action on the back.

The content is valuable. It takes time to create and is designed to help both your current and future customers. Make sure you take advantage of ALL the avenues available to you or you will not be marketing as effectively as possible.