Information empowers us. But when it gets buried in a mountain of data, it becomes useless. If information is too hard to access, it might as well not exist.

So what if information is crucial to running our businesses and our lives, what’s the solution?

Visibility. The solution to information overload (or inaccessibility) is simple, downright visibility of that information.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been interviewing project managers and asking them what system they use to manage projects–and more times than not, the answer is either White Boards or Sticky Notes. No high tech system. Pen and Paper. Marker and Board. Simple visibility.

Year 2009 taught me how to manage cash. Now I get a daily cashflow report from our office manager. I look at it every single day. It’s a simple report emailed to me every day at about 4pm. It does the trick. Sure, I could have some nice ERP system notify me automatically if cashflow is low, instead, I simply ask for an email sent to me everyday (the good old manual way).

Are you a Quickbooks user? If you’re like me, then you probably feel like your data is trapped in the behemoth of a program. I love Quickbooks and for the $300 or so that I pay to have it run my accounting for my agency, it does a great job. But it does not give me great visibility to my data. I have to open it up (and wait and wait), then I have to go in and run the necessary reports. This isn’t the drop-dead simple visibility I’m promoting.

Dashboards have threatened to be all the rage over the years. And in theory, dashboards are exactly what I’m advocating: Push information to me in a simple, visible format, accessible from anywhere (web-based dashboards). One company doing a great job of this is Klipfolio.

Speaking of dashboards, Merge has made somewhat of a living freeing information and making it available at the fingertips of our clients. We’ve built Dashboards that run businesses. We’ve created API’s for legacy systems that have freed data to distributors and dealers, transforming our clients’ business. Information is powerful, and when you can easily access it and see the data, that alone can free a business.

Simple visibility of your information is the cure for information overload. Just imagine if you could see your cash balance whenever you wanted, your pipeline, trends of web visitors or any other Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that you use to run your business.

You could use a tool like Klipfolio to make that happen, or, for starters, you could use the old-fashion pen and paper method to make sure you get what you need.  You could also engage Merge to handle your information accessibility and visualization challenges.

Background:

Founded in 1896 The Clemson University Alumni Association today serves the needs of some 124,000 members of the Clemson family, including a network of 64 Alumni Clubs and special interest groups across the country. The Alumni Association helps coordinate and host reunions, award scholarships through endowments and provides career services to students and alumni. But the most important and basic reason the Association exists is to connect alumni to each other and to Clemson University.

The Challenge:

In 2010 the Association developed Echo, an email newsletter to communicate important updates to alumni. However, while the bi-weekly emails were full of great information, each and every alum received the same, very long newsletter. Staff didn’t have a way to deliver only specific content to each individual. Merge was approached by Senior Director of Alumni Relations, Wil Brasington to help develop a system that allowed alumni to sign up to receive email newsletters tailored to their specific areas of interest.

“We asked Merge to help solve our problem because they had the specific high level of expertise to get the job done — and that’s exactly what they did. Merge asked all the right questions and really took the time to understand our specific challenges.” said Senior Director of Alumni Relations Wil Brasington.

The Solution:

The Alumni Association communications staff was using a suite of tools that catered to not-for-profit organizations. It did a lot of things well, but sending custom-designed emails to a segmented list of recipients wasn’t one of them. After understanding the challenges and limitations of the existing software, Merge recommended a different platform designed specifically for sending email. Merge developers then wrote a custom Web-based segmentation application to work seamlessly with the email software.

The Results:

In the fall of 2011, Merge and Clemson launched a new, user-centric newsletter that allows Alumni to choose the types of content they wish to receive. According to user analytics, those who have opted-in to receive the new custom-tailored email newsletter indicate an average open rate 356% higher than those who are still receiving the default, non-customized newsletter.

“We’ve received nothing but positive feedback,” says Director of Marketing Michele Cauley, “people really look forward to receiving the email newsletter every other week.”

Another unexpected upshot of the Alumni Association’s new and improved email communications initiative is the response from within Clemson University. Recognizing the scale and effectiveness of its reach to the extended Clemson family, The Echo has become an important communication channel for other University departments. What started as a challenge to produce and distribute 18 newsletter articles has grown to include over 40 featured stories every two weeks.

It just goes to show, no matter what tool or delivery method you use, the more you can tailor your content to individual interests, the more targeted and effective it can be.

“It’s a highly attractive communications tool — very rich aesthetically speaking. But more importantly, it’s delivered on time every time”, says Senior Director of Alumni Relations Wil Brasington. “The Echo is our primary vehicle of communication to our members. It’s a tremendous source pride for everyone.”

Ron King, the owner and founder of Heavy Salvage, an online bidding site for wrecked trucks, walked through the Merge doors three years ago with one goal in mind, to be the leading salvage bidding website in the country.

The Problem:

Heavy Salvage was an established web-based company, but the services of a freelancer from New York were simply not enough to provide Ron with the business growth that was truly possible.

The Solution:

Merge designed a digital strategy that would be executed over the next three years, and would ultimately include new brand identity and collateral, the new heavysalvage.com, an iphone app, email campaigns and social media.

The challenge for HeavySalvage is that it has 3 distinct users. Some sites, say like Ebay, have two distinct users (buyers and sellers) and it can prove difficult to address the chicken before the age syndrome: what audience do I build the website for, whom do I go after first, etc.

Merge provided a strategy that would go after all three users: Insurance Companies (they want to know the fair market value of their insured’s wrecked trucks), the Adjusters (the people who manage getting the correct fair market value and therefore use services like HeavySalvage.com) and the buyers (those who bid and buy the trucks), serve each of them equally as well.

The website was built, Merge provided a new brand that would speak effectively to this 3-headed user base and we launched.

For over two years, we tweaked, added new features, received feedback from the users and built functionality for the founder. The strategy called for the website being much more than just a website. It is the business. Merge built a complete back-end dashboard that Ron and his company use to manage the day to day operations of the business. Accounts Receivable, once very hard to track, had racked up an average of beign 180+ days out. Merge integrated a receivables and invoice reminder system that drove the average down to less than 25 days.

Over the three year period, HeavySalvage saw each of its KPI categories grow. Such success came from increasing the number of users (Insurance Companies, Adjusters and Buyers) each year, to increasing the number of bids by buyers (the more bids the better the options for Insurance Companies making the service more valuable). Bids grew by 56% over the three year period, and the percentage of salvage awarded grew 25%.

These incremental improvements added up to real numbers: Salvage sales grew 165% and fees charged grew 104% in the same three year period.

Merge was able to help provide an ROI of 28.4% in the worst economic recession of our generation. Furthermore, Ron, the entrepreneur who had come in with high ambitions, has realized his goal: HeavySalvage.com is the #1 bidding Salvage company in America.

Merge didn’t build him a website. We helped him build his business.

Situation
Since 2007, Bairstow Lifting Products had a 170- page, robust product catalog, but a very hard to use and confusing web site. Merge was initially engaged to make the web site as robust as the catalog.

The Challenge
Bairstow had over 1,500 product SKU’s but a limited ability to maximize on the information via the web for the end user to find through search engines.  The majority of traffic (over 60%) was being driven through paid search. There’s nothing inherently problematic with paid search marketing. It‘s a valid and effective way of driving qualified customers using relevant search terms to your website to buy your products. However, like all advertising the challenge is to spend less than you bring in, or more specifically less than your net profit. The problem is when you turn the advertising money spigot off, the traffic to your site equally slows to a trickle.

A much more effective and long-term, sustainable search marketing strategy is to develop “organic” or earned traffic from search engines. You don’t pay Google or other search engines to show up on search results. Instead you optimize and create information-rich, user-relevant content on your site so these search engines can better understand what your site is about. In turn search engines rank your website pages higher in search results — for free. The other upside to optimizing your website content to be more relevant for end users, is that it can significantly bring down the cost of paid search keyword bids. Google actually rewards sites that have more search-relevant content with lower bid rates and higher paid rankings. In short, optimizing content pays bigger dividends over a longer period of time.

Merge developed an SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) plan that would maximize the organic exposure of the Bairstow products, while lowering the cost of paid search. In addition to the SEO, Merge created a tactical plan with lead generating calls-to-action, landing pages and enhanced product category displays. The benefit to Bairstow would be huge: essentially, Bairstow’s print catalog would be available to the entire world through the web at a fraction of the cost that it took to print the catalog every year, the cost per lead would be dramatically lowered, and there would be an increase in brand recognition and market share.

A side benefit for the SEO improvements was that the information was driven from the ERP inventory management system, streamlining data entry. The inventory management database was the “master” database, and any changes that happened there would be reflected on the web site when the data was pushed to the web.

The Results
In comparing two time periods, 10 months prior to Merge implementing the strategy (July 2010 to April 2011) and the 10 months post implementation (May 2011 to February 2012), Bairstow’s online sales have seen tremendous growth.  Sales resulting from organically driven traffic increased 165%, while paid search expenditures decreased 17% in the same period.  Overall, Bairstow’s e-commerce sales have grown 35%, while total online sales (e-commerce sales plus sales from their “request a quote” feature) have grown over 45%.

Additionally, organic search has grown 123%, and Bairstow has realized an increased and more stable average order value for sales from the web in 2011-12. The number of keywords picked up by search engines has grown by 28% and the top 50 keywords  landing on the first page of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) has grown by 34%.

This week the Boston Bruins released the first ever pro sports all digital network calling it the “DEN” (Digital Entertainment Network). The page is a combination of the organization’s mobile, digital, and social networks, and all of the team’s channels (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc) now live together on one site. By combining all of their content, the organization is attempting to draw more attention and gain new followers. Before the launch of this network, they had fans visiting different channels for various reasons. For example, the typical fan may only follow the team on Twitter for game updates, but now the fan is directed to this network where he is exposed to all of the other channels. This allows the Bruins to keep a consistent voice within each social network while allowing the fan to easily choose how he/she wants to receive the content.

Let’s take a look at some of the different channels that the Bruins use and how they cater to the different types of people within their audience.

Instagram:

The Bruins’ Instagram page is run by the players. Each day a different player has control of the account, and he is able to post pictures of his teammates and what they’re up to on the road. This gives the fan a chance to get “behind the scenes” and see their favorite players from a different angle. You can only imagine what kind of pictures show up on that page. This one is my favorite.

Tumblr:

The Bruins’ Tumblr page is the place to visit when you’re looking for hardcore game recaps. Video clips from the latest game, player statistics, and team updates can all be found here. This page has a more serious approach, but it’s the perfect place for the die-hard fan who wants to know all the gory details.

Pinterest:

I’m not the biggest fan of Pinterest, but Boston has done an incredible job making their Pinterest page the best out there. The page is run by the team mascot, The Bear, who I find incredibly hilarious. One particular board is a list of the bear’s “ex’s” which include a mix of celebrities and well, other bears. This page’s main reason for existence is humor, and to be quite honest, I’m disappointed we didn’t think to create a Pinterest account simply for hilarity. Below is Donna, one of the many “ex’s”.

Mobile App:

The mobile app was designed for the most dedicated fans, and it’s a great resource for those looking for breaking news and scoring alerts. The app’s best feature may be the fantasy game where fans try and predict the lineup for the next game.  It’s a great way to encourage two way communication from the fans.

The Bear and the Gang:

“The Bear and the Gang” is a short video which stars the Bear (naturally) and a few of the players. Prepare yourself for some cheesy dialogue, but if you’re a fan, you’ll definitely enjoy it.

Twitter:

Twitter is the place to visit to receive in-game updates. The team’s announcer posts the latest game news such as goals, penalties, and stats. So, if you’re looking for a play by play, be sure to follow them on Twitter.

What does it all mean?

The Boston Bruins have found a way to give fans access to all of their channels on one site. Not only does this organize the content for fans, but it makes the information more accessible. Chances are fans will visit more of the team’s channels because they’re presented to them in one central location. Not everyone is a die-hard hockey fan like I am. Some may only care to know the highlights from the game or periodic updates, but others want access to all the information that is out there. Either way, the Boston Bruins have done an amazing job combining their social, digital, and mobile efforts in a way that draws more attention to their brand while also entertaining their audience.

A special thanks to Mashable for bringing this to our attention.

So, with great functional additions that should make your online social experience far better than anything Facebook (insert favorite social channel here) could ever imagine, why has it flopped?  Sure, Google notes 100 million active monthly users, but dig deeper as the Wall Street Journal has done, and you get to what really matters, usage.  Three minutes per month, per user.  Below are three reasons Google+ has been slow to grab more of your time.

1. Exclusive Release

I don’t think the slow roll out was the sole cause, but I don’t think it helped.  Google had an opportunity to grab share (which in this world is essentially minutes per day) away from other networks with the incredible amount of buzz it had generated.  Most of us at Merge were on within the first two weeks, but unfortunately, we were about the only ones each other knew on Google+.  Instead of instantly being able to add friends and family to Circles, all we found were other tech folks, mainly discussing Google+.  I don’t know that the decision to slowly open Google+ to the public was a fatal flaw, but given its similarities to Facebook in design, user interface and experience, I don’t think Google had the luxury of building its user base slowly.  Eventually, folks like me couldn’t find enough useful information posted by people that we cared about, so we migrated back to familiar territory.

2. No Third Party Apps

We have plenty to share, so why not let us?  You can infer that Google wants you physically within their ecosystem so you can view (and click) on the ads (note: there are no ads within Google+ itself), hence the reason for not allowing you to share or view via third party apps like Hootsuite.  Maybe they thought the functionality would be so incredible that using a third party app would come no where close to the user experience within Google+, therefore why bother developing the APIs.  I’d go with the former as the real reason, but no matter, because the extra step that we must take in order to share on Google+ (assuming you are sharing content across multiple channels at the same time) is annoying and not worth the extra effort.  In addition, sharing to a brand page is even more cumbersome, as you can’t even post to Google+ from a mobile device unless you are the owner of the brand page.

3. We Don’t Care About Selective Sharing

Last in a line of missteps in audience analysis is Google’s miscalculation of how large an issue selective sharing really is.  Google+ was launched almost solely on the premise that the public was concerned about what they were sharing with who, and Circles was the knight in shining armor that would ultimately solve this problem. Circles is easy to use and very intuitive, but the vast majority of people simply don’t care. Sure, heavy Google+ users with a lot of followers probably use it frequently, but that’s an incredibly small minority compared to overall usage.  Couple this with the fact that the average time per month per user is three minutes per month, what’s the chance that someone actually sees your post anyway? If a tree falls in the forest….

What’s it All Mean?

Focus on your audience, their wants and needs, and how and where they’ll use your offering before you even consider functionality. Google+ was developed around functionality that was presumably lacking within the social media ecosystem. Unfortunately, this focus on functionality led to a serious lack of adoption and usage. Again, I’d presume that Google+ was developed to maximize the time we all spend within Google’s suite of products. Undoubtedly I don’t think an extra three minutes per month is accomplishing the goal they had in mind.

Creating good content is difficult. We aren’t going to lie.  So before you jump in and start crushing twitter and adding every picture on your camera/phone to flickr, let’s take a step back and look at eight keys to an effective content strategy.

Get Buy-in From the Boss

It’s going to take more than you to create the amount of content that will make a difference. It will take other resources, both internal and potentially external.  This costs money, either in opportunity cost (i.e. employees aren’t doing client work), or in hard cash in the case you have to outsource. And with investments, results are expected. If you don’t have the boss’ approval, your content strategy will be next to impossible to execute.

Get Buy-in from Experts

As I mentioned above, you can’t go it alone. Nor should you.  Co-workers are your best friends when it comes to content creation.  After all, they work with clients day in and day out.  They were hired because they have a certain level of expertise, most likely in a very specific niche, which makes them different and extremely valuable when it comes to content.  If a co-worker can give you a competitive advantage, use them (in a nice way).

If your company has a large enough following, or broad product offering, generating content from your users or customers in a brand ambassador capacity will do wonders.  Evernote uses this model as well as anyone we’ve seen to date.

Define Content Types

So what exactly is content?  Content types are as unique as you or your company. We always default to writing, and that’s a good place to start, but there are a multitude of options out there.  Infographics, case studies, whitepapers, ebooks, photography/portfolio, video, email newsletters, and webinars all make for great content, and all with varying degrees of difficulty to produce.  A mix of written and visual will help entice a broader spectrum of your audience and increase your conversions.  A mix of multiple content types within a blog post for example (i.e. well written article with embedded images and/or video) will increase conversions even more.

Oh, and a little secret when it comes to content, the internet loves them some lists.

Create an Editorial Calendar

Once your content types are defined based on what you can produce and what makes sense given your specific customer base, start scheduling.  An extremely simple and old premise, and one for which we can thank our friends in print media, the editorial calendar will keep you on a track to consistently producing good content.

When building your calendar, remember that even a singular piece of content may require multiple resources to produce.  For instance, you may need a well designed, relevant image for a blog post.  Sounds simple enough, but this image, if not thought out, can effect conversions and click throughs, the effectiveness of the blog itself, and even the look and feel of your companies website.  To that end, when adding the blog to you calendar, include the author and any outside resources, like designers, and build in plenty of time for them to research and produce the content.

Below, the drop dead simple calendar we use at Merge is on google docs and shared with the team.  It makes for a collaborative approach and takes some of the burden off of me, which is really what it’s all about. Keep in mind, while its collaborative, one person should have ultimate control of editing and scheduling posts.  This will keep the message on point, as well as avoid stacking content, i.e. posting multiple blogs too close together.  Space is a good thing.

Target Specific Verticals

If content is king, context is at least a constitutional monarchy (kind of like Liechtenstein, but more relevant). The premise here is again pretty simple. Write to the client you’d like to attract. Specifically, if your company is strong in particular vertical markets, write on topics that are pertinent to those markets and align directly with services you provide. Again, it’s not long division, but it’s easy to get sidetracked and only focus on trending things, and soon you end up with 9 blogs in a row on Pinterest.

Align Content Types with Appropriate Digital Channels

Now you can discuss social media. Our philosophy is that content be pushed on as many relevant channels as possible, but certainly not every channel available.  Pictures of your company Christmas party may be fun for Facebook, but make little sense on Linkedin.  But, a whitepaper associated with a particular product offering, geared at a specific vertical, makes perfect sense to share in your Linkedin feed, as well as industry groups you are a member of within Linkedin.

Lastly, think about longevity of content, meaning, what is the engagement lifespan of a piece of content? Our friends over at Brains on Fire wrote a nice blog on Stumbleupon a while back, detailing the engagement lifespan of content on major social media channels.  If nothing else, it should make you think outside of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin when selecting channels.

Brainstorm Headlines, Subject Lines and the Like

You now have the content, and have determined the right digital channels. Creating engaging topics geared at specific audiences is as important as that content.  With the infinite amount of tweets and emails every day, you need to break through the noise.  Take the time to brainstorm the headline before you compose the tweet or hit send.  You’ve put hours into creating a newsletter or blog post, spend an extra 30 minutes creating the subject line.  We promise it will be worth the time.

Test Track & Refine

We all understand analytics and the tools that gather them, but what should you track?  Watch for what types of content earns you more followers and on what channels.  What topics are getting shared more than others?  If you share the same content across multiple channels, which channel produced the highest level of engagement? Are topics directed at particular verticals more popular than others?

I don’t advise spending hours digging through graphs and charts. That time is better spent producing more content. That said, spend enough time to get a feel for what’s working and adjust and adapt.

What’s it All Mean?

Developing content can be a daunting task, but we think if you follow a couple of the tips from above, it will numb the pain greatly.  And don’t be afraid to start slow with attainable goals. Our content strategy has grown and changed over the last 3 years and will continue to do so.

As always, we’d love to hear great ideas from the crowd.  If you have tip to add to the list above, by all means, drop it in the comment box.

First, some disclosure.  I am the perfect target for Dollar Shave Club.  I’ve been shaving since I was 14 or 15, and literally could have a beard by tomorrow if I’m not careful.  I have tried most major brands, and admittedly would get excited when Gillette would add a blade to it’s newest razor.  But then something happened.  Gillette jumped from three blades to six, inexplicably.  And with it, a ridiculous jump in price. Suddenly, buying razors was like ponying up cash for your kids orthodontics.  Necessary, yes, but not fun. I tried a few “comparable” private label brands, but even their price points didn’t make sense given the rate at which my face wears out a razor.

So where do we turn? Where can we find razors we can trust at a price that doesn’t make me log in to mint.com before I buy? Say hello to Dollar Shave Club.  While we can attribute a great deal of their overnight success (it hasn’t happened overnight by the way, this is their relaunch) to the hilarious, viral video, there is far more to it.  Consumer purchases become more and more emotional as the price escalates.  On the contrary, things that are extremely inexpensive lack the trust and level of credibility that get consumers to pull the trigger.  So how did Dollar Shave Club (DSC) find the balance between high quality and inexpensive?  We’ll look at four factors of their digital strategy and tell you why they got it right.

Messaging

DSC’s messaging is cohesive through the consumer purchase cycle (awareness, consideration, education, buy, advocate).  The video is our entry level awareness point for this new brand.  It resides in the most prominent real estate on their site, guaranteeing you won’t miss their most important message, which is we’ve been paying for marketing and technology that make little difference in the quality of our shave.  Plus, I give them props for a well placed expletive.  When done right, it’s just kind of disarming.

Plenty of brands make great videos that will get millions of views, but ultimately don’t leave you searching for more. The quality, humor, and delivery leave you wanting to learn more because it breaks down any and all risk associated with carrying on further.  Essentially, time is the only risk in the consideration phase, and they’ve made it worth the time to see more. The copy on the homepage mirrors the voice in the video and nails the message, “A great shave for a few bucks a month.”

At each subsequent phase of the purchase cycle, DSC manages to break down another risk barrier.  Time? Done. It only takes minutes. Cost?  $9 at most. Monthly contract? Like they say, they aren’t Columbia House.  Spread the word? Easy as pie, and we’ll hit more on this in a minute.

At each subsequent phase of the purchase cycle, DSC manages to break down another risk barrier.  Time? Done. It only takes minutes. Cost?  $9 at most. Monthly contract? Like they say, they aren’t Columbia House.  Spread the word? Easy as pie, and we’ll hit more on this in a minute.

Functionality and User Experience

There’s an old adage in the digital world, and great book by the same title, “don’t make me think.” The DSC site does not.  The site is extremely slim, and every page has a purpose and a call to action.  Signing up and checking out takes seconds, and makes you feel secure the entire time.  Yes, these are $6 razors we are talking about, but any online purchase comes with a certain level of trepidation. DSC has followed some of the long established best practices of e-commerce, which can often times go overlooked. Below, all the info you could need on the products and how to proceed to purchase.

Two clicks and you are checking out.  Note: real men click. Not a bad message to curb shopping cart abandonment.

Building Advocates

Sign up 1,000 friends, get free razors for the next 83 years.  Impossible maybe, but DSC makes it easy, and again, fun, to share the brand. You don’t feel like you are spamming your friends.  Plus, your own personal url automatically updates your account. It’s a great touch that exemplifies the simplicity of DSC and the site.  The image below lives on your account page and serves as a constant reminder to spread the word.

Subscription Model

This goes back to ease of use as well as the growing trend of web based subscription services. Five years ago, this model may not have played, but today, we have subscriptions for digital music, wine, bacon, underwear and now razors.  Over time, the subscription model has built trust with consumers due to its incredible convenience, the ability to cancel anytime, and great delivery in regards to what was promised.

DSC has capitalized on all of the above, making the web the perfect place for them to live.

What’s it All Mean?

The Dollar Shave Club brand comes across as not overly serious or strategic, and their overnight success can almost be written off as accidental. Maybe we are giving them too much credit, but given CEO Michael Dubin’s background in sketch comedy and digital marketing, their relaunch and accompanying digital strategy is in no way accidental, and a large part in Dollar Shave Club being 12,000 members strong and growing.

Get Buy in From the Boss

It’s going to take more than you to create the amount of content that will make a difference. It will take other resources, both internal and potentially external.  This costs money, either in opportunity cost (i.e. employees aren’t doing client work), or in hard cash in the case you have to outsource. And with investments, results are expected. If you don’t have the boss’ approval, your content strategy will be next to impossible to execute.

Get Buy in from Your Experts

As I mentioned above, you can’t go it alone. Nor should you.  Co-workers are your best friends when it comes to content creation.  After all, they work with clients day in and day out.  They were hired because they have a certain level of expertise, most likely in a very specific niche, which makes them different and extremely valuable when it comes to content.  If a co-worker can give you a competitive advantage, use them (in a nice way).

If your company has a large enough following, or broad product offering, generating content from your users or customers in a brand ambassador capacity will do wonders.  Evernote uses this model as well as anyone we’ve seen to date.

Define Content Types

So what exactly is content?  Content types are as unique as you or your company. We always default to writing, and that’s a good place to start, but there are a multitude of options out there.  Infographics, case studies, whitepapers, ebooks, photography/portfolio, video, email newsletters, and webinars all make for great content, and all with varying degrees of difficulty to produce.  A mix of written and visual will help entice a broader spectrum of your audience and increase your conversions.  A mix of multiple content types within a blog post for example (i.e. well written article with embedded images and/or video) will increase conversions even more.

Oh, and a little secret when it comes to content, the internet loves them some lists.

Create An Editorial Calendar

Once your content types are defined based on what you can produce and what makes sense given your specific customer base, start scheduling.  An extremely simple and old premise, and one for which we can thank our friends in print media, the editorial calendar will keep you on a track to consistently producing good content.

When building your calendar, remember that even a singular piece of content may require multiple resources to produce.  For instance, you may need a well designed, relevant image for a blog post.  Sounds simple enough, but this image, if not thought out, can effect conversions and click throughs, the effectiveness of the blog itself, and even the look and feel of your companies website.  To that end, when adding the blog to you calendar, include the author and any outside resources, like designers, and build in plenty of time for them to research and produce the content.

Below, the drop dead simple calendar we use at Merge is on google docs and shared with the team.  It makes for a collaborative approach and takes some of the burden off of me, which is really what it’s all about. Keep in mind, while its collaborative, one person should have ultimate control of editing and scheduling posts.  This will keep the message on point, as well as avoid stacking content, i.e. posting multiple blogs too close together.  Space is a good thing.

Target Specific Verticals

If content is king, context is at least a constitutional monarchy (kind of like Liechtenstein, but more relevant). The premise here is again pretty simple. Write to the client you’d like to attract. Specifically, if your company is strong in particular vertical markets, write on topics that are pertinent to those markets and align directly with services you provide. Again, it’s not long division, but it’s easy to get sidetracked and only focus on trending things, and soon you end up with 9 blogs in a row on Pinterest.

Align Content Types with the Appropriate Digital Channel(s)

Now you can discuss social media. Our philosophy is that content be pushed on as many relevant channels as possible, but certainly not every channel available.  Pictures of your company Christmas party may be fun for Facebook, but make little sense on Linkedin.  But, a whitepaper associated with a particular product offering, geared at a specific vertical, makes perfect sense to share in your Linkedin feed, as well as industry groups you are a member of within Linkedin.

Lastly, think about longevity of content, meaning, what is the engagement lifespan of a piece of content? Our friends over at Brains on Fire wrote a nice blog on Stumbleupon a while back, detailing the engagement lifespan of content on major social media channels.  If nothing else, it should make you think outside of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin when selecting channels.

Brainstorm Headlines, Subject Lines, Tweets and the Like

You now have the content, and have determined the right digital channels. Creating engaging topics geared at specific audiences is as important as that content.  With the infinite amount of tweets and emails every day, you need to break through the noise.  Take the time to brainstorm the headline before you compose the tweet or hit send.  You’ve put hours into creating a newsletter or blog post, spend an extra 30 minutes creating the subject line.  We promise it will be worth the time.

Test, Track and Refine

We all understand analytics and the tools that gather them, but what should you track?  Watch for what types of content earns you more followers and on what channels.  What topics are getting shared more than others?  If you share the same content across multiple channels, which channel produced the highest level of engagement? Are topics directed at particular verticals more popular than others?

I don’t advise spending hours digging through graphs and charts. That time is better spent producing more content. That said, spend enough time to get a feel for what’s working and adjust and adapt.

What’s it All Mean

Developing content can be a daunting task, but we think if you follow a couple of the tips from above, it will numb the pain greatly.  And don’t be afraid to start slow with attainable goals. Our content strategy has grown and changed over the last 3 years and will continue to do so.

As always, we’d love to hear great ideas from the crowd.  If you have tip to add to the list above, by all means, drop it in the comment box.