How to get the most out of my strategy-focused content workshops

Content is the life force of marketing today. It enables companies to connect and interact with customers and build relationships.

Newsletters, blogs, white papers, videos, events are all great way that content strategists, in-house marketers, and consultants can advance the practice of content marketing but without a clear strategy, you can do a lot of activity and not get the return on investment you deserve.

First you have to understand content marketing is not just a marketing and communication function; intelligent and ambitious businesses are now integrating it as a core business strategy.

Here's how:

Best practice

• They define and document a content marketing strategy. Every piece of content you create should conform to this mission and help to implement the strategy.

• They use audience insights and keyword research to define the signature topics for content creation.

• They create an editorial strategy that aims to provide relevant content to various audience segments as and when they need it.

• They create a clear distribution plan (organic and paid)

One of the best ways to achieve the goals of content marketing and generate revenue is to document your content marketing strategy but most people don't know where to start. A hands-on insightful content marketing workshop may help to clarify objectives, lend a consistent voice to your brand and improve the experience your customer has with your business making them more likely to refer you to others. They can be expensive (Full disclosure EMARI bespoke one-day workshops start at £1995 for up to 6 people) so how do you make sure you get the most out of them? Some quick tips:

1. Plan ahead

Anyone involved in writing content or producing graphics, videos etc should be involved in the workshop. It's also useful to have people who are going to promote and distribute content such as customer service and sales teams to join in too. A workshop can be a great way of bringing a team together so everyone understands roles and responsibilities and manage expectations effectively which creates added value.

You need to understand the current status of content in the organization including previous content marketing efforts and what campaigns are currently running. A content audit can be a useful pre-workshop activity. More about how to do one of those can be found here

A few questions you should ask before doing a workshop are:

• Who will manage the planning and strategy?

• What skills related to content creation and marketing do our organization and individual staff actually have?

• Who will be our content champions who reminds everyone of the need for consistency in content?

2. Clarify goals

Many people in content workshops start talking about the number of website visits, the number of leads, or engagement rates, however, there is a real difference between digital metrics (more information on that here) and business KPIs. Audience targeting, customer education, contributing to knowledge on your industry, and customer retention are all important metrics to consider.

A few questions I often ask to see if a workshop could be helpful are:

• Does everybody really understand how their role contributes to the bottom line of the company?

• Are they aware of the right metrics that signify business growth?

• What is the current process for producing and promoting content?

• How do you currently measure success (or lack of it) in content marketing?

• How do you identify your prospective customers?

• Does everybody understand the differences between earned media, paid media, and owned media?

• Can they map the content to each stage/category in the journey from Awareness to Buying and to help turn buyers into brand ambassadors?

• Do they have the necessary skills and resources to repurpose content into the formats appropriate for each stage?

• How much expertise is available in-house? Is it possible to create authoritative posts that project the brand as a leader in developing the industry?

• Is it possible to work with influencers to advocate and promote their brand in new channels and markets?

• Could employees help to boost content reach and engagement? Do they know how to do this effectively?

At the end of an EMARI strategy-focused workshop, I always guarantee that the whole team:

• Is sure how the business benefits from their role in content marketing

• Knows how content is important for SEO success and visibility

• Can form clear expectations and estimate outcomes from every content campaign

• Can work with employees to create and share brand content

• Can use content tool suites to plan, create, distribute, and track content

• Measure and track the ROI of content marketing

I can also then help to create a pool of resources that people can access and utilise at their convenience and advise on how to scale their content marketing efforts.

Needless to say, the real work begins at the end of the content marketing workshop but if you're not seeing the results you expect, it could be a good place to start!

Here are a few testimonials from clients who have attended EMARI training workshops:

"Emma is such a great person to know. Her training and workshop sessions are brilliant, and for me, it’s the added and ongoing help and support that she is always willing to give that really makes her stand out from the crowd. She always has such a positive and enthusiastic energy and over the past year she has not only put me in touch with a mentor but has supported events that I have run, helped to promote them and introduced me to a wider network of connections."

"It quickly became obvious Emma really understands how Social Media works. I am very aware of its increasing importance in business today but hadn’t really been using it to promote my services as much as I know I should! We arranged to meet and in about 90 minutes Emma came up with a simple strategy for me to follow and had laid out a plan of action for a campaign that, even as a novice, I know I can implement and am confident will bring me to the attention of my ideal clients. If you know that you should be using Social Media more than you are, then I strongly recommend that you not only speak with Emma, but actually follow whatever advice she gives you"

"I thought EMARI’s content marketing session was excellent and really feel we now have a faster and more assured route to success than before. Something I have been searching for all year. You have given us a lot to think about…"

"I attended Emma’s training session on Sales and Marketing. Since then, I have used the skills taught on a near daily basis in my role as Sales and Marketing manager for an events venue and it’s helped me hit sales targets, keep customers returning and create a long term marketing strategy. The content was fresh, innovative and relevant and it was delivered in a friendly and engaging way. Emma’s industry knowledge is second to none and I would recommend Emma and EMARI to anyone looking to improve their marketing for their business."

"Emma’s focused training helped me embrace social selling and embed effective selling behaviours into an integrated sales and marketing process. I am already seeing improvements in lead conversion and creating new sales opportunities which will ultimately help me hit my sales targets"

"Emma delivered a half day course content campaign planning course for the Network My Club team which was well thought out, flowed nicely, very informative and left us with lots of action points to implement into our day to day processes. It helped reinforce the point that both marketing and sales strategies should be very much aligned, and gave us plenty of takeaways to enforce and also refer back to. Thank you very much Emma, highly recommended!"

"Emma’s enthusiasm, organisation and knowledge were fantastic. She was incredibly proactive and introduced us to marketing strategies we wouldn’t have otherwise employed. A great energy backed up by an intelligent, efficient approach."

"99% of what I know about marketing is from EMARI, the other 1% is pure luck!"

"Having left a corporate environment to set up my own company I was faced with effectively communicating the uniqueness of my proposition to a wide audience. I wasted a lot of time and money following the advice of well established marketing organisations who boasted great track records with blue chip clients. The issue I had was that they had a formulaic approach which they tweaked to what they interpreted as my requirements. When I met Emma, by chance, I had reached a point with marketing where I really didn’t know whether to go left, right, up, down or just stop completely. Having had a brief conversation with her I decided to give it one last go and invest a little more time and money and I’m so glad I did. I spent c.20% of what I had spent previously and generated more leads as a result. Emma took the time to properly understand what I was trying to achieve and got me to focus on what would actually work. Her energy and enthusiasm is infectious and she is totally focussed on results"