Key takeaways
- Repurpose and update high-performing content.
- Reposition content for new markets without reinventing the wheel.
- Create buyer personas for different target audiences.
- Develop efficient, repetitive workflows.
- Produce a style guide for internal and external stakeholders.
From repurposing your existing content to picking sustainable topics, read on to discover top tips on content scaling and how it can help ramp up your content production.
Introduction
Great content is the bridge that connects your brand with your audience, and as such, it plays a pivotal role in your business’s growth. However, creating quality content consistently is no easy feat. This is where content scaling comes into play. Scaling your content production is the key to reaching a wider audience, boosting brand awareness and ultimately, growing your business.
In this in-depth guide, we’ll explore the opportunity-rich world of content scaling, providing you with actionable tips and strategies to elevate your content marketing reach without over-stretching your team.
From content auditing to identifying content gaps, creating buyer personas, checking performance on analytics and leveraging the best content marketing tools, we’ve got you covered. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a clear roadmap for scaling your content effectively and efficiently.
So, block out that diary for an hour, get your pen or tablet to hand and make sure those sugar levels are prepared for the task. Let’s dive into the world of effective content scaling.
What is content scaling?
Content scaling is the practice of expanding your content marketing efforts to produce more high-quality content without exponentially increasing your resources.
To borrow a tried and tested corporate phrase, it’s about working smarter, not harder; maximising the impact and return on investment (ROI) of your content marketing strategy.
Content scaling involves various techniques and strategies that enable you to reach a larger audience, engage with diverse target groups and establish your brand as an authority in your industry.
Why is scalability important for content marketing?
Scalability matters because it helps you reach more customers and leads without having to multiply your investment proportionally. Once a piece of content is created, you can modify it, reposition it and amplify and promote it on different channels.
In short, you get more bang for your buck.
What are the key benefits of content scaling?
While we may be slightly biased as content enthusiasts, content scaling is one of the top tricks in your marketing arsenal and one to devote plenty of time, energy, and resources towards.
Need some convincing (or want some arguments to take to a strategy meeting)? Let’s have a look at some of the key benefits of content scaling.
1. Increased brand awareness
Content scaling enables your brand to cast a wider net, reaching new and untapped audiences and expanding your presence in the digital landscape.
As your content reaches more eyeballs, your business gains visibility, leading to increased brand awareness and making sure you keep a step or two ahead of your competitors.
As your content scales and your reach extends, your brand becomes synonymous with expertise, trustworthiness and relevance, making it the top choice in the minds of consumers.
Top tip: To enhance brand awareness, repurpose and update high-performing content to keep it relevant and engaging. More on this later…
2. Enhanced SEO performance
Search engines love fresh and relevant content. Scaling your content means more opportunities to target keywords, answer user queries and climb higher in search engine rankings.
Improved SEO performance translates to more organic traffic, bringing in potential customers who are already actively searching for your products or services.
3. Improved user experience
When you scale your content, you cater to a broader range of audience interests and needs. This diversity in content types and topics enhances the user experience on your website.
Visitors are more likely to find valuable information that resonates with them, keeping them engaged and encouraging them to explore further.
Top tip: Utilise a (editorial) content calendar to ensure a consistent and user-friendly content experience. Not time to create a calendar? No problem. Download our free editorial content calendar template here!
4. Generate more leads
Scaling your content doesn’t just attract more visitors; it also converts them into leads. With a broader content portfolio, you can create content tailored to various stages of the buyer’s journey. This strategic approach positions your brand as a helpful resource, increasing the likelihood of lead generation.
Now that we understand the importance of content scaling, let’s dive into practical tips to help you scale your content effectively.
10 tips for content scaling
Tip #1: Create buyer personas for each target audience
Scalability is all about planning ahead and knowing which audiences you want to reach. Developing buyer or marketing personas gives you a deeper understanding of what makes your potential customers tick. You can get to grips with their likes and dislikes and adapt your messaging to convince them that you are the right brand to choose.
Need a hand creating personas or tips for refreshing existing ones? We’ve got your back. Check out our blog on 4 steps to creating buyer personas.
Top tip: Use data and analytics to refine your personas over time. This will ensure they continue to accurately represent your audience and their changing needs and wants.
Tip #2: Create a content plan
A well-structured content plan acts as your roadmap for content production. It outlines your goals, target audiences, content types and distribution channels.
By having a clear plan in place, you can align your content with your business objectives and ensure that every piece of content serves a purpose.
Tip #3: Design and utilise a content calendar
Content calendars are invaluable tools for maintaining consistency and organisation in your content production process. They help you set and communicate clear workflows, deadlines and sign-off processes.
You can also use them to plan your topics around seasonal buyer behaviours, new product launches and other relevant events. Don’t forget there’s your downloadable template, a scroll or two back up the page.
Top tip: Make sure you leverage automation tools to schedule and manage content publishing on your calendar. This can save you a huge amount of time, leaving you free to plan for future campaigns or take some time to review your current performance.
Tip #4: Reposition existing content
Content that performs well is ripe for repurposing. You may have to adapt the messaging or format to appeal to the new audience but you’ll save time creating content from scratch and it’s great for building brand awareness across all your audiences and channels.
Refer back to your buyer personas. Try adapting your keywords, headings or the overall angle of the content to catch the eye of these soon-to-be customers.
For example, you could take a blog post that resonated with one persona, tweak the angle, refine the messaging and repurpose it to target another persona’s needs and interests.
Tip #5: Establish repetitive processes and workflows
Map all your activities to a sustainable content marketing plan, including goals for the amount of content you want to create each month. This is another situation where your content calendar comes into its own.
They’re a great addition to your marketing arsenal, helping you set and communicate clear workflows, deadlines and sign-off processes. You can also use them to plan your topics around seasonal buyer behaviours, new product launches and so forth.
By working with repetitive processes, you can eliminate guesswork and avoid “reinventing the wheel” each time you want to produce a new piece of content. This turns your marketing team into a content-producing machine.
Tip #6: Create a style guide
Style guides make the content creation process even more efficient. Plus they ensure your messaging is always on-brand and consistent, whether you’re using internal or external content creators. A good style guide should include guidelines for tone, voice, formatting and brand-specific terminology.
Include clear guidelines for appealing to each of your target audiences. Encourage your content team to play into the sweet spots that trigger multiple audiences at once. For example, crafting the content with keywords that have a broader appeal or using more universal language throughout.
However, make sure that your writers know how to walk the fine line: if the content is too broad, it won’t resonate with any of your audience segments.
Tip #7: Work with a content creation team
Content creation is time-consuming. If you want to scale your content, it takes a team effort.
Work with a team of professionals who understand how to reach multiple target groups, ideally a fixed team who understand your company’s content strategy and audiences. The result – a smooth content creation process and a library of effective, authentic, valuable content that stands out from the crowd.
*Pssst — We have a talented team of freelancers just waiting to help get your brand the attention it deserves. Get in touch today to find out more.
Top tip: The best content partnerships thrive through great collaboration. Foster effective communication within your freelance team to ensure alignment with your scaling strategy.
Tip #8: Choose scalable topics
When picking topics always start with your target audience in mind (back to those personas again!). Think about the questions your audience has and the challenges they face. Look for the similarities between your audiences.
Example: If you have an international audience in mind, don’t worry about creating content that targets one country. Start from an international perspective but focus on the keywords and topics that resonate equally among your various personas.
Tip #9: Repurpose existing content
This is similar to repositioning content, though this time you are recreating the content for a slightly different subject, a design refresh or a new format.
Sit down with your team and identify content that could be repurposed for today’s audience. Perhaps there’s a ‘Top trends of 2023′ that could be updated with relatively little effort. Pick articles that made a real impact with your audience and use them as a template for creating new content.
You could also transform a popular blog post into a how-to video or podcast episode using an online video editor.
The same goes for content scaling from a national to an international audience. If you’ve originally written a piece for a UK audience, it may contain culture-specific references that don’t work in other countries, or brands that won’t make sense to that audience.
Top tip: Consider translating and transcreating content to appeal to international audiences effectively.
If this feels a bit challenging, don’t worry. Contentoo can help with translations and transcreation, to help you truly localise the content.
Tip #10: Regularly update content
Content isn’t static; it evolves over time. To maintain its relevance and effectiveness, you should regularly update and refresh your content. This not only keeps your audience engaged but also ensures that your content remains valuable and informative.
Top tip: Set a schedule for content audits to identify outdated or underperforming content that needs updates.
The best content marketing tools for scaling, monitoring and amplifying content
Effective content scaling requires the right set of tools to streamline your processes, analyse performance, discover new subjects and amplify your content reach. In this section, we’ll introduce you to some of the best content marketing tools that can supercharge your content scaling efforts.
HubSpot
HubSpot is an all-in-one inbound marketing and sales platform that offers a suite of tools to manage and scale your content marketing efforts. It includes features for content creation, optimisation, email marketing and analytics.
How it helps:
- Content creation: HubSpot’s content management system (CMS) enables you to create, edit and publish content seamlessly.
- Lead generation: It offers lead capture forms and email marketing automation to generate leads through your content.
- Analytics: HubSpot’s analytics tools provide insights into the performance of your content and help you make data-driven decisions.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a content discovery and social listening tool that helps you find popular content, identify key influencers and track mentions of your brand or topics of interest.
How it helps:
- Content discovery: BuzzSumo helps you discover trending topics and popular content in your industry, making it easier to create relevant and shareable content.
- Influencer outreach: You can identify influential people in your niche and collaborate with them to amplify your content’s reach.
- Monitoring: Track mentions of your brand or keywords to engage with your audience and manage your online reputation effectively.
SEMrush
SEMrush is an all-in-one SEO and content marketing platform that offers tools for keyword research, competitive analysis and content optimisation.
How it helps:
- Keyword research: SEMrush helps you identify high-performing keywords to target in your content to improve SEO.
- Competitive analysis: You can analyse your competitors’ content strategies and discover gaps to fill.
- Content optimisation: SEMrush provides on-page SEO recommendations and content ideas to enhance your existing content.
Buffer
Buffer is a social media management platform that allows you to schedule and publish content across multiple social media platforms.
How it helps:
- Social media scheduling: Buffer simplifies the process of scheduling and publishing content on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
- Analytics: It provides insights into the performance of your social media posts, including engagement metrics and click-through rates.
Google Analytics
As you’ll doubtless know, Google Analytics is a web analytics tool by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, user behaviour and conversion metrics.
How it helps:
- Performance tracking: Google Analytics allows you to monitor the performance of your website and content, including page views, bounce rates and conversion rates.
- Audience Insights: You can gain valuable insights into your audience demographics, interests and geographic location.
CoSchedule
CoSchedule is a content marketing and social media calendar tool that helps you plan, schedule and execute your content marketing campaigns.
How it helps:
- Content calendar: CoSchedule provides a visual content calendar to manage content creation and distribution efficiently.
- Team collaboration: It allows your team to collaborate on content projects and ensures everyone is on the same page.
- Social media integration: CoSchedule integrates with social media platforms for seamless content sharing.
Outbrain
Outbrain is a content discovery and native advertising platform that enables you to promote your content on high-traffic websites.
How it helps:
- Content amplification: Outbrain helps you reach a larger audience by promoting your content as recommended articles on popular websites.
- Targeted advertising: You can target specific audience segments based on demographics, interests and online behaviour.
Moz Pro
Moz Pro is an SEO software suite that provides tools for keyword research, site auditing and link analysis.
How it helps:
- Keyword research: Moz Pro offers keyword research tools to identify valuable keywords to target in your content.
- Site auditing: You can perform site audits to identify and fix technical SEO issues that may affect your content’s performance.
- Backlink analysis: Moz Pro helps you monitor your backlinks and identify opportunities to earn high-quality backlinks.
Outsourcing and AI Automation for Content Scaling
To achieve true scalability in your content marketing efforts, it’s worthwhile considering the opportunities presented by outsourcing to content creation partners and/or leveraging AI automation tools:
- Working with expert freelancers or content agencies: External content creators can bring fresh perspectives and expertise to your content marketing strategy. Collaborating with freelancers or agencies allows you to scale up your content production quickly while ensuring the highest standards of output at all times.
- Leveraging AI tools: Artificial intelligence tools can assist in content creation, optimisation and distribution. They can automate repetitive tasks, such as keyword research and content scheduling, saving you time and effort.
Common pitfalls to avoid when scaling content
As you embark on your content scaling journey, be mindful of common pitfalls that can hinder your progress:
- Neglecting quality for quantity: Scaling content should never compromise quality. Maintain high standards to ensure that each piece of content adds real value to your audience.
- Ignoring analytics: Regularly monitor your content’s performance through analytics. Use data-driven insights to fine-tune your content strategy and make informed decisions.
- Lack of audience-centric approach: Always keep your target audience in mind. Avoid generic content that doesn’t resonate with specific personas.
- Failing to adapt: The digital landscape is ever-changing. Stay agile and be ready to adapt your content strategy as new trends and technologies emerge.
Scalable content is sustainable content
We hope these tips have given you some good ideas on how to reach a larger audience without multiplying your content creation efforts each time.
As a marketing professional, you want every activity to deliver the best ROI. That’s why scalability is so important. A scalable content marketing strategy is a sustainable one. By adopting a scalability mindset you’ll save time and money and get more out of your content.
Scaling your content isn’t just about producing more; it’s about producing better and reaching a wider audience while maintaining efficiency. By following the tips and strategies outlined in this guide, you can elevate your content marketing efforts and drive substantial growth for your business.
Remember, content scaling is an ongoing process, so stay committed, monitor your results and continue refining your strategy. With dedication and a well-executed plan, you’ll see your brand’s presence and influence.
If you’re interested in learning how Contentoo can assist with content scaling for your company, please reach out to one of our content advisors. We’re happy to help!
