After months of waiting (or stressing) Thanksgiving is finally here. Your relatives are on their way, you’ve gathered all of the last minute ingredients (hopefully), and you’re ready to start cooking the meal you’ve been planning.
When tackling an entire Thanksgiving feast it doesn’t take much to become overwhelmed. As you begin rehashing the planning of the meal, cooking all the elements, and making sure you please your guests it’s likely you may feel like you’re in over your head.
However, if you break up your planning and execution into smaller and more digestible elements you’re more likely to be at ease, and have a much more enjoyable time. How does the planning and execution of a large meal relate to your online marketing strategy, and what are all of the moving pieces?
#1 – Appetizers
The beauty of appetizers is that they’re quick and easy to make, and keep your guests satisfied while you prepare the bird, side dishes, and dessert. A good appetizer will provide “nuggets” of information without filling them up.
When creating “appetizers” as a part of your online marketing strategy, you want to wet the appetite of your audience, but entice them to stick around for the main course. This can be accomplished by frequently sharing helpful but easy to understand tips, stories, and news articles that will help them with day to day issues.
#2 – Side Dishes
The pairing of side dishes with your main course is key in creating a well-balanced meal. Side dishes are used as a compliment to the main dish and while important, they are not hearty enough to stand alone as their own meal.
Similarly, you can use your content “side dishes” to augment larger content objects. Consistency of these content objects is essential, think smooth mashed potatoes. While more hearty than your appetizers, this content will be used to engage and interact with potential and current clients.
#3 – The Turkey
If there were one element of the Thanksgiving meal that you would like to wow your guests with what would it be? Chances are the bird is what will receive the most preparation and TLC, making it the centerpiece of the meal.
Now it’s time to get to the meat of your marketing strategy. The “turkey” is your stellar content meant to convert your prospects into customers. Unique content types such as Visual eBooks, infographics, videos, and more are a great way to showcases your talents.
#4 – Gravy
What does gravy do? It can make what was already good, great. Gravy is used to enhance the flavors of your much labored over turkey and side dishes in a way that will have your guests gobbling up their portion, and asking for seconds.
When it comes to your marketing strategy, the “gravy” is your promotion of content objects large and small. While your content may be good, it doesn’t become great until it is shared!
#5 – Dessert
For many this is their favorite part of the meal. After a feast filled with savory goodness, it’s time to top it all off with something sweet. Instead of serving your guests the expected slice of pumpkin pie, try something new and less traditional as an added surprise.
Try to give your audience something awesome out of the blue every now and then. An example might be to step outside of the regular promotion of your content and recognize your peers, or others within your industry that are truly having an impact. For example, each year TopRank creates the list of “25 Women Who Rock Social Media” in order to shed some light on those having a true business impact using social media.
#6 – Doing the Dishes
Now it’s time to survey that damage. Was the meal a success? Did all of your guests gobble up the food you prepared, or are there lots of untouched plates?
Measuring the success of your content strategy is key in determining how to adapt and refine your approach. You can easily survey your audience to determine what they would like to see more of (or less of) or simply use your analytics to determine what pieces or types of content are most popular.
#7 – Bonus: Leftovers
Finding new ways to reuse your leftovers is a great way to avoid wasting good food.
Take a crack at repurposing elements of content that your team creates to get more mileage out of something that has already performed well with a particular audience.
Phew! See how much easier it was to take the meal step by step instead of tackling the whole thing at once? The same applies to your content marketing strategy. Don’t get overwhelmed just make sure that each individual piece is quality so that everyone can enjoy your content marketing feast.
I would also like to take a moment to show thanks to my fellow teammates, our rockstar clients, and those of you that read and interact with our content! Happy Thanksgiving!
Image credits via Shutterstock: Thanksgiving feast, appetizer, green bean casserole, Thanksgiving turkey, gravy, dessert, dishes, leftovers.
