Transcript: [ModMarketing] 4 Ways to Promote AEC Marketing Content

So far in the “ModMarketing podcast series, you’ve developed a content plan including a 3-month content calendar. You’ve even started creating the content. But you can have the greatest piece of content in the world but it doesn’t matter if your ideal client doesn’t see it. It’s not enough to just hit that publish button on the blog post or YouTube video. You can’t just post and they will come – hopefully you got that field of dreams, if you build it, they will come reference! My husband always makes fun of me because I quote movies wrong. Ha!

Anyways, the point is that it’s not enough to just create and publish the content, you have to promote the content too. As part of your content planning, start thinking about your promotional plan to strategically share the content with the people aka your personas that will benefit the most from it.

And, in today’s episode, I am going share some common and not-so-common promotional tactics.

And really quickly, would you do me a quick favor? Would you share this episode with one of your AEC marketing friends? Or if not this episode, whatever episode of Marketers Take Flight that you love the most. As you do with your own content, for this podcast, I work really hard to create it, and I want to make sure that it supports and reaches as many marketers who need it as possible. So if you could share it with one, two, or ten, I’d be forever grateful.

Ready to get started? I knew you were so let’s dive in!

First up is Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization or SEO is a series of techniques firms can deploy for their content and on their website to rank higher for certain keywords on search engines like Google. I’ll be doing a specific [ModMarketing] episode on SEO next month, but I want you to start thinking about it as you’re creating and promoting your content.

SEO should be the first strategy to be used as part of the promotional plan and should be considered when the content is being created, especially if that content is a blog article. Marketers should optimize the piece of content for the specific topics or keywords it wants to be found for. Another way to look at it is to think about the person that marketers want to read or consume that piece of content. What types of phrases or questions would that person be typing into a search engine as that person searches for answers? Make sure that marketing content has those phrases and keywords included naturally throughout the content piece.

The next promotional tactic is using email marketing.

Email marketing is the most overlooked and underutilized promotional tactic in the AEC industry. As a Premier Partner for Deltek Vision and Vantagepoint CRM, my firm Full Sail Partners, works with hundreds of AE firms across the country specifically advising them on CRM and marketing strategies. So many of these firms have databases full of thousands of contacts but fail to have a consistent email marketing strategy.

If you’re spending the time and resources to create the great pieces of marketing content I know you’re doing, it doesn’t take that much more effort to start email marketing. There’s a real opportunity for AEC firms to easily, affordably, and routinely get in front of clients and prospects using email marketing.

And, with integrations like the Blackbox Connector for Deltek Vantagepoint and email marketing service providers like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, it takes even less time to start your email marketing.

I know you’re a marketing leader in the AEC industry, mostly because you’re listening to this podcast. I believe that you can use email marketing to get a leg up on your competitors, and by doing so your firm leadership will take notice.

The next promotional tactic is probably the most popular and most utilized. It’s Social Media.

Social media is probably the first thing you think of when you hear content marketing.

AEC firms often promote blog articles, white papers, and case studies through their social media channels including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Each social media channel has its own pros and cons in terms of reach and engagement as well as best practices when it comes to getting in front of the preferred audiences.

Finding out the social media channels where your ideal clients and personas spend the majority of their time is key for AEC marketers to develop the content, and you should focus your time on that channel first. Once that channel or channels are identified, you can research hashtags to utilize and optimize the visual content plus write engaging captions that keep both the tone of the social media channel and the brand voice.

Another tactic has been around for a while, but might be overlooked to promote content marketing pieces. It’s at events – both in-person and virtual events.

With a digital marketing campaign, often the content that is created is online. This includes blog articles, videos, case studies or white papers, for example. So, it isn’t a surprise that promoting this type of content is often forgotten about when your SMEs are attending or presenting at live events. If your firm has technical experts or subject matter experts (SMEs) who are presenting or speaking at industry events, it’s a great opportunity to also promote the online content throughout the presentation or at the end.

This year, I’ve seen presenters include a slide at the end of a presentation with a QR code. The audience can snap a photo of that QR code, and it takes them to either a specific piece of content or to a webpage/landing page that has links to several pieces of content. I’ve provided an example of a slide with a QR code from a recent conference over on the show notes page.

Another example, I’ve been doing in some recent webinars is to call out a specific podcast episode that takes the topic of that particular slide even further. This does two things – first, it promotes my podcast episode without feeling slimy and two if the audience really wants to learn more, I am giving them a resource.

Again, you can see examples of both of these slides over on the show notes page at marketerstakeflight.com/84.

I am sure you can do the same for one of your SME presentations. Review their slides and/or rehearse with them to prepare for the presentation. Then determine if your firm has YouTube Videos, case studies, or white papers that could take a key point from a slide even further. Create a QR code or shortened link to put it right on that slide. This way it’s displayed the entire time that person is on that slide.

It’s not just for in-person conferences or events either. If your SMEs are guests on podcasts or webinars, those can be other great opportunities to promote marketing content. Look at how you can help your SMEs prepare for these appearances, including identifying what marketing content to promote.

Creating Great Marketing Content Simply Isn’t Enough

Thinking about content promotion while developing your marketing content is a great way to make sure that content performs well and meets your campaign goals. The content promotion plan should list the ways in which the content will be promoted including SEO, social media, email marketing, and live events.

So here are your action items from today’s episode:

Look at the last 5 pieces of marketing content you have created. Take each piece of content and list out 5-7 different ways to promote that content over the next 12 months. If you take those 5 pieces of content and multiply by those 7 times for each piece promoted, that’s at least 35 times your existing content can be exposed, before you even must begin creating new marketing content.

Remember, each piece of content can be promoted in emails, social media, and upcoming live events – both virtual and in-person. Once you’ve identified 5-7 ways each piece of content can be promoted, add all of these promotions to your content calendar over the next 12 months. That’s potentially 35 days, or if you promote one piece per week, over half a year of promotions for your calendar – and again, this is using content you’ve already created.

Once you start visually seeing this, you’ll not only realize that you don’t have to continually create new content, but you’ll start seeing how much of your content calendar is already beginning to be filled.

And, in the next ModMarketing Podcast series episode, I am going to share with you my favorite tactic for making existing content go further – and that’s with repurposing content. In that Episode, I’ll share some repurposing ideas and give you a repurposing challenge!

But for now, tell me what you think about this content promotion episode. Leave me a comment on the show notes page marketerstakeflight.com/84 or leave me a podcast review. This helps me to know what kind of topics you want to be covered in future episodes.

All right, my friend. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.