Content Goldmine | A chaos-free approach to B2B content marketing BY
When I started building out the Content Goldmine approach, I had small to mid-sized companies who were just starting to stand up their content marketing programs. But the further I got into it, the more I realized that it could calm the chaos that’s so prevalent in enterprise-level content marketing programs.
It’s that good.
So what’s a Content Goldmine?
A Content Goldmine is any long-form, info-rich piece of content that you can create once and repurpose endlessly.
Think of eBooks, like The Ultimate Guide to Financial Planning for Startups or How to Become the Go-To Advisor for the Physician Community. Content Goldmines like this provide a clear, detailed, long-form roadmap for how to complete a specific plan.
Think of original research reports, like The State of Lead Generation in the Financial Planning Industry or 2019 Review of Financial Advisor Growth. Reports like this use research that your company has generated to clue your audience in on the newest stats impacting them.
Think of books written by your founders. Or day-long seminars conducted by your firm. Or online courses that you sell.
These are Content Goldmines.
And they have the power to focus, streamline and help automate your content marketing efforts for the next year.
The breakdown
Your Content Goldmine piece is your starting point. If it’s rich enough, you can build a full year’s content calendar and prescheduled content from it by breaking it down into Gold Bars. Think of it this way.
I have an ultimate guide completed, designed and approved. I’m going to break it down into:
24 blog posts (750-1200 words) based on sections of the eBook, pre-scheduled to post 2x/month
4 deep, gated infographics based on the processes and data in different sections, pre-scheduled to post 1x/quarter
4 webinars based on particular principles in the eBook behind a registration gate to roll out 1x/quarter
12 worksheets based on instructions in the book, to be embedded as gated downloadables in appropriate blog posts, in webinars, and promoted as stand-along lead magnets
You get the idea. From one eBook or report, comes the consistent, focused, and unified digital content presence across an entire year. Can you fill in other content around seasonal events, product campaigns and the like? Of course. But this is your base content for the year, adding constant value for your clients and prospects, and telling your brand story.
Gold Nugget distribution
Now that we’ve broken down the Content Goldmine into Gold Bar content that can be spread throughout the year, it’s time to distribute it. Each type of Gold Bar can have a proactively determined distribution plan, allowing you to create an automate this content in batches for greater efficiency. For example:
Each blog post will have 1 organic social post per week for 2 weeks after publication, including an image
Each gated quarterly infographic will have 6 organic social posts featuring an image or motion graphic one data point that links to the content gate. These will be deployed over the 12 weeks of the quarter
Each webinar registration page will be promoted via a quarterly paid social campaign with a short lift video of the presenter talking about what will be learned in the webinar.
Each worksheet will be promoted with a video social post
Each monthly email newsletter will feature 1 blog post, latest gated infographic, current webinar, and current worksheet.
The Content Goldmine itself is continually promoted via organic and paid social, and in email Newsletters
Do you see how powerful this idea is?
Imagine during your Q4, you’ve already completed much of your core content planning for the next year. Your agency or in-house team is just finishing up design on your Content Goldmine. You’ll be able to give it to your content team in plenty of time for them to repurpose it for a few months of content before the year event start.
Damn.
That means the first few months of the year don’t need to be spent on lights-on content production. They can be responding to what’s happening in the market, creating the content that sales says they most need — all while the Content Goldmine structure is still generating search traffic and leads, because your team is way ahead of the game already.
Why are more organizations not doing this?
Frankly, because we’re obsessed with shiny objects. As we’re doing our content planning for the year, we may commit to, say, 3 blog posts a month, and plan out each month’s content theme ahead of time.
But by the time we get to that month, the theme is either deprioritized, or someone in leadership is guiding resources in a different direction (and it’s usually a direction that won’t generate the search traffic your original plan would have). Those three blogs aren’t going to get published. The theme won’t be explored.
And at the end of the year, the overall content picture will be blurry, random and scattered.
The beauty of pre-loading months worth of content from the get-go, based on one approved and pre-created Content Goldmine, is that you’ll have that consistent thread through the whole year of your content — no matter what else happens.
Seriously. I cannot imagine running a content organization any other way.