Some of my best ideas, data, and information come from very unexpected sources. Sure, I can do a simple search on a topic, or look at Google Trends to see what people are interested in right now. But how do I help create something that really stands apart from all the other information available on the Internet? How do I add real value? I am always looking for new ways to accomplish this.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve found open data, corporate and government information made available to the public primarily for academic use, to be especially helpful in the ideation, brainstorming, and research phases of the content creation process.

The open data movement has simplified the process of finding accurate information. NYC OpenData, for example, has made a wealth of data generated by various New York City agencies and other NYC organizations available to the public as part of this initiative. Deloitte compiled a ton of open data uses for government, businesses, and citizens in this June 2012 report.

Do you want to find out how you can leverage open data for your content marketing efforts? Here is a handful of websites and resources to get you started.

1. Contracting And Organizations Research Institute (CORI)

CORI is a public library of more than 690,000 contract documents, available via a searchable database, brought to you by the University of Missouri – Columbia. Most of CORI’s collection comes from filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR Database.

You might be surprised at how much insight a look into real business contracts could provide you. Let’s say you’re writing a piece on joint ventures, or mergers and acquisitions, or what goes into franchising a business. Or perhaps you’re in real estate and need to write a blog post on contract negotiations. If you are writing a case study about a specific deal and know the contract number, you can conduct an exact search using that information.

2. alpha.data.gov

“A collection of open data from government, companies, and nonprofits that is fueling a new economy.”

Although the site is in the alpha stage and a self-described “experimental work in progress,” I’ve found it to be an incredible source of data, and very user-friendly (a rarity with most government sites). It acts as a showcase for the best open data uses and resources. This is a fantastic starting point for anyone new to the open data movement.

This simple, one-page website is broken down into seven main categories, which cover a very broad spectrum:

Co = Commerce

En = Energy

He = Health

Ed = Education

Sa = Safety

Fi = Finance

De = Development

Through Alpha Data, I was able to find resources such as the Learning Registry and see what institutions such as PBS are doing:

To me, the alpha.data.gov site is all about helping me to see see things in a new light.

3. United States Copyright Catalog

Copyright.Gov is an office of public record for copyright registration and materials, and is an important part of the office’s mission of promoting creativity by administering and sustaining an effective national copyright system. The website allows you to search for copyright records dating back to 1978. You can also look for current regulations, congressional testimony, and much more.

If you’re looking for a specific case study to include in a piece of content, you can search by company or person name, title of an article, keyword, exact phrase, or document number. The search hints are extremely helpful in helping to conduct an accurate search on the site.

I’ve found this most helpful when I am writing about a specific topic. For interactive design, for example, I can do a simple keyword search for “interactive design” to browse reports written on the topic, learn more about authors who have written on the topic, etc.

4.  OpenData By Socrata

Socrata is a for-profit company focused exclusively on democratizing access to government data. They offer turnkey solutions, and have helped bring a lot of governments’ and agencies’ data online (World Bank, New York City, and Medicare, to name a few).

Their open data section has extensive search and filtering capabilities, and can be a very powerful tool. It’s really valuable for both a narrow, topic-specific search, or if you’re just browsing for ideas.

Socrata also has a library of open data resources that can be helpful for ideation. Check out their Top 10 Datasets for good examples of delivering what would’ve otherwise been relatively dry and boring data to read through in creative and interactive formats:

Their blog also provides some good insight into how open data can be leveraged (like this example: 21 Open data Innovations from 2012).

Going Further

Although its popularity has increased over the last year, the open data movement is not new. Tim Berners-Lee gave an interesting TED Talk three years ago explaining a wide variety of practical and innovative uses for open data:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can use open data in content creation, check out the Open Knowledge Foundation’s School of Data, an online community of people who are passionate about using data to improve our understanding of the world — in particular, journalists, researchers, and analysts.

You can also follow and get involved with the #OpenData conversations on Twitter or Google+, the community on Reddit, or get involved with the Open Knowledge Foundation in a variety of ways.

What are some of the best uses of open data you have seen? Do you use any other resources?

An effective content marketing strategy requires creativity. You have to be able to “cut through the clutter” and stand apart from everything else on the Internet demanding attention. Ideas for how to best capture your audience’s attention aren’t always going to come to you freely — that’s where brainstorming comes in.

Just like a successful content calendar, one of the keys to successful brainstorming is flexibility. Different campaigns are going to call for different solutions. It’s a process of discovery. You have to find out how and where you’re comfortable with “freeform thinking” and create an environment that fosters innovative problem-solving that works within this.

Some of us say that brainstorming “doesn’t work” because we fear criticism and negative feedback from our peers and superiors. Or, we may be afraid of repercussions after offering a counter opinion to our boss. It’s true this can hinder some of the best ideas from being presented. But, even many of those who say traditional “brainstorming” isn’t effective will admit — and research has shown — some of the best ideas come from debates, groupthink, and collaboration.

I’m a big believer in the power of effective brainstorming, and I’d like to walk you through ways to overcome some of the obstacles people face. Try one, try them all. But, keep in mind they all may work for you at different times — remain flexible. You’ll find it’s possible to collaboratively find a solution without hurting anyone’s feelings.

Working With Creative Or ‘Non-Creative’ People

Creativity can stem from something as simple as being open to new ideas. Seeing that creativity come to life is just a matter of bringing those ideas to fruition. Sometimes, this calls for a little bit of help.

Brainstorming is great because it allows even those who do not work in a creative role to let loose and exercise their creative muscles. Including a variety of perspectives in the process is ideal. The person in the “non-creative” role may just offer the perfect (and practical) solution that the creative team would never have thought of working among themselves, and vice versa. And that way, the entire organization can take ownership of the project at hand.

The trick is to encourage all ideas to be brought to the table, no matter how “silly” or “out there” they might seem. Participants are likely to surprise themselves with what they come up with once placed in that “safe” environment, free from judgment. That doesn’t mean there won’t be debate, but oftentimes, friendly debate will result in better ideas and concepts.

Virtual Or In-Person Sessions

Where do you do your best thinking? On your lunch-break walk; morning run; in the shower; in the middle of the night; out with friends; during meditation; sitting at your desk? One of these may be the most common for you, but it’s likely there’s no one place where you generate your best ideas. Keep in mind this is likely true for your entire team.

That’s why remaining flexible will have a huge impact when brainstorming with a group. Luckily, there are a lot of great tools and methods for virtual brainstorming that exist as a solution.

Ever hear of spatial hypertext tools? That’s just a fancy term for tools that help organize ideas generated among groups. Each member of the groupthink brainstorms in isolation, quickly jotting down all ideas that come to mind (try using Scapple for this). All the ideas are brought together, then sorted or clustered into categories based on similarities or correlations. The group then identifies relationships among clusters, combining then prioritizing them.

The fascinating outcome of this process is the ideas that resist clustering are often the most novel and of greatest interest, generating additional ideas among the group. This process establishes collaboration, cohesion, and inclusion among all group members, no matter the hierarchical rank.

However, if you’re in need of a brainstorm, there’s a good chance that you are on a project deadline. My suggestion is to combine the two. Start out with a virtual session so everyone is comfortable developing their ideas in isolation.

After all ideas are collected and sorted, come back together as a group in a physical location (if possible — or a Skype or Google Hangout) and talk it through; encourage discussion around the idea that generated special interest and really stood out. We have an entire whiteboard wall and several glass boards for that purpose throughout our office. We’ve found writing and visualizing ideas on a wall encourages creative thinking.

Another great tool for brainstorming in isolation is WikiBrains. It allows you to see what words and ideas other users associate with a topic, which can lead to the opening of ideas you may never have thought of otherwise.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whether virtual or in the office, one of the most valuable pieces of advice I can offer before entering a group brainstorm is to have some sort of goal — know the problem you are trying to solve. This will make coming to a conclusion a much clearer process.

Real Time Vs. “On Your Own” Time

Just as where you do your best thinking can differ, so can the when. Sometimes, ideas may hit you as soon as you’re addressed with a problem. Other times, it takes some thinking. Get your team members involved in the process as soon as possible.

As with the virtual vs. in-office scenarios, one approach is to get everyone in one room sharing all ideas at once. The alternative would be to have everyone involved contribute their ideas privately to one place, then sort through them afterwards. We use Google Docs for this process.

We’ll have several people contributing to and commenting on one document around a particular project for a specified amount of time (usually a day or two) with a hard deadline made known to the team at the beginning of the process.

After that deadline has hit, one person is responsible for compiling all ideas and cleaning the document up. That person then shares the finalized document, and solicits the team for any last thoughts before moving to the next phase of the project, which is usually submitting to the client for approval.

There Is No “Right” Way

No matter what your preferred method for brainstorming is, I suggest keeping an open mind. You don’t know where, when, or from whom your next great idea will come. And once an idea strikes, let it mature. It’s likely that idea still hasn’t reached its full potential. Do some research, share it with your friends and peers, and see where it takes you.

So how do you get the wealth of information Bill possesses from his brain onto your blog? You have to get creative and help Bill create content in the ways that he feels comfortable doing it. Here’s how…

If Bill knows a lot about a particular topic, it’s probably because he’s passionate about it. If he’s passionate about it, he’s likely to talk about it. A lot.

Asking A Question Is Usually A Good Starting Point

By asking a question, you’ve now forced Bill to think about the topic and explain it.

From my experience, most experts like to share information on the topic they’re knowledgeable about — many feel more comfortable talking about the information than writing about it. You’re likely to be surprised by the information they offer. A five-minute conversation could easily become not only topic ideation, but a first draft.

Turn your conversation into an informal interview. Keep asking questions; get him to elaborate. Ask Bill to dive deeper into each part of the process he’s describing.

Go Further

After taking notes on the nitty-gritty, get him to explain how this fits into the bigger picture — how it aligns with the mission and goals of the company.

Ask how it benefits the company’s customers or stakeholders. Bill knows what he does is valuable. Have him tell you why.

You know what’s easier than writing? Pressing record on a camera (or phone). Explain to Bill that your audience wants to hear from him, and wants to see his face. Set up a camera, and have Bill talk to it just like he’s talking to you.

Have him list the steps of his process or describe his area of expertise in easy-to-understand soundbites. Let Bill share his wealth of knowledge. Depending on his area of expertise, maybe he can describe “the next big thing in Web development” or provide “five tips for optimizing your landing page,” or “creative ways to reward employees” or even, “how to manage client expectations while keeping them happy.”

Now post Bill’s video on YouTube and embed it on your site – optimized, of course. Share it across all of your social media channels. Use a transcription service so there is a text version as well. Highlight the best parts.

Let’s say your business specializes in marketing for financial firms, and Bill is your CFO. Get him on video explaining what the fiscal cliff (or any other current hot topic) really means for micro-businesses. Ask him to make it unique; to offer information that hasn’t been covered extensively.

Summarize the best parts into a pitch. Share it with finance reporters and industry bloggers. You’ve given reporters a story lead without them having to do extensive research; their audience will appreciate the free education. Bill feels good because he now realizes people benefit when he shares his knowledge; and you just got your brand’s name in front of a new audience.

Now Let’s Go A Step Further

Take the audio from Bill’s video and turn it into a podcast. Get it on iTunes and PodOmatic. Give it an attention-grabbing title and be specific in the description — let your listeners know what they’ll learn by listening to the podcast.

Don’t falsely advertise. Be realistic. After all, you want them coming back to you for more information, right? Which leads to an important point — include the company website in the description and have Bill provide it at the end of the podcast.

For video, provide it in a closing slide. This part of the process is best if you have a blog that is informative and educational. You’ll turn your audience off if you come off as “too salesy.”

Now that your video and/or podcast is complete, you have material to link to in future blog posts on related topics.

Bill is very active in both his local community and in his industry. He sits on several boards, he attends charity events, and has been to more luncheons in the last year than you’ve been to in your lifetime. And those trophies on his shelf? They’re not fakes.

We already know that once you get Bill talking, he won’t stop. Ask him about his experience with these industry and community organizations. Maybe you have more than one Bill at your company (you probably do). Tell the story about what your company and your people do to give back to the community.

Take Advantage Of Events And Special Occasions

Next time Bill goes to an event for his industry organization, have him interview one of his peers about a hot topic. Not going to happen? Send him an email asking him how the event went with a couple of questions. Boom. Blog post = done.

The group gets free coverage, Bill feels good because he’s done his part in helping to promote both his volunteer organization and his company.

He’s multi-faceted. He’s a finance master by day, and a photographer and videographer by night.

Ask him to take photos around the office or work events to include in your blog posts, on your website, and on your social media channels. People love to look at images, especially when they tell a story or give a feel for a company’s culture. Same with video.

By involving your “non-writers” in the content creation process, you’re keeping up-to-date on what your team members are up to. You’re also educating the rest of the staff on what’s going on across departments. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.

By featuring or talking about other members of your staff, you’re also showing your audience that your company knows how to work together. You are truly weaving content marketing into your company’s DNA.

Next time you’re at the water cooler (or on IM) with Bill, strike up a conversation. Be engaging. Pry the information from him — with a smile. You’ll be amazed at what can come from it.

Twenty years ago, Alec Baldwin delivered one of the most powerful scenes in movie history when he told Jack Lemmon to “Put… that coffee… down!” and went on to explain why coffee was only for closers (and a whole lot more).

If you haven’t seen Glengarry Glenn Ross, Alec Baldwin’s scene (which was written especially for the film by playwright David Mamet), or one of the countless parodies it inspired, take a minute to watch it now and come back. I’ll wait.

The central theme of Baldwin’s pep talk was Always Be Closing (ABC). Close the sale no matter what. Nothing matters except making that sale. What comes to your mind when you think of this? Telemarketers, stock brokers, used car salesmen? What about pop-ups, pop-unders, spam email blasts, get-rich-quick sales letters? Yeah, me too.

When we’re talking about content marketing, we’re talking about a philosophy that is very much the antithesis of the Always Be Closing mantra. I like to call it the ABE Approach, and I’ve boiled it down to these six basic principles.

1. Always Be Educating

The marketing landscape has changed. With the power of the Internet, consumers are now controlling what messages they receive and how they receive them. Before anything else, content marketing is about providing value to your targeted audience.

Think about this for a moment: the average U.S. Internet user spends 32 hours per month online, with 42 percent of that time spent on social networking sites and reading content. This equates to an eighth of a person’s time in a month (that includes sleeping, working, etc.) spent reading and sharing content online.

As a business, embrace this change and use it to your advantage by developing valuable content that interests your target audience. Start by educating your consumers about the industry, not just your product. Sure, maybe what you’re selling is the best. But because your consumers are actively searching for more information, why not help them find it?

Keep in mind that valuable content is crucial in all three stages of the sales cycle: awareness, consideration, and purchase. Make the most of it in each stage. Be a tool for your audience in the research stage. As you’re educating them on the industry, inform them of other options, but (subtly) let them know why yours is unique and (obviously) the best option.

The final stage — purchase — includes content that aims to sell, like strong reviews from past customers or trusted sources. Educate them on how others have found your product more valuable than the rest.

It’s important to remember that no matter who your target audience is, they are people just like you and me. They have thoughts, ideas, opinions, and emotions. Most consumers are tired of being bombarded by meaningless ads, and are seeking out content that matters to them.

Unlike outbound marketing (yesterday’s marketing of billboards, direct mail, TV commercials, etc.), which relied on one-way communication to spread messaging, content marketing engages consumers by using an interactive and educational approach.

2. Always Be Exceptional

By now, you’re not the only one in your industry who’s seen the shift in the way consumers are making their purchase decisions. Furthermore, you’re definitely not the only one who’s begun marketing to your audience through the Internet.

How will you stand out among all the noise?

Some guiding principles:

• Share, don’t push. Educate your audience. Let them know up front (preferably, in the headline, header image, and/or the intro) that what they’re about to read/view/hear will be well worth their time. Inform them of the value you are sharing with them, and why it’s unique.

• Be novel. Use your industry knowledge and expertise to stand above the crowd. This could be with breaking news, insider info, an exclusive interview. Use your imagination.

• Quality over quantity. A helpful rule to follow (especially if you’re relatively new to content marketing) is to provide a small amount of meaningful information to your audience, rather than bombarding them with useless fodder that could potentially lead to your losing their attention forever.

3. Always Be Executing

It’s not just about creating a bunch of content and hoping something happens. You have to have a plan… and you to have to execute.

As you plan your content marketing strategy and content calendar, ask yourself: “Why am I doing this?” “How does this fit into my overall marketing goals and objectives?” “What impact will this have on the company’s bottom line?”

You should have a firm understanding of all of these facets before moving forward with any tactics. The time and resources you spend now to create a thoughtful and meaningful plan will save you a ton of wasted time and resources in the future. Which means… more time for executing an effective content marketing plan.

4. Always Be Engaging

Imagine for a second that it’s 5:00 p.m. on a Tuesday. You’re leaving your office to head home (I know, at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday — right! Bear with me…) You step into the elevator. Who stands there, but the CEO of Acme Products, your number two biggest prospect. You’ve shared an office building with them for years, but they never agreed to take your call, or your offer for lunch, or dinner… or anything.

What do you say to this person? How do you start a conversation? Do you start hammering away at them with questions about their latest product offering, who their current vendors are, how much they’re paying? No. You start a normal conversation. Be engaging, delightful, conversational. Be you. Think of something you may have common with them. Share something they may find useful. (“Have you heard about the road closing in front of the office next week? Here’s an easier way to get to the garage.”)

Now, apply this to your content marketing. Good news is, you’re not in an elevator, and they aren’t with you because they have to be. If a visitor is on your site, it’s because they want to be, or because something (think captivating headline) attracted them. And unlike the elevator example, you actually have more than three seconds to think of how you’ll captivate your visitor over the next 30 seconds. Just make it interesting, useful, and engaging.

5. Always Be Evaluating

The most important question you will ask yourself when launching a new marketing campaign is: What does success look like? What are your communications goals and objectives? What results are you hoping to see? Why? How do you want your audience to respond to your content?

Assign a value to your efforts, and measure, measure, measure!

You may be asking, measure what? Measure the traffic to your site, the number of comments on your posts, the types of comments, conversion rates, click-throughs, etc. Are visitors clicking on a link to a blog post you tweeted with a captivating message? Are they staying on the page? For how long? Are they visiting other pages? Which ones? Why? Are they visiting the pages that you designed your post to lead them to?

There’s a whole host of tools out there designed to help you with this process. Do your research. Pay close attention to your data. Follow your site visitors and social media followers through their journey – from the Facebook post that grabbed their attention, to the last page they visited on your site. See where they land and if it resulted in a phone call, an email, a share (or other micro-conversions), or maybe a sale. This is a great way to evaluate what content works best, and whether or not you’re attracting the right kind of audience with your current strategy.

Before starting, establish a baseline. What’s your current customer base? Know how much new business you take in each year; what your retention rates are like. What are your profits, losses? Marketing expenditures? Most importantly, how effective have your current marketing efforts been? Take all of these into account when measuring the results of your latest campaign.

6. Always Be Enticing

You may not realize it, but your content is one of the top factors in how someone judges (or perceives) your business. And let’s face it, perception really is reality. The good news is, you have control over the content you put out there.

By now, you should have a clear understanding of how to make your content educational, exceptional, engaging, effective, and ultimately, enticing. But are you going to do all this work by yourself? Ideally, your entire organization is involved in your content strategy, at some level.

As a leader in your organization (note: I firmly believe that every single employee in a company is a leader of something), it is your job to establish a company-wide content culture, and get your entire team excited about it.

Brainstorm with your team on all the possible ways any given piece of content will be used to benefit all departments of the company. Not only will you be surprised at what they come up with, but this can also be an excellent tool for educating your team about the industry, as well as getting them better acquainted with what their teammates do day-to-day.

The results you’ll see from your content marketing initiatives are likely to be Enlightening.

Content that’s fresh, useful and compelling all year round. But guess what? This column isn’t about evergreen content. Like the song says, to everything there is a season, and sometimes that’s the case for content too. As the winter holidays approach, this is a good time to talk about seasonal content and why it’s about more than dropping the word “Christmas” or “Holidays” in your copy a few hundred times.

There are basically two kinds of seasonal content: time-based (winter, summer, month-by-month) and event-based (Christmas, National Pancake Day, Thanksgiving). Obviously, sometimes these are tied together, but that doesn’t make them the same thing.

Trend Watching

Begin by diving into some trends research. Design your content around multiple waves. A very simple example would be a sporting goods store hoping to promote the World Series. Baseball, as a general term, is popular during the summer. Toward the ends of summer, wild card races start gaining traction, followed by post-season playoffs, and finally, the World Series.

By overlapping these four trends, you can clearly see how you would want to build your baseball-season content calendar. Be creative! Look at the associated keywords for each trend and consider how you could work a fresh, seasonally-related angle on what might seem like an otherwise stale subject.

Look for related keywords – snow, skiing, coats for winter – to build your content. Keeping on top of the news is a great way to get this kind of inspiration.

Timing Is Everything

You want to hit just before the peak of any given seasonal spike so you’re among the leaders, not following the pack. But don’t jump in too early or you won’t catch the wave of interest.

How soon you want to start publishing your content depends on how steep the rise in interest is. Some topics have gradual spikes, meaning you can begin earlier. Some are very abrupt, so you should position yourself close to the event date. On average, it’s best to publish about two weeks ahead for maximum visibility.

It’s often a very good idea to do “soft” pieces first, to get your current audience thinking about — and sharing — your content. It’s the content equivalent of clearing your throat to catch a room’s attention. Don’t unleash your biggest and best ideas without making sure people are listening.

Anticipation Vs. Procrastination

Many companies are in areas where some times of the year are busier than others. Theatre productions ramp up their productivity right before premiering a new show, retailers look forward to various holiday sales, and even search marketers have busy conference seasons. These are the times when it’s important to anticipate the content you will need and prepare for it.

Identify the slower parts of your year, when you’re looking around for ways to prep for the busy season, and start writing then. Chances are, on April 14th, there’s no one at H&R Block with time enough to think, let alone to write an article on how to file an extension. Writing tax advice articles in November means all that’s required later is pushing the content live.

Pro tip: Because seasonal content is, by definition, only of temporary interest, social media campaigns that can move quickly and capitalize on rising trends are ideal for promotion.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Though you may not be able to take advantage of your content year-round, you can make your content perennially popular by not  adding time bombs. Time bombs in your content are references to current events, popular celebrities, or other non-repeating trends that will quickly make any piece sound dated.

The World Series and the Oscars come around once a year, but the specific people associated with those events change. While your thoughtful and well-researched article about how the Red Sox are going to crush the Yankees and go on to win the World Series would have looked prophetic in September 2004, by December that was old news, and in 2012, it’s ancient history.

This doesn’t mean you can never reference current events. Sometimes jumping on a big news story is a great idea. But look for ways to create content that will continue to be useful time and time again. If done right, you’ll be able to gain traffic, followers, and sales from the same piece of content year after year.

How do you come up with ideas for seasonal content? What’s the best way you’ve found to spot recurring trends? Sound off in the comments!

These desires are strong, and can lead to rash decisions. In trying to not get left behind, you just jump in and start doing, maybe without looking first to see where you’re going to land.

On the flip side, sometimes we can get so bogged down in the details and the process that it stops us from actually doing anything.

Neither of these is an optimal path for a successful content marketing roadmap. Something that takes so much time and effort to accomplish needs more consideration, or all that time and effort will be wasted.

You just need to know 11 pretty simple things to really get it right.

1) Know your why.

Know what you stand for and why your company exists.

2) Know your brand.

If you’re a conservative company don’t start using slang, text speak or cat memes just because “everyone else” is. It never works in the long run (and usually not in the short either).

3) Know your audience.

Find out who they truly are and what they really care about. I guarantee you will never stop being surprised by what you find out (no matter how well you think you know them).

4) Know your voice.

And know what it is.  Michael Arrington and Kara Swisher both cover the tech and VC worlds, but both have very different voices.

5) Know your reason.

Why are you creating content? Your answer certainly doesn’t have to be altruistic, but you have to be able to answer that question.

6) Know your time.

Do you publish your blog posts, tweets, and other updates at specific times and dates? Or just publish?

7) Know your threshold.

Do you want to just create? Do you truly have faith in yourself and your people to give free rein? What’s your pain tolerance with backlash?  The smaller the company, the easier this one usually is to answer. 8) Know your style.

Simple or sophisticated?

9) Know your enemy.*

What are your competitors doing? Should you care? *The inspiration for this title.

10) Know how to change.

What works for you right now may not work next month. Don’t be afraid of change.

11) Know that sometimes you need to ignore everything you read in columns like this and find out what works for you.

Hey, it’s worked for Mark Cuban, right?

I don’t know the answer to any of these for you or your company. No one should know them better than you. You may not know all of them yet. If that’s the case, take some time to figure them out. Better to delay launching a content marketing strategy than to do it poorly.

I also don’t know if you can ever truly know all of these things at any one point. But I am sure that running through these “knows” on a consistent basis will bring you a lot closer to “Yes.”

A couple of months ago, I wrote about overcoming objections from your CEO about adopting a content marketing strategy. What I didn’t mention was a major roadblock you may face from your team — excuses (and lots of them!).

It’s a lot to ask your entire organization to get involved in content creation. It’s time consuming, requires serious brain power, and many times, the benefits and processes are confusing. It’s no wonder that when faced with the challenge of creating content, even the best employees may point to reasons why they can’t (or won’t) pitch in.

Whether you have a small team in a Mom & Pop or you’re coordinating content creation within a Fortune 100, the reasons for why a team member can’t contribute are pretty much universal. Here are the the 5 most common excuses that I have come across and how you can overcome them…

Excuse: “I’m Out Of Ideas.”

Solution: Provide An Idea Bank

You shouldn’t place the entire burden of ideation on the people creating your content. Everyone has ideas to contribute, and you should be listening to ideas from all levels of your organization. The more people in the company who are contributing ideas, the better your content will reflect your brand.

Get your whole company involved in the ideation process…

• Develop a system for collecting ideas. This doesn’t need to be fancy — even a shared document or a suggestion box will work.
• Select the best ideas and add them into a document accessible by all content contributors. From there, your team can choose from this pre-approved idea list for each assignment.
• Additionally, offer at least three idea suggestions when you assign a content project.

Excuse:“I Don’t Have Time.”

Solution: Plan, Plan, Plan

Adding the additional responsibility of content creation on top of an employee’s normal workload is tricky. This is why editorial planning is crucial.

• Create an editorial calendar, and give access to everyone involved in content creation.
• Give ample lead time before a content project is due (aim for at least a month in advance).
• Develop a process for communicating and assigning deadlines. Then stick to it!
• Schedule milestones along the way, such as due dates for an idea, outline, and first draft. These mini-deadlines will keep employees from waiting until the last minute to get started.
• Establish a clear workflow process and guidelines, and update these as you tweak your procedures.

Excuse: “I’m Not A Good Writer.”

Solution: Don’t Expect Everyone To Write

The desire or ability to write should never be a prerequisite for your content contributors. Content marketing requires an arsenal of multi-disciplinary strengths and there are few people out there who excel at all of these.

Get your “non-writing” employees involved in other aspects of content marketing based on their strengths:

• Research and data analysis. Let your most analytical team members help gather and analyze data for infographics, white papers, and other research-heavy content.
• Quality assurance and fact checking. Detail-oriented employees can comb through your content with a fine-toothed comb, picking out inaccuracies, typos and grammatical errors.
• Promotion. Here’s where your most socially-connected employees can shine by helping seed your content on their most active social networks.

Excuse:“I’m Scared To Write Publicly.”

Solution: Have A Strong Support System

Creating content that will be subject to both internal and external scrutiny is an understandably daunting task for anyone. Truth be told, most of your employees are just plain scared of how their work will be judged by your staff and industry peers. Lessen their fears by offering a support network and resources.

An editor should act as each contributor’s agent, guiding their content from ideation to publication. This is the person who decides when something is strong enough to publish, and when it needs to be scrapped or revised —  they’re protecting not only your brand but your employees as well. With a great editor, your team will feel secure that nothing less than remarkable content will be published under their name.

Excuse: “I Don’t Want To Give Away Too Much.”

Solution: Explain How Sharing Knowledge Makes Them Look Good

In the corporate world of contracts and trade secrets, talking about what your business does (for free!) may seem like a total conflict of interest. Assure your employees that both your editorial and marketing team will shelf any content that reveals too much, but it will rarely — if ever — get to that point since you’ll be guiding them throughout the process.

What many don’t realize is sharing knowledge makes them look good and often makes their job easier. Make the case that this effort helps not only the company, but the employee, too. Great content serves to:

• Educate potential customers
• Establish thought leadership
• Builds professional reputation
• Improves their digital footprint

Conclusion

Every day, your entire team works toward making your company successful (assuming you have a good team!). Content marketing is just one more opportunity for all employees to do this.

If you’re still hearing too many excuses, you may not being doing one (or all) of these things effectively…

• Provide Ongoing Training. Similar to how you onboard new employees, you’ll need to train new contributors. Allow enough time for training before you expect someone to complete a content project. Always communicate changes in process or direction to everyone involved.
• Share Success Stories. Did you get a handful of great leads as the result of a piece of content? Did a major publication syndicate your blog post? Did you gain a ton of backlinks from an infographic? Communicate these wins with your entire company. This is often the best way to illustrate the true benefits of content marketing.
• Remember to Give Praise. Content creation is full of revising, critiques, and suggestions. Avoid focusing only on what needs to be fixed about your employees’ content. Be sure you’re giving proper credit and praise for a job well done.
• Only Publish Content You’re Proud Of.  I recently gave a presentation in which I stressed the importance of being completely obsessed with all of your content. This may sound kind of nutty, but think about it: if you can’t even get excited about the content you’re creating, how do you expect your entire team to care, let alone people outside of your company?

How do you keep your employees and team members enthusiastic about content marketing? Let me know in the comments below.

It’s through the content you create that your voice is most often heard. Content is what you use to sell to your customers, to differentiate your brand, and to help guide and educate employees. In the online world, your content also becomes your legacy — a digital history that traces the growth and evolution of your brand.

In my last column, I talked about the importance of getting content marketing buy-in and touched on how a content strategy can benefit all teams within an organization. As a business that is likely already creating content, you should now be considering the best ways to leverage the content you create for other uses throughout your organization.

If you’re willing to get creative, your content can be used in a wide variety of ways. By thinking critically about the content creation process and seeing content as integral to all aspects of your business, you’ll find innumerable ways to leverage your content which are highly beneficial to many important business functions.

Creating A Company-Wide Content Culture

During the planning phase of any content creation initiative, there’s an opportunity to evaluate content ideas not only on their merit for engaging an audience, but also for their potential to be used in a variety of ways across your organization.

I’m not suggesting that every piece of content needs to operate like a Swiss army knife, but by keeping the various potential uses in mind as you create content for your brand, you’re more likely to be able to leverage the work you’ve already done.

Using my own company as an example, I’ll illustrate the ways content marketing can benefit a business far beyond the achievement of immediate marketing goals…

Business Development Team

 For many businesses, creating content that conveys the value of a service offering or clearly states a value proposition risks coming across as too sales-y.

However, there is often an opportunity to create content that can simultaneously convey the value the business can provide, while also serving as a valuable educational resource that audiences will want to consume and share.

Some of the most impactful types of content are educational in nature. Infographics and infoguides often have the ability to illuminate or explain complex ideas in a fun and interesting way.

When we formally announced our acquisition of Voltier Digital in February of this year, we used it as an opportunity to be more explicit about our shift toward content-focused services.

We created this infographic to convey an important message that clearly demonstrates the value of a core service we offer, while simultaneously informing and educating the public about a marketing tool that is powerful and important.

 Sales Team

In a similar way that content initiatives can serve a dual purpose of educating customers with information that will make them more likely to understand or value your unique business offering, content can often be repurposed as a sales tool.

One of the primary ways our team creates sales collateral is throughthe repurposing and reuse of content that we created for marketing purposes. Resource and educational -type content often has the best crossover potential, as great selling is more about educating the client about value than anything else.

As an example, we have taken some of our infographics and spliced them into slide decks to present to potential clients. This is an unconventional way of presenting a deck, while also featuring one of our main service offerings.

Employee Education

Learning and self-education are core components of the content creation process. Consistently building a variety of compelling and interesting content absolutely requires a high level of commitment to knowledge building and continuing education.

The best content, and the type of content Google is looking to rank and reward, is the content that contributes something new to the conversation — something remarkable. This is only possible if you fully understand your vertical and the contributions being made by your competitors.

It’s through this self-education and clear vision that the inspiration for creating great content for your own brand can arise.

Because of this dedication to continuous education, the content you create can then often be used to further educate other members of your team in addition to the audience you are targeting.

The content we create for more general audiences often has a more detailed, in-depth counterpart created simultaneously to help better educate and inform our team members about information that matters to our industry, their jobs, or anything else of pertinence.

Our blog is another example of how we enhance employee education through content. By having all of our blog content written by our employees, we not only get to showcase our team’s knowledge and insights, but also further educate others in our company about each team member’s area of expertise.

A single blog post can serve not only to educate, but may also spark discussions among our team members that may lead to new ideas.

Recruiting And New Employee Training

Just like your business has a target audience for sales, you should have a target audience for recruiting. Using content, you can attract the right employees to your company.

Creating content that captures your company culture can increase your appeal to the people who are a good match for your organization, push potential recruits to apply for your openings, and familiarize new employees with what it means to be part of your organization.

Don’t make someone wait until they come in for an interview to really get a feel for your company; use content to make your company culture apparent. We do this by showcasing our team whenever possible:

• Among other things, our team writes our blog posts, has their own custom made cartoon avatars (which many use on their social profiles), and frequently interacts with our brand account on social media platforms.
• We post many photos and videos of team outings and office events on our social media profiles.
• On our site, we feature testimonials from our employees about what it’s like to work for us.

We want a potential applicant to visit our site or social media profiles and get a good sense of what it’s like to work for us. This makes our business all the more appealing to the right job applicants, as well as prepares new hires for what they are walking into on their first day.

If you have a complex organization with many parts, it can take months before new employees fully understand how it all ties together. Some of the content you’ve created for the sales and business development team can be repurposed to familiarize employees with how your company functions.

You can also use your past content as training resources. For example, we direct our new hires to our past blog posts that are particularly relevant to their role.

Creating A Consistent Message

Having many teams involved in the content creation process necessitates a need to establish messaging and stylistic guidelines. Consider the following three things to ensure consistency, regardless of which team is creating your content…

1. Find your voice

When it comes to sales collateral, using appropriate language is often a primary goal, but a focus on brand messaging can often be overlooked by content marketers eager to create popular content. In doing content marketing, exposure and reach are major goals, but so is conveying the right message.

Whether you’re creating infographic content, working on videos or podcasts, contributing to social media, or simply writing articles like this one, it’s important to establish a tone and a clear voice. The content you create becomes the bridge that connects people for the first time with your brand.

Different pieces of content can have different voices, but it’s important to always consider how language choice and word selection plays into the way your brand is perceived.

Use the content creation process as an opportunity to refine and define your brand voice in a multitude of conditions for a multitude of audiences. By remembering the importance and value of good copywriting in all the types of content you create (even just tweets!), you’ll continue to refine your message and the impact it can have.

2. Create a style guide

We’ve found that creating a certain level of brand consistency and recognition across the visual content we create has been really powerful for reinforcing our brand in the minds of various audiences.

When creating a plan for the visual components of your content marketing strategy (infographics, videos, kinetic typography, etc), it’s important to have a solidified and well-defined style guide for your brand. This is not only for consistency, but will also make content creation more efficient. As you create new content, you have an opportunity to refine and improve how you define the aesthetic of your business.

Our style guide is a living document that we build upon and use as a reference point for our content creation process. More specifically, our style guide helps us maintain consistency with regard to the look and feel of our content. From font selection and typography, to icon use and image selection, we try to define the aesthetic that makes our brand recognizable.

Create a style guide for your brand, especially if you’re producing a lot of visual content. Each time you create a new infographic (or any visual piece of content), view it through the lens of your style guide, and examine the ways that it helps solidify a balanced and recognizable look and feel for your brand.

3. Reuse visual assets

One of the best parts about creating visual content as part of a content marketing strategy is the way various elements can be reused.  More specifically, there are often innumerable opportunities to reuse pieces of artwork from visual content like infographics and infoguides.

As we create content for our brand, we often take the extra step to put potentially reusable elements in their own layers or vectorize them where possible  (did you notice our mascot, Charlie the dog, has appeared in all of the images in this post?).

Not only does this allow us to reuse certain elements in other visual pieces where appropriate, but it also lets us use visual elements created for content marketing campaigns in other places, such as on our website or in sales collateral.

Conclusion

To truly be successful, exceptional content creation needs to become part of your company’s DNA. Content is the fuel that drives the growth of your website, builds your audience, and helps people understand your unique value in the marketplace.

You should not set out to create remarkable content for a singular purpose, but should instead view the content creation process as an opportunity to makes the most of your time, money and resources.

Go the extra mile to extract as much value as possible from the content you create.  Be a standout both in terms of the quality of the content you produce, but also in the way you innovate.

Repurpose old content in new ways, mix media to bolster and amplify your message, and always remember to maintain a consistent and memorable brand.

What is the role of content throughout your company? Let me know in the comments below!

Your CEO didn’t get to that position by being clueless about increasing revenue and attracting customers (well, in most cases, but that’s another story…). If your CEO doesn’t care about content marketing, it’s highly likely it hasn’t been communicated in a way that makes them care.

Resistance from the top shouldn’t be met with defensiveness, but rather seen as a chance to look at content marketing from your CEO’s perspective. How does content marketing tie into your overall business objectives? 

Do you lay awake at night wondering why you can’t get the buy-in necessary to execute your content marketing plans? If you answered yes to that question, you probably need to realign some of your priorities in life.

But if you want to understand why your CEO (or anyone else who controls budget), isn’t giving you the green light, it’s probably due to one of a variety of potential misconceptions.

Overcoming these objections and misconceptions will do more to advance your content marketing initiatives than trying to force it down their throats with your “well, everyone else is doing it!” mantra.

They Don’t Understand How Content Marketing Converts

A CEO is paid to ensure a business keeps making money. If you can’t explain how great content leads people to buy, you will never get your CEO on board.

Be upfront about the fact that content marketing will not magically turn every person who consumes your content into a customer. But, a well-executed content marketing strategy nearly guarantees an uptick in return visitors.

Every time that someone returns to your online properties is another chance to educate them about your company and draw them closer to your business. But first, you must create content that attracts and retains visitors. Only then can you begin leading those visitors through the sales funnel.

What You Must Communicate:

Consistently creating compelling content gives people a reason to return to our site and gives us multiple opportunities to potentially sell to them. Selling online means taking every opportunity to bring potential customers closer to your brand in an engaged way. Great content can do this better than any banner ad or pushy sales collateral ever will.

They Want Content To Be All About Your Brand

Your CEO probably won’t understand how creating content that’s not about your company can be effective.

A lot of businesses think this way, and not coincidentally, these are not the businesses you read about as content marketing success stories. You need to create content around the interests of your target audience in a way that relates to your business.

Stress the importance of providing value first, pitching second. By creating value for your target audience through a range of free resources, you are pulling them to your online properties. You’re not going to do this by only talking about your brand.  In a lot of cases, you probably aren’t going to do this by talking about your brand at all.

Targeted content leaves breadcrumbs that lead people to you. Over time, highly-targeted content is found by the right audience, usually in one of three ways:

1. They find your content through search
2. They see your content shared within their social circles
3. They click on a link to your content on a website they read

Your CEO will understand that, like any selling, a warm lead is always better than a cold one (do you know anyone who likes telemarketers?). Providing free resources your target audience wants is essentially warming them up to be open to your pitch. Then, when you do choose to weave promotional messages into your content, your audience will be more receptive.

What You Must Communicate:

Focusing on our target audience’s interests (and providing these resources for free) will help position us as a trusted authority within our niche.

They Underestimate Its Power Compared To Direct Marketing Techniques

Simply put, content marketing is economical. With traditional advertising, you are paying every time you broadcast your message. With content marketing, you are investing up front to create something that can provide value to your audience and your business for years to come.

CEOs shouldn’t expect overnight results after a piece of content is published. They are used to this kind of immediate gratification from traditional marketing, and if they don’t see similar results with content marketing, they may dismiss it as ineffective.  Instead, they need to view content marketing as a long-term commitment.

As a piece of content becomes more popular and is seen by more people, not only will it create more touch-points (links to it from social networks, blogs, forums, etc) but it’s also likely to rise in the search rankings (and help drive the links that help your entire site rank better). In this sense, great content can live on indefinitely through organic traffic, links and social sharing.

What You Must Communicate:

Content marketing creates online assets with long-term value. Compelling content spreads and creates multiple touch-points which will help lead people back to our site.

They Don’t Understand The SEO Benefits

Consumers are no longer sitting back as companies try to sell to them. They are actively searching for information about the products and services they want to buy, making informed purchase decisions based on what they find.

By now, your CEO probably understands this. What may be unclear is how content marketing can make your business easier for potential customers to find through search.

As you consistently create valuable content, you’re building more online assets full of keywords relating to your business (assuming you’re not just creating linkbait solely to get attention, like an oil company doing something about Lady Gaga).

The more pages you have, the more content you have for search engines to crawl. Be sure to stress the importance of this being content that provides value (not all about your company!) — the more people are actually reading and sharing this content, the more benefits you’ll see in the SERPs.

Please don’t mistake this as a message to just create lots of content for the sake of the search engines. Hopefully you have seen what the effects of quantity over quality can mean for companies. But if you can consistently create good content and get people to engage with it, you are going to be rewarded.

High quality content attracts more than people, it also attracts search engines. If you’re dedicated to creating valuable content, you don’t have to be obsessed with Google’s latest algorithm tweaks. A long-term content strategy that builds value for your audience sends the right trust and authority signals to the search engines.

What You Must Communicate:

Creating content that our users find useful, and people engage with, sends powerful signals to the search engines, thus helping our search engine optimization efforts significantly.

They Don’t Think It’s Feasible

“Who will produce the content?” “How will these processes be organized across teams?” “Who will be responsible?”

These are valid concerns for a CEO. Assure them investing in content marketing requires effort and ownership across many departments, but the benefits can also be enjoyed by the entire organization.

Content marketing becomes indispensable to a company when it’s used in a way that brings measurable benefits to every department. Some departments which can benefit immensely from an integrated content marketing approach include:

• Sales (to “close the deal”)
• Customer Service (to solve common customer problems)
• Product Development (to educate about products)
• Human Resources (to attract recruits)

While teams often have competing priorities, content marketing is able to break down these silos and reach objectives that all departments can agree on.

What You Must Communicate:

Involving other teams in content marketing can meet our company-wide objectives and help everyone do their jobs better.

Conclusion

Speaking about content marketing within the context of the above misconceptions is key for getting your CEO on board. But this advice goes beyond your CEO.

Being able to clearly explain how the benefits of content marketing connect with your overall business goals will help you get buy-in just not from the top, but from your entire company.

Have your content marketing efforts gotten push back from the top? Let me know how you’ve overcome some of these obstacles in the comments below.