3 Steps to Successful Content Curation

Take a moment and think about a messy closet.

If you needed to quickly access something or draw attention to the best piece in your wardrobe, how easy would it be to do that?

For those business leaders and marketers that have adopted a content marketing strategy for their business, you’ve likely been so busy creating content and meeting the deadlines of your editorial calendar, you may not have paused to consider if that content is piling up on your website and whether you should consider a content curation strategy.

Who needs content curation?

Any company that has more than 10 new items or pages that have gone up on their website in the last 60 days, should consider a content curation strategy. Here’s why:

1. You need to clean your closet regularly.

Just like that shirt hanging in the back of your closet, if you have not worn it in the last six months, there is likely a reason why. Similarly, if you have content on your website that no one is reading you need to first ask why? And then, clean house. If the ultimate goal of your website is to make it easy for a prospective buyer to decide to buy from you, then you need to be constantly be asking if the content on your website is helping or hurting the buying process.

Sometimes taking away content that does not lead to a next step or have page views, is a good way tidy up the buyer path. It’s okay to admit, “this shirt doesn’t go with anything.”

You also need to be sure that you avoid the stale content trap. Just like a shirt that is now out of style, no one wants to see that the last news article on your website is from 2010. A company that does not keep it fresh on their website is sending a message to prospective customers that nothing is happening in their business that is new or noteworthy. You are also hurting yourself if you talk about past events or trade shows you are attending in the current tense. You need to sunset this content once it has happened. Perhaps it seems obvious, but I can point to many B2B websites that have not refreshed or cleaned up information once it is past the expiry date.

2. You need to take the really good content and make it better.

When content performs really well, it is a thing of beauty. Of course, “performs well” depends on your business goals and objectives, but for the sake of Step 2, performs well is content that people share, respond to or move to a next step or conversion point on your website as a result of reading it. If you see in your Google Analytics that something is “through the roof” in terms of popularity, determine where else you could post it, how you could move it up for higher profile on your site and determine three new articles or blog posts you could write as a result of the topic or content. If something performs well, you have engagement and engagement should be the deciding factor for organizing content in a way that is sustainable.

3. You need to take the really good content and use it more.

Some of the best content I have read on websites, is content that helps people see another side of a business problem they are struggling with. If you have content on your website, that you can prove through data and metrics is working well with your prospects, figure out how you can recycle that content, over and over again. Perhaps it is a link in your email signature that references a particular sales question you have answered on your website. Perhaps it is a new eBook or case study you have developed that prospects told you was particularly helpful in the buying process. Whatever the piece of content is, think of five places or ways you could extend the life of that content in your every day communication. Sometimes it’s as simple as going through your contact list and finding 20 people in your address book that could benefit from the content. It doesn’t take a lot of time, and you would be surprised at what it does for your website traffic.
The best advice we heard recently, was from a client who posted third-party videos on their website to explain a particular process with respect to employee collaboration. They now send the link out to people after sales meetings and it allows people in the company to share the details of the meeting with others who couldn’t attend, in a way that is easy for the prospect to consume. This is particularly useful if you sell to large enterprise and they have teams of people vetting solutions. Think about how you can use good content in the sales process across organizations.

Recap on this simple 3-step process:

1. Clean up your website content regularly and make sure it’s up to date and useful content.
2. Take good content and see how you can turn it into more content.
3. Take really good content and figure out how to extend it in the sales process.

Content curation is really about what works and what doesn’t in the buying process. Keep the best and ditch the rest.