Marketing managers in the digital world are well aware that content marketing is a major trend going back almost ten years now. Leveraging blogs, podcasts, videos, etc., marketers have been able to showcase their products & services in ways that pretty much reinvented the traditional marketing mix of radio, television, and newspapers. However, just because content marketing is still the best way to go, companies would be wise to stick to a few tricks of the trade.

Joe Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute and he offers five tips in this new marketing environment

Five content marketing tips:

Get a niche.

You want to position yourself as the leading expert in a given field, says Pulizzi. “News” or “sports” or even “content marketing” is probably too broad these days, as more and more people have jumped into the fray. Instead you need to be more specific in your area such as “Financial content marketing” or “pharmaceutical content marketing.” He notes, “You have to be a specialist, even if you’re a large company. You wouldn’t have one content marketing strategy; you might have 20 little strategies because every one of your audience has different needs and aspirations.”

Traditional content marketing may not be the best.

Pulizzi cites the example of the e-book. “In 2009, not a lot of people were giving away free e-books, so you could get a lot of attention by giving one away, but now everybody’s doing it.” You have to move on and find ways to surprise and delight your customers and prospects. “None of these channels go away,” he says. It’s not that doing an e-book is a bad idea; it’s just less effective than it was in the past.

Get back to basics.

Sometimes the best opportunities lie in channels that have been forgotten or neglected. Content marketing, he points out, is “media agnostic – it can be online, social, print, in person.” The real question is who your target audience is, and what the best way to reach them is.” Thus marketers need to leverage channels that their audience is more likely to use.

Make it easy for your customers to share content.

Sometimes, says Pulizzi, a company will complain that “nobody’s sharing our content. I go to the page, and there’s a form in front of it. No one’s going to share that”. You have to get clear on what role your content plays – you need to open up your content and make it accessible. He estimates that 90% of your content should be open, band only 10% “gated”). That’s the only way to draw in a large enough base of prospects; then, once they’re hooked on your great content, “you can start offering super high quality downloads [such as e-books, wite papers, or podcasts] that people have to give their information for.”

Repurpose your content.

You spent two hours writing your latest blog post. If you hit ‘upload’ and that’s the end of it, you’re wasting precious opportunities to leverage your work and spread your message. How many different tweets can you create that highlight aspects of it? Could you turn the recording of the interview into a podcast? How about a 15 second Instagram video sharing the most interesting point? “When we tell stories, we like to get the most out of those stories,” says Pulizzi. Ask yourself: “How can we tell that story in different channels? Plan for that upfront. People say, ‘we don’t have enough content.’ You have tons of content; you’re just not telling your story well. You have to plan for it and make a bigger impact