Solar firms looking to create a stellar inbound marketing strategy are faced with the classic glass half full, glass half empty scenario. Starting with the good news: there's no shortage of great solar content to choose from. The bad part: there's no shortage of great solar content to choose from. This influx of content can be overwhelming, noisy and unfocused. Solar firms need to resist the urge to try and leverage it all.
Therefore, the trick to creating an effective content strategy is to plan ahead. Set limits. Be realistic. Play to your strengths.
Take your blogging strategy, for example. Sure, it's built on a steady stream of published content, but you need to ensure that your strategy is practical and achievable. You don't need to post two posts a day five days a week. Instead, simply start by publishing three 500-750 posts a week, say, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Make sure the posts include two or three hyperlinked keywords, and pay special attention your blog's "voice." Who are you writing to? What are these readers' major concerns? More often than not, your paramount goal will be educate readers and exude expertise. As a result, follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of your content should be informative; 20% should be sales-oriented.
With this framework in place, the next key element in implementing consistent content creation for the solar industry is to create an editorial calendar for your blog. Your editorial calendar should include the days and time of day you'll publish, the media you'll use (images/video), the CTAs you want to use and which buyer personas you're speaking to with each blog article. When a company has a written plan in place with ownership rules, guidelines, and key roles and responsibilities, they'll be more likely to effectively prioritize and leverage content.
As Stephen King says, write about what you know. It sounds obvious, but if Joe in financing is an expert on solar financing (which of course he is) he should only write exclusively on...yup, solar financing. Joe will naturally be more inclined and motivated to write posts on familiar topics. (However, if Joe remains hesitant, you can always partner with a marketing agency that provides blogging and content creation services.)
Next up is establishing a consistent pipeline of content. This is perhaps the easiest part. Existing in-house materials such as infographics, white papers, eBooks, FAQs, videos, etc. can easily be repurposed for blogging and solar landing pages and eBlasts. As for creating new brand new content, set realistic goals: a white paper a month, for example. Also set up Google alerts so that the most pertinent solar content is delivered to your inbox every morning or once a week. You'll have no shortage of interesting articles to choose from as inspiration for future blog articles to write. For example, if you create a Google alert with the keywords "solar panels California," you might receive an interesting piece from CleanTechnica or UtilityDive.
Looking for more tips to optimize your content creation? Contact us for a free consultation.
