Content marketing is not without challenge, as separate conversations last week with a leading global forwarder and a regional SME forwarder made clear.

We’ve written often about the value of quality content marketing in maintaining and building new relationships.

It’s free (or low-cost if you have to outsource) and can be adapted for use in a wide variety of uses; from web to white papers, all of which add to your credibility and reinforce the quality of your services.

But content marketing is not without challenge, as separate conversations last week with a leading global forwarder and a regional SME forwarder made clear.

The global player was awash with original content, highlighting the benefits of their industry capabilities, core services and specialised solutions.

Content was carried across onto their LinkedIn and Twitter channels, reaching a further audience of tens of 000’s!

The primary issue that we identified, was curating the content.

There’s loads of really good stuff, but it can be difficult to find what you’re after on the web site and the social feeds are individual channels carrying content for over 20 industry solutions and a variety of services, which means you might have to sift through loads of irrelevant stuff, before you get to anything that actually interests you.

What we want to deliver is a solution which means that visitors to the site can link directly to the content that is relevant to them and give them the option to access more of the same, by saving preferences.

The social feeds are less easy to adapt, but it would be possible to provide options on LinkedIn to subscribe to areas of interest, or develop Showcase pages for key subjects, while Twitter might be more effective with a number of dedicated feeds.

The SME forwarder by contrast faced an issue familiar to many of us.

What to write about, if you don’t want to name customers or give away commercial detail.

We’ve given the forwarder a list of 21 ideas, across 7 categories* that they can link content to, based on what’s happening currently and their combined operational knowledge.

Without risking client relationships, or inviting unwelcome competitor attention, they can still position themselves as the go-to experts in their market.

We’ve stressed the need to be disciplined; writing little and often, rather than waiting for the big story to come over the horizon.

Be Useful
Disruptions
Legislative changes
‘How to’ stuff

Be Entertaining 
Highlight articles you’ve seen
Link any cartoons you like
Tell a story

Be Timely 
Review new equipment
Publish a survey
Share breaking news

Be Human 
Share inspirational or human new
Behind the scenes
‘Off topic’ – share anything that’s genuinely interesting

Be Promotional 
Highlight a recent project
Company update
Service tips

Be Controversial 
What if……….
Comment and debate
Stand up for something

Be Engaging 
Ask questions of your audience
Share answers you’ve given
Run a contest

*Simply double content option by adapting image versions (photography, infographics, cartoons/drawings, charts/graphs)