Even though there will be plenty of vacationers hitting beaches, hiking trails and theme parks this summer, it doesn’t mean your content marketing should take a vacation too. After all, content marketing serves multiple purposes for a business, which means it should be consistently maintained throughout the year. Failing to do that could lead to negative repercussions well into the fall and winter.
Here are five reasons why you should keep your content marketing working tirelessly through the summer:
Search engine rankings may suffer: Search engines don’t take vacations, which means your blog should stay hard at work all summer long. While your blog is not solely responsible for your search engine rankings, it does play a key role. Even if you blog just weekly, your search engine rankings will benefit more than if the blog sputters its way through the dog days of summer.
Newsletters lose steam: Content marketing comes in all shapes and sizes. Newsletters make up an integral part of a successful inbound marketing strategy. To be effective, newsletters must go out on a consistent frequency, if only to stay top-of-mind among your audience of prospects, customers and followers. Since newsletters are your chance to share your latest company news and drive interest in your new products and services, don’t miss out on this opportunity to keep the inbound marketing tap flowing all summer long.
New inbound leads dry up: If you are not careful to mind the ‘content marketing store,’ you could see your rate of inbound leads begin to dry up by the end of the summer, causing a nasty dry spell in the fall when you’re team is back and ready to work. At the very top of every B2B sales funnel is a sieve. If you don’t continue to nurture those early-stage leads, then they will fall eventually fall out and go somewhere else.
Your reputation suffers: Like it or not, we are judged based on the little things, such as showing up on time or following through on promises. When a lead is drawn into your sales funnel, it’s the reliability of the content marketing engine that carries the biggest load when it comes to establishing your initial reputation — that and an effective PR campaign. If you send out newsletters, ensure they remain at the same high-level of quality your audience expects to receive. If you hold webinars, keep them engaging and full of valuable insight. Whatever content marketing activity you engage in, just be sure to satisfy your customers and prospects as though it were a revenue-generating service.
Newton’s First Law of Motion: That’s right, even the rules of physics apply to content marketing. In this case, Newton’s First Law of Motion states that a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Translation: If you let your content marketing lapse for any period of time, it will have a greater probability of staying that way. In other words, don’t stop or you may not start back up again. Avoid this from happening by keeping your content marketing machine in motion for the entire summer.