Three Ways to Kick Off Low-Effort Content Marketing

Are you struggling to maintain a steady flow of content for your audience? A lot of people have good intentions when it comes to content marketing for their business. Yet, many often shy away because they either don’t know where to start or they believe there’s too much effort involved. Let’s look at three simple ways to kick off low-effort content marketing for your business.

#1. Behind-the-Scenes Content

Blogging is an inexpensive way for companies to drive traffic to their website, improve inbound marketing efforts and attract more prospective customers. 

According to HubSpot’s marketing report, companies that prioritise blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI. 

Without investing any amount of money, businesses can execute this low-effort content marketing strategy. Simply document the behind-the-scenes of your daily operations and convert that into timely content. 

Behind-the-scenes content has the ability to: 

• Humanise your company
• Reveal the passion and commitment of your team members
• Builds trust and credibility

Take a look at how General Electric (GE) uses low-effort content marketing to create meaningful relationships with their target audience: 

Using Tumblr, GE created an account featuring a From the Factory Floor series. They captured high-definition pictures of their day-to-day operations and added a few facts to each post. From thermal shields to turbine blades, GE provides delightfully engaging content using only pictures and a few short words.

#2. In-House Interviews

Interviews create timeless pieces of content. Best of all, you don’t have to reach out and worry about getting rejected by industry leaders for an interview. 

Take a moment to find the most knowledgeable people in your company. What talents and skills are their expertise? What information could they share to add value to your target audience? 

Some ideas for interviewing the experts at your company include: 

• Opinions about industry trends and insights
• Common pitfalls and problems with customers
• Inspiration and personal stories 

It takes just a few minutes to come up with a list of ideas and no more than an hour to sit down with an employee to interview them on what they’re doing and what they know. Afterwards, the interview can be sent to a ghostwriter to create small articles, blog posts and social media content. You can also use these interviews as a PDF attachment to share with your customers or feature it in a newsletter. 

Here’s how Zappos shared a compelling story about one of their employees. 

In 2018, Eileen Koutsulis was diagnosed with cancer. Her emotional and inspiring story shares strength, courage and survival in her fight against breast cancer.

“We’ve found we are most successful when we view initiatives and content as an extension of our company, adhering to our values,” says Kristin Richmer, a marketing manager at Zappos. “You have to stay true to the brand’s core and execute on initiatives that are genuine.”

#3. Smartphone Content

Perhaps the easiest way to produce low-effort content marketing is with your smartphone. To get started, all you have to do is prop a smartphone in a room, and in less than a minute, you can create a piece of content to share on your social media platforms. 

Content created on a smartphone needs little to no editing. The raw, uncut version of the video gives it an authentic feel that fits perfectly into the content added to Instagram, Snapchat and websites. It also lets the people who view it become familiar with who you are and how you do business.

Use your smartphone to capture video and audio. Both can be used to create a blog post with a short description to describe the purpose of the piece. 

An example of smartphone content with an effective impact on an audience can be seen from Gary Vaynerchuk’s social media and content marketing strategy:

Gary Vee often captures the culture, lifestyle and ideas of his company using a smartphone. From interviews to public talks, he regular documents his daily experiences and finds a unique angle to refurbish this for content on his social media. 

“I continually post ‘micro-content’ that is distributed to my Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Quora, and many of my other social channels,” says Gary Vee. “I am constantly creating and posting as much content as possible and in a way that is contextual to each platform.”

What’s Your Low-Effort Content Marketing Strategy? 

All of these ideas require a low production effort while providing a highly powerful strategy to attract, engage and connect with your customers. Don’t overthink your content marketing. Simply grab your phone, interview your team and enjoy the immediate benefits that low-effort content can bring to your business.