The benefits of effective content marketing can be considerable. Yale Appliance is a Boston, Massachusetts-based domestic appliance store with an accompanying ecommerce site. Its CEO, Steve Sheinkopf, has been blogging since 2007, with more strategic marketing since 2011. The output includes useful blogs, informative videos on brand choices, in-store cooking shows and free how-to guides. Revenue has increased by 40 per cent since 2009, and this can partly be attributed to social media activities.

One quality shines through the above case study, perhaps more than any other: The consistency -plugging away, day in day out over seven years and counting. This is not so easy to emulate, especially for hard-pressed SMEs. However, there are some steps you can take to help yourself become more consistent.

First, get the logistics covered. Make sure everyone in involved in the campaign knows how and where to post content. If necessary get people trained on the relevant editorial tools. Methodically plan your content drops, perhaps making use of a shared calendar.

Next, make sure you have top-down buy-in. Everyone, especially the MD, needs to know there’s a campaign going on, and that it’s running for a while (that’s the important part!). One way of getting such buy-in is to encourage executives to contribute with their own blogs or social posts. They may even feel flattered to be asked. This kind of buy-in keeps momentum going on a long-term campaign.

Use narratives: Find a story to tell about your brand, whether in words or movie clips, then break that story down in to episodes. Releasing a story in bite-sized chunks can be a real boon to long-term campaigns and helps to build a following.

Finally, help is available, should you require it, from ourselves here at Pressroom, where we can provide just the content you require at short notice; in a way which fits in with your business objectives.

Steven Morris