The Content Marketing Road Map – Great Read Over at CMI

In his recent article, The Content Marketing Road Map – How to Build Your Own Content Marketing Plan, Michael Brenner lists 7 factors to content marketing success.

They are:

1. Document your content strategy. 

2. Put someone in charge.

3. Publish quality content consistently. 

4. Map content to consumer journey. 

5. Balance paid, owned, and earned media.

6. Focus on subscriptions.

7. Track content marketing ROI.

The hardest part for most law firms is publishing content on a regular basis.

As is evident from this blog post, I think the easiest way to publish quality content consistently is through content curation.

With the vast amount of content available on any subject, the winners will be those who provide a one-stop-shop for readers. With content curation, you can become a hub for anyone looking for information on your topic.

And, all you have to do is play reporter. You don’t have to create all the content from scratch, which is what makes this part of marketing seem so daunting.

Although this post went longer than expected, you don’t have to write a long opinion piece about the content being curated. You can simply introduce the article you read and provide a link for your readers to have a look.

Taking this one step further, the most important step in content curation is staying up to date on what is being published in your space.

For this I use a Google Chrome extension called Pocket (not the app in the Chrome Store, the extension). Once installed, this extension puts a little button at the top of your browser.

When you see something of interest to your audience, click the Save to Pocket button and that page will be filed away for later. Then when you’re ready to curate and share, you can quickly sort through all the stories in your Pocket and share the ones you think are most valuable to your reader.

Another sleeper of a tool is the Web 2.0/RSS Aggregator called RebelMouse. With this I like to mash a bunch of relevant RSS feeds together so I can see them all in one place. When I’m ready to curate, I simply browse my RebelMouse homepage and share what I think my audience will like most.

Another valuable takeaway from Michael’s article

“There are many more people in the early stages of the buyer journey than there are people who are ready to buy. You have to understand how people move from asking “what is” and “why is this important” questions to “how do I do it,” “who does it,” and “how much does it cost?” Balance your content production accordingly. Most brands focus too much time, energy, and resources on the fewer late-stage consumers.”

When you see lawyers on social media saying things like, “If you’ve been injured in a car accident, call me now!” that’s what is meant by focusing on the late-stage consumers.

There are a bigger pool of people out there earlier on in the buying process.

Personal injury law does have a much shorter buying phase, almost by definition, but there are still more people out there researching the topic than there are interviewing attorneys.

Understand that you are speaking to people at different points in that process. Provide a nice mix for each type of person.

Useful tool used in the article

If you’re wondering how they create “click to tweet” sentences right in the article, they use a free service by the same name – Click to Tweet.

How this relates to SEO for law firms

Like I’ve said before, content marketing and SEO are two sides of the same coin.

Top ranking law firms are all content publishers [CLICK TO TWEET]

Simply creating a 10-page website and linking to it is no longer effective. Unless you are publishing content on a regular basis, and as a byproduct of that content, becoming a trusted authority in your field, Google will pay less and less attention to you moving into the future.

What do you think? How has content marketing helped your law firm gain new clients and be more visible in Google search? Leave a comment below.