Your workload is heavy; it’s so heavy that you often wonder how you get things done. In the world of online promotions, there is an industry secret that the experts know: two heads are better than one. This is why collaborative content marketing is going to streamline your productivity and save your life.

What is Collaborative Content Marketing?

In the early days of advertising, there were newspaper articles, posters, and billboards to promote products and services. In this way, the advertisers relied on consumers seeing the original message, wherever it was published, and deciding to purchase the product.

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As the planet evolves, so do our marketing systems. Now, you can leverage television, radio, print, web, and guerrilla strategies to fill your lead funnels, build relationships, and sell. Your message can go viral in a matter of minutes, with the right tactics.

Content marketing is the online portion of your marketing strategy that involves creating valuable copy, images, and video to attract your target audience to your landing and sales pages. In 2017, approximately 70% of B2B marketers plan to create more content compared to 2016; this is because content marketing is effective, inexpensive, and the return on investment is high.

Collaborative content marketing is to team up with others to create an experience that helps more than one person reach their goals. The mutually-beneficial tactic is one of the most effective branches of marketing today. Learn why you should try each of these tactics and increase professional success.

Why Should You Host Guest Authors on Your Blog?

Hosting guest authors is when you open the back door of your website to other content marketing professionals so they can share their expertise on your website. This is free content, which saves you the money you would have otherwise spent on it. At the same time, guest writers are able to include URLs directing people to their content — this helps them build brand authority and backlinks.

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WritetoDone includes best practices in their guest post guidelines for articles about fiction and nonfiction writing and marketing tips.

Leverage the benefits of guest blogging on your website:

1. Decide what type of content you want to showcase on your blog, including topics, word count, and formatting (headers, paragraph styles, images, etc.).
2. Set a blogging schedule, and decide how many guest post contributions you will need to keep the calendar full.
3. Write out the parameters for guest bloggers to find on your website. Include delivery and communication methods.
4. Delegate someone on your team to handle blogging administration.
5. Let potential writers know that you accept guest blog posts through your desired promotional channel.

The Benefits of Writing Expert Roundups

An expert roundup is a compilation of answers and advice from leaders in a specific industry. The benefits to this collaborative tactic is that (1) you can get leaders to share your content, (2) the expertise helps you build authority on the topic, and (3) it can improve SEO on your website. Those you include in your roundup love it because it provides them with a seat on the web next to the most popular in their industry.

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The Small Business Ideas Blog used this tactic to facilitate thousands of post shares in How to Promote Your Blog Content: 40+ Experts Share Marketing Tips.

Here’s how to write an expert roundup:

1. Find a problem to solve or question to answer — something insanely valuable to your readers or target audience.
2. Seek out leaders whose names are familiar in the industry.
3. Find out what the leaders have to say about your topic. Before you write the article, reach out to the leaders personally to let them know what you’re doing.
4. Write the valuable insights you collect.
5. Publish the article on your website.
6. Follow through with your regular sharing routing + ask the experts to share your post. Most leaders will be happy to see their name listed among other authorities in their niche, and will want their followers to see a post like this.

How Interviewing Authorities Will Help Everyone

An authority interview is similar to an expert roundup, except you delve deeply into the thoughts and opinions of just one authority. This helps you piggyback the traffic that comes in when your interviewee shares the post. The person being interviewed is given a chance to toot their own horn, which people naturally love. Best of all, your readers will love the trustworthy, intimate feel of your post.

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Some organizations, like NPR, include an entire interview section on their website.

Use this system to interview an authority:

1. Choose an authority in your niche, and reach out to ask if they are interested in being interviewed.
2. Create a list of interview questions.
3. Set up an interview. It’s acceptable to conduct the interview via phone, Skype, email, in-person, or any other way you and the interviewee so choose.
4. Publish the interview answers — along with your own personal commentary — on your blog.
5. Let the interviewee know that the post has been published and ask them to share it with their followers.

This is When an EBook Serves More Than One Company

Ebooks serve more than one purpose. Authors primarily use eBooks to build authority or fill a lead funnel; they can also be implemented as a product to earn revenue. You can use this tool as a means of collaboration. When you include links to authority articles, tools, and websites, you create the opportunity for those mentioned to share your work. The authorities you link to may want to brag about the fact that they’ve been branded as such.

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Uberflip’s ebook, Data-Driven Marketing: How to Create and Optimize a Content Strategy with Data at it’s Core, links to popular tools like BuzzSumo.

How to Create and Promote a Collaborative Marketing Ebook:

1. Outline the topic you want to write about.
2. Conduct necessary research.
3. Write the book, including links to authority content.
4. Edit and format the book, including imagery and book design that keeps readers engaged.
5. Make sure to include a link back to your own website.
6. Sell your ebook on a specialized ecommerce platform or give it away for free as a lead generation tool.
7. Let authorities know that you have linked to their content, products, or services in your eBook and offer them a free copy. Many of them will be inclined to share your work.
8. Implement your typical content outreach strategy to let your followers know about the new product.

Fundamental Tips for Collaborative Content Marketing Success

As you embark on the journey of collaboration success, understand that as with all types of advertising and marketing, it is easy to get carried away. Use these tips to stay on-track.

• Create a plan — Your efforts will be fruitless without a solid content marketing strategy and goals.
• Be relevant — Find out what your readers want and deliver it. Make sure your topics are relevant to your target audience.
• Provide value — Touch on your readers’ pain points and provide actionable solutions to their problems.
• Avoid spam — The last type of content that readers want is an article or eBook full of self-promotional chatter. Include links to your own products or service only when it provides both relevance and value.
• Leverage tools — You can utilize services like Essay Writer Pro for affordable, convenient, fast assistance from a real person. Employ tools like Grammarly for real-time editing and proofreading from your browser or smartphone. Take advantage of CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to test the effectiveness of your blog headlines.
• Test your campaigns — When implementing any new marketing campaign, it’s critical to run tests to find out what is working and what is failing. When a strategy helps you meet your goals, you’re on the right track. Adjust your tactics when a campaign isn’t getting the results you hope for.

Conclusion

By now, you should be ready to undertake collaborative content marketing for your own business. Start accepting guest posts on your blog. Write expert roundups and conduct interviews. Write an eBook that strokes influencers’ egos. These tactics will optimize traffic to your website. Just be ready to capture those leads when they start pouring in.