We all know that content rules the roost when it comes to attracting and engaging prospects. But content creation is time consuming. And if you work at a smaller organization, you might not have the resources to develop knock em’ dead content.

So, in the hope that I can save you time, sweat, and stress, here are a few tools and tips to streamline your content creation machine.

Infographics

Yep, these are everywhere. But folks don’t seem tired of them just yet. And if you want your marketing to spread like some knowledge-inducing game of telephone, these fit like Cinderella’s slipper.

How do you know if infographics are right for you? If your product or industry functions through complex processes, you might consider infographics. They’re a great tool for communicating complicated ideas in a straightforward, organized manner. Here’s an example from Return Path, and another from Marketo.

Now, I recognize that creating infographics of this caliber appears intimidating for resource starved companies. If you don’t have a designer on hand, visual.ly, Piktochart, and infogr.am are all tools that make it very easy to create attractive and effective infographics.

Presentations

Marketing is storytelling. You do it every time you speak to a lead, or pitch your product in a conference room. You probably even use a presentation to support your storytelling.

SlideShare allows you to post that presentation online, and share it with a huge audience of potential customers. SlideShare isn’t a new service, but I don’t hear people talking about it nearly enough. It’s easy, free, and versatile. You can’t really go wrong.

You can also use SlideShare to build your knowledge base, scope out the competition, and promote your own thought leadership activities.

Editorial Calendar

These take an upfront investment of time and effort. But it’ll pay off. Editorial calendars keep you flush with content ideas. They also keep your content creation activities organized.

Just use your calendar tool of choice, decide your blogging frequency, and choose the topic you want to blog about. It’s a good practice to align content with the seasons, holidays, pop culture events, etc.

If you really want to earn that gold star, decide on the style of your post: essay, bulleted list, short video, interview, etc., and include that in your calendar.

You should be also set to start brainstorming content ideas, and investigating the tools that’ll make your content creation machine more effective. If you have any ideas to add, feel free to share them in the comments.

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