Content Marketing has become a very challenging industry today.

Every day 75 million posts are published, and 30,000 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube every hour.

Clearly, there is so much content being produced every day.

And it’s very hard to stand out.

Yet again the only way to be successful in content marketing is to stand out. To publish a lot of high quality content. That’s quantity and quality; two strategies that rarely go together.

With more content, the quality diminishes and on the other hand you need a lot of time to create great quality content which means less output.

But how can you do both of this?

By implementing these five strategies that will make your work stand above your competition.

1. Develop Better Strategies

One characteristic of top performers in any industry is that they build strategies that give them an edge above the rest.

Warren Buffet, one of the richest men on earth, uses long term value investing to build his wealth over decades and is now regarded as the most successful investor in human history.

Conor McGregor built a war strategy of defeating his enemies even before they step into the cage through mental deconstruction. He became a 2 Division Champion, the most successful UFC fighter and rose to the highest paid athlete.

Both high achievers developed smart strategies and used them to gain an advantage over the rest.

You should do the same. You need to find better ways of doing things.

In one strategy I’ve discovered that improves productivity in content writing is by changing your writing method.

Instead of typing, use dictation writing.

On average, people type around 40 words per minute, but they speak over 150 words per minute.

Using dictation can let you produce three times as much content as compared to typing within the same time.

And we haven’t even factored in the time people waste second guessing, rereading and editing their work.

With dictation blogging you are forced to speak out your content from the start to finish without stopping.

Some practitioners write 20,000 words per day and even more using this method. Of course after practicing well and mastering the techniques.

This is one system you can develop. There are many more, crawl the internet and find out.

2. Do what most people don’t do

Most people regurgitate content from the internet. They do search analysis and identify the topics they want to write about.

Then read the first five posts in the search engine results page and combine ideas from each article and rewrite it.

In short, it is just like plagiarized creativity.

That’s low quality content which serves no purpose and adds no value to readers.

But it’s easy and fast to create, that’s why most people do it.

If you want to stand out though you need to do what the best in the top bloggers do.

They research content, gather information from different genres and write in their perspective. This brings new ideas and perspectives to readers, which adds value to the existing content.

Unfortunately, it takes more time to create such high quality content. Because of the mental input and time required to come up with opinions.

But the end result of publishing high quality content is good conversion, increased brand awareness, and a high likelihood of success in the content marketing industry.

While you strive for quantity, remember that a single high quality long form article can bring more success to a blog than hundreds of low quality articles.

3. Repurpose your content

There are many types of content; videos, blog posts, images, podcasts, infographics among others.

For a long time, it was crucial to focus on one type of content to succeed. This meant you needed to work on your main outlet and make sure it’s doing well.

But now it’s equally important to have a foot on every platform to stay competitive. This means having a YouTube channel, blog, podcast and social media profiles.

Because if you don’t you’ll be giving a cold shoulder to some of your target readers.

So you need to touch base in every platform possible by repurposing your content

A good process would be to

1. Recording a video and publish on Youtube
2. Extract the video’s audio, edit it and publish as a podcast
3. Transcribe the podcast into a blog post, SEO optimize it and publish on your blog
4. Design infographics to present data in easily digestible chunks and publish on social media.
5. Create a Slide Presentation and share on SlideShare

I mean the list is endless.

Gary Vee, a content marketing expert and millionaire produces over 60 pieces of content a day through repurposing. That’s how he is one of the best in the content marketing industry.

4. Use tools to Expedite your work

As a human, you have physical and mental limitations.

There is so much you can do and these limitations in your abilities can prevent you from producing high quality content fast.

That is why you need to expedite your work using smart tools.

For instance use tools to

• Plan and Manage your projects: Asana and ClickUp
• Proofread your content: Grammarly and Hemmingway Editor
• Manager social media posting in engagement: Buffer and Hootsuite
• Rewrite or repurpose your work: Article Spinners
• Design graphic Images: Canva and Visme
• Research your competition: Ahrefs and Buzzsumo
• Research topics to write about: Google Trends and Moz

Using these tools gives you an edge above your competitors

One secret top bloggers and vloggers never tell you is how much they invest in tools to gather information and improve their productivity. It’s a lot!

To make money, you gotta spend money. For some, their monthly budgets on superior tools can sustain you for months.

You cannot afford to ignore these tools. It’s like going into a gunfight with a slingshot. You will not last a second.

5. Network like crazy

How many times have you had that ‘your network is your net worth”

In Content Marketing today with the level of competition, this statement makes more sense than anything else.

It’s too competitive. People are writing great content. And it’s hard to stand out, let alone compete with established blogs.

That’s why you need to network like crazy.

Get out there and interact with people in your industry that have built a reputation for themselves.

Collaborate with thought leaders, work with them and market both your brands and theirs.

This will open doors for you.

Networking works like backlink building. In builds on your reputation

Backlinks build a blog’s authority. They are like votes of confidence from other bloggers and the more you get them especially from established brands, the more your domain authority improves

Search engines recognize you and rank your content higher and get more traffic.

If you want to improve your ascend to the top in content marketing, involve reputable individuals and watch your reputation grow.

Conclusion

Every passing day, content marketing gets more competitive. It’s very hard to start a blog today and rank high within the first year. But smart people like Adam Enfroy have done that.

Through working smart rather than hard.

You can do the same.

• Develop strategies that lets you work smart
• Focus more on the things that most people don’t do because they are hard
• Repurpose your content and spread your brand message
• Make use of smart tools to get things done smooth and fast
• Network with experts and influencers in your industry

Lastly, make sure you offer value through whatever you put out there. Use your own perspective and experiences to package your content in a creative and unique way that resonates with your audience.

That way, readers will connect with your story and trust your content above all else.