How to Modernize your Culture and Motivate Employees to Create Content | Auto Remarketing

One of the biggest challenges today is the fact that content is the cornerstone to successful marketing and businesses are having a hard time adapting to it. It’s difficult to create content when you’re busy operating a business or focusing your efforts on sales. One of the keys to overcoming this difficulty is to modernize your culture and implement programs to motivate employees to participate in the content marketing process.

Is it hard to get employees to buy into the value of participating in content creation? Yes. It’s painful for both management and their team members to work a new concept into their daily operational duties, especially for those who sell and don’t make a living unless they sell something.

However, now that customers are Googling salespeople, it’s crucial that each salesperson participate in content creation. The buyer’s journey typically starts online. Quality content helps your business and your employees get found in search and instills the perception that you’re the “likable expert.”

Modernize your Culture

Any shift needs to come from the top. If you (as the business owner) don’t buy into the idea of modernization, your employees won’t either. So check yourself and re-evaluate WHY you do what you do. Define your vision again and, if you need direction, seek advice to help develop it. Being able to consistently redefine and communicate your business’ “higher purpose” is the secret to modernizing your culture.

Companies that do this well make sure their ecosystem understands the larger world they operate in and how they fit into that world. Then, they activate their employees to tell authentic and personal stories about how they contribute.

The marketing manager may often find themselves in the role of teacher and coach. Teaching others how to write, how to share on social media, and how to build their personal brands.

True modernization craves owners and executives who embody this spirit – living and breathing the notion that your brand is more than what you sell.

Organizational development.

Create an atmosphere where employees are educated on what quality content is and how to recognize opportunities to capture it.

The blueprint to content marketing success lies in quality content. What is quality content? Information that’s relevant to your ideal (target) customers. The good news is that your employees hold a wealth of information that buyers want to know.

Modernize your culture by implementing a process to foster brainstorming sessions between your marketing team and your employees:

• Weekly meetings though Skype, Google Hangout or Zoom.us.
• Invite one small group (3-4) at a time
• Limit each session time to 1 hour max.
• Utilize a marketing content calendar or schedule as your base. Topics could include:
  • Customer concerns and FAQs
  • Stories about customer experience
  • Little known facts about the buying process
  • Technical aspects of your products
  • Local events that are noteworthy

Make it effortless for employees to contribute. Set up a special email or Dropbox account for employees to submit their ideas, written content, and videos. You may even want to use BaseCamp for bigger projects.

How to Motivate Employees to Create Content

The latest Edelman Trust Barometer (2014) study demonstrates the increasingly important role employees play in building trust. Since 2009, the credibility of employees has increased dramatically, ahead of that of the CEO.

One of the most difficult endeavors is figuring out how to motivate employees to share their ideas and participate in content creation. In the 5+ years since shifting away from running car dealerships to working as a marketer, I can say that it’s the biggest challenge for my clients to overcome.

Motivation starts with understanding that employees don’t do things because you ask them to. They do things because you’ve provided a reason that compels them to do what you’re asking. In top businesses, the culture can instill pride and ownership. Motivation happens in an atmosphere of working toward a common goal where everyone has a stake in the outcome.

If you’re a top business, congratulations! While all may aspire to be that top business, most businesses (for many, many reasons) are somewhere else on the scale.  The following tactics are useful in most every condition your business may be in. Try these maneuvers to motivate employees to participate in content creation:

• Offer spiffs (cash bonus) for the best or most-shared blog post, Facebook post, Tweet, Video or Image.
• Gamification: a little competition always stirs things up. Start a monthly or weekly competition for best content contribution. Every submission gets an entry so the more content employees provide, the more entries they get in the drawing. Draw names out of a hat at the end of the month or week. Offer cash prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
• Offer a prize (or day off?) for every positive review from a verified customer.
• Hold a monthly contest for the most creative customer testimonial–written or video. Pick three managers to judge.

Please use these building blocks to modernize your business culture and motivate employees to create content. Even though the web is noisy and crowded, there’s still a great opportunity for you to make a big impact on buyers. Act now and you’ll blow your competitors out of the water!

The post How to Modernize your Culture and Motivate Employees to Create Content appeared first on Kruse Control Inc.