I listened to Ann Hadley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, speak at HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing event in Boston, MA. Ann spoke about “From boring to story: How to make your content rule.” Telling your story can transform your college, but not all content transforms.
Below are 12 steps on how to start turning your boring content into a story, because good enough isn’t good enough anymore!
1. Find your one thing – Think about the one specific problem content can help your college solve. Is your college’s online reputation damaged due to unhappy students and graduates? Then create content to help solve that problem. Find out more about our Online Reputation Management monitoring here.
2. Tell your story – How does your college help people?
2 1/2. Tell your untold story – Share something your prospects can’t get from visiting your college’s website.
3. Answer your FUQs (not FAQs) – Create content that answers your frequently unasked questions.
4. Make the customer the hero of the story – Feature your students and graduates in your content. Share their success with prospective students. Your prospects can relate to your students and graduates on an emotional level.
5. Re-imagine from existing collateral – Make 10 things out of one.
6. Go behind the scenes - Figure out what will solve issues of your prospective students and create content to do it.
7. Think brand journalism - Create a group of brand ambassadors. This group can be made up of students writing blog posts about their experience in the program they’re enrolled in.
8. Notice content moments everywhere - Whether it’s in the classroom, lab, on the floor cutting hair or doing nails and makeup, these moments that students are in class can be turned into content!
9. Create wings and roots - What is one thing that will make people think of your school when they hear
10. Think human – Content is about telling a true story well, it’s not about telling a story. Make emotional connections with the content your college produces.
11. Experiment – Create the unexpected.
12. Create a path (to conversion) – “Click here to download eBook on how to get started at XYZ University!”
When creating content keep in mind that your college’s story is what you can do for others, not what you do and/or sell. How is your college telling its story? Let us know by leaving a comment!