10 Content Scaling Lessons from HubSpot, Databox, and Zapier that B2B Businesses Can Follow in 2022

By Ron Stefanski

Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a content marketer who’s part of a larger team, there’s always a need for high-quality content and scaling up is a necessary part of building your brand. 

 

But, content scaling for B2B businesses is a lot easier said than done. In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, 64% of content marketers state that creating a scalable content strategy is one of their biggest challenges. 

 

If you are looking for ways to scale up your content production while maintaining a high level of quality, read on to discover secrets from successful brands like HubSpot, Databox, and Zapier that you can emulate in 2022.  While some of these content scaling practices are followed by all of these companies, there are certain strategies that each specialize in.

1. Conduct Audience Research

The first tip when creating a content marketing guide is to get to know your audience better. 

 

You should never create and market articles and posts just because you can. Your content on your website, socials, and email newsletters must be relevant and value-packed in order for it to be effective and bring in healthy ROI (return on investment). 

 

That’s why you need a strong content marketing strategy with detailed steps for increasing your content production - and that all starts with learning more about your audience. 

 

Take the time to brainstorm a forward-thinking content strategy. 

 

Anticipate your customers’ desires and needs. Research the types of content and digital media that appeal to your target market so that when you do start creating content, it is worthwhile and appeals to your ideal readers’ needs.

2. Create a Style Guide

This is an important step that will play a pivotal role in the level of quality of your scaled content. 

 

Creating a style guide before you scale production will help you keep writers on message and allow you to maintain consistency across different types of content. 

 

To create an effective style guide, start with the basics, which include:

 

• Brand guidelines
• Word count
• Standard heading styles
• Link frequency
• Keyword frequency
• Image quantity

This will help you avoid inconsistencies in your content, and it's also helpful for establishing marketing personas that help to direct writers toward the specific needs and interests of different customers.

3. Create an Organized Content Calendar

Developing a content calendar in advance will save you a lot of time and frustration down the road by allowing you to map out publication dates so you can easily align your content with seasonal demand and product launches, as well as your business's overall objectives. 

 

Your editorial calendar doesn't have to be complex either. It can be as simple as a Google spreadsheet with all the topics you want to cover in the coming months.

 

Just make sure you include a healthy mix of content formats to keep your blog readers engaged. 

 

But, rather than simply publishing posts about everything under the sun, make it easier for your readers to navigate your website and find what they're looking for by using pillars and topic clusters.

 

You might emulate HubSpot's pillar/cluster model which they used to transform their blog and create a better user experience.

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You can read more about HubSpot’s pillar/cluster model for transforming your blog here. 

4. Plan Out Your Content Schedule

 

Plan out your blog content at least six months in advance, so that you know exactly what type of content you are creating and when it's set to be published. 

 

This not only helps you reduce stress, but it also allows you to save time by batching many of the writing tasks such as keyword research. 

 

You'll be surprised just how much time you save when you don't have to log into a keyword research tool each time you need to write a post for your blog!

 

The great thing about planning out your content calendar is that it's not set in stone and you can always add, change, shuffle, or remove things if necessary. 

5. Establish a Content Production Workflow

Writing content isn't a single step. If you break down your entire writing process into smaller steps, it might look something like this:

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From planning and research to finding keywords, choosing a content format, outlining, and designing creative visuals, there is a lot involved before you even begin the actual writing.

 

Although your process may look different from the one shown in the image above (with more or fewer steps), the goal remains the same. 

 

Document all the steps that you or your team follow when creating content so you can get experienced professionals to help you with as many of those steps as possible. 

 

This is the only way to scale content creation effectively, especially if you are using the written content to generate scripts for podcasts, online courses, or YouTube video content 

 

When integrating written content with podcast hosting tools, online course platforms, or other content creation software, make sure to document how the writing was used, modified, and integrated with these pieces of software so that you can easily replicate the entire content creation process for each episode of your podcast or online course lesson.

6. Expand Your Team

Now that you have everything in place, it's time to ramp up content production by outsourcing to experienced freelance writers. 

 

The secret here is to find professional writers with the knowledge and skill to create high-quality content that is not only engaging but also fits your brand tone and style.

 

For this reason, it’s important that you only work with experts in your field. 

 

Reach out to writers who specialize in your topics via social media or email design-builder and propose a way for you to work together. 

 

Depending on how fast you want to scale content production, you might also consider using a content production company that can serve as an extremely effective asset provided you already have your clear marketing plan, style guide, and editorial calendar in place.

7. Use Automation Tools

Content scaling can't happen effectively without automation. If you haven't already, you need to choose and adopt the right time-saving email marketing software to help automate as much of your workflow as possible. Also, consider using email client platforms to keep all emails in one place.  This will make your life a heck of a lot easier as you try to manage everything.

 

Begin by identifying existing tools that your team can leverage to save time, build internal systems, and increase efficiency. 

 

For instance, if you already use Slack as a communication platform, you can make the most of it to enable your team to discuss projects, strategy, timelines, etc. in designated channels. 

 

You might consider uploading important documents, such as your brand guidelines, style guide, editorial calendar, etc. to Google Docs to make it easy for everyone to search for and find up-to-date information. 

8. Increase the Reach and Impact of Your Content

Putting the right content in front of the right audience will help you increase its reach and impact across various marketing channels. 

 

One effective way to do this is by offering affiliates editable content which they can use in their marketing efforts. 

 

Zapier is a great example of a brand that uses this strategy successfully.

 

The company used an integration-based SEO strategy to create over 25,000 high-converting landing pages in a very short space of time. 

 

Each of the pages was created by one of the platform’s 2,000 app integration partners using Zapier’s editorial guidelines. 

 

This is a great way for the company to scale its content production. It works particularly well because since partners write their own copy, the workload is reduced for Zapier.

 

Also, it increases the content’s quality since individual apps can write better copy about themselves and may even have a copywriter on staff compared to having it written by a third party, as evidenced by the example below from Airtable:

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9. Track, Measure, and Tweak Results

Now comes a very important step which unfortunately a lot of marketers skip: Tracking your results. 

 

There is no point in scaling content production if you’re only creating useless content that your target audience doesn't get any value from. 

 

So, you want to continually evaluate how your scaled content is performing and incorporate necessary changes to optimize the results from your scaling efforts.

 

An easy and efficient way to monitor your website content is to track it using Google Analytics. This tool is free, and it will show you a lot of helpful metrics, such as:

 

• The most popular content on your website
• Your biggest traffic referral sources
• The most successful funnels 

 

You can also use social media to boost your content marketing strategy by integrating it within the existing parts of your digital marketing mix. There are even specialized social media analytics tools that understand how your current customers and prospects engage with the different types of content you post so you can find what type of content your audience engages with most frequently. 

10. Make the Most of Scaled Content 

The goal of scaling your content production is to become the hub of information flowing from all directions pertaining to your product, service, business, brand, and audience.

 

This may be a bit difficult to achieve if you only rely on the content you produce. 

 

After all, producing high-quality content costs money, and most businesses have limited budgets. 

 

Luckily, there are several things you can do to help you produce tons of high-quality content like videos for promotions, even if you have very little time and money to spend on content production. 

 

These include:

 

• Curating content from across the web
• Repurposing old content into new formats
• Sending one message on multiple platforms
• Providing editable content to associates and affiliates
• Leveraging the power of user-generated content

 

User-generated content, in particular, is a popular way to scale up your content production significantly while keeping expenses low. 

 

Databox is a great example of a brand that does this successfully. 

Source

 

The company proves that you don't have to create all your content yourself and that you don't have to spend a fortune to succeed at content marketing. 

 

The Databox content team regularly crowdsources content from its fans and customers and often shares stories and asks questions on the platform’s Facebook page. 

 

This helps to increase engagement from followers and shows them that the brand respects their opinions and isn’t afraid to source new ideas from outside the company.

Conclusion

There you have it. 10 lessons from the most successful brands on how to scale your content production.

 

Use these tips to help you keep up with content production demands so you can boost your online presence and supercharge your content marketing results. 

 

Ron Stefanski is an online entrepreneur and professor who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business.  You can learn more from him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com

You can also connect with him on YouTube or Linkedin.

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