The third industrial revolution, which happened in the late ’90s, changed the world forever. All of a sudden, we were fascinated by the speed of an email, an enormous amount of data found on Google and millions of people fired up their dial-up modems and started building this scary miracle we call the Internet. For the last twenty years, every major business has been defined by it, and the automotive industry was one of the first to embrace its potential fully. Of course, primarily for marketing purposes.

Outsourcing

The Internet also gave a whole new dimension to the term “outsourcing”. The job market expanded to the entire world, and thousands of talented people shared ideas and innovative concepts without any borders. In fact, the democratisation of the job market and the flow of fresh blood through the industry is one of the most positive aspects of the 21st-century business culture. It didn’t just change the world; it made it better, more exciting and bursting with new concepts.

The rise of this approach was felt throughout the industry and revolutionised the way we recognised new ideas, led creative processes, and the way content itself was generated. Currently, over 84% of companies are outsourcing their content one way or the other. Outsourcing proves to be vastly superior if your brand depends on innovative ideas and wants to attract new customers. In automotive marketing, outsourcing is one of the best ways to generate content and stay relevant in changing markets. Here’s why…

Motivation

In most cases, outsourcing companies are groups of passionate individuals that entered the world of content creation out of a sheer need to create, write, design or envision something unique. Those people with specific interests probably didn’t find the article they wanted to read, so they wrote it themselves. People who spend hours searching for similar content on the Internet and that would do this even if they weren’t paid for it. Their main fuel is their passion, not financial gain, making them highly motivated partners any major company want to have on their team.

Unique Perspective

Since outsourcing companies consist of the fans first and content creators second, they often have unique information about the topic and particular perspectives. This approach resonates better with the customers or users who can relate to a specific tone better than a more formal way of communicating, which you can expect from somebody who is considering it just a job. If the brand wants to create a bond with the customer, who is better to deliver the message than the enthusiasts who just happen to be content creators? If you are looking for fresh takes, you should outsource your content marketing.

The Ability To Adapt

We all know that the modern world of content marketing is changing rapidly, and by the time you finish reading this article, a fresh idea or trend will appear somewhere. Outsourced content creators are far more likely to accept and recognise those new ideas and implement them in their work than their colleagues from more rigid structures of big companies. Being active in the outsourcing market is all about evolving and polishing your skills to perfection, so having that kind of crew on your corner is an excellent asset to your company.

Cost

Besides the obvious benefits of outsourcing, one of the big points is also the costs. Outsourcing is always more affordable than having a full-time content creation department in terms of salaries/fees and office space and equipment. Let’s say, for example, that your company is looking for automotive video material… There is simply no point in having a scriptwriter, cameramen, technicians, drivers and sound engineer on the payroll when you can outsource it for a fraction of the cost.

Flexibility

Basing your business on outsourced content might be a little bit scary for some people but can reward you with extreme flexibility and expand your horizons. Working with many different people will increase the flow of ideas and provide you with fresh perspective and information that can affect the course you will steer your company. Hiring someone or letting them go is far more straightforward and cheaper than doing the interviews, deciding from a number of candidates and providing them with the office and a desk.

Finding A Reliable Partner For The Future

We all know that the future is uncertain. In order to expand your business, you will need reliable partners. In a digital world, your reliable partners are companies that help you create content marketing and achieve your goals.

Many of the automotive brands we meet invest a considerable amount of their own time and effort into creating content across their websites, blogs and social media channels without getting anything in return. This is often under the belief that an agency cannot fully understand and therefore properly represent their business, brand and proposition. In the unlikely event they are excellent copywriters (a skillset in itself), they are often missing the technical skills of content marketing and left to guess focus keywords, frequency and position, titles, meta descriptions, linking etc. While this may also be true of a general agency working across multiple markets, WDA has been specialising solely within the automotive market for over 20 years, and has extensive experience in many of its sectors. We will, of course, need a little time to get to know you and your brand more intimately, but our specialism enables us to get up to speed fast to deliver purposeful content that stimulates your target audience into action.

Our specialist team is happy to conduct a FREE initial content audit to establish which pages are driving traffic to your website, and which are bouncing visitors – and why. We will then advise how we could help improve traffic and engagement across your site. This could involve improving (optimising) what is already there, re-writing content or making suggestions on writing new keyword-focussed pages to better represent your offering. In each case the objective is the same: maximise opportunities to build relationships with your audience – and ultimately to convert them into customers.

Contact us to request your FREE audit.

repurpose your content

Have you ever created a brilliant piece of content for your blog, shared it, promoted it and left it at that? I think if we’re being honest, most of us have done this and probably more than once. Creating a great piece of content that your audience loves takes time, so why not put a little extra in it to make it go even further?

Here are a few tips on repurposing your content…

Create an infographic

Infographics are impactful and engaging and are in fact, 30 times more likely to be read than a written piece of content. Create an infographic from your content with the most important snippets out of it and include facts/stats where you can. Icons also work great.

Record a podcast

Podcasts continue to grow in popularity with many listening to them in the car, while exercising and also while working. Creating and recording a podcast can be done for free with sites such as Anchor FM. Podcasts provide an alternative way for users to consume your content on the go – while driving, exercising, working and more.

Turn it into a video

Video is the most engaging content format there is and is proven to boost engagement and conversions. Production quality doesn’t have to be great, it’s about the content. Videos can even be recorded on a smartphone, edited in a free software program and then shared via social media and on YouTube.

Share short snippets for social media

Take out short snippets and quotes from your content piece to share across social media. The content can be drip fed almost over weeks and months and each individual post can be linked back to the original content piece.

Did you know that 43% of business owners report that they either don’t really know what blogging is and/or don’t blog for their own business and brands? Now consider that 55% of those that do utilise blogging actually consider it their main inbound marketing tactic – and say they have directly benefitted from it.

These general stats seem to reflect our own experiences within the Automotive Sector. We see a range of different attitudes towards blogging, from those who don’t see any real value, to those who know they should do it, but don’t fully understand its place within their marketing activities. We also come across businesses who have excellent blog sections on their websites and are consistently generating considered, well written and properly optimised content which is fully joined up with their digital marketing and is directly driving business and sales.

Unless your content marketing is absolutely flying, please read on as WDA’s Digital Marketing Expert, Matt Tudge, outlines 5 key ways effective blogging can help you and your automotive business:

1) Relationship building

Starting up a blog is your first step in building better quality relationships with your potential customers and your existing customers. Talk directly to them in your blog articles by answering their questions, providing solutions to their pain points and by providing guidance. Automotive business blogging will help you to both bolster existing relationships and establish new ones.

2) Establishing your business as an expert

Blogging regularly about important topics that your audience is interested in will help to establish your business as an industry expert. A blog article might be the first page a new prospect lands on after searching for an answer to their question for example. Here’s your chance to impress. Get your expert opinion and advice across to them in the article and you’ll start generating a stream of regular visitors looking to you as the expert for help and advice.

3) Become a go-to resource

This further expands on the above in that if you can engage your audience and provide content that inspires and informs them then you will build trust and they will look to you in the future to solve other problems. As a ‘thought leader’ you can become their go-to source within your field of expertise. The opportunity to monetise this relationship comes when your audience turns to you first with a need or a problem that can be specifically satisfied or solved with one of your products or services. This removes a lot of the competitor research a prospect might otherwise make and puts your automotive business in pole position for the sale.

4) Drive more traffic & boost your organic presence

The automotive industry is extremely competitive globally and within every sub-sector across both B2C and B2B markets. Therefore, getting as much brand visibility as possible is paramount. Creating quality content through blogging helps with this by:

– Driving extra organic traffic by having your blog articles indexed in the search engines and ranking well. This requires a solid keyword strategy based on ongoing keyword research, optimising your content for search and promoting it on your website, on Social Media and in email.

– Boosting your existing organic presence through internal linking from the articles to your core pages and by checking off some of Google’s key ranking factors – fresh content and hopefully great user engagement.

5) Convert and delight

Finally, the right sort of blog content can help you and your automotive business to convert website traffic into leads through benefit-driven copy with calls to action. It can also be used to delight existing customers through industry-relevant news and opinion pieces, product guides, product tips and much more.

Start taking advantage of blogging and content marketing

WDA has been specialising within the Automotive market for over 20 years and has been successfully driving business for our 2 and 4 wheel clients across both B2C and B2B markets, and a wide range of sectors including Manufacturer, OEM, Aftermarket, Motorsport, Performance, Accessories and Auto Technology. Our automotive industry specialism enables us to get up to speed with your business FAST to deliver purposeful content that will stimulate your target audience into action.

If you’d like help to get your blogging and content marketing driving more business then get in touch with our team today on 01332 372728 or email [email protected].

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