7 ways to encourage content ideas and input from your in-house experts
Make the most of the content resources you already have – your in-house pool of subject-matter experts…
- Make it a game. Create a scoreboard, post winners, award comedy prizes at team meetings for the best/biggest contributions.
- Show people the results. Go back to people who gave you useful ideas or material and show them what you did with their efforts. Seeing the difference they made can encourage further contributions.
- Stroke the ego. Many people are motivated by the chance of performing or elevating their own personal brand. A chance to feature in a video, earn a byline or show off some knowledge can be a strong incentive.
- Make it easy. Don’t expect busy people to draft polished pieces of content for you – offer to work something up from a few bullet points on an email, or interview some quotes from them and show them a draft for a quick review.
- Show some give and take. People with great ideas and insights need to be nurtured, as in any productive relationship. Take an interest in their work and their expertise, and when someone contributes to your content effort look for opportunities to return the favour.
- Say thank you. An obvious point, but all too often overlooked. No one likes to work without acknowledgement. And make a point of telling people if the content they contributed to generated great feedback or conversions.
- Make it part of the job. More radical, perhaps, but if you’re serious about effective content marketing then make contributing ideas and insights an integral part of people’s job descriptions. Then they can make more time for you and be assessed on their efforts.
