How to Create an Expert

Crowdsourcing Marketing

Strategy in Just 4 Steps

Crowdsourcing Marketing StrategyHave you ever come to a point in your content marketing where you felt like you

couldn’t write even one more blog post? You’re not alone. A whopping 33 percent of

marketing professionals report that content is too labor intensive to create on a regular

basis—but what if there was a way to eliminate the difficulties of coming up with a

topic and actually writing the content?

Crowdsourcing—or the act of obtaining information or input from a group of people—is

an effective way to alleviate the potential for content marketing burnout and create

quality, engaging content. By involving your audience in the process of content

creation, you’re effectively drumming up interest in your post and improving its

potential to drive the results you want. Check out our four step process for creating an

expert crowdsourcing marketing strategy below.

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The 4-Step Crowdsourcing Marketing Strategy

Step #1: Determine Your GoalSo you want to crowdsource your next blog post—awesome! But first, you’ll have to figure

out what your ultimate goal is. It is crucial that you determine this before moving forward

with your crowdsourcing marketing strategy, as the end goal of your crowdsourcing efforts

informs both who you reach out to and how you do it.

For example, if the goal of your crowdsourced blog post is to improve your brand’s

authority within your industry, you may want to reach out to other industry bloggers rather

than your customers. On the other hand, if you’re looking to humanize your business and

improve engagement with your blog posts, you’ll likely want to touch base with customers

for your content.

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Step #2: Assess and Understand Your CrowdOnce you’ve determined the goal of your crowdsourced blog post, you can get started

honing in on who comprises your crowd. Are they loyal customers with positive brand

stories to share? Or perhaps they’re industry experts who can offer advice on how to use

your products more effectively?

After solidifying who makes up your crowd, go the extra step and create buyer personas for

them. These should include detailed information on their behaviors and motivations that

you can continue to refer to (check out our previous blog post on buyer personas for

greater detail.) Understanding your crowd on a more personal level—including their

interests, where they source new information, and where they most like to spend their time

online—will be a great help during the next step of the crowdsourcing marketing strategy

process: reaching out to your crowd.

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Step #3: Develop an Outreach StrategyThis is possibly the most difficult step of the four. To crowdsource effectively, you need to

actually connect with your crowd, and you’ll need to figure out a way to do so that intrigues

or compels them enough to respond. This is where your detailed buyer persona from step

#2 can come in handy—try to connect with your crowd in the corner of the internet where

they most like to reside and you’ve already improved your chances of hearing back.

For example, if your crowd lives on social media, develop a fun and engaging post—like a

Twitter Poll—that provides them topic options to choose from based on what they’re most

interested in reading about. They’ll appreciate being involved and will value that your

business takes their feedback into account. However, if your crowd consists of your most

loyal and long-time customers, a personalized email requesting content or topic ideas for

your next blog post might get you better results.

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Step #4: Compile and PromoteFinally, it’s time for you to compile the content you’ve crowdsourced and make it cohesive

so you can promote it to the masses. It’s important when putting together your blog post to

remain honest to the content you received from your crowd, as altering the words of the

crowdsourcees will make them unlikely to want to contribute again.

When it comes to promoting your blog post, the sky is the limit (literally, take to the skies

with sky writing!) Make sure to promote it across your social channels such as Facebook,

LinkedIn, and Twitter—especially if that’s where you spent most of your time

crowdsourcing—and to share the post with the people you sourced content from, as they’ll

likely want to share it amongst their networks, as well.

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Website: www.sevenatoms.com | Phone: 415.513.0435 | Email: info@sevenatoms.com

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