Far and away, one of the most common reasons companies say they haven’t been able to achieve success with content marketing comes down to this variable: Time.

Individuals and companies are struggling—mightily—to find the time to produce content.

And I get that.

It’s not necessarily easy.

It won’t happen overnight.

But, when done right, it’s always worth it.

This being said, there are absolutely ways you can produce more content, at a faster rate, and more effectively. Some have been touched on already in this book. Others have not. Either way, they all work, as we’ve done them with our clients many times.

Every Single E-mail You Ever Send Out That Answers a Question Very Well May Be a Blog Post

I’m amazed at just how much content (through e-mail) the average business produces in a day. So many of these e-mails are to prospects and customers, answering their questions, giving them the information they seek. Sadly, most of this content is never used again.

One might call it a “content marketing tragedy.”

Here at The Sales Lion, we’ve seen client content production explode simply by adding one step to their educational (They Ask, You Answer) e-mails—bcc:ing someone in the marketing department so as to ensure that the content (assuming it’s a fit) gets used in the future. By simply adding this click of a mouse, content ideas are continually being generated, the marketing team keeps its fingers on the pulse of all the questions and issues the sales team are dealing with, and silos are torn down.

It’s powerful. Do it.

Start Talking to Yourself Out Loud—a Lot

We live in the digital age. At this point, we can drive down the road, talk into our phone as if it were a customer, and have it record everything we say. We can then send that recording to a transcription company, who in turn quickly sends us a text-based copy, and voilà—a blog article has been written.

Considering most business owners are better talkers than writers, this is a powerful way of producing a lot of solid content, fast. Of course, this isn’t the only way to do it; someone in the content department can easily do a sit-down interview with a thought leader, ask them questions, and walk away with plenty of valuable content.

Participate in Blogathons or Videoathons with Employees

If you have employees and want to create a lot of content in a short period of time, a blogathon just might be the perfect solution. By getting everyone in the office away from writing e-mails and assigning articles and videos to work on—all together and at one time—a company can truly do amazing things. At The Sales Lion, we had one company in the financial space produce more than fifty pieces of content in one day—all because they set aside the time among their team to get it done, without distraction.

Get a Content Manager . . . Yesterday

We already mentioned this one in chapter 36, but it’s simply too important not to re-emphasize. Someone must own the content marketing efforts within the company, and that same person is key in getting everyone else involved.

Insourcing Is Huge

Remember, if they are a subject matter expert of any type, and spend any time at all communicating with clients and customers, they could be producing content for your organization right now—all they need is the platform and guidance to do so.

Learn How Each Employee Best Communicates, and Then Run with It

Great content marketing companies understand that not everyone communicates the same way. Some prefer to write it out. Some prefer to talk it out. Some would rather act it out on video.

Smart content marketing companies identify how their employees communicate and encourage each individual to contribute to the process in the way they convey information the best. Some people are great at researching, interviewing, and writing; others are great at performing in front of a camera; and others may not be great at either, but because of their knowledge make great interviewees. In short, when you leverage the strengths of every team member, you can dramatically reduce the time you spend in the production process as well as get the most bang for your buck along the way.

Turn On the Camera and Hit “Record”

Some of our greatest successes I had with my swimming pool company occurred when my business partner Jason and I would walk onto a job site, look around, and just start explaining everything we saw. In a few hours time, we had produced multiple videos, many of which today have hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.

Keep in mind, most of these videos weren’t planned out. We simply looked at the job, asked ourselves what the consumer might want to know or ask, and then began talking.

This principle can be applied to any business, and, boy, does it save some serious time in the process.

Stop Doing the Thing That Does Not Bring the Greatest Returns

Every company has inefficiencies. This is certainly the case with marketing departments as well. Often we are doing marketing and advertising campaigns because we think “we’re supposed to,” not because there is a clear strategic purpose—one that has been proven to get powerful results.

If most companies had any idea just how much financial impact a smart content marketing campaign would have on their organizations, they would drop in a heartbeat much of what they are currently doing from a business development and marketing perspective.

Is It about Time, or Is There Something Else Really Going On Here?

As humans, when we do not value something enough, we have a simple fallback response:

“I don’t have the time.”

Granted, sometimes this statement is true.

But the majority of cases I’ve seen are cut and dried: the company’s leadership team didn’t “get it.” They didn’t truly understand content marketing and They Ask, You Answer. They didn’t see its potential impact and were not emotionally invested.

When I was about to lose my company in 2009 and working well over sixty hours a week, I didn’t have time to write articles and produce videos to put on our company website.

So I stopped watching TV.

I went from eight to six hours of sleep a night.

I looked for every extra second to create more content.

And I did all of this because I didn’t have a choice. I was looking over the cliff, simply trying to do anything I could do to hang on.

I’m not implying that you (the reader) fall into this category, but please make sure to ask yourself if it truly is about “time” or if something quite different is the issue at hand.