If there’s one thing marketers love it’s shortcuts or, as they’ve come to be known “hacks.” Any trick that helps boost efficiency by speeding up or streamlining a time consuming and boring task is bound to win points, but while some of these shortcuts absolutely do deliver stellar results in less time, there are a few instances in which you’re better off taking the long route.
Here are 3 shortcuts that will actually cost you money, time and marketing results in the long run.
Paid-For Links
The Hack:
Since Google considers the volume of backlinks pointing to a piece of content as part of its ranking algorithm, it’s not surprising that many marketers have fallen prey to the temptation of buying links in an attempt to game the system.
The problem is backlinks only really boost ranking if they come from reputable sources and if the content being linked to is of genuine value to its audience. Sure, you can pay any number of dubious companies to build you a library of backlinks from tonnes of spammy sites, but if Google wises up to your behaviour, you could end up with a penalty which actually pushes your hotel’s website down the SERPs.
The Solution:
Unfortunately, with link building you really do need to just put the work in. The best way to generate high quality backlinks is to do the job organically by creating helpful and informative content that people naturally want to link to. Reach out to relevant businesses in your city who might be happy to link to your hotel’s website, perhaps in exchange for a link on your own website.
Even if you don’t manage to build a huge backlog of links this way, you’ll still have plenty of interesting content to draw people in.
Lazy Content Repurposing
The Hack:
The value of repurposing older content is something that gets talked about a lot in marketing. While it’s true that editing and reposting a previous blog post is a great way to add fresh content to your site with minimal effort, the problem comes when you simply adopt the “copy and paste” approach to repurposing.
Your audience may not remember that old blog post from 2011, but Google does, and duplicate content is a sure-fire way to jeopardise your rankings. That’s not to mention the fact that occasionally lazy repurposing will get picked up on by your guests too, which will harm your credibility with your audience, especially if the content in question is no longer relevant.
The Solution:
Start by being totally honest with yourself: is the content you want to repurpose still relevant and helpful to your guests? Spend some time fine tuning it to ensure it’s super fresh. You could switch around the structure, or even change the medium entirely, by turning a blog post into a video, for example.
The bottom line is, repurposing requires less effort than creating a new piece of content from scratch, but it does still require a little work if you want to pull it off successfully.
Influencer Marketing Shortcuts
The Hack:
Working with industry influencers is a great way to add authority and value to your hotel’s content, while widening your reach and getting your brand in front of new travellers.
The simple way to use influencer marketing is to search for influencers, pay them to produce some content for your hotel’s website or social media pages, then go your separate ways. It’ll work, for a time. But then your budget will run out, or the influencer will decide they’d rather work with someone else.
The Solution:
If there’s no mutual excitement or at least interest in the content you’re creating with your influencer, the relationship is going to fall flat pretty quickly.
Sure, some of the figures or local businesses you work with may want financial compensation, but if money is all that’s in it for them then both of you, and worse, your audience, are going to get jaded pretty quickly.
Aim to build relationships with people who not only have a lot of followers, but genuinely have interesting and cool stuff they want to share with your hotel’s audience. With a little time and effort, you’ll have a mutually beneficial long term partnership both parties will gain from.
Have you tried any of these content marketing shortcuts? How have they cost or benefited you in the long run? Let us know in the comments below!
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