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Are you overwhelmed trying to keep a steady stream of fresh content on your blog, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, LinkedIn, and email? You can significantly lighten that load and build up your authority using the hub and spoke approach to content marketing.
Even if you’re not familiar with the term content marketing, you’re likely already using it. Content marketing involves creating content to inform and educate your audience to solve their problems {because you’re awesome like that}.
Content marketing is beneficial to the shoestring marketer because it helps build a loyal audience. When you give your audience your knowledge and insights for free-fifty-free so their lives can be a little easier, they will become devoted to you.
Plus, it elevates your authority. They didn’t know something, and you taught it to them; you’ve become an expert in their eyes. Which also makes them trust you. And if they trust you, they will buy from you. Holla!
Content marketing drives sales, and it’s 100% free. It is a powerhouse strategy for shoestring marketers, and it’s genuinely not difficult to do. But it can take a lot of time. Since time is your most valuable resource, utilizing a content marketing strategy can be overwhelming.
By utilizing a hub and spoke approach to content marketing, you can leverage the content you create to maximize its reach in the least amount of time possible.
Hub and Spoke Explained
Imagine a bicycle wheel. In the center of the wheel is the hub. The hub is solid and substantial. Then, coming off the hub are different spokes. Each spoke is thin and light. Neither the spokes nor the hub can support the wheel alone, but together, they support the bicycle.
In content marketing, the hub is your BIG IDEA. It is a piece of content that takes an in-depth view of a topic and provides excellent value. It could be an e-book, a case study, a report, an infographic, or any other singular piece of content that provides significant value and really meaty knowledge.
The spokes are the BITE-SIZED nuggets that support the hub. They are small pieces of content from the hub that can be digested quickly. They don’t require a significant time investment for your audience. But, they lead your audience to the hub. Social media posts, blog posts, graphics, pins are spokes that lead to the hub.
With the hub and spoke approach, your big idea becomes the bicycle your ideal customer rides right up to your door. Using the hub and spoke system takes significantly less time to create the content needed and gives you a cohesive marketing message.
Hub and Spoke In Action
I am a marketing coach, and my primary strategies are online video, content marketing, email, and social media.
The hub of my content marketing strategy is an e-book called How to Market Your Microbusiness on a Shoestring Budget. This e-book is 30+ pages and covers four key areas of marketing on the cheap.
The spokes that support the hub are YouTube, this blog, email, and social media.
For each big idea in the e-book, I start by thinking about questions someone would have about that idea. If someone went to Google, what would they ask that I answer in the book? And then I record videos based on those questions.
For example, in the e-book, I have a section on social media post ideas. So, I recorded videos that can answer questions related to what to post on social media. Remember, since the e-book is already written, recording the videos takes no time at all. Content Total: 5 pieces
Some people prefer to read content over watching a video, so those videos are transcribed into blog posts. Content Total: 10 pieces
Now, let’s assume we can pull three quotes, statistics, or some sharable insights from each video/blog post to share on social media or email. That produces 15 more pieces of content.
That gives us 25 unique spokes that revolve around the hub. Over 90 days, you could post one piece of educational content every 3.6 days and never repeat a previous post. And that’s just on one channel. You can use the same content on different channels at different times and have a comprehensive and cohesive quarterly marketing campaign created in less than two days.
Pro Tip: Your spokes should direct followers to your hub and nowhere else. Don’t bypass the awesome content you already created.
Takeaway
Using a hub and spoke approach to content marketing allows you to create more content in less time, and creates a clear path for your ideal customer.
Start by creating your hub to support your sales goals, then add bite-sized spokes to support the hub. This top-down approach makes it easy to implement a content marketing strategy in less time than you thought possible.