Content marketing is great, but it ain’t easy.

So if you want to stand out in a world where over 4 million posts are published every single day, we’ve prepared a list of five best practices for content creation and management.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Be original

If you want to be truly original, you’re going to have to conduct truly original research. However, this can be time consuming. If you don’t want to spend hours and hours poring over statistics and analyses, you can stop trying to be original and just start being awesome.

In short: create 10x content.

The term was first coined by Rand Fishkin of Moz, and it stands for content that stands out in a crowd.

How?

Create better content by:

1. Offering a unique take on a topic

2. Being more comprehensive than competitors

3. Presenting the subject in a style that fits your audience

Sometimes it’s enough to take a look at what your competitors are posting, identify the gaps in the content, and use the skyscraper technique to create new pieces that your audience wants to read.

Google loves it, and so do your customers.

2.  Don’t try to do everything on your own

According to HubSpot’s extensive study on blogging benchmarks, you should publish at least 10 blog posts per month.

They surveyed small and mid-market companies, as well as enterprises, and found that (regardless of the size) the companies who blogged more often got more traffic.

It’s as simple as that.

Now, if you’re doing everything related to content marketing (including content creation and management) on your own, you’re facing two scenarios:

1. You won’t have the time to write articles (and you won’t get the traffic you need)

2. You’ll write articles that won’t engage your audience (and you won’t get the traffic you need)

Let’s face it: over 81% of companies on the planet use content marketing. You need a competitive advantage.

Outsource content creation

When you hire a content writer, you suddenly have a lot more time on your hands. And to make things even better: you’ll be getting more results.

Now, hiring a writer can cost you anywhere from $50 to $1000 for one 500-word article.

(And you need ten.)

At Draft, a 500-word article would cost you $50. And the more words you buy, the better the price.

Our writers are all pre-vetted experts at their topics and we’re not saying they could sell ice to Inuits.

Those 10 posts that drive traffic like a highway don’t have to be a far-fetched dream.

Try Draft’s 4,000-word, risk-free trial.

3. Make a plan (and have a few tricks up your sleeve)

If you want your content marketing to succeed, you need to make a content strategy. Or at least a plan (even if it’s written down on a post-it note).

It’s not news. All of our moms have been telling us to get organized for a while.

Now, you’re going to have your shiny, very strategic plan.

But you also need to keep an open mind AKA…

Know when to say “What the heck, let’s do it!”

Getting organized isn’t news, but news is still the news. And you can use that for your content marketing efforts.

Simply use the practice of newsjacking in a way that’s both relevant and interesting.

Take Conflict Kitchen for example: they’re a restaurant that serves food and creates content (both digital and physical) about the countries the US is in conflict with.

Heck, you can respond to current news topics even if they’re not directly related to your business. Southwestern Airlines offers discounts for every time the economy is on the verge of a collapse.

It’ll give your audience a sense of relatability, and they’ll like you all the more for it.

Just make sure you act fast – you may just go viral.

4. Don’t forget to promote your content

It’ll take a while before Google gets the memo and places your content first in the search engine results. Until then, you can simply use social signals to get more visibility (and boost your ranking).

As Kira Leigh of ThereIsNo.Design says, the trick is in re-sharing your content.

Forget about posting it on social media once and calling it quits.

Repurpose your content; turn your articles into social media posts, infographics, and even videos. Post your articles everywhere.

(Yes, even on Reddit.)

Employee advocacy can also help, especially if your employees are the evangelists of your product.

You can even try content advertising, which is especially beneficial for the top-of-the-funnel prospects who may still not know they have a problem you can solve.

Content works wonders for those tricky prospects.

It’s great when you can reach the people who are ready to buy immediately, but chances are, you’re going to have your fair share of prospects who are still on the fence.

You can attract them and retain them with content.

It doesn’t even have to be hard.

5. Organizing and measuring your content marketing

When you start managing your content (hopefully, you’ll have a Draft account so you won’t have to manage freelancers too), you may feel like you should get dozens of collaboration tools.

In reality, you don’t need Asana. You don’t even need Trello. All you need is Airtable.

When it comes to measurement, you can start off simple. Just sign up for Google Analytics and you should be golden.

The most important metrics to keep an eye on are:

• Social shares

• Traffic

• Time on page

• Bounce rate

And if you really want to zero in on what matters, focus on more tangible metrics:

• New paying customers from each content piece

• New paying customers from overall traffic

When it doubt: just look at the data.

Leave it to Draft to create amazing content.