How to Generate Inbound Leads with No Editorial Department

Asking your entire organization to get involved in the process of content creation eliminates the need for hiring an army of professional writers. This is how HubSpot accumulates over 27K leads a month—by leveraging the skills of employees in different departments, from consulting and sales to marketing and support.

“We encourage everybody in the organization to contribute based on their discipline,” said Andrew Quinn, HubSpot’s Head of Sales Training, in a recent interview with SalesCrunch . Andrew is the person who trains every new HubSpot employee about content creation, blogging, building calls-to-action and other editorial elements. By the end of the training, new team members look at inbound marketing in its entirety and are excited to contribute their writing, research and data analysis.

By seeing how the whole picture comes together, employees develop a very holistic approach to marketing. That helps tremendously in the development of a healthy Sales 2.0 process. It allows sales reps to gain a better understanding of the needs and goals of your target audience and prepares the organization to build long-lasting relationships with customers.

What is more, a holistic view of marketing makes the sales call well structured. “We know so much before we make the first outreach,” Andrew noted. That way the sales process can really unfold as planned.

So what are some actions for your content creation plan?

Train Employees to Understand Content Creation

Hold a training session that explains to employees the importance of content creation and ways in which they can contribute their specific skills. Show them case studies of other companies that have leveraged the power of the collective and seen positive results. One such example is HubSpot customer  MediPurpose , a healthcare solutions company that has brought company-wide involvement to content creation.

Start a Shared Doc for Blog Ideas

Create a simple Google doc for employees to contribute their blog post ideas at any time. You will find it surprising how many people embrace the opportunity to express their creativity, especially if you don't oblige them to write. If a shared document doesn't give birth to new content ideas, try holding a live brainstorm session with some free pizza.

Build a Blogging Schedule

To facilitate the content planning process, build a schedule that reveals who is contributing when and on what topic. That way you won't duplicate effort and will make sure that your topics are diverse, tackling new keyword phrases and frequently searched terms.

Create Incentives for Employees

Make sure that the people who contribute ideas regularly are rewarded for their participation. For instance, at HubSpot, we share publicly the names of the best-performing authors. Whose blog article is in the top 10 most viewed or linked to posts? Track these successes and celebrate them! Maybe consider inviting these champions to dinner or giving them a nice thank you gift card. Needless to say, such behavior encourages the rest of the organization to contribute more.

Do you have tricks for crowdsouring content within your organization? Share your insights and best practices in the comments below!