No Nonsense Content Marketing - MNsearch 2017 - Slideshare

1. No Nonsense Content Marketing John Doherty Founder, GetCredo.com SEO consultant @dohertyjf

2. https://vimeo.com/109703217 @dohertyjf

3. Most of us don’t have the money, time, need, training, or foresight to create something like that. And that’s ok. @dohertyjf

4. What did public companies look like at first? Expedia started in 1996. It was called “Microsoft Expedia” and was started inside Microsoft. It later IPO’d and is currently has a $22B market cap. @dohertyjf

5. What did public companies look like at first? Zillow started in 2006 (started by Expedia’s founder). They had 1M visitors in their first three days. It later IPO’d and is currently has a $5.6B market cap. @dohertyjf

6. Be ashamed of where you started @dohertyjf

7. New rules for content marketing It can be simple and imperfect (and ugly) It doesn’t have to scale (at first) Simplicity in marketing content is 🔑 Source @dohertyjf

8. Anything can be a system, even content “[T]his the narrative of every movie you’ve ever seen. A main character starts in an ordinary world. They leave their ordinary world. They cross the threshold to new, magical world where all these obstacles happen and they overcome something. They call it the hero's journey. We applied this to trips, built a small team and we spent the last couple of years figuring out how to scale this, and this has led to what we have today which we call “Airbnb Trips.”” (source) - Brian Chesky, Cofounder AirBNB @dohertyjf

9. How do you replicate success? “I’d argue that painstaking, handcrafted labor is actually the foundation of [Brian’s] success. In order to scale, you have to do things that don’t scale.” -Reid Hoffman, cofounder LinkedIn @dohertyjf

10. Content marketing success is for everyone • If you’re a big company • If you’re a small scrappy company • If you’re a solo entrepreneur or marketing team • You can have content marketing success • Pro tip – you can often do the most when you have a small and scrappy team of high performers. If you have a bit of budget, outsource for as long as you can as long as you can set the vision. @dohertyjf

11. Get out of this trap ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Whitepapers eBooks Infographics Blog posts Surveys PR stunts Videos Conferences/events Speaking @dohertyjf

12. Today we’re going to make content a system Research Ideate Create Promote Measure Repeat @dohertyjf

13. Why are you creating content? • What are your needs? • What are your goals with this content? • How will you measure success? Answer these first. Why do something if you don’t know why you’re doing it? • “It’ll get us more social followers.” Ok but why do you need those? • “It’ll get us more website visitors.” Ok but what does that mean for your business? @dohertyjf

14. Research Ideate Create Promote Measure Repeat @dohertyjf

15. Research Baseline - What questions is your audience asking? • You can research these on Quora, via keyword research, etc • Think of these as places you can promote your content once it’s created. • Your existing customer base is the best place to start. Marketers often forget this! @dohertyjf

16. Research Advanced – What is their pain point that you can solve through content? • You’ll have to get on the phone and ask questions • Take notes of unprompted revelations – “It would be great if I knew how to X.” • Surveys can work as well, though followup will be needed to get specific • Start with your existing customer base! @dohertyjf

17. One example I created HowToHireAnSEO.com after seeing multiple pieces about it, seeing it in my keyword research, and ranking for it on GetCredo.com. Three months on it has 806 links and 4k pageviews. It’s a link magnet. @dohertyjf

19. Ideate • What’s gone hot recently? • Use Buzzsumo • What themes are getting more popular? • Use Google Trends • What isn’t easy to create? • If it’s easy, it will have been done before. • If it’s hard, it’ll set you apart if you can pull it off. @dohertyjf

20. Ideate Where is there no data available that you can create yourself? Or data that you can mash into something new? @dohertyjf

21. Before you commit, ask yourself • Why should anyone care about it? • Why would they share it? • Would you share it anywhere you are able? Are you proud of it? What sets this idea apart from everything else out there and have you communicated that to your audience? @dohertyjf

23. Create What are the emotional triggers that you can leverage? • Basic – X things that Y people want to know about Z • Pro - These 179 (entrepreneur/agencies) tell you what drives their success/what they charge • Niche – How (famous person) did in (races/saving/etc) in YEAR Source: http://tany.kim/swimmers-history/ @dohertyjf

24. How do you create it? • You can create industry-defining content pieces with a small team. That’s exactly what 95% of verticals are lacking. • You don’t have to do crazy big scalable content if you have a small business! • Why listen to huge brands who do it? It’s inspirational, but is it achievable for you? Will it fit your audience’s needs if you do it that way? • There are so many ways to create content even if you do not have all of the capabilities inhouse! @dohertyjf

25. What do you need to create digital content? I’m amazed people don’t talk about digital content. Most people are still trying to create content for the internet like they created it for print! What do you need to create amazing content online? • Someone to research • Someone to write • Someone to design • Someone to code @dohertyjf

26. What do you need to create digital content? I’m amazed people don’t talk about digital content. Most people are still trying to create content for the internet like they created it for print! What do you need to create amazing content online? • Someone to research • Someone to write • Someone to design • Someone to code You can outsource any/all of this, but not everything @dohertyjf

27. @dohertyjf 20+ links Got us further coverage Drove links to deep important pages

29. Promote SEO is not a promotion strategy. People expect me to talk about SEO, but that’s basic. And often the best/most successful content creates its own search volume. This is the step most people either completely miss or fail to capitalize on completely. • Miss it – because of wrong expectations • Fail – because there is no strategy @dohertyjf

30. Two groups to promote to • Your existing audience • Website visitors • Email list • Social followers • A new audience • Your friend’s email lists • Those who look like your email list/site visitors • The site visitors/social followers of sites related to yours @dohertyjf

31. Your audience wants to hear from you @dohertyjf

32. It’s more expensive to get a new customer than retain a current one. Source @dohertyjf

33. Tools You probably want to ask about tools right now. There are a million blog posts out there for every vertical of marketing tools you can imagine. • Email • Marketing automation • Social media management/automation • Content optimization Let me put this clearly • The right tool for you to use is the one that is: • Affordable for your business • That you know how to use • That integrates with the other tools you use @dohertyjf

34. Promotion can be a system too Prospect Publish Outreach Generate Traffic Pixel w/ FB or Google Drive to download (email) Retarget with future content Buzzsumo, Followerwonk, Citation Labs Gmail, Quickmail Facebook, Google Tag Manager Google Facebook, MailChimp Facebook, MailChimp/ Quickmail @dohertyjf

36. Measure Of course you have analytics on your website And you’re measuring social traction, right? • Some tools will do this for you automatically • Sumo for blogging/SMBs • Or you can build a dashboard • Or you can hack together your own tools I don’t care how you do it. I care that you do it @dohertyjf

37. Measure I am not being prescriptive about it because every business’s needs and goals are different. What are your business’s goals? @dohertyjf

38. How To Hire An SEO Goals: • Links • Branding • Projects on Credo Results: • 18 LRDS/806 links ✅ • ~1,400 sessions ✅ • ~4,000 pageviews ✅ • 2.8 pages/session ✅ • 24 shares 👎 • 2 projects created on Credo (~$600 of value) ✅ @dohertyjf

40. Repeat There’s always something broken. I heard once that as an entrepreneur, you put out one fire only to discover another. This applies to every position. There is always something suboptimal. This is why we don’t just give up. Marketing is iterative. • I could rant here about hiring an agency/consultant to do something your company has never done before and then stopping it after the first try because it “didn’t work”. You’ve never done it before! @dohertyjf

41. Look for the bright spots and push on those. “In times of change, you need what my brother and I call a bright-spots focus. That is, you need to look for the early glimmers that something is going right. And when you find a bright spot, your mission is to study it and clone it.” -Dan Heath, FastCompany @dohertyjf

42. Repeat It takes time to build a system that works. Your first one might fail, and so might your second. Or your first will show initial signs of working but you haven’t yet nailed one of the areas. • Maybe you promoted to the wrong audience. • Maybe the content medium was wrong (text instead of video, whatever) • Maybe your design was a bit off. Triage why people didn’t share @dohertyjf

43. This is my process • Identify the needs • Identify the content and the medium • Build an initial list to promote to • Email and social • Can you take social accounts and find their emails? • Then you can build a larger group to promote to • And you can do it cheap! • Create it, however you can • If you’re not proud of it, keep going (big lesson learned here) @dohertyjf

44. Process continued • When you promote, be everywhere. • Your existing audience • Email list (main one) and others you may have access to • Maybe your user/customer list isn’t part of your marketing list. That’s ok! • Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn/display network ads for the win! • You are cookie’ing people who come to your site, right? • New audiences • Reddit subreddits, HackerNews • Some promotion will be manual • Emailing influencers, or getting introductions to them • I used to smirk at “influencer marketing”. Now I think it’s one of the most powerful promotion strategies. • But only when that “influencer” is an influencer in your vertical. @dohertyjf

46. Thank you. Find Credo online:  GetCredo.com  Twitter.com/getcredo  Facebook.com/getcredo Find me online:  Johnfdoherty.com  Twitter.com/dohertyjf  Facebook.com/mrjohnfdo herty My weekly newsletter:  johnfdoherty.com/email- newsletter/ About me: Founder of digital marketing marketplace/platform GetCredo.com Seen ~1,000 businesses looking to hire an agency or consultant and sent over $4M worth of work to marketers Former Growth Lead and Marketing Lead at Trulia Rentals and HotPads.com, part of the Zillow Group family Former consultant at Distilled in New York City Based in Denver, Colorado @dohertyjf