This document provides guidance on creating effective content marketing strategies in three steps: 1) Define your content mission by focusing on your target audience and how your content can help them, 2) Build your audience by establishing expertise through ongoing, ecosystem-based content creation, and 3) Create content that is worth sharing by telling authentic stories that tap into existing conversations and delight those who encounter your content. The document advocates for content with high utility, empathy and inspiration, and emphasizes quality over budget.

1. How to Create Epic Content That’s True to
Your Brand AND Drives Business
(With Ideas You Can Steal…!)
Ann Handley
@MarketingProfs
September 11, 2013

2. • Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs
• Columnist for Entrepreneur magazine
• Book author: Content Rules: How to Create
Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks,
Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers
and Ignite Your Business (Wiley)
(Need more…? See AnnHandley.com)
Hi, I’m Ann.

3. Your Guide to Epic Content in
3
Easy Steps.

4. Step 1: Find a billion dollars.

5. You already inspire
emotional connections.
Step 2: Secure global brand recognition
with rich emotional resonance.

6. Step 3: Procure a situation
monitoring room.

7. J.K.

8. Your REAL-WORLD Guide to
Epic Content in
3
Mostly Easy Steps.

9. Content marketing means you
consistently create and share
information that is…
Packed with UTILITY
Seeded with INSPIRATION
Honestly EMPATHETIC
…to attract customers to you.

10. Content marketing means you
consistently create and share
information that is…
Packed with UTILITY
Seeded with INSPIRATION
Honestly EMPATHETIC
…to attract customers to you.

11. Content Marketing means…
You OWN the media.
(Not rent it.)

12. Source: Velocity Partners, UK

13. 89%
of marketers are creating content.
Source: B2C Content Marketing
2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, Trends
MarketingProfs, Content Marketing Institute

15. 55%
of marketers are upping content budgets.
B2C Content Marketing
2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, Trends
MarketingProfs, Content Marketing Institute

16. 10%
of marketers have a content strategy.
B2C Content Marketing
2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, Trends
MarketingProfs, Content Marketing Institute

17. Just 36% of marketers say their
content is effective.

18. “The best marketing doesn’t
feel like marketing.”
—Tom Fishburne
Marketoonist.com

19. A Simple Formula
for EPIC…

21. A Real-World Simple Formula
for EPIC….

22. Useful x Enjoyable x Inspired =
Effective

23. 3 Keys to EPIC…
1. Put the why before the what.
2. Build audience.
3. Create content worth sharing.

24. 1. Put the why before the what.

25. The problem with a
channel-first strategy…

26. Create a focused content mission.

27. ...Huh?

28. Empathy:
Consider not what you do, but what
you do for your customers.

29. Extreme empathy:
Would your customers
THANK YOU
for your content?

30. 1. WHO do you want to reach?
2. WHAT value are going to give
them?
3. WHY is that important to
them?

31. 4. … and WHAT do you want them to
do next?

33. Who: Urbanites who are considering living
options in Seattle’s neighborhoods.
What: Facts about & local opportunities in
Capitol Hill; tools to assist in rental options.
Why: To empower people to make
informed rental decisions.

39. Results?

41. •Even if you sell technology or toasters or
apartments or apps– your story is about people,
not tools or tech.
•Your mission is bigger than your brand: What will
people THANK YOU for?
•What can your content HELP
people DO?
Ideas You Can Steal:

42. 2. Build audience.

43. Kinvey: Establishing
expertise is key to building
audience, creating
momentum.

44. Ultimate in
“Content as a
Service”:
Extreme
empathy.

46. “Your top-of-funnel
content should be
intellectually divorced
from your product, but
emotionally wed to it.”
– Joe Chernov, Kinvey

47. Not a
one-off…

48. •Last WEEK Kinvey grew the size of its
community by nearly the entire size of the
community in the 15 months that preceded its
content marketing program.
•At the end of Q1, Kinvey launched its
enterprise product. By the end of Q2, 71% of
all enterprise leads were sourced by a content
offer.
•More than 40% of everyone who opens a
Kinvey account first converts on a content offer.
(That number was 1.5% at the end of 2012.)
What Happened?

49. • Tell a story bigger than your brand: Will a
reader THANK YOU?
• Find your foothold.
• Think content ecosystem, not content
campaign.
• Build expertise; build
audience
Ideas You Can Steal:

50. 3. Create content worth sharing.

51. Share story, not stock.

53. #CaptureEuphoria

55. Connecting
over-the-top experiences.

56. 57
#CaptureEuphoria

63. Reaching our audience’s
audience…

64. Reaching our audience’s
audience… (lots of views,
embeds, and so on…)
FOUR sales in the first hour!

65. •Make your story part of THE story:
How can you tap into conversations
people are already having?
•Show the human pulse of your
organization.
•What content will delight
your audience’s audience?
Ideas You Can Steal:

66. We have an EPIC opportunity....

67. To create marketing
that has utility and empathy
and is full of inspiration.

68. Epic is more about brains than budget.

69. Here’s your chance.

70. Thank You, Marketo!
Connect with me everywhere:
Ann Handley
• @marketingprofs
• ann@marketingprofs.com
• MarketingProfs.com &
AnnHandley.com