Disclaimer – I’m part of the team that handles inbound marketing at AdPushup and this post is the result of an email conversation I had while helping one of my entrepreneur friends.
She is a PR specialist and wanted to start her current company’s blog (she has been hired as their marketing manager) so when she asked for my advice on how to do that, naturally I obliged.
The text below is 90% exact of what I sent her in the email (yes, I actually wrote such a huge reply). The only changes are that I formatted the post and added links to whoever I mentioned.
So let’s do this.
xxxxx
1. Firstly, here are the 3 things you need to concentrate on (you can’t go wrong with them!) –
#Keyword Research
- Start by making an exhaustive list of keywords that are relevant to your business, from most relevant (which will land your customer directly to your homepage) to closely relevant (close to your niche). Mark down their unique monthly searches and create content around them only. This is an SEO led approach and one which will get you page views and traffic in the long run. It also helps if you can get your post to rank on the first or second page of Google search with quality back-links and such.
#Content
- Create content only keeping in mind – “is this helping someone solve a problem?” and as Moz Founder Rand Fishkin puts it – “if you can’t answer the question who will help amplify this & why? don’t publish it.”
- At AdPushup, our target audience is long form bloggers and web publishers. We write content which either informs them or helps in dealing with a painpoint (e.g. blogging ideas, blogging tips, how to get more subscribers, how to get more traffic, how to increase CTR, among others).
- Publish content at least a minimum of 3 times a week unless it becomes an overload on you. Either that OR write a single brilliant piece that does better than 3 posts (which I feel will be difficult for you right now because it takes experience to write so well. I’m struggling with it too) and concentrate on distributing it like a dog.
- To publish regularly you need content ideas. Content ideas mostly come from –
— Keyword research
— What topics your competitors are writing about
— Evergreen content (guides, tutorials, how-tos, best-practices)
— What the industry experts are tweeting, sharing on social media
— Comments on blogs and from relevant communities
— Round-up posts (“15 Growth Hackers Whose Blog Posts You Should Follow”, “40 Experts Share Their Favorite WordPress Plugins” among others)
- Best practices dictate that the ideal length of a blog post is near 1600 words. In our own efforts, we write posts in the word count range of 1800-3500+ words. I do not follow any metric or data to validate this. I would suggest to not worry about reaching a word count and focus only on providing value. You’ll find that once you do that, your word-count will automatically go up because you’ll want to give your readers the best possible info out there.
- Nail the headline of every post that you publish and you will have won 70% of the battle. If your headline doesn’t inspire confidence, interest, excitement or any sort of emotion then readers wont click on it. Then even though your content might be brilliant and relevant, it will just not get the importance it deserves.
#Distribution
- Write content keeping distribution in mind. This is the most important step because you might be creating phenomenal content but it’s not going to help page-views and traffic if no one is seeing it. I have joined communities on social networks and regularly engage with their members. This helps when you have to share your content there and not come across as a spammer. A cheat sheet on how we currently distribute is –
— Publish content.
— Share on our company’s and our own personal FB, Linkedin, Twitter, Google Plus profiles
— Share on relevant social communities e.g. FaceBook, Reddit, Google Plus, GrowthHackers.com, Inbound.org and if the content is exceptionally writen and relevant then HackerNews. [Beware; engage with the community and provide value or you risk being hell banned which is basically ‘game over’ then.]
— Whoever we mention in our post, product or person, we send them or the relevant team members an email telling them about the mention and encourage them to share it on their social media. Most people do actually share if you ask them. Also, it helps if you are relatively well known and the content is really well written. If we do not have an email id, then a Twitter shout out works as well (I have personally never done that but might start soon).
— 3 posts from the week go out as a weekly newsletter to our email subscribers on Tuesday.
— Re-tweeting and re-sharing the content for/after 2-3 days (yes, distribution is a continuous process)
— Pitch it to another site and try to get it re-published.
2. Look for guest posting opportunities because they are an effective way to make your presence in the industry. And guest post only on sites that are relevant to your audience, have a very high volume of traffic and well respected (e.g. HubSpot,KISSmetrics)
3. Influencer marketing is probably what will get you traction vis-a-vis your blog. You need to reach out to them and start being proactive on their blogs, engaging them in the comments section. You can and should email them and ask for their advice regarding a genuine problem. You will soon notice that people are generally nice and are ready to share their knowledge if they have the time. But influencers are busy people so this approach might not always work. So here’s Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales advice on how startups should write an email to him if they want a response.
4. Measure everything. Unless you don’t measure, you won’t know what is working and what is not. Always start with a marketing goal/hypothesis in head as to what you’re testing with a post that you’re writing. Meaning you could be testing –
- I’m going to write a post for this Reddit community and see if I get traction from there.
- I’m writing an ‘expert roundup’ post. Let’s see if this gets more shares/page-views/subscriptions than our regular posts.
- I’ll guest post on …. and see if that will get us more shares/page-views/subscriptions
Once you have a sufficient success in measuring ROI – cut out what is not working and concentrate only on what is getting results. And always keep testing and creating hypothesis.
5. Make sure your email marketing is sorted out. Put pop-up email capture boxes in your blog to encourage visitors to convert into subscribers. I suggest that once you have a decent number of subscribers (300+) and are pushing content out regularly, start rounding them up and email them to your subscribers in the form of a ‘weekly newsletter’.
6. Create buyer personas. Buyer persona is basically a description of your ideal customer – someone who will directly benefit from your product or service. Creating content around and for them is what will get you more traffic, engagement and a sustainable growth. Here’s Buffer’s guide on the subject.
7. Read a lot – you may or may not be doing this already but I suggest you get after this religiously. The more you learn, the better. Luckily, the current shift in startup content marketing is that founders/core team members are sharing how they reached their goals (which happen to coincide with what you and me are hoping to achieve). E.g. Groove. So basically there is a lot to learn out there. You just need to get started
Q. “What are some of the challenges that I will face with inbound/content marketing ?”
Currently we’re struggling with distribution (which is a very hard nut to crack) and even you will when you start. Other than that,
- Consistently publishing 3-4 pieces of quality content on your blog, if you are new to writing.
- Successfully pitching and getting the opportunity to guest post and then building on that relationship to regularly publish content on that website.
Note: Our Co-founder Ankit Oberoi has guest posted a lot before I joined (on Entrepreneur.com, KISSmetrics, ConversionXL) and he tells me that although our website received traffic from these sources, it was not relevant traffic. So, repeating myself, concentrate only on guest posting on sites which have your target audience. - Finding your target audience and understanding their pain points.
- Deciding which metrics to track to see a return on your efforts.
- Reaching out to influencers. Here’s a post from Inbound.org featuring the best advice I’ve come across to successfully engage influencers.
Q. “What are some other ways to generate leads and multiply sales?”
- Inbound marketing is the most cost effective way to achieve that. Period.
- On your blog, once you have a good number of posts, do massive internal linking to increase a visitor’s session duration.
- Andrew Chen discusses some tactics that he feels are the only few ways to scale growth and maintain visibility in front of your customers.
- Since our product hasn’t officially launched, we are still streamlining how we’ll structure our marketing & sales funnel among other processes. I’ll write another post on that once the time is right
Q. “What tools are you using for content marketing?”
Right now we’re using –
- WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS)
- Google Drive (docs, sheets, calendar) for content collaboration and planning
- GetResponse for email marketing
- Hemingway App for grammar and language usage (sometimes)
*Q. “What are the estimated cost of hiring a content marketer?”
Costs for hiring a –
- Rookie content marketer (complete beginner) – 4-5 Lac per annum (INR)
- Amateur content marketer (somewhat experienced) – 6-7 Lac per annum (INR)
- Experienced star – 9-10 Lac per annum (INR)
*Q. Which are the channels that help you drive maximum traffic through content?
I’d highly recommend that you look towards Reddit communities. You get mad traffic and shares from there. But you have to post it in a relevant community and also NOT as a plain url link but as a text story, an experience.
Reddit is infamous for being ruthless with spammers and self promoters. So the only way you come across as neither is by providing all the value right there in the community post and add a small link in the end which says something like – “to read the full post, here’s the link” (and provide the exact url, not bitly or any short links). Provide the entire outline right there. Anyone reading it should only click on your post when they know exactly what is in the content and they would still want to read it.
Other than this – (the top reactions we’ve seen community wise are, best to worst)
- Personally emailing people who we have mentioned in the blog.
Here’s the email that I sent Neil Patel –
Note: I had to follow up with him (which is something which most people don’t do with their emails, be it job applications or influencer marketing)
His reaction –
- Google+/Facebook
- Lastly, Linkedin (because we’ve not put in much effort to share it there)
* General tips
- Install the extension called ‘Ghostery’ which basically allows you to see what are the tools that a particular site is running. You can use this information to find out if you want similar tools. Here’s an example of how it works (top left corner) –
- I don’t want to be telling you how to do your job but before you hire someone see Simon Sinek’s TED talk.
- Everyone wants to change the world per say but now it has become a euphemism for bulshit in startups. Every startup wants to change the world. The takeaway from this video is not that.
The takeaway is to find out what is the motivation for people to join you? If you can nail the right motivation factor or inspire such thinking like what Simon says then you’re headed towards sure shot success.
It will be extremely difficult to get hold of such kind of people because money is the primary motivation factor amongst our .
— Read this. I strongly believe this article’s applications are not limited to just customer support. When I read this, it confirmed how I personally always felt, is the right way to judge and hire someone.
— Hire inbound marketers not content marketers. Inbound marketing entails that a candidate has to already have content writing skills and he/she has to perform a number of other marketing related tasks other than creating and distributing brilliant content. - Community engagement. Go through this post and see how I’ve replied to everyone and encouraged people to participate.
- Here’s a link to the content SOP (standard operating procedure; read: guidelines on how to write content for new hires) that I made for AdPushup. It is just an illustration of what you can do. It is not perfect but it is a start. I trust that you will only use it to give yourself direction.
- Learn what is link building and how to do it successfully. Look up Brian Dean.
- Read, read, read, read, read, read and then read some more.
- All of this advice aside, don’t be afraid about failing or not getting it right. My personal work philosophy is to try fail try again, fail, win. You are going to screw up but don’t worry about that. Along with understanding what works, you also have to understand what doesn’t.
Conclusion
I believe that committing to these 3 points is the easiest way to kick-start content marketing. Remember to –
— start with conducting Keyword Research and SEO,
— then move on to creating valuable Content
— and finally, concentrate completely on Distribution
— To get the maximum benefit out of content marketing – Do it consistently. I recommend you start with 2 high quality posts per week and then work your way up to more as you get experienced at writing.
Of course, when you become more proficient at it then you’ll start optimizing all the process for better results. Best of luck!
P.S. Here’s her reply after reading my email. It made my day 🙂
P.P.S. The above post is an abridged version of a bigger post which you can find here 🙂
On Twitter, you can find me – @SujanDeswal
asha chaudhry
sujan,
welcome back!!
dude you intrigue me!! every time you post you have SO MANY INSIGHTS TO SHARE!
you are like a RESOURCE VAULT!!
do check out our other posts in digital media and share your thoughts there as well.
so tell me something, when you say “content marketer” you mean creator + marketer don’t you? nowadays every content creator is forced to be a marketer as well, right? there used to be a distinct line between the two – i see it’s faded/blended now 🙂
ps: pls send me an email at asha@rodinhood.com – i think it would be awesome to have you present at one of our rodinhooder meetups in delhi. we just had one in april and i totally forgot to ping you 🙁
pps: do you get our weekly newsletters? i send one out every friday and it carries 20+ articles. would love a fresh perspective on how we promote/distribute our content!
Sujan Deswal
Wow! Thank you so much for your kind words Asha. You really know how to make someone smile (and jump with happiness too :P)
do check out our other posts in digital media and share your thoughts there as well.
I’m guilty of not regularly engaging with the awesome folks you have on this forum. Will do and thank you for being so polite about the remind 🙂
so tell me something, when you say “content marketer” you mean creator + marketer don’t you? nowadays every content creator is forced to be a marketer as well, right?
True that Asha. In a startup environment a content creator has to wear the hat of marketer too because being in a startup means cutting costs and being frugal. In large enterprises content creators are still different from content marketers and it is a distinction that makes sense there because CC can not juggle marketing too when their primary job entails pushing out articles aggressively to keep up with the huge demand of the company’s audience.
However, I’m not complaining that this has become the case because this adds itself as a very valued skill set. The more you learn, the better you can execute it when you have to set up things on your own.
(Totally unrelated – If anyone is reading this – start learning how to code people. It will help someday when you’re building your own startup 🙂 )
ps: pls send me an email at asha@rodinhood.com – i think it would be awesome to have you present at one of our rodinhooder meetups in delhi. we just had one in april and i totally forgot to ping you.
Will do.
pps: do you get our weekly newsletters? i send one out every friday and i carries 20+ articles. would love a fresh perspective on how we promote our content!
I do and I go through most of them (“most” = 8/10). I’ll be more than happy to give advice on how to better promote the content on theRodinhoods but only when I’m in a position where I can successfully repeat my own efforts as a result of planning and strategy and not hit and trial. I’m struggling with it too but once I’m adept at it, I’ll look for your email id 🙂
Sistla Venkata Abhishek
Hi Sujan,
Just like Asha said, brilliant work on this. You definitely inspired me to share resources and knowledge with the community!
PS : I came to MS Ventures last month and wanted to meet you people. Did not know anyone or had no objective, hence did not poke you guys! Will definitely do so the next time I come! – Lesson 1 – Don’t be afraid to say “Hello” 😀
PPS : Most of the resources are the ones that I usually follow and already know of .. but the difference is, I just followed and your share was insightful! – Lesson 2 – Just like money, don’t keep knowledge just to yourself. It won’t be of much value.
Once again man! Great work on this!
Cheers,
Abhishek 🙂
Sujan Deswal
Thank you so much for your support Abhishek. You just made my day 🙂
And yes, drop by our office in New Delhi whenever you feel like chatting. If nothing else, we can have a match of TT 😛
(Building No. 365 (3rd Floor), Kohat Encalve, Pitampura, New Delhi, 110034)
P.S. You can always reach out to me at sujan@adpushup.com
Cheers!!
Abhik Prasad
This is gold…Like Reddit Gold 🙂
@Asha, i think you need to spoil this page a bit 😉
asha chaudhry
yeah – friday morning – i shall :)))))
abhik – we must have sujal at our next meetup/OH.
Rishi
This is great. Thanks!
On a slightly related note, what do you think will be the significance of keywords and search in 5 years from now?10 years from now?
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
I have some very contrarian views on this!
And guess what? The points written below are all based on the existence of this site (11,000 members and growing) and the 500 articles + I have written.
“Moz Founder Rand Fishkin puts it – “if you can’t answer the question who will help amplify this & why? don’t publish it.”” – Disagree completely. Write because you feel like. Damn the world if it reads or not.
The BEST articles I have written are the ones I wrote for the love of writing.
“Keywords biased” – Don’t agree at all. I wrote “The 7 lessons I learnt in Marwari Business School” without any thought of keywords. Its my best read article yet along with Mr. Marwari – Have you met Mr. Tata.
Guess why? Because they contain KNOWLEDGE – Not keywords
1600 words?
Never!
The new world order is 350-500 words. The Economist Blog refuses content beyond 550 words.
Check out the top articles on Pulse! They are CRISP.
I think people lose interest post word count 400.
Will add more later, BUT THANKS FOR WRITING!!!!
Ps – I don’t think you wrote this piece with any of your own points in mind :))
Akash Gupta
Does anybody gives so much value to blogs in India? One should write if he felt like writing and at max post after proof reading done by your partner and both of you agree that it looks interesting!
Spending on content writing is not a good idea! Rather i would deliver every week new surprise on app to the consumer that makes his/her life easy!
In each day you can make definite number of choices, One of them is how much value and time you give to each of the choices.
Akash Gupta
Exactly >400 words, atleast i won’t read it!
Deeti Dave
Couldn’t agree more- “Write because you feel like. Damn the world if it reads or not.” !
I completely agree on word count, 1600 words, I would also not read an article beyond a 400-500 words..
Kunal Bajaj
Great Post Sujan! I can totally relate to it.
Longer term it generates healthy stream of leads. The above approach is trial, tested and proved for B2B companies. I am wondering have you come across any B2C content marketing case studies which resulted in leads or sales?
asha chaudhry
hey deeti,
we’d love to read an article from you! you’ve been a rodinhooder for quite a while now, do share something on trhs! even if it’s just your experience of going to g2w and meeting alok. rodinhooders love reading ‘jab i met alok stories’ 🙂
asha chaudhry
akash,
trhs was started because alok liked to blog!! pls use our search engine – we have lots of articles on why startups should blog. might give you a different perspective…
ps: proof reading is done by experts. not just anyone’s partner!
pps: writing content is a professional job. so why shouldn’t people pay for it or “spend on it” to quote you?? since you are into apps, i suggest you read EVERYTHING rahul varshneya has written. https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=2empein4w89op&sort=discussionsStarted
Sujan Deswal
I’d say the relevance will still be there but it’ll become more targeted. By that I mean – long tail keywords.
Currently consumers search with very open ended queries. They’ll search for “best wordpress plugins” instead of “best free wordpress plugins for blog monetization” (assuming they are searching for plugins to monetize their blog which is hosted on WordPress).
In the next 5 years users will be aggressively comfortable using and manoeuvring the internet. It will make it easier (as opposed to harder) for companies to rank in SEO for long tail keywords related to their businesses/products.
Sujan Deswal
Nothing comes to mind right now Kunal. But when I find something relevant, I’ll ping you back 🙂
Are you specifically asking for Indian b2c case studies or all around?
Divya Sharma Dixit
Hello Sujan
I am very new to startup culture and a recent graduate who is working with a startup. I have been a blogger for quite sometime and now I am responsible for handling content. I started my research and then I hit this article.
I can’t explain in words of how much of a relief this is to me. I knew nothing about how to go about it. But now I guess the picture is quite clear.
It would be great if you could spare a little time to guide the newbies, if in case I am not asking for much.
Sujan Deswal
Sure thing Divya 🙂
You can email me at sujan@adpushup.com
Akash Gupta
Ma’am, thanks for writing back and giving me a link for posts of Mr. Rahul Varshney. I read all of them and took some really important notes, which i am sure would be immensely helpful in my startup journey.
My post above was more of a question than a view, except that of word limit. I agree to your point that blogging done by alok sir or by you or Mr Rahul have brought not just regular traffic but fans, myself being one of them. But thats what i said, all of you guys do it beautifully coz you love doing it and are connected with the big picture of rodinhoods community. Do you really think a professional content manager would connect to 20some founders like me and exactly take the big picture like the founders do? Would she be privy to the strategic information that company wants to go ahead with and accordingly plan a content strategy! This again is more of a question than a view.
Lastly I humbly disagree with the expert proofreading. I think its no rocket science and can be done by those who love to read and connected with the big picture.
asha chaudhry
well guess what akash…. proofreading has been a part of my job for nearly 22 years now (yeah, that’s how long i’ve been associated with writing!) 🙂
AND I STILL MISSED A TYPO IN ALOK’S ARTICLE FOR ET!!!
it’s not everyone’s cuppa. trust me. pls don’t underestimate the job of a content writer or any writer for that matter.
Akash Gupta
Oh, really! Then i trust you and change my opinion right away! Thanks a ton! 🙂
but then how should i tackle the big picture thing?
ps: I think that ET article was awesome, and controlling user behavior thing is very correct. It gives indication that can’t control losses and competition, then at least tame them by creating app.