Listen. If you are even remotely connected to the business, marketing, and advertising world, then you’ve probably heard the phrase “content marketing.”You’ve at least been exposed to it through:- Blogs
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Search engine optimization
- Email autoresponders
- White papers
- Copywriting
- Social media
- Landing pages
But what exactly is content marketing? Glad you asked, because I’ve got answers for you. One short answer, and one really long. Here’s our official definition:Content marketing means creating and sharing valuable content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.
Which brings us to another question: how do you actually use content marketing?Well, even if you consider yourself a seasoned practitioner or you’re a fresh-out-of-the-box beginner, this handy, systematic, and exhaustive guide — loaded with 100 articles that cover content marketing essentials for building a viable money-making platform — is at your finger tips.
How to use this content marketing reference library
Content marketing can be simplified into the convergence of three spheres: your audience’s interests, your brand story, and your unique perspective or content medium. Combine these three to achieve content greatness.
The 100-article list below reaches back to November 2008 and goes all the way up to the present. It contains 10 categories:- Content essentials
- Content strategy
- Content research
- Idea creation
- Content creation
- Content promotion
- Traffic generation
- Content marketing case studies
- Content auditing
- Content business building
Yes, I read all 100 articles. It took me 15 hours over six days. I recommend you do the same — but work through it at a pace that’s right for you! First, bookmark it. That way, it’ll be easy to find when you need to answer a question or reference one of our articles in your own content.Then, you could:- Study one of the 10 categories each week, creating your own 10-week content marketing course
- Read one-to-three articles each day
- Identify the categories you need to brush up on the most, and make a note on your calendar to review them when you have free time
Side note: This list makes for perfect Twitter content … drip out just one article each day to your followers over a 100-day period, and you’ll look like a content marketing genius. 😉This guide will fill in the gaps in your knowledge. It will help you become a content marketing expert in your industry or company.And with that, I give you Copyblogger’s Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.
Content marketing essentials
The Future of Content Marketing
New York City should have been destroyed 33 years ago. Because of massive amounts of horse manure. Here’s the lesson you can draw about the future of content marketing from that failed prognosis.What’s the Difference Between a Professional Writer and a Content Marketer?
Five elements that separate high-quality content marketing from material that’s well-written but might not deliver the same business value.What’s the Difference Between Content Marketing and Digital Commerce?
We’ve been talking a lot lately about “digital commerce.” This article for is anyone who’s wondered: “I thought content marketing was digital commerce: what’s the difference?”The 3-Step Journey of a Remarkable Piece of Content
Remarkable content takes a three-step journey. If we keep this journey in mind, we can craft a profound experience for our readers. Pamela Wilson walks you through you each step.Agile Content Marketing: How to Attract an Audience That Builds Your Business
How do you create a content marketing strategy that actually works? The first step is to get your head right.The First Rule of Copyblogger
Great content marketing begins here. Those who obey this rule share content that’s worth reading with an audience who is hungry for it. Long-term gains in traffic, leads, and profits follow. Those who break this rule might experience short bursts of traffic, leads, and profits — but not for long.What’s the Difference between Content Marketing and Copywriting?
When you combine great content with great copywriting, you end up with a powerful marketing platform that can launch you into the realm of the world’s greatest content producers.The Three Essentials of Breakthrough Content Marketing
The glut of content on the web means that the market is crowded and cluttered. Your content needs to rise above that confusion. Here’s how to do it.Why Content Marketing Doesn’t Suck
As the saying goes, “Haters will hate.” Don’t let them talk you out of the benefits that content marketing can deliver over a long period of time. This episode of The Lede (when it was still hosted by Robert Bruce) will show you what Procter & Gamble, soap operas, and content marketing have in common. And then some.The Two Vital Attributes of Quality Content
Ever wondered what makes some blog posts funny, vigorous, and meaningful? You know, the types of blog posts you not only share — but save. Print out. Study. Wonder no more.Everything You Need to Know About Creating Killer Content in 3 Simple Words
Try this sticky formula — one that basically consolidates what every guru, expert, and pundit has been saying about persuasion, usability, and web marketing — that will make creating compelling copy easy.
Content marketing strategy
Content Marketing: A Truly Winning Difference
A simple lesson about learning how to accentuate the positives in your marketing from a little story about Claude Hopkins and Schlitz beer.10 Content Marketing Goals worth Pursuing
What do you want your content to accomplish? You do have goals, right? If not, start with these 10.How to Build an Agile Content Marketing Team
Eric Enge provides nine tips on how to build an agile content marketing team in a way that might just make the size of the task a lot more manageable.A Content Marketing Innovation Cheat Sheet
Successful content marketers often have deceptively simple cheats for churning out effective online publishing on a regular basis. Let’s take a look.Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy
We’re professional content marketers — not subsistence farmers — and our work doesn’t involve 12-hour days in grueling conditions. So, is sharecropping still dangerous? Yes.A Simple Content Marketing Strategy for Creative Folks
How do you display your work while making it easy for prospective clients to learn about who you are? The conclusion is simple.A Quick-Start Guide to Measuring Your Content Marketing Efforts
Your job as a content marketer is to show your boss the money — not traffic, not links — mon-naay. Mike King talks about how to get started effectively measuring your content marketing efforts.5 Steps to Revising Your Content Marketing Strategy to Attract and Retain Future Customers
Whether you already have a product or are just getting started, here are five steps you need to take now to attract and retain future customers of your product or service.How to Use Customer Experience Maps to Develop a Winning Content Marketing Strategy
Eighty percent of businesses say they are delivering an excellent customer experience. But only eight percent of customers believe these companies were actually delivering. That’s a huge discrepancy. Why such a big gap?13 Simple Questions to Help You Draft a Winning Content Strategy
Square away an afternoon, ask yourself these questions, and document the answers in a notebook, on a whiteboard, in Evernote, or in the handy PDF we’ve created for you.How to Create a Visual Brand and Fight the Dark Forces
What can we learn about building a visual brand from Star Wars? Grab these top visual branding tips from Rainmaker Digitals’s Lead Designer Rafal Tomal.The 5 Keys to Content Marketing Mastery
If you’re happy being an average content marketer, then you can ignore this post. But if you want to be a content marketing master, tap into these five strategies of “deliberate practice.”The Old-School Content Marketing Strategy that Scores Freelance Writing Clients
While the Internet is more effective and efficient in many ways, you won’t want to throw this approach to getting more freelance clients in the marketing dustbin — it still works. And marvelously.
Content marketing research
Research Ain’t Easy (But it’s Necessary)
What good research does for you and your readers. The first article in a three-part series by Beth Hayden.A 6-Step Content Marketing Research Process
What should your research process look like? What steps can you take to gather the best possible data on your target audience? Beth Hayden answers those questions.Become a Content Marketing Secret Agent with Competitive Intelligence
Using slick online snooping techniques and a little sweat equity, we can all find out what our competitors are doing well, what they could be doing better, and how we can adapt their best techniques to improve our own businesses.A 3-Step Process for Painless Keyword Research
How to stay focused when doing your research and how to avoid getting bogged down in the stuff that doesn’t matter. Because you will. How to Find the Keywords that Work for Your Content Marketing Goals
Accurate keyword research helps you optimize your website for the search engines, and it also allows you to shape your content strategy. So it’s vitally important that you use smart tactics to help you do your research in a fast, efficient way.5 Ways Listening to Community Data Can Expand Your Content Marketing Strategy
When talking about content marketing, discussions often focus on decisions about topics, headlines, platforms, and distribution. But how much do you consider the data that supports these decisions?Why Content Marketing is a Long Game (and How to Play It)
Whether or not you know it, you’re playing a long game with content. Let’s take a look at just a few ways to improve your online strategy.How to Determine the Potential Size of Your Content Marketing Opportunity
Are readers already displaying a passion for your space? Are they looking for the type of content you’re producing or want to produce? Are they sharing it? Eric Enge explainsDon’t Create Your Content Strategy Until You Research These 6 Things
Here are six areas you should research to avoid a content strategy that’s DOA (Dead on Arrival), so your content marketing gets — and holds — your audience’s attention.Empathy Maps: A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer’s Head
The media you create can attract an audience. As that audience grows, you must learn their needs, wants, hopes, and fears. That information helps you learn about a customer’s worldview.Tap Into This Psychological Driver to Create the Ultimate Message
Want to overcome content shock? Then you need to understand your audience’s outlook. In other words, you need to tap into their worldviews.
Idea creation
Surviving “Content Shock” and the Impending Content Marketing Collapse
You and I both know that there is a hell of a lot of content out there. Here’s why Sonia Simone is not worried about it.Conquer Content Shock with Illegitimate Ideas
An illegitimate idea is one that is unnatural — a mongrel. We don’t know its origins. It comes out of left field and is so surprising and disruptive that we halt and pay attention to it.49 Creative Ways You Can Profit From Content Marketing
Build a membership website. Yellow page ads that look like a blog post. Address popular objections. And 46 more ideas to help stoke your content creativity.How to Use Content to Find Customers
What do birthday cakes and content marketing have in common? More than you think.The 10-Step Content Marketing Checklist
Sonia calls this blog post a “checklist” for building a solid content marketing platform. I prefer “law” or “commandment” because if you break one of these rules, you’ll pay.The Powerful Resource You’ve Always Wanted When Presented with Creative Challenges
Avoid producing copycat content and discover how to create not-to-miss, valuable, unique online content that helps you achieve your business goalsZen and the Art of Content Marketing
Content marketing in the 21st century might seem like an endless high-speed car chase. But it doesn’t have to be. Not when you apply the simple principles of quality used by this world-renowned Japanese sushi chef.Why Content Marketing Is the New Branding
Your content defines you. And it becomes the vehicle in which you communicate promises and expectations to your customers. Check out the nifty infographic from PRWeb on different options for sharing your brand online.How to Brainstorm Brilliant Ideas for Your Blog
You probably know what brainstorming is. But do you know how to do it correctly? Do you know what you need to do before, during, and after the event to make it actually successful? I didn’t. Not until I read this article.How to Write 16 Knockout Articles When You Only Have One Wimpy Idea
Are you struggling to write articles for your blog? It’s time to get creative. Stefanie Flaxman describes 16 different types of blog posts that you can apply to any niche.
Content creation
Is Content Marketing a Hamster Wheel You Can’t Escape?
Here is a technique that — in exchange for some bursts of intense hard work — will bring you long breaks from the content creation hamster wheel.The Unstoppable Rise of the Digital Content Creator
Software and digital content creators have become a powerful pair.3 Components of a Content Marketing Editorial Calendar that Works
Are you strategic about your content creation? Or do you wing it, publishing content with a short-term view? One will help you be successful for the long-term. The other will stunt your growth.A Simple Plan for Writing One Powerful Piece of Online Content per Week
Want a beautiful four-step procedure for creating a drop-dead gorgeous blog post each week? One that draws out the process leisurely over four days? And lets you do it in your slippers? Read on.58 Ways to Create Persuasive Content Your Audience Will Love
You want to be a great writer. Seduce readers. Climb above the competition. If that’s you, then start with this step-by-step guide to creating ridiculously good content. Henneke doesn’t disappoint.The Copyblogger “Secret” to Creating Better Content
Content marketers use content to advertise a product, service, or idea. You want to attract attention. Create desire. Stoke interest. But you also want readers to actually do something. Here’s how.22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue
It happens to the best bloggers and content marketers. Idea dry spells. After dipping into the well every day for months … you come up empty. This infographic is a fast and helpful tool that jump-starts the content creation process.A Crash Course in Marketing With Stories
Stories are easily the most powerful tool in the content marketer’s arsenal. People love good stories. Stories communicate complex ideas simply. And stories stick in people’s minds. But if you don’t know how to write a good story, then they won’t help you.How to Constantly Create Compelling Content
Where are you supposed to get all your ideas for content? The answer can be found in a little-known intersection that artists, scientists, and songwriters have been crossing for centuries.The Simple 5-Step Formula for Effective Online Content
Effective content marketing comes down to two things: education and personality. The right combination of these two elements will lead to leaps in traffic, subscribers and — ultimately — customers.The 3-Step Cure for Boring, Useless Content
If your business could benefit from content marketing, the worse thing you could do is avoid it. The second worst thing is to create lame content. Geoff Livingston tells you how to make sure that never happens.The 7 Essential Steps to Creating Your Content Masterpiece
Johann Sebastian Bach — one of the greatest composers who ever lived — had one of the most grueling production schedules one could imagine. And that, my friends, is one of the reasons he cranked out so many masterpieces. Mark McGuinness explains.How to Craft a Marketing Story that People Embrace and Share
Storytelling isn’t limited to a blog post or a sales page. Storytelling works for your overall position in a market. So, how do you write a story? Use these three steps.Master This Storytelling Technique to Create an Irresistible Content Series
Since your competitors are likely writing about similar topics, storyboarding is a technique you can use to craft a special experience readers won’t find anywhere else. Check out this storyboarding tutorial.
Content marketing promotion
The 7 Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing
Here are the seven essentials that will turn your social media marketing from an annoying time-waster to an effective bottom-line booster.Launching a New Product? These 5 Tips Will Get You the Testimonials You Need
If your content, product, or service is new, then you’re likely wondering how to get testimonials. I show you a smart way to gather proof with these five tips.Content Marketing Is Easier When You (Partially) Delegate These 12 Tasks
These are partial delegation workflows you can assign to someone else that will either give you back the most time or help you with activities you’ve been meaning to do but don’t get to.How to Create an Agile Content Marketing Strategy (and Stay Sane Doing It)
Pamela Wilson admits: “I spent so much time this past year creating content that I didn’t make enough time to read. And reading is important when you’re a content creator.”The Proper Way to Automate Your Social Media Activities (and 5 Other Best Practices)
Automating some of your content may be beneficial for both you and your audience. Keep these six automation tips in mind as you set your social media strategy.Why Content and Social Media are a Powerful Match
It’s not enough to create jaw-dropping content. You need to take that content to your audience members, who are sitting around those digital campfires (think social media). They’re waiting for you.The Must-Have Social Media Tool Every Content Marketer Needs
Introducing the ultra-powerful, infinitely flexible social media tool that allows you to publish effective content without holding you to any arbitrary rules. It’s not what you think. Promise.Are You Someone’s User-Generated Content?
The dangers of failing to build a digital asset that you own are real. Casualties abound.
Traffic generation
The Right Way to Think About Google
Google is going to shift. Sometimes abruptly. You don’t need to go along for the ride. Develop a sustainable approach, and leave the panic attacks behind.5 Ways to Get More Traffic with Content Marketing
We all want it: more traffic. But how do we get it? It’s the most common question new bloggers ask. And it’s the question seasoned bloggers never stop asking. Try these five strategies for solid, proven results.No Blog Traffic? Here’s a Simple Strategy to Seduce Readers and Win Clients
Do you have the right building blocks in place to seduce readers and win clients? If you want to create a simple blog plan that will help you win more readers, fans, and clients, answer the five critical questions in this post.How to Make Winning Infographics Without Risk
Research suggests that publishers who use infographics grow in traffic 12 percent more than those who don’t. This is because an infographic, unless it’s completely awful (and they exist), will more than likely go viral. Discover the best ways to create them for your content marketing.8 Incredibly Simple Ways to Get More People to Read Your Content
Most content marketers are fighting a losing battle with obscurity. They write, publish, and promote — and get nothing out of it. That’s painful. To make matters worse, this goes on day in, day out. Follow Pamela Wilson’s advice and that will change.Should Your Content Aim for Traffic or Conversion?
Cosmopolitan and The New Yorker approach content marketing in two entirely different ways. Both approaches are super-successful. And anybody can combine and use these approaches to create killer results.
Content marketing case studies
Our monthly Hero’s Journey feature taps the collective wisdom of our community members to bring you reports from the front lines of the content marketing world. Here are five inspiring case studies:What The New Yorker Magazine Can Teach You About Content Marketing that Works
In a few moments, you’ll know how to not only write content that engages but that also positions you as an authority in your space and dominates in the search engines. How Chris Brogan Built His Content Platform
Look at Mr. Brogan now and you might think he’s a “master of social media.” He rules over one of the most recognizable independent content publishing empires. But life was not always easy for him. In fact, he struggled for eight years to get 100 subscribers. Here’s his story.5 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from a Weird “Real World” Business
Ideas are good. They are even better when they actually work. Here’s a content marketing case study of a business that creates high-end beauty products — for dogs. Weird, but true.What to Do When You Absolutely, Positively Must Know if Your Content Will Rock
Predicting what content will resonate with readers is tough — if not impossible. You simply cannot know unless you do this one thing. Indie band Wilco did and discovered the truth. So will you.The Grateful Dead 4-Step Guide to the Magical Influence of Content Marketing
I can hear you now: “Are you serious? An elderly, endlessly touring hippie band can teach me something about effective content marketing?” Yes, they can. Jerry Garcia was a genius. Or should I say “guru?”
Content auditing
5 Powerful Ways to Keep Building Authority Once Your Content Has Matured
In order to keep the early momentum of your blog launch and deepen that influence, you’ve got to adjust your content strategy to reflect the new demands of your audience.8 Conversion-Boosting Ways to Personalize Your Content
People love to get personalized content. Sadly, that message doesn’t seem to be getting through to marketers fast enough.4 Ways to Identify Site Visitors (and Why It Matters)
“With adaptive content we are supposed to deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. But how do you even know who is on your site?” I asked. In his exquisite English accent he said, “You could start with cookies.”A Brief Guide to Fixing Your Old, Neglected, and Broken Content
There are a number of good reasons why you shouldn’t ignore old, broken, and neglected sections of your website. Here are three benefits of attending to expired content.Is Content Marketing Worth the Effort?
Let me be frank with you: content marketing is work. It is hard work. Hard work like laying bricks or teaching middle school children. But for the practitioner who loves the work? It’s a turn on.Why Nobody Cares about Your Content (and What to Do About It)
Glen Allsopp of ViperChill explains how to build your personal brand and authority by giving your readers everything they want — and never once talking about yourself.Are You Creating Meaningful Content?
Ever think to yourself, “What does this content mean? Does it even matter? Is it significant? Do my readers care?” Those are good questions to ask yourself. And here’s the five-step framework to help you answer them.How to Beat “Invisible Content” Syndrome
I’ve got some bad news for you: every new blog is born with a disease. Professionals call it Invisible Content Syndrome — or ICS. Others call it obscurity. The good news is you can conquer it. Here’s how.The Foolproof Cure for Weak Content: 4 Ways to Get Some Perspective
You have a sweet idea for a blog post. You pop out of bed and hammer out the first draft. When you are finished, you read what you wrote and think that sucks. Don’t worry. That happens to all of us. And there are four great ways to fix it.The Force that Powers Persuasive Content (And 3 Ways to Intensify It)
Bet you didn’t know this, but character building and content marketing go hand in hand. There’s a person behind every piece of content. Is that person honest, credible, and an authority? If not, then here are three ways to improve those essential components.
Content business building
How to Build a Business Using Paid and Free Content
Sonia will tell you how to raise your content marketing game by creating a platinum version of your content.How to Decide Which Content to Sell and What to Give Away for Free
Not sure how much you should give away for free? Chris Garrett helps you find the line between freely available content and content that is locked behind a paywall.The Key to Innovative Business Ideas: Cross-Pollination
No content marketer is an island. We all know this. But we don’t always take the initiative to strategically collaborate to generate the best content marketing ideas. Pamela Wilson reveals how you can get started.Why Content is No Longer King (And Who’s Taking His Place)
Why would a novelist claim that content is not king? I mean, come one, this guy makes his living off of huge chunks of content. Check out his surprisingly good argument.How to Use Ebooks Strategically and Reach Your Content Marketing Goals
Have you written an ebook yet? Some of the most respected content marketers have embraced ebooks for marketing their businesses and as a source of income.Educate to Dominate Your Competition
Want to spark the buying process in your readers without resorting to a hyped-message? Dream of making your products so irresistible that customers hardly notice your sales offers? Then use the six psychological shortcuts of influence.How to Succeed at Content Marketing Even if Your Content Skills Suck
Still a little weak in the knees about this whole content marketing thing because, well, you just don’t have any confidence in your skills? No sweat. Half the battle is doing this one thing.
Your ultimate guide to content marketing
Remember to bookmark this post and keep it as a resource to answer all of your content marketing questions!
This article is part of our series on the 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs. Make sure to get your special free bonus at the end of the article.
Due to its potential to generate large amounts of traffic, but result in low conversion rates, bare-bones Attraction content is kind of like saying, “Let’s throw some spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.”It’s the spaghetti that sticks around that matters. (No, I’m not suggesting your readers are spaghetti. That’s where the analogy breaks down.)But for those readers who do stick around, Affinity content is the content that keeps them sticking around. It gets them to like you. Even love you.When you attract ideal visitors to your site, they hopefully click around and find Affinity articles that further endear them to you.So, what is Affinity content? Here’s a definition:Affinity content is content that attracts people who have the same values and beliefs as you. This content shares your beliefs, so people with similar beliefs feel like they belong in your community.
Read on to discover the value of Affinity content and how it works with Attraction content and Authority content.
Why you need to create Affinity content
Attraction content gets you attention, and Authority content builds your reputation.But what distinguishes you from your competition? Why would a prospect choose you over them?Well, it comes down to basic human psychology — what we call the know, like, and trust factor. It’s true that “liking” and “trusting” are subjective, but a lot of our decision-making is grounded in those fuzzy feelings.In the end, we’re going to go with the person who makes us feel better. We feel better when we feel as if we share a mutual bond or similar worldview.
A company that has attracted an audience with value-added content — but is buttoned-up and remote — will have trouble competing with a person who produces the same content and who you feel a bond with because they seem to understand the way you view the world.It’s about putting yourself in their shoes. Walking their paths — relating. That’s how you increase affinity.But you will actually have to state what you believe in. You will need conviction. About something.
Examples of Affinity content
If you want an example of how this works, study Facebook. Facebook is largely a splintered, contentious, belief-based communication medium. It’s all about people’s beliefs and how they define themselves and find places where they belong, according to their preferences.For your Affinity content, these shared beliefs can run the gamut. It can be anything from strictly pragmatic to plain silly.Here are two examples of Affinity content from Copyblogger:- Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy. In this post, Sonia Simone advises against building audiences on social media sites you don’t own. She then recommends the opposite: Build on your own property. That’s been a Copyblogger belief since day one.
- The Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words. For many of us, it’s posts like this one that endeared Brian Clark to us. Here was a guy sharing conventional writing advice by dropping a reference to a cult movie, The Princess Bride. By the way, Brian didn’t discover those 27 misused words. He repackaged them with personality and drew in readers who shared a love for the movie.
The risk you take with Affinity content
Here’s the deal: The price of not standing for something is that you become generic and get ignored.
You have to occasionally speak out for things you believe in.If you go after everyone, you get no one. And think about this: who really wants to follow someone who doesn’t believe in anything?I can’t promise you that Affinity content won’t make you some enemies. But for every enemy you make, you’ll attract even more people who will go to war with you.And keep in mind that Affinity content isn’t always contentious. Sometimes it’s just personal.
Affinity content gets personal
One of my favorite articles on Copyblogger is Brian Clark’s The Snowboard, The Subdural Hematoma, and The Secret of Life.This is not a tutorial like How to Use the ‘Rule of Three’ to Create Engaging Content. Instead, the snowboard article is a personal story with a moral: live the life you want to live.It’s a moment when Brian was being completely vulnerable. When you are vulnerable, people see who you are. And they realize you have weaknesses just like them.That you are normal and approachable.Another stellar example of Affinity content like Brian’s snowboard article is Jon Morrow’s How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World. It’s an inspirational story that endears you to Jon.
Get comfortable in your own skin
To start creating your own Affinity content, answer worldview questions like:- Are things ever handed to us? Is luck a part of success? Or is hard work the difference between success and failure?
- Can anyone succeed? How important is formal education?
- Do you view the world as one of abundance and opportunity? Or do you see the world as one of scarcity and competition? Or both?
- Is life a game? A war? An adventure? A cocktail party? A chess match? Meaningless?
- What truly matters in life? Is taking action pointless? Should we have it all? Or is that selfish?
- What virtues mean the most to you? Independence? Intelligence? Compassion? Duty?
- Are you practical or romantic? Are you a lover of literature? A lover of pop culture? Perhaps both? Do you love ideas? Do you love people?
- How do you view death? Is it something to be feared or embraced? Why?
Answering those questions will take some time. But you may find that hitting publish once you have written an affinity-style article is even more difficult.We worry what people will think about us after we publish. When our truth is out there.Here’s what you need to know: share as little or as much as you feel comfortable with.If you look at Brian’s body of work, you’ll notice he doesn’t get personal very often. However, he’s very open about who he is, what he thinks, and what he likes.In other words, he’s comfortable in his own skin. Be who you are in pixels as you are in person. Open up, laugh, and don’t take yourself too seriously.
Quick case study: The Year of Falling Apart
I’ll close with a brief story.Long ago, when I was frequently publishing on my personal website, I became tired of writing about web content. Basically, I needed to blow off some steam because I had exhausted myself after producing a long run of articles about writing. Sharing a good personal story was exactly what I needed.The problem was, it didn’t fit within the category “web writing.” I was certain to lose readers. It was way beyond the blog’s focus — but I published the personal story anyway and it ended up becoming one of the most popular articles on the site: The Year of Falling Apart.By giving myself permission to publish Affinity content, I also gave birth to a passel of ideas on web writing. It was a win-win.
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So, content marketer, are you ready to get comfortable in your own skin? Are you ready to share your beliefs? To let people know who you are? Are you ready to create some really good Affinity content?Let us know in the comments.Also let us know your favorite piece of Affinity content. It could be here on Copyblogger or on another site. It could even be something you wrote. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Source
This article is part of our series on the 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs. Make sure to get your special free bonus at the end of the article.
Let’s start at the beginning: you need to attract people to your content.Creating Attraction content is the first step in a successful content marketing strategy and the focus of our first lesson.Here’s a working definition of Attraction content:Attraction content is freely available on the web for social sharing and for search engines to index. Your goal for this content is for people to consume it and spread it.
In other words, this is the content that drives traffic — ideally, a lot of traffic. Let’s look at a few examples of Attraction content.
List articles
Some like to call these articles “listicles.” Others like to call ’em “rubbish.”Call them what you will, but creating a high-quality article around a numbered list like the 109 Ways to Make Your Business Irresistible to the Media simply works.And, yes, you will typically see better results from higher numbers (as long as you make each point a beefy, satisfying item).But Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well or The 7 Things Writers Need to Make a Living prove that short list articles can also be popular.
Infographics
The most-shared piece of content on Copyblogger is an infographic called 15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly.We’ll dig into why it works so well — and why it doesn’t — below.In the meantime, here are two more examples of successful infographics:Both of these infographics were large drivers of traffic and social shares the year they were published (2014).And check out these articles if you are interested in learning how to make winning infographics without risk or transforming your ho-hum infographic into something extraordinary.
Downloadable assets
Give people resources to make their lives easier and they will be happy to share them with others. That’s the purpose behind downloadable assets like worksheets, checklists, and inspirational posters.Definitive guides and content libraries fall into this category, too.Definitive guides are resources like QuickSprout’s The Complete Guide to Building Your Personal Branding or Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO.These are monster resources that pile up the inbound links, generate thousands of social shares, and dominate the top rankings in search engines.Content libraries like My.Copyblogger accomplish the same result, but instead of focusing on one topic, we offer 15 different ebooks on topics ranging from copywriting to content marketing to landing pages.And yes, in exchange for one email address we give you access to all 15 ebooks. If you are interested, you can read up on the results of this approach in a report published by MarketingSherpa (spoiler alert: the experiment was a smashing success, in more ways than we imagined).
SlideShares
Another method for attracting new people to your content is creating slide presentations and publishing them on SlideShare. On Copyblogger, we publish a new post with a SlideShare presentation embedded in it, like we did with 10 Rules for Creating Content People Can Trust.By doing it this way, we drive our Copyblogger audience to view the SlideShare, which then (we hope) raises the number of views to a point that it gets featured on the SlideShare home page.Since all of our slide presentations point back to Copyblogger, this additional exposure potentially introduces us to new audience members.
Surveys and stats
Sometimes you don’t have to create all the content by yourself. You can ask your audience to provide the raw material for you. That’s the idea behind surveys.A survey is also a great way to establish yourself as an authority in your industry by becoming the go-to source for the latest research on a particular topic. In fact, we used a survey to launch our native advertising series, and that survey attracted a number of links.The SEO software company Moz elevates its authority and visibility in the market by releasing its annual search ranking factors report. Surveys are a reliable way to attract links.Stats are another way to reuse content (whether they are yours or someone else’s) to drive traffic to your site and attract links. For example, take a look at NewsCred’s 50 Stats You Need to Know about Content Marketing downloadable report, which is also a SlideShare.
Attraction content mashups
As you can see, and as you will continue to see over the course of this week-long series, Attraction content can embody a number of different formats and mediums.You can also transform one piece of content into different formats and mediums. Almost two years after we published Stefanie Flaxman’s 30 Quick Editing Tips Every Content Creator Needs to Know, we updated it and turned it into a SlideShare presentation.In another case, an infographic became a series of podcasts and then eventually became a series of articles. And don’t forget, you can always republish old blockbuster articles to expose them to a new audience.Now let’s discuss a common problem with Attraction content.
The problem with Attraction content
As I mentioned above, a great example of Attraction content is our 15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly. This is easily our most popular post. It’s generated a ton of links and social shares.In addition, it’s driven a lot of traffic to our site. But there is one problem with the traffic. And it involves delivering the right value to the right type of person.Unfortunately, many of those people who find Copyblogger through Grammar Goofs are not part of our target audience, so they tend to drift away. They care about grammar, but not content marketing.This is not always an entirely bad thing. Traffic surges can lead to surges of free publicity. Let me explain.
When bad traffic can be good
In their early stages, Buffer published hugely popular posts on body language and happiness. They were great posts, but I always thought it was strange for a social media app company to write about these topics.Until I understood what they were doing.See, those popular posts were getting picked up by big-name media sites like TIME and The Huffington Post, which drove a ton of traffic back to Buffer via the links embedded in the articles.As expected, the conversion rates were low, but Buffer got publicity from these articles.This is (sometimes) the beauty of content syndication.Eventually, though, Buffer narrowed its content focus to attract the right audience. Once they reached a critical mass of visibility and traffic, it was time to focus on conversion.The same was true for Copyblogger. Attraction content is now typically part of our content mix about once or twice a month.
When to use Attraction content
Let’s close with a couple of thoughts about when you should use Attraction content.- New websites. Your new website will need a heavy dose of Attraction content to get attention and links. If you publish twice a week, for instance, you could publish Attraction content once a week. This ratio is a good starting place because it’s not easy to predict which piece of content will become a stellar performer.
- Mature websites. In general, it will take you anywhere from six months to two years to start seeing your content rise in the search engines, regularly get shared, and routinely pick up links. Once you reach that point, you may want to publish Attraction content about once or twice a month.
It’s comforting to remember that it’s quite easy to blend your Attraction content with other content types, like Authority and Affinity. This way, you not only drive a lot of traffic to your site, you also attract the right type of traffic.
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Do you have any questions about Attraction content? Drop us a line in the comments section below.And let us know about your favorite piece of Attraction content (whether you or someone else created it).
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Search online and you will see articles about growth hacking everywhere. The only problem is many times growth hacking seems an abstract concept that only big companies can use.This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Any company or website can use growth hacking to grow. Do you know why?Because growth hacking is a mindset, not just a bunch of tactics used to improve your conversion rate.If you are wondering what this mindset is all about and how to use it, fear not.Since 93% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing as their main acquisition channel, in this post, you will learn how the growth hacking mindset works and how to use it for your content marketing strategy.Think like a growth hacker
Let’s start by taking this out of the picture: growth hacking isn’t “something” you do, rather it’s a mindset and a process you implement to a set of tactics to achieve a specific goal. Therefore, if you want to be a growth hacker, you need to think like one.What is growth hacking all about? I could give you all sorts of explanations and definitions, but the fact is growth hacking is all about getting results.Instead of wasting your time thinking things through and looking at the “right way” of doing things like any conventional marketer would do, you “hack” your way through until you get the results you want.Growth hackers, however, aren’t disorganized when it comes to “hacking” their way through results. Growth hackers think like scientists:- They start by creating a hypothesis around a tactic and goal.
- They design a test around that hypothesis.
- They run the test.
- They get the results.
- If the test fails, they learn and try again with a different set of hypothesis.
- If it works, they keep the winning version.
Whatever the result, every time a growth hacker tests a hypothesis he or she learns something that gets them closer to reality.The key of a growth hacker mindset, the one that separates them from a “regular” marketer, is they use inductive reasoning. Let me explain.Most marketers use deductive reasoning when testing a marketing tactic. That is:- They come up with a theory of how things work, which can be based on “marketing rules”, facts, or technical definitions.
- They create a hypothesis around those ideas.
- They run the test and learn based on the results.
That thinking process isn’t bad per se, it’s just inefficient when you are a small startup and you need to get results fast. If you pick the wrong hypothesis, you may lose a lot of time implementing a tactic and trying to grow a channel that has no potential.As a growth hacker, you don’t have the privilege of time or resources. You need to deliver results fast. That’s why you need to use inductive reasoning. That means when you want to test a new tactic, you would:- Make observations on what pieces of content people share and link to.
- Find patterns within those successful pieces of content (e.g. “the articles that got the most shares have lots of screenshots”).
- Tie a probability of success to those patterns (e.g. “using screenshots in our articles have a higher likelihood of getting shares”).
- Create a theory behind those patterns (e.g. “our users like articles with screenshots”).
- Create a test to see if those patterns provide the results you observed before.
Before moving on, let me say this process isn’t as scientific as the ones real scientists use in the biotech industry and the like. Rather, it’s a highly simplified version of this thought process that you need to use.Instead of wasting your time to find theories to back your ideas, you flip the coin and focus on what works and how you can replicate those results.As you can see, this methodology is much leaner and iterative than the theory-based one most marketers use. You make observations, test hypothesis, and find new insights that give you an edge over your competitors.To sum up, as a content marketing growth hacker, your job will be to:- Find successful campaigns from your own company or your competitors.
- Find patterns of success within those campaigns that have a high likelihood of causing that success.
- Come up with a different set of hypothesis based on the patterns previously found.
- Create tests around these hypothesis to validate or refute them.
- Get results, which will help you learn what works and what doesn’t.
If growth hackers focus on results, then how do you use this same mindset for your content marketing campaigns? According to a Content Marketing Institute study, only 42% of B2B marketers say they’re effective at content marketing. This means there’s a big gap between what content marketers want and what they achieve.That may have to do with the fact most B2B content marketers use 13 tactics to achieve their results. That dilutes their efforts in a way that makes content marketing fall short of its potential.Brian Balfour, former VP of Growth at Hubspot, referred to this problem when he wrote:A lot of teams take a shotgun approach to growth by trying a little bit of everything, but never a lot of one thing. It is harder to focus than it is to try everything. As a result they end up just scratching the surface rather than digging a layer deeper to find what really works. There are two things to remember. One, most successful companies get the majority of their scale from a single channel. Two, there are only a few ways to scale.
In other words, you should focus on making content marketing work. In order to do that, you need to have a clear idea on how content marketing can help you grow. Otherwise, you may fall in the 58% of content marketers that say they aren’t effective at doing it.
In the simplest terms, content marketing can help you fulfill three goals:- Attract traffic.
- Generate leads.
- Nurture those leads into customers.
All the content you create within your strategy must be focused on achieving those goals. As the Metallica song goes, nothing else matters.How do you attract traffic these days? By creating content that’s share-worthy and link-worthy.How do you generate leads? By giving people something they want badly enough so they are willing to give you their email address. With the absurd amount of content out there, that’s something that gets harder each day that goes by.How do you nurture leads into becoming customers? By creating a full-funnel content strategy that gives them the information they need when they need it the most.But how do you create content that’s shared and link-worthy? How do you find what people want? And how do you find what content people need at each stage of their buying process?In the next section of this post, I will show you three hacks you can implement today to achieve two of the three goals for your content marketing strategy.
Hack #1: How to get more traffic with reverse engineering
Your content marketing strategy can be focused on many types of traffic, including referral, social, or email. But according to Andrew Chen, one of the few that can be scaled is organic traffic. If your website has enough domain authority, you can expect to get thousands, if not millions, of visitors per month thanks to the traffic brought by search engines.In order to get organic traffic, both your website and your content need to be optimized for search engines, especially Google, which in the United States has a market share of 63.8%.As a former SEO consultant, optimizing a website is as simple as doing two things right:- Optimize your most important pages for one main keyword with moderate to high traffic levels.
- Attract inbound links to your most important pages and to your homepage.
SEO doesn’t get any harder than that. How you can optimize your pages and get inbound links is the big question.The first part of that equation, the on-site optimization, deserves a separate article. That’s why I will focus on the second one: inbound links.Inbound links still are one of the most important factors of Google’s ranking algorithm. You need to attract as many high-quality links to your pages through the use of link building tactics to rank them for your given keywords.There are many link building techniques you can use. The best one, however, is creating great content. Yes, I know “great content” can be a thrilling set of words these days. After all, 76% of B2B marketers blog. Yet, as you may already know, most of them don’t get any results. That’s why you need to create content that makes people want to link to it and share it.To create high-quality content, you could use the typical deductive reasoning most marketers use, which consists of:- Coming up with an idea.
- Create it.
- Promote it hoping people will care.
As a growth hacker, you can do better. Instead of spraying and praying, you can deduce that the content that’s likely to perform best is the one that has already performed well before.In other words, if a piece of content got a lot of shares and inbound links, it means people find that article (and the topic it covers) interesting. If you recreated that article, you could easily get the same results the original one got. You could also change the content type and create an infographic, ebook, video, or podcast based on the topic idea of the successful article you found.In order to find the content that has performed well in your industry, you need to reverse engineer your competitors. To do that, you need to define some features of what makes a piece of content successful. There are many attributes you can select, from a number of comments to social shares to inbound links. The last two, however, are the most important ones.In 2015, Shareaholic found that social media is the largest driver of all referral traffic. As of December 2014, 31.24% of all referral traffic came from social media. That means your social shares can help you bring more referral traffic to your site.What’s more, according to BuzzSumo, longer content can help get the most shares, with 3000-10000 word pieces getting the most average shares (8859 total average shares).
On the other hand, inbound links are one of the largest drivers of organic traffic. A joint-study made by Brian Dean and Eric Van Buskirk found that “the number of domains linking to a page correlated with rankings more than any other factor”.
The best tools that can help you reverse engineer your competitors are BuzzSumo and Ahrefs. The former is a competitor intelligence tool that will help you find what articles got the most shares on five different social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, and Google Plus. The latter is an SEO tool that can help you find keywords, analyze your competitor’s backlinks, among other things.Let’s say you work for a non-profit that focuses on providing shelter to stray dogs and cats in the United States. Your goal is to bring awareness to your cause. In order to achieve that goal, you would need to create share and link-worthy content that drives traffic to your site.The first thing you would need to do is head to BuzzSumo and input some keywords related to your organization’s cause. In this case, I used the keyword “animal shelter”:
The top articles shared related to that topic were about the emotional news: cops adopting stray dogs, an animal shelter that celebrates having adopted all their animals, and so on. They are all histories that are surprising, sweet, and most importantly, emotional.There may be a pattern of success here: people like reading stories that provide good news and bring a smile to their faces. People want emotional stories.This may not mean emotional stories will necessary give you more traffic, but at the least, there may be a correlation between both variables. This is a good enough pattern for you to come up with a hypothesis and a test.You could repeat that process with keywords like “stray dogs”, “abandoned cats”, and other related ones to make sure you see the same pattern. I would recommend you to analyze at least 10 articles in your industry and see what people like sharing. From there, keep looking for patterns and define what specific attributes could be driving those shares.After you are done with BuzzSumo, repeat the same process with Ahrefs. Instead of using keywords, like the ones you used in BuzzSumo, you want to take the articles you analyzed and see how many backlinks each one got. Since a link requires a larger investment than a share, we can assume that an article that gets many inbound links is highly valuable in its industry.First, go to Ahrefs and put one of the most shared links in the search box:
Then you will see the list of results, with the total number of backlinks, the number of domains pointing to the page, how much organic traffic that page gets, and much more.
There’s no right or wrong set of results you are looking for. Rather, you are looking to get a feel for the article and compare that with the other results.In this case, the article got over 350 backlinks, which is a high amount of links for a page like that. This means the article is popular in its industry. You would need to repeat that for the other 5-10 results for the keyword “animal shelter” and the other related keywords to see if the other ones are better or worse. Then, based on what you find, you can decide which articles are the most successful both share and link-wise.Once you are done with the social and links analysis, you will have a good idea of:- What topics people like in your industry.
- What attributes those articles had that made people want to share and link to them.
- What attributes your articles need to have to, at the least, match the quality of those articles.
You can’t just recreate what worked before and hope that will work again, however. You need to bring value to the table. Once you find a topic idea that has worked in the past, you will make it better and promote it to the same people that shared the original one. That way, you are guaranteed an audience who will likely want to hear from you and will link to your piece of content.If an article used a happy emotional story, like the examples shown before, you know you will have to feature stories in your articles. But you could also add some statistics to back your idea better, so the contrast between the happy story and the reality impact your readers even more. You could also show pictures of the subjects being featured in the story.Peep Laja, the conversion expert and founder of ConversionXL, got 100k visitors in his first year thanks to finding a gap, using research-backed data, and optimizing for shares and links. In other words, he followed a similar number of steps as the one I’ve just shown you and he got those incredible results.In his own words:The secret of success is doing something that others are not willing to do for a long, long time.
Once you have finished developing your article, you will need to grab the list of people that shared and linked to the other articles and reach out to them.In the case of a share, you can send that person a direct message or email. I prefer the latter, which despite being more time-consuming, can be more effective and personal.Reaching out to people who shared an article, however, can be hit-or-miss. Many people share articles automatically, without even reading them, so the likelihood of them remembering the article you refer to, and the fact they even care makes this outreach a bit less effective.Outreaching to people who linked to a similar article, on the other hand, can be much better. Not to mention the fact that finding a blog’s manager email is much easier than the previous case. In most cases, you will find the email right on the site itself, on the Contact page.In the case that you can’t find the manager’s email, you will have to do the following. Grab the site’s URL and paste it in Hunter.io.
Before doing anything else, you have to have the blog’s manager name at hand. If you don’t know it, take the time to find it. In most cases, it won’t take you more than 5 minutes checking the About Us and Contact pages. Once you have it, add it in the search box that says “Find Someone..”.
In this case, the confidence level is not large enough, so go to Email Checker, and add that email into the search box.
Now we have the email, we need to send an email letting the blog manager know about the new article. The following email template can help you do that:Hi NAME,
I just stumbled upon your post at SITE and it caught my attention the fact you linked to this amazing guide on TOPIC.
I recently wrote a more in-depth article on the same topic you might find interesting.
Here’s the link: LINK.
Would love to know your opinion on that article. And if you’ll find it useful, please consider linking to it from that post of yours, or perhaps mentioning it in your future writing.
Cheers,
IvanThis process can take some time to execute in its entirety, but if done properly, can help you land high-quality inbound links for your content. And this will help you increase your organic traffic.
Hack #2: How to get more social shares
Despite not driving as much traffic as organic search, having a social presence can help you bring consistent traffic that complements the organic one.But how do you get more social traffic? Having a social sharing plugin installed and a well-functioning Facebook and Twitter presence is a good start, but it won’t be enough. That is too deductive. “People share content if they are given the chance”. Nice theory. But will that alone make people share your content? Not really.People don’t share content because it’s easy to do so. If that was true, you could put random “Like” buttons around your content and people would share your content. There’s a different reason why people share anything, and it’s not related to any plugin.Jonah Berger, author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, explains there are six psychological attributes behind viral content:- Social currency: Sharable information that makes us look good holds social currency.
- Triggers: By Berger’s definition, a “trigger” is something that is easy to remember about a product or idea, helping to ensure it stays top of mind.
- Emotion: If a piece of content touches one of our core emotions, like sadness or mercy, we share.
- Public: If something is public, it can be shared.
- Practical Value: People share what’s useful and relevant.
- Stories: People are inherent storytellers, and all great brands also learn to tell stories. Information travels under the guise of idle chatter.
There’s no denying that if you want to get more social shares for your content, it needs to have as many of these six attributes as possible. The more it has, the more likely it will become “viral”.However, this article isn’t about theory. Remember, this article is about doing what works. There are two main ways you can make your content more viral-worthy.Have you ever read an article and found a small box that featured a quote from that article and a link that said: “Click to Tweet”? That’s exactly what you need to use.The “Click to Tweet” is a simple plugin you can add to your content which can help you increase the social currency of the reader, give them a trigger for them to share while helping them make it public and giving practical value to their friends, all at the same time. Also, you make it easier for them to share right in the article itself.
The key to a successful “Click to Tweet” isn’t just adding a random or promotional quote, like “This article is awesome! Check it out: URL” What social currency would the reader get if he or she shared that? Rather, what you need to do is add a soundbite, something memorable, short, and a bit mysterious that will help you give as much value as possible while making people want to know more.For example, a good “Click to Tweet” for this article would be one that said: “Marketers think deductively, growth hackers think inductively”. It gives a lot of value while being a bit mysterious, which will make the reader’s followers want to click to read more.There are a number of WordPress plugins you can use to add a “Click to Tweet” to your content, my favorite being the one developed by CoSchedule.The second hack to get more social shares is even simpler than the previous one. It’s so simple that I will go ahead and tell you right away: when creating content, use images. I’m not talking about stock photos. I’m not talking about random photos of nature either. I’m talking about custom-made graphics and images that give your content more context, more relevancy, and a more pleasurable reading experience.Why images? you may be wondering. To start, 37% of marketers said visual marketing was the most important form of content for their business. Not only that, but images can help your readers remember your content better while getting more retweets and likes. In other words, it’s a win-win for both parties.The easiest kind of image you should use is screenshots. They give a lot of context and help visualize what you explain. Some other custom images you could create for your content are:- Quotes from the article
- Summary of an idea or concept
- Graphical representation of an idea
Make sure to get a designer to help you create these images, and in the case you can’t or don’t have one, use a tool like Canva.
Hack #3: How to get leads with high-conversion lead magnets
Throughout this article, you have learned about how to attract traffic with SEO and social media. Content marketing isn’t just about traffic, however. As you learned at the beginning of this article, content marketing can also help you attract leads and convert them into customers.The question then becomes, how do you convert your visitors into leads? There are many ways you can convince a lead to become a customer, but there’s only one effective way to convert a visitor into a lead: lead magnets.Lead magnets are pieces of content that you offer to your visitors in exchange for their emails. Once you do that, you can begin to “nurture” them until they become customers. Some examples of lead magnets are:- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Checklists
- Templates
- Reports
DebtHelper, a non-profit credit counseling company, offers a “Free Budget Spreadsheet” to their readers. This is perfect for their audience, as they are in need of help regarding their expenditures. Giving something relevant and useful to them is likely to make them convert at a higher rate.
The way most content marketers approach lead magnets is, as usual, deductive:- They define what people like.
- They create the lead magnet.
- They offer it hoping to get them to convert.
If you are lucky or smart, like the people of DebtHelper, you may convert a decent amount of visitors into leads. But you can’t do business hoping to succeed. As a growth hacker, you only play to win.The way a growth hacker creates a lead magnet is by repeating the same process as in the first hack: you reverse engineer what’s already working. In other words, you find something that people already like, you create a lead magnet, you offer it. Simple, powerful, and effective.There are two ways you can find high-performance ideas for your lead magnets:- You can analyze what has worked on your own site and then you create a lead magnet based on what you find.
- You can analyze what has worked for your competitors and then you create a lead magnet based on what you find.
The first way to find lead magnet ideas is the most effective, as you are giving your visitors what they already like. This will also make the content creation process much easier for you because you will need to expand on what you have already developed before. That’s a big time and money-saver.To get started, go to your Google Analytics account. Once you are in there, go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages.
In there, take a look at all the articles that got the most traffic and lowest bounce rate. You can even see which ones have the highest page value if that’s something you already track. The most popular articles, based on the metrics previously mentioned, are the ones you should consider expanding to create a lead magnet.
The second way mentioned, similar to the one explained in hack #1, will repeat the same process as before. You will have to go to BuzzSumo, add your competitors’ URLs, and analyze their most shared articles. Then you will repeat the process with Ahrefs and see which pieces of content got the most inbound links. From there, you need to analyze and see what topics are the most popular. Take notes, look for patterns, and start creating your lead magnet.Just like it happened with the images, you should get a professional designer to help you out with your lead magnet creation. The other option is to use Beacon, a tool that can help you create resource pages, checklists, ebooks, and more.
Wrap up
If you have been a marketer all your life, this article may seem a bit odd and counterintuitive. You’ve been thinking deductively all your life, focusing on theory and certainty.This article showed you there’s another way of thinking about marketing. It’s a way that focuses on reality and uncertainty. You focus on what works. You focus on what your visitors and customers tell you. You double-down on what succeeds and discard the rest.That’s how growth hackers think. That’s how they act.Now it’s your turn to take the leap and start thinking like a growth hacker. Even if you still want to respect the theory behind your actions, this new way of thinking will help you grow faster.
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