Finally: a real-life, practical industry guide on content strategy and marketing. Practical Content Strategy & Marketing is your go-to guide on a practical content strategy and marketing education, created by author Julia McCoy as a written accompaniment to her new course, the Content Strategy & Marketing Course (www.contentstrategycourse.com). If you run a business, or if you’re trying to break into a top-dollar content marketing career, you need to know the practical concepts involved in content strategy and marketing. The “how,” the “why,” the “where” of content. Content marketing itself involves so many platforms, formats, content types, strategies, tools—and to get the most ROI from your approach to content marketing and strategy, you have to know how to do the most important content marketing practices. Forget FOMO and trying to figure out too many things. This guide will teach you the most important foundations and skills you actually need in order to get far in our booming industry of content marketing. For the first time in the industry, Practical Content Strategy & Marketing lays the “hows” of content marketing and strategy out, in a step-by-step approach, book form. Each section has written exercises built to solidify what you’re reading and learning—you’ll be able to fill these out with a pen. Don’t be afraid to mark up this book! Why is this book different? You’re not going to find corporate, birds-eye, mumbo-jumbo fluff in this content marketing guide. Quite the opposite. The author, Julia McCoy, won her way to the top (awarded as the top 33rd content marketer in 2016) the hard-knocks way. She dropped out of college and built a content agency, Express Writers, on nothing but $75 and the tenacity to go and follow her dream and see it through. Five years later, Julia’s business has served over 5,000 clients and employs over 40 team members, and her content consistently ranks at the top of Google and among the highest-shared for guest publications. Her go-to marketing strategy? A practical, hands-on content marketing approach that has ended up bringing her 99% of the clients her agency currently works with. With Julia as your guide, learn the principles and physical “how-to” behind these six key cores of effective content marketing: Module 1: Core Foundations of an ROI-Based Content Strategy Module 2: Audience Persona Discovery, Sales Funnel Content Mapping, & Style Guidelines Module 3: Understanding Keywords, SEO Opportunities, & Creating Keyword Reports Module 4: How to Build Content Cores (Your Content House) for an Authority Presence Online Module 5: Practical Content Creation (Your Site & Guest Blogging) Module 6: Content Promotion, Setting a Budget, Preparing Your Editorial Calendar, & Maintenance Along the way, you’ll get to build a working content strategy from the ground up, using the Brand Strategy Exercises in each module. Have your pen and thinking cap ready—and a brand you want to build an entire working strategy for! Practical Content Strategy & Marketing is a field guide for the smartest content marketers who know that strategy is the key to thriving in our world of new marketing through content. Bonus: leading business marketing expert Mark Schaefer joins Julia to write the foreword, and guests Sujan Patel, Michele Linn, Steve Rayson and more appear in guest lessons throughout the book.

This content marketing course provides a comprehensive guide to creating and implementing an effective content marketing strategy. The course covers various topics, starting with an introduction to content marketing and its history, as well as the benefits it can bring to a business. The importance of understanding your audience is emphasized, with chapters dedicated to creating buyer personas, analyzing audience behavior, and identifying audience needs. The course also covers strategies for creating engaging content, such as storytelling and utilizing visual and interactive elements. Distribution strategies, including social media marketing, email marketing, and SEO/SEM, are explored to ensure that the content reaches the target audience effectively. To measure the success of the content marketing efforts, key performance indicators and analytics tools are discussed, allowing for data-driven decision making and iterating based on performance. Building a content marketing plan is addressed, covering setting goals and objectives, creating a content calendar, and budgeting. SEO and content optimization techniques are also explained, including keyword research and optimization, on-page and off-page SEO, and maintaining freshness and relevance of content. The course delves into various tools and resources available for content marketing, including content management systems, content creation tools, and analytics platforms. It also explores leveraging social media for content curation, community engagement, and influencer collaborations. Best practices for content marketing, such as consistency, quality, audience targeting, and adapting to market trends, are highlighted. Specific strategies for content marketing in e-commerce and crafting compelling headlines and copy are discussed in dedicated chapters. The course also emphasizes ethics and transparency in content marketing, covering topics like disclosures and disclaimers, avoiding misleading content, and protecting consumer privacy. Differences between content marketing for B2B and B2C audiences are addressed, along with strategies for building trust in each context and utilizing different content formats. Finally, the course explores scaling the content marketing strategy by outsourcing content creation, expanding to new platforms, and considering international content marketing.

The NEW Rulebook for Entrepreneurial Success What’s the surest way to startup failure? Follow old, outdated rules. In Content Inc., one of today’s most sought-after content-marketing strategists reveals a new model for entrepreneurial success. Simply put, it’s about developing valuable content, building an audience around that content, and then creating a product for that audience. Notice a shift? Author Joe Pulizzi flips the traditional entrepreneurial approach of first creating a product and then trying to find customers. It’s a brilliant reverse-engineering of a model that rarely succeeds. The radical six-step business-building process revealed in this book is smart, simple, practical, and cost-effective. And best of all, it works. It’s a strategy Pulizzi used to build his own successful company, Content Marketing Institute, which has landed on Inc. magazine’s list of fastest growing private companies for three years straight. It’s also a strategy countless other entrepreneurs use to build their own multi-million dollar companies. Build an audience and you’ll be able to sell pretty much anything you want. Today’s markets are more dynamic and customers are more fickle than ever before. Why would you put all your eggs in one basket before securing a loyal customer base? Content Inc. shows you how to get customers first and develop products later. It’s the best way to build a solid, long-lasting business positioned for today’s content-driven world. This is the simple but profoundly successful entrepreneurial approach of one of today’s most creative business minds. A pioneer of content marketing, Pulizzi has cracked to code when it comes to the power of content in a world where marketers still hold fast to traditional models that no longer work. In Content Inc., he breaks down the business-startup process into six steps, making it simple for you to visualize, launch, and monetize your own business. These steps are: • The “Sweet Spot”: Identify the intersection of your unique competency and your personal passion • Content Tilting: Determine how you can “tilt” your sweet spot to find a place where little or no competition exists • Building the Base: Establish your number-one channel for disseminating content (blog, podcast, YouTube, etc.) • Harvesting Audience: Use social-media and SEO to convert one-time visitors into long-term subscribers • Diversification: Grow your business by expanding into multiple delivery channels • Monetization: Now that your expertise is established, you can begin charging money for your products or services This model has worked wonders for Pulizzi and countless other examples detailed in the book. Connect these six pieces like a puzzle, and before you know it, you’ll be running your own profitable, scalable business. Pulizzi walks you step by step through the process, based on his own success (and failures) and real-world multi-million dollar examples from multiple industries and countries. Whether you’re seeking to start a brand-new business or drive innovation in an existing one, Content Inc. provides everything you need to reverse-engineer the traditional entrepreneurial model for better, more sustainable success. Joe Pulizzi is an entrepreneur, professional speaker, and podcaster. He is the founder of several startups, including the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), recognized as the fastest growing business media company by Inc. magazine in 2014. CMI produces Content Marketing World, the world’s largest content marketing event, and publishes the leading content marketing magazine, Chief Content Officer. Pulizzi’s book Epic Content Marketing was named one of Fortune magazine’s Five Must Read Business Books of the Year.

Research shows that this analytical, skeptical buyer conducts a great deal of independent research before engaging with vendors. Companies that share expertise through high-quality content on a consistent basis are not only seen as trusted resources, they also spend less per lead and achieve greater pipeline efficiency. ​Content Marketing, Engineered guides you through the key steps in creating content to inform, educate, and help your technical buyers on their journey to purchase and beyond. By the time you reach the last page, you’ll be familiar with the entire end-to-end content marketing process, from planning and writing to publishing, promoting, and measuring the performance of your content.

WINNER: Small Business Book Awards 2016 - Community Choice - Social Media Category WINNER: Small Business Book Awards 2014 - Community Choice - Marketing Category (1st edition) Make sense of content marketing in the digital world with this award-winning, practical guide to using content to grow your business and raise your brand. From websites, white papers and blogs to tweets, newsletters and video, content is king in the digital world, now more than ever before. Get it right and you have a huge opportunity to connect with clients and customers in ways they appreciate and trust - they will be knocking at your door wanting to do business with you. Valuable Content Marketing shows you how to create and share the type of information that clients, customers and search engines really want - on your website, using social media and through more traditional methods. Including new ideas and examples, step-by-step action lists, quick tips and goal-driven chapter summaries, this fully revised second edition will show you how to get better results from your marketing efforts with valuable content that really works. Whether you are starting a business or aiming to grow, this book makes understanding the key concepts easier than ever, providing inspiration from small companies like software development from Desynit to household names like HSBC.

Reach more customers than ever with TARGETED CONTENT Epic Content Marketing helps you develop strategies that seize the competitive edge by creating messages and “stories” tailored for instant, widespread distribution on social media, Google, and the mainstream press. It provides a step-by-step plan for developing powerful content that resonates with customers and describes best practices for social media sharing and search engine discoverability. Joe Pulizzi is a content marketing strategist, speaker and founder of the Content Marketing Institute, which runs the largest physical content marketing event in North America, Content Marketing World.

A crash course on the most dynamic marketing platform today! Online marketing has evolved far beyond flashy websites and banner ads shouting at customers about your product. It's about using an array of Internet tools to build credibility and visibility, spread your message, and form meaningful customer relationships. The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Online Marketing puts you on the fast track to harnessing the power of the Web for your marketing goals. It begins with planning and building a website and then provides in-depth coverage of essential online marketing tools and techniques, such as: Content marketing and blogging Social media marketing Web analytics Search Engine Optimization (SEO ) E-mail marketing Online Public Relations Earn a Certificate of Achievement Through A Free OnlineExamination! The McGraw-Hill 36 Hour Course: Online Marketing spells it all out in easy-to-understand terms and actionable steps. You’re already on your way to Web marketing mastery!