Content Marketing Training Course

Content Marketing Course
“Everything Becomes an Inspiration”
By Andrea Kalli

Summary
• Variety of Content Types
• Why create content and publish it online?
• Where will your content go?
• What are the biggest obstacles keeping you from
creating and posting content?
• How often should you post content?
• Setting expectations on your return of investment
• Content types
• Steps in Getting started
Andrea Kalli
Professional Support for Your Business Online www.virtualassist.net

Summary – part 2
• Importance of Keyword Research
• Content Gathering and Preparation tools
• Where do the ideas come from?
• Writing and Posting tools
• Outsource the writing
• Content repurposing ideas
• Ways to Monetize Your Content
• Distribution locations

Andrea Kalli

Variety of Content Types
• Written Text content – our focus today
• Audio content – covered in another session
• Video content – covered in another session

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Why create content and publish it online?
• “People do business with those they know, trust, and
like”
• Increase traffic to your site through search engine
results pages (serps)
• Establish your credibility and expertise
• Virtually get to know your readers (content consumers)
• Establish rapport and familiarity
• Establish your brand
• Your content is “out there” for a very long time and will
continue to pull in traffic to your website and interest
in your business. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Andrea Kalli

Where will your content go?
• Make no mistake, when I’m talking about posting your
content, I am always referring to your blog first.
• It should be your communications central. Your
information delivery portal. Then you can include other
content sharing sites into the mix.
• Ideally you’ll push your content to other places for
more reach, such as social networks.
• Your blog is a tool to get attention. Attention that you
hope to convert into something else (be that sales,
opportunities, or just important conversations).

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What are the biggest obstacles keeping you
from creating and posting content?
• “I don’t know what to write about”
• “Nobody wants to hear what I have to say,
anyway”
• “I’m not good at writing”
• “I don’t have the time to write articles or
create content”
• “Posting and publishing is too complicated, a
nuisance, or time-consuming for me”
Andrea Kalli

How often should you post content?
• It’s common to set a goal for how often you
should be posting content. Otherwise, it’s too
easy to let your overall goal for the year slip away.
• A nice attainable goal is once a week. That works
out to 52 posts per year.
• If you’re just starting out and the thought of
publishing weekly content is overwhelming right
now, then cut that in half. But no less.
• Make a commitment to your business and your
content marketing strategy.
Andrea Kalli

Setting expectations on your return of
investment
• Be realistic. A solid content strategy can take
months before you begin to see an increase in
traffic and new interest in your business. 6
months is good, but it could be longer.
• Remember, you’re in this for the long haul.
• Content Marketing is a long-term strategy.

Andrea Kalli

Content types – both have their place
in your content strategy
• Evergreen content – readers will find value in
it even if it’s 10 years old
• Topical content – tied to current dates, events,
and happenings

Andrea Kalli

Steps in Getting started
• 6 Steps to Creating Your Content
1. Concept – save a title for an article (idea gathering
tools)
2. Start Writing – get your ideas down (idea gathering
tools/desktop blogging software)
3. Create Media Content – take pictures, create
audio/video
4. Consolidate – move it all to your desktop blogging
software
5. Review/Editing – edit it all, print out and read
6. Post & Promote – get your article live & share it

Andrea Kalli

Importance of Keyword Research
• Start every content project with your
keywords in mind.
• If you haven’t done so yet, do your keyword
research so you know what your market is
typing into the search engines.
– Keyword research tools
• Market Samurai – desktop application
• Google Adwords Keyword online tool
• Wordtracker

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• Dedicate time each month to organize and
prepare your thoughts, ideas, and content
outlines.
• Strive for every two weeks – about 4-8 hours
each time for this

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Content Gathering and Preparation
tools
• Editorial calendar – feed it using the following
– Ideas Notepad
– 3x5 index cards
– Smartphone recorder
– Portable digital recorder
– Whiteboard
– Big sticky-notes

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Evernote.com - “Remember Everything”
• Save your ideas, things you like, things you
hear, and things you see.
• Available for Windows, Mac, iPhone/iPad/iPod
Touch, Android, Android Tablet, BlackBerry,
Windows Phone 7, Palm Pre/Pixi

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Evernote
• You can email notes, snapshots, and audio
clips to this address from your mobile phone
or desktop, and have these notes instantly
saved in Evernote.
• There’s email client integration, where you can
send email content directly to Evernote for
further development. There’s now a new
toolbar in my Outlook tab, “Add to Evernote”.
Kewl!

Andrea Kalli

Evernote Paid plan = $5/month
• Bigger upload size, more storage
• Team Collaboration features
• Premium Support

Andrea Kalli

Where do the ideas come from?
• We are our own worst enemy when it comes to
developing out an idea.
• Don’t talk yourself out of an idea for content until you
explore all aspects of it. (how can it relate to your
business, business ideals, business passion?)
• Trust in your initial spark for an idea and build on it.
• Remember the emotion your inspiration made you
feel.
• Not everything you write has to “rock their world”.
• Show your personality and your fun side as often as
you like.
• Share a bit of yourself in your content as often as you
like.
Andrea Kalli

• Your services and your products
• Subscribe to your favorite topic-related blog –
email and/or RSS feed
– Read. The more you read, the more you can write.
Things spark your interest all the time. Use reading to
keep your thoughts and ideas alive.
– Organize interesting topics into email folders and/or
RSS reader folders
• Breaking News in your industry – Google Alerts

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• Exercise #1: Let’s start filling in your Editorial Calendar
• Holidays - US
– New Year's Day: 1-1-2012
– Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. 1-16-2012
– President’s Day 2-20-2012
– Valentine’s Day 2-14-2012
– St. Patrick’s Day 3-17-2012
– Memorial Day 5-27-2012
– Independence Day 7-4-2012
– Labor Day 9-3-2012
– Columbus Day 10-8-2012
– Halloween 10-31-2011
– Veterans Day 11-11-2011
– Thanksgiving Day 11-25-2011
– Christmas Day 12-25-2011
• Awareness days , world events, federal holidays, international days,
national holidays, public holidays, festivals.
– Earth Day 4-22-2012
• Current events and Local events
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Crazy, silly, lesser-known observation days
• For the week of October 16-22th, 2011
– World Food Day 10-16-2011
– Boss's Day (or National Boss's Day) 10-17-2011
– National Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day 10-17-2011
– Evaluate Your Life Day 10-19-2011
– Get to Know Your Customers Day 10-20-2011
– Information Overload Day 10-20-2011
– Make A Difference Day 10-22-2011
• http://www.brownielocks.com/month2.html
• Exercise #2 optional: enter these into your
editorial calendar
Andrea Kalli

Bonza Bottler Days
• Bonza Bottler Day is celebrated once a month when the
number of the month coincides with the number of the day
(Jan. 1, Feb. 2, March 3, etc.). There are twelve of these in a
year.
• When the number of the year also coincides with the
number of the day and month, there is reason to have a
bigger celebration (more food, more friends and more
decorations). This is called a Bodacious Bonza Bottler Day.
– Next Bodacious Bonza Bottler Day: November 11, 2011 (11-11-
11)
• First officially celebrated on August 8, 1985, it is a day that
friends and family have as a reason to enjoy life and get
together every month. Easily adopted for your business.
• http://www.bonzabottlerday.com/bonzabottlerday/
• Exercise #3 optional: enter the dates into your editorial
calendar
Andrea Kalli

• Hot topics that your business can relate to
• Celebrities in the news – can translate to
topics you can somehow relate in your
business.

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Record Everything
• If you speak at events, both live and online, RECORD IT!
• If a live event you can either use the video as a demo of
your knowledge and expertise, as well as showing your
personality.
• The video can be chopped up and you can create a
montage of your presentation as incentive to hire you.
• You can capture the audio from the video and provide the
audio as snippets on your website to give your content
some added personality and as a way to connect with
visitors to your website.
• The audio can be transcribed and highlights captured and
used as Facebook Page posts, Tweets, and posts on
LinkedIn.
• Ideal for speakers as speaker demos.
Andrea Kalli

• Events you’re attending, or perhaps hoping to
attend.
• Anniversaries – not personal ones, but global
ones, local ones, and business ones
– when did you start your business?
• Exercise #4: enter the date into your editorial calendar
– Recently observed 10th anniversary of 9-11
• Opportunity for a reflective and thought-provoking article
• Your birthday.
– Exercise #5: enter it into your editorial calendar

Andrea Kalli

• Seasons – Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter
– Relate your business and industry to the changing of
the seasons.
• Winter: December 22, 2011 12:30 A.M. EST
• Spring: March 20, 2012 1:14 A.M. EDT
• Summer: June 20, 2012 7:09 P.M. EDT
• Fall: September 22, 2012 10:49 A.M. EDT
• Winter: December 21, 2012 6:12 A.M. EST
– Exercise #6: enter them into your editorial calendar
• Ask your readers what they want more of.
Andrea Kalli

Subscribe to a Blog Ideas service
• Chris Brogan has one at
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/blog-topics/ .
Very affordable and will give you some great
ideas and inspiration.
• His latest service is geared toward a more
complete ideas service for small business, at
http://www.humanbusinessworks.com/landin
g/blogbiz .
• Both of these are less than $10 a month each.

Andrea Kalli

Idea-fest
• Create a multi-part series
• Example titles for a 5-part series (could be about one
of your services)
– “an introduction to [topic]”
– “first moves in [topic]”
– “interview with [person] about [topic]”
– “a deeper dive into [topic]”
– “wrapping up about [topic]”
• Do 3 of these 5-part series in a year
– 15 posts
– Exercise #7: Jot down 3 of your services and begin to build
your ideas. Enter them into your editorial calendar.
Andrea Kalli

Provide answers to what
people are asking

• Answers to questions you get asked, questions
you’ve answer via email, questions you see on
forums.
• How-to tutorials

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• Industry interviews
• Industry product and book reviews
• Top Tens – lists are awesome!
• Monday Focus
• Weekly Wrap-up for news related to your
business
• Monthly highlights for the news related to your
business and industry.
– Exercise #8: enter one of these near the end of each
month in your editorial calendar.

Andrea Kalli

• Take inspiration from customer comments and
feedback, maybe create a “best of comments
for the month”
• “10 Short Sentences That Sum Me Up”

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• “3 Books That Inspire Me”
• Other Inspiration-driven ideas: have you been inspired
by
– a person,
– a sign in a store,
– a song on the radio,
– a plugin you tried and loved,
– a commercial on TV,
– something you saw on the way to the office/store,
– a piece of art or public sculpture,
– the way the sunset shined on the lake you drove by,
– how the early morning light sparkles on the snow,
– the art your child or grandchild created in school this
week,
– the way your pet behaved this week.
• You get the idea.
Andrea Kalli

• Relate a movie or TV show to your business.
“How Virtual Assistance is like Fringe”
• Exercise #9: review the Big Blog Ideas list and
indicate at least 10 content ideas you are
interested in writing about and add them to
your editorial calendar. 5-10 MINUTES

Andrea Kalli

Writing and Posting tools
• Online
– Google Docs – for collaborative writing. Supposed
to be able to post to blog from Google Docs.
– Dropbox – collaborate on documents with those
you share them with.
– Evernote online – premium plan offers
collaborative online environment.

Andrea Kalli

Desktop Writing and Posting tools
• Windows Live Writer -
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer
– Insert images/videos/audios, assign categories
and tags, schedule for later posting date, assign
heading tags, assign image alt tags
• Insert Files plugin -
http://plugins.live.com/writer/detail/insert-
files
– FAB FEATURE: allows you to browse your
computer for the file, and it uploads it for you to
your blogging site. Great for including audio with
your blog post.
Andrea Kalli

• BONUS: Wordpress plugin – Audio Player –
option to automatically convert any link to
mp3 file to use the audio player.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/audio-
player/
• Microsoft Office Word 2007 and 2010 also
have a Publish to Blog feature
• MarsEdit (Mac) - http://www.red-
sweater.com/marsedit/

Andrea Kalli

Mobile devices
• Smartphones –
– not ideal for writing text, but there are other benefits such
as voice recording features in a variety of apps. Combine
that with the ability to easily email the recording to
yourself for further content development.
• Smartphone apps – Evernote, Dragon Dictation.
• Evernote is a great app for gathering your thoughts
and content inspirations for further development.
DEMO OF EVERNOTE APP ON IPHONE
• iPad – much easier to type on.

Andrea Kalli

Wordpress publishing
• Wordpress Editorial Calendar plugin -
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-
calendar/
• The editorial calendar gives you an overview of your
blog and when each post will be published.
• You can drag and drop to move posts, edit posts right
in the calendar, and manage your entire blog.
• Got an idea? Create the beginning of your draft right in
the Editorial Calendar and save it as a draft.
• This makes it very easy for you to see the gaps in your
content that’s currently scheduled.
Andrea Kalli

Outsource the writing
• Not a writer? No problem. Don’t have the time? No
worries.
• Partner with someone to take your outline and do the
writing for you
– Find a VA/writer and trade some services with them
– Elance.com
– Constant-content.com
– Needanarticle.com
– ecopywriters.com
– textbroker.com
– Seo-writer-pro.com
• PLR sites – Private Label Rights
– These are starting places for your content.
• Easyplr.com
• DIYplr.com Andrea Kalli

Content repurposing ideas
• Turn groups of text posts into summary articles to post
to article sites
• Turn text posts into an ebook, a report, a whitepaper
and offer as a free download for opt-ins, or as a paid
product
• Turn text posts into a powerpoint presentation
• Turn the powerpoint presentation into a narrated video
• Capture the narration from the video into a separate
audio
• Take a conference course you created and develop
further for your membership site, your ebook, your
text/video/audio ecourse.
Andrea Kalli

2 Easy Ways to Monetize Your Content
• Accompany the videos and audios with some
worksheets, checklists, graphs, flow charts,
and tip sheets and turn them into a paid
product you can sell.
• Include dedicated time with you in the “Gold”
product and charge even more.

Andrea Kalli

Distribution locations – after posting
on your blog, of course 
• Slideshare.net
• Scribd.com
• Ezinearticles.com
• Video sharing sites –
– youtube.com,
– vimeo.com,
– dailymotion.com, etc.
• Social networks – push blog content to them
– Facebook Page
– Twitter
– LinkedIn
Andrea Kalli

Resources
• Article on using Evernote for Bloggers -
http://michaelhyatt.com/how-to-use-evernote-as-a-
blogger.html
• Article on using Evernote, Live Writer, Picasa, and Dropbox
for a better blogging process -
http://www.hightechdad.com/2011/05/13/how-to-write-
blog-efficiently-with-free-tools-like-evernote-dropbox-
picasa-live-writer/
• Tutorial for blogging with Windows Live Writer 2011 -
http://devilmustcry.com/blog/how-to-blog-with-windows-
live-writer-2011-tutorial.html
• Great plugins for bloggers using Windows Live Writer -
http://devilmustcry.com/blog/14-windows-live-writer-
plugins-for-professional-bloggers.html
• http://devilmustcry.com/blog/dummies-guide-how-to-use-
windows-live-writer-for-blogging.html
Andrea Kalli

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