Content marketing and one cost effective way to outsource content creation for low cost. Presented by Trevor Jones at the HubSpot Users Group Maine, November, 2011.

1. Fuel Efficient Acceleration
of Your Content Strategy
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Content is King! Build your Internet Marketing Assets quickly and affordably.
Brought to you by:

2. Nice to Meet You!
Trevor Jones
Twitter: @trevorjones71, @gwimaine
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/trevordjones

3. Content is the Fuel
that Drives Inbound Marketing
• SEO
– Content is King
– Links are Queen
– Likes are the New Links
• Conversions
– CTA’s need a UVP
– Whitepapers, Presentations, N
ewsletters, eBooks, spreadshe
et tools.
Cash is the fuel that drives your business;
fill your inbound marketing gas tank efficiently.

4. The Balanced Blogging Diet:
The right mix of fuel
• Hot sauce – Very infrequent
content that lights fires
• Chocolate cake – Fun, includes
video, images, cartoons
• Roasts – Substantial, requires
research or analysis
infrequent
• Spinach – Thought leadership,
in-depth, less frequent
• Raisin Bran – 250-400 words,
educational, keyword
optimized, frequent
With limited time and limited resources, how do you get them all done?

5. GWI’s Content Challenge
• Need to ramp up business
traffic – especially tied to new
products
– Lots of raisin bran to expand our
keyword rankings
– Current staff lacked time for these
posts & had difficulty writing
raisin bran posts
• Need to accelerate conversions
– More UVP’s required
• Fuel efficiency is a must!
– Limited budget
– Limited time
GWI’s Goal: Be #1 or #2 in Google
for the geo-targeted long-tail phrases “(Product) in Maine”

6. Tuning & Augmenting the Team
• Pull in additional internal
resources to generate content
• Outsource the content we had
difficulty with internally
– Raisin bran (at least two per week)
– White papers
• Use cost effective tools
– No additional budget allocation
• Focus use of internal resources
– Spinach, roasts, chocolate cake (at
least one per week)
– Webinars, spreadsheet tools, etc for
conversions
– Social media listening and
interaction
Thanks to our HubSpot IMC – We found Zerys

7. What is Zerys?
• HubSpot App of the Year
– Available through the community tab in HubSpot
• Marketplace of 7,800 writers
– Writers are customer rated on five star basis
– “Smart Post” reverse-auction style assignment
– Direct assignment to favorite writers
• Web tools to manage content creation
– Keyword selection
– Title suggestions
– Project management
– Communications
– Plagiarism checking
• Extremely affordable – satisfaction guaranteed
– Pay what you want to pay
• 400 word posts for as little as $4.00 from a 4 star writer
– Pay only when you are satisfied with the post
Next: A Tour of the Zerys App

8. Getting Started
• Add funds
– Major credit cards, PayPal
– Promotional credits (ask your IMC or agency!)
• One-time order
– Fast, easy way to try it out
– Content type, keyword, headline, instructions
– Best for jobs that are unlikely to be repeated
– Deadlines modified after the order is placed
– Cancellations automatically returned to
• Project management dashboard
– Project status
– One time order status
• Follow up during project
– Monitor status & communications with writer
– Review content, request revisions, approve, reject
• Follow up when project completes
– Post content (copy-paste or auto export to
HubSpot, WordPress, Word)
– May want to take notes on writer, add to favorites,
or block

9. Using Projects
• Projects are groups of similar assignments
– Similar content type, length, tone, target
market, and general instructions
– Different keywords, titles, and page specific
instructions
– Flexible writer assignment
• Advantages
– Reduces duplicated effort
– Organizes content grouping and editorial calendar
– SEO settings & easier up-front deadline setting
– More control over job re-posting after
cancellations
• Disadvantages
– Takes longer to set up
– Must place an order for one title to complete
setup
• Process
– Project settings and writer Instructions
– Keywords and stage titles
– SEO Settings
– Writer assignment and ordering

10. SmartPost vs. Direct Assign
• Smart Post
– Name the price you want to pay, describe the
project, post on job board
• Starts with best writers at lowest price
• Works skills down, then price up
– Advantages
• Great for trying new writers
• Usually lower overall cost
• Can target by expertise
– Disadvatages
• Cancellations, rewrites, delays
• Uncertainty
• Direct Assign
– Assign directly to a favorite writer or another
in house writer
– Advantages
• Predictable quality
• Rates can be negotiated
• Build relationship with writers
– Disadvantages
• Usually higher overall cost

11. Useful Zerys Tools
• Writer management
– Favorites
– Blocked
– Notes
• Communications
– General messages
– Page specific messages
• Plagiarism
– Automatic checking via Copyscape
• Automatic Keyword Density Check
• Support
– Library of Video Tutorials
– Forums
– Chat
• Reports

12. Maintaining Engine Efficiency
(A few lessons learned)
• Think of Smart Post as a way of
sampling writers
– You do pay less for smart post – but have
no idea what you will get until it’s
submitted
– Over the long term, it’s inefficient for you
and doesn’t pay a living wage to the writer
• Move quickly to direct assignments with
favorite writers
– Build relationships = improved results with
less effort
– Negotiate rates you can both live with
long-term
– Fewer cancellations, less headaches, more
consistent work
• Give good direction
– “Ice cream in, ice cream out”
– Saves frustration, hurt feelings, and time
• Communicate!
– Job specific messages
– Direct messages to writers
Tips for effective use of Zerys

13. Results So Far
• Zerys Blog Posts= About 10% of
GWI Blog blog content
Posts by Content Source – Average Cost: $8.73
– Avg. words: 447
– Average time from posting to
completion: about one week
Marketing – One requiring major
- PR Staff revisions, two minor revisions
Other Staff
• Whitepapers
Zerys – Average Cost $93.72
– Average words: 3162
– One requiring significant revision
• Posting frequency up to 2.5
times per week
Wish a tank of gas was that cheap?

14. Blogging Works: Results for GWI
Keyword Google Ranking Google Ranking 1/17/2011
12/31/2010
High Speed Internet in Maine 2 1
Broadband in Maine 3 1
Internet access in Maine 1 1
Business phone service in Maine 5 1
Internet providers in Maine 2 1
Phone and Internet Services in Maine 5 1
The Fastest Broadband in Maine 1 1
Hosted PBX in Maine 2 1
Cloud Computing in Maine Not Ranked 2
Three Ring Binder Fiber Not Ranked 4
Ethernet over Copper in Maine Not Ranked 4
Fiber optic Internet in Maine Not Ranked 5
Three Ring Binder Fiber 9 5
Data Centers in Maine Not Ranked 7
Hosted Fileshare Not Ranked 17
Phone Systems in Maine Not Ranked 13
Getting there, but still a work in process.

15. Summing Up
• Content outsourcing can be “fuel” ($$$) efficient
– Need to monitor time spent in direction, review, and revision
– You can outsource education, but not thought leadership
• Zerys is a good tool, but like any tool, it’s in how you use it
– SmartPost all the time is too much of a time drain
• The secret to SEO success is hard work
– There’s no easy way out – even outsourcing takes time, effort, and thought
– Blogging and link building do work
Thanks for listening! Any Questions?