Building a Content Marketing Machine -John Doherty's deck

Building A Content Marketing
Machine
John Doherty
Founder, GetCredo.com
@dohertyjf

Who am I?
Currently: Founder of Credo (GetCredo.com)
Growth/inbound marketing consultant for
hire
Blogger: johnfdoherty.com
Previous:
• Senior Growth Marketing Manager at
Trulia Rentals
• Senior Marketing Manager at HotPads
• Senior Consultant at Distilled NYC
@dohertyjf

Let’s talk content marketing
@dohertyjf

Some of the results I’ve seen and heard of
Content marketing:
• Changed a site from buying $15k of links a month to earning links
from sites like REI
• Grew an audience by tens of thousands from scratch and contributed
meaningful conversions to a business
• Personally made me over $70k from one product launch and the
marketing around it
• Obtained millions of visits and earning shares from some of the
biggest celebrities (for free!)
@dohertyjf

But some of you are probably thinking
“We gave content marketing a shot and it didn’t work.”
@dohertyjf

But some of you are probably thinking
We gave content marketing a shot and it didn’t work.
@dohertyjf

Let’s think about some types of content
Infographics
Whitepapers
Blog posts
Data visualizations
eBooks
@dohertyjf
Email drip campaigns

Content Marketing Has Exploded In Popularity
@dohertyjf

What is a content machine?
@dohertyjf

If you’ve ever said “we tried content marketing and it didn’t work for
us”, you didn’t have a machine.
@dohertyjf

Content Machine Formula
((Ideation+creation)*promotion) + measurement
@dohertyjf

A machine is a sum of its parts. Every part works together. If one part
isn't working, then you're wasting gas or worse, not even on the road
anymore.

Rome wasn’t build in a day. Neither will your machine. So let’s figure
out where to start.
@dohertyjf

From Idea to MVP
Let’s build a skateboard.
@dohertyjf

First, “What is an MVP?”
@dohertyjf

An MVP is a working first iteration based off a hypothesis. In content
marketing, your hypothesis can be informed by data and observation.
@dohertyjf

Do an assets audit
At HotPads we figured out what assets we
were working with. We had:
• A blog on a subdomain
• Consistent content on this blog (but
minimal traffic)
• The ability to publish longer form content
• A budget for content
• A designer eager to help
• Pages onsite that had earned links in the
past
Unlike this house, we had a solid
foundation
@dohertyjf

Who’s the content competition and what are
they doing?
At HotPads, we looked at our competitors.
They all:
1. Had blogs, but not great content
2. Some were cranking out a lot of
content, others not so much
So we asked:
1. What are they doing well? Not doing
well?
2. Where are the gaps?
3. What kind of content is available to us?
4. What’s our unique spin?
5. What will our users find interesting,
supported by keyword research?
@dohertyjf

What Can You Do Better Than Anyone?
At HotPads, we could do maps better than anyone.
@dohertyjf

How Do You Produce Content At Your
Company?
Varies by company but you have a mix of the following:
@dohertyjf
Budget
Time
Expertise
People

What can you start today?
Will vary by company, but here are some ideas:
If you’re design-heavy, create fantastic graphics
If you’re writing heavy, create the best damn ebooks possible
If you have a ton of data, take a fresh angle on it
@dohertyjf

Think to Leverage Outside Resources
Depending on your mix on the previous slide, you might want to
investigate an outside agency to help you out with the following:
@dohertyjf
Strategy (if you can execute)
Promotion (if you create)
Execution (if you can
promote)
Any combination herein

There’s no promotion without creation, so nail
creation before moving on to promotion.
@dohertyjf

No one had really cracked the content code with
renters. We knew what didn’t work, but also
didn’t know from our competitors what did.
@dohertyjf

But we knew from our parent company the
kind of content that worked there.
@dohertyjf

We had the following ideas for content
Location-specific
content
Interesting maps with
available data
Think pieces Graph data
PR stuntsBest hoods in (city)
@dohertyjf

We had the following ideas for content
Couldn’t scale this
within budget
Traffic, links, and
brand!
No interest No interest
Traffic links and brand!Good traffic, no brand
@dohertyjf

We went with these after a lot of testing
Location-specific
content
Interesting maps with
available data
Think pieces Graph data
PR stuntsBest hoods in (city)
@dohertyjf

We decided on a dual approach
Consistent quality content that
would be useful for our target
audience around topics of:
1. Renting
2. Living in cities
3. Moving
4. Life changes
Higher quality focused content
including but not limited to:
1. Data
2. Maps
3. Graphics
4. Photos
@dohertyjf

We decided on a dual approach
Consistent quality content that
would be useful for our target
audience around topics of:
1. Renting
2. Living in cities
3. Moving
4. Life changes
Higher quality focused content
including but not limited to:
1. Data
2. Maps
3. Graphics
4. Photos
@dohertyjf
Which do you think earned more links, got more coverage, and
ultimately drove more qualified traffic?

Best Neighborhoods in
(City)
It might not be the sexiest content,
but we had access to a lot of data
around neighborhoods, like
demographics.
We also had a lot of opinions . If a
good way to get people involved is
to create controversy…
Easy to create, easy to scale. Won’t
build a brand.
@dohertyjf

The Future of
Construction Series
We had access to ALN data through
a partnership.
We took that data and displayed it
in a new way, bringing transparency
to an opaque industry in a new way.
Differentiated, process to create got
faster, endless opportunities for
topics to map.
@dohertyjf

The Future of SF Construction
@dohertyjf

The Future of SF Construction
This one didn’t get much play, but I got positive responses from the
journalists I reached out to so I decided to do a few more before
declaring failure.
@dohertyjf

Visualizing Strava Cycling Data
@dohertyjf

Don’t Forget To Measure
• You can’t win and build a cohesive strategy of what is working if
you’re not measuring
• Strategies are not set in stone. They move over time. Start, measure,
refine to your ultimate goals.
Read: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/single-startup-metric/
@dohertyjf

From Skateboard (MVP) to
Bicycle
Pedal power! Still manual, but much much easier.
@dohertyjf

Figure out production + scale
Now you’ve started creating content and getting an idea of what’s
working and what’s not.
You’re measuring and getting an idea if your current efforts will fit your
goals for content.
@dohertyjf

Always Keep Your Goals In Mind
We had three real KPIs and goals
Audience Links
Build a brand
@dohertyjf

Future of LA Building Construction
@dohertyjf

Future of LA Building Construction
@dohertyjf
Bingo! So we did this for all of our major metros and received links from
all of them, as well as pickup from other related sites.

Future of Boston Construction
BINGO
@dohertyjf

Future of Manhattan Construction
BINGO
@dohertyjf

Future of Seattle Construction
BINGO
@dohertyjf

Now you can think about promotion
@dohertyjf

Set up other channels to work
No matter your team size, automation will make your life easier. You
can automate these channels to have built-in promotion on every
piece of content you publish.
@dohertyjf
Email marketing Social media
(Some) PRAdvertising

Basic Automation
For every post you publish, you should automagically:
• Email your content subscriber list
• Post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• If doing advertising, set up ads to promote on your platform of choice
• If doing retargeting, make sure you drop a pixel on all visitors who
meet your specifications (and burn that pixel if they convert)
• Measure your important metrics:
• Views on the platforms
• Traffic from networks and emails
• Revenue
@dohertyjf

From Bicycle to Motorcycle
Now we’re playing with engines. Two seats even!
@dohertyjf

You’ll Need A Dedicated Content Manager
They need to be all of these. It’s a tough job to fill well.
• Creative
• Data informed
• Organized
• Biasing toward action
• Understand promotion
@dohertyjf

Productize Your Automated Promotion
Because you’ve set up some basic automation and are learning what’s
effective, it’s time to not hack it together anymore and actually make it
sustainable.
At a great company, your marketing and growth teams (they’re
different) will also have engineering and design support. Meet with
them to figure out what else you can automate and how to make your
current automation better.
@dohertyjf

Put Together A Calendar
Now’s the time to put together a calendar of when content will come
out, so that you can also plan manual promotion. Multiple hands on a
project means structure is needed.
Some of the tools for this:
@dohertyjf
Shared Trello calendar WP plugins
Google calendar Basecamp/Asana

Build Out More Promotion Workflows
With production figured out and automation in place/becoming stable,
now you can throw more bodies at promotion.
This flow worked for us:
@dohertyjf
Launch
Prep
Ideation
Brainstorm
Settle on
topic
Begin
producing
Prospect
for
outreach
Finalize
content
Set launch
date
Publish
content
Automatic
marketing
Manual
outreach
to pre-
created
lists

Outreach Prospecting
Your outreach is only as good as your prospecting. For our early
HotPads content, we found:
• Mid-level influential sites to pitch with specific content
• Local-specific blogs that accepted guest content
We tuned our pitches as we learned what was interesting to them.
Pro tip: ask who else they think might be interested especially if they
are part of a network. EG Curbed
@dohertyjf

From Motorcycle to Car
@dohertyjf

Bring In Dedicated Promotion (PR)
A dedicated PR professional won’t be fully leveraged until you have
your creation and publishing process figured out. A good one will help
you optimize that process for optimal outreach, however.
They are responsible for the Tier 1 (NYT, WSJ, etc) publications that
need a relationship and softer pitch touch.
@dohertyjf

Layer On Scaleable Manual Outreach
Depending on your company size, this may be a separate role (or 3, as I
had at HotPads) or could be another part of your content
manager/marketer’s job.
Their job is to get the Tier 2-3 links and promotion (guest posts, social
shares from mid-influencers, email list inclusions). Prospecting and pre-
outreach should start about 2 weeks before launch.
@dohertyjf

Content we did after hiring PR
@dohertyjf

Meth and Died In Houses
@dohertyjf

Our Process
1. Ideate many ideas, scrub for feasibility
• Keep in mind the timing (holidays, etc)
2. Do pre-outreach once the content is close to ready
3. Once content is published, use all your channels (email, social, etc)
4. Reach out to high value journalists under embargo with something
of value (embeds, etc)
5. Email everyone you reached out to before with the live link
• If you have the resources, offer to write the post for them
6. Measure
7. Repeat
#stateofsearch@dohertyjf

Pet Friendly Metros
@dohertyjf

What worked and didn’t
Bad
1. We were late on delivering the content, so some journalists had to
move on
2. We didn’t plan outreach far enough out
Good
1. They loved the maps and wanted them easily embeddable, so we
created a way for them to do that.
2. We established some connections with journalists about the next
piece.

How Much Commutes Cost
@dohertyjf

Bad
1. The data was messy, so we had to bring in our data scientist to help
explain it.
2. We weren’t able to break it down by type of commute, which is what
journalists wanted.
Good
1. Pitching city by city with dedicated maps allowed us to get wider
coverage.
2. We pitched way ahead of time, which allowed journalists to get their
stories ready to go when we published. Even if we missed our deadline,
the story was ready to go whenever.
#stateofserch@dohertyjf

Most Expensive Hoods for Singles
@dohertyjf

1. We were unclear about the story (what about 2brs? What about
moving in more cities?)
2. It wasn’t timely, so it didn’t get much play.
@dohertyjf

Best Cities for Graduates
@dohertyjf

Good
1. We enlisted our other outreach employees into securing guest posts
on smaller sites to build more links.
2. We offered to write content, which 75% of the people who
published coverage wanted us to do.
3. We offered our economist/data scientist as a source. He hopped on
the phone with journalists (with our PR manager there) and
explained the data succinctly. We practiced ahead of time.
@dohertyjf

We used this process
Launch
Prep
Ideation
Brainstorm
Settle on
topic
Begin
producing
Prospect
for
outreach
Finalize
content
Set launch
date
Publish
content
Automatic
marketing
Manual
outreach to
pre-
created
lists
@dohertyjf

Scale It (With Quality In Mind)
We decided we could do one great research study every 2 months or so
with 1 PR manager, 1 SEO manager, 1 content manager, 1 data
scientist/economist, 1 email manager, and 3 link acquisition experts +
me. That’s 8 people!
Any faster than that and we’d lose quality. To go faster we’d need more
hands on deck.
@dohertyjf

Measure and Optimize Over Time
@dohertyjf

Always Keep Your Goals In Mind
Don’t forget these
KPI 1 KPI 2
KPI 3
@dohertyjf

House of Cards

April Fools Alcatraz

April Fools Alcatraz
Link from the parent company’s biggest
rival.

Timely Content

Timely Content
Shared by an LA Times journalist and established a
good media contact

Rapid Fire Lessons Learned
@dohertyjf

Big content >>>> small content
• When HotPads wrote a static piece
that can live on forever, as opposed
to just a blog post, it earned more
links and was arguably more
valuable than a blog post.
• *Big content is also pushed out less
frequently, so promotion makes or
breaks its success.
• However, blog posts got more
social shares.
@dohertyjf

Give Embeddable Assets
Every post or article that did well
for HotPads had an embeddable
piece of content, such as images,
graphics, or embeddable maps.
If you offer something of value to
a journalist, they are much more
likely to write about you.
@dohertyjf

Content Lives and Dies by Outreach
• When HotPads executed well on
outreach, both to small and
large sites, they got great links
and great coverage.
• When they didn’t execute well
(or simply didn’t do it), they
didn’t. Great content will get
links with outreach, but rarely
without.
@dohertyjf

Your Success Depends on Your Team’s
Execution of Ideas
• A small team of the right people
can do mighty things when given
the right processes, but they also
must work at the same pace to get
things done.
• Before hiring someone, ask
yourself how well they will fit into a
culture you are trying to cultivate.
If they’re a strategist and you need
a doer, don’t hire them. And vice
versa.
@dohertyjf

Keep Trying New Ideas and Measure
We went through many iterations
of HotPads content:
1. City-specific
2. “Best neighborhoods” and
“reasons to live in”
3. Data graphs
4. PR stunts
5. Maps of data owned by others
6. Maps of our own content
@dohertyjf

Launch around new things (rebrand here)
http://www.getcredo.com/should-i-do-seo/@dohertyjf

Play the long game
When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me
remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not
playing the marathon. They're playing the sprint. They're not
worried about lifetime value and retention. They're worried
about short-term goals.
Gary Vaynerchuk
@dohertyjf

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