Presentation from MNSearch in St. Paul, Minnesota - How to Achieve Content Marketing Nirvana. Includes tips for creating a scalable - and amazing - content marketing process.

1. How to Achieve
Content Marketing Nirvana
Ross Hudgens, Founder, Siege Media
@RossHudgens http://siegemedia.com

2. Get the Deck:
bit.ly/mn-search

3. https://moz.com/blog/why-good-unique-content-needs-to-die-whiteboard-friday
How can we stop
being good and
start being 10x?

4. In the last five years, I’ve learned many of the differences
between good and great content – between good and 10x.
@ROSSHUDGENS

5. The answer is rarely
simplistically “make it
great.” More often, the
answer is make it great –
and scalable.
http://thecooperreview.com/10-tricks-appear-smart-meetings/

6. Without scalability, greatness
is often very hard – and very
expensive – to repeat.
@ROSSHUDGENS

7. @ROSSHUDGENS
Campaigns strike out at a
big cost – a cost that is
sometimes the sustainability
of the business.

8. How can we be great
with consistency?

9. STAGE 1:
CONTENT
CREATION.

10. Quality has no shortcuts.

11. Is a lie told by the
people who come
in second.

12. Great content templates
aren’t everything, but
they’re very close.
http://siegemedia.com/15-content-templates-to-help-scale-quality

13. If you aren’t making and
using great templates,
you’re probably losing.
@ROSSHUDGENS

14. This is not a good
content template.
Template != good.
I think they meant
“sleeping bag.”

15. Doing a city study? Slice, dice and invert
one set of data to create 108 posts.
@ROSSHUDGENS
• Safest Cities in America
• Safest Mid-Sized Cities in America
• Safest Small Cities in America
• Safest Suburbs in America
• Safest Cities in STATE – 50x
• Most Dangerous Cities in America
• Most Dangerous Mid-Sized Cities in America
• Most Dangerous Small Cities in America
• Most Dangerous Suburbs in America
• Most Dangerous Cities in STATE – 50x

16. KWR can reveal template
ideas. Search for add-on
words in your space.
Example = “With Kids”
http://www.semrush.com/info/with%20kids+(full+search)

17. More examples –
“Conference Standings”
“Packing List”
http://www.semrush.com/info/packing%20list+(full+search)

18. Infographics can be templates too.
Find concepts that can be repeated.
This concept could
be used for any
famous founder.
@ROSSHUDGENS

19. Get the Spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/template-ranking
Segment templates after
research and prioritize based
on potential per template.

20. Once you’ve picked a template,
micro-prioritize based on
potential/outreach overlap.
@ROSSHUDGENS

21. How to create content
that’s better, faster, and
costs less:

22. Buy inexpensive design assets that haven’t
been used over and over.
http://www.creativemarket.com

23. Development assets that make high end content –
and content templates - inexpensive and quick.
http://www.codecanyon.net

24. Need occasional help? Hire Canadian talent.
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=5Y

25. You don’t get to 10x better content
buying photos on Shutterstock.

26. Stock photos that don’t suck.
http://www.stocksy.com

27. Free stock photo search engine.
http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up

28. How to come up with
content ideas that
consistently succeed:

29. Start with the S.U.C.C.E.S. framework.
http://heathbrothers.com/download/mts-made-to-stick-model.pdf

30. Add an S.
Simple.
Unexpected.
Credible.
Concrete.
Emotional.
Stories.
Shareable.*
*Credit @distilled

31. Crack open a beer with your team. Beer frees up your mind to
make deeper connections - and come up with great ideas.
http://en.ilovecoffee.jp/posts/view/79

32. Spend 20 minutes with your team jotting down every
idea you’ve got (anonymously) on http://usecandor.com

33. At the end, vote for the best and talk through your
choices to see what’s viable and what isn’t.
http://creatingminds.org/tools/brainwriting.htm/

34. Have your team assess outreach potential after the
meeting before formally greenlighting ideas.

35. Quick hack for outreach potential – what’s the DA of site
ranking #1 for “KEYWORD blog/news”?

36. Make arguments not to rank for a single KW, but a wide set of
KWs using the page ranking #1 for your main term in SEMRush.
http://bit.ly/parenting-sem

37. Want (almost) guaranteed success?
Find visual content with social proof
and replace the subject/add an
adjective. Recreate it. Win.

38. General language flowchart.
Any other popular
show/movie filming locations
with foreign destinations.
/r/infographics/

39. Insert new group
passionate about
themselves.
Insert anything that’s
changed over the years.
Buzzsumo DesignTaxi: http://bit.ly/taxi-inspire

40. Replace with thing that
changes/is niche.
Insert any relevant food
“around the world.”

41. http://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/
Other places to look for
replicable content ideas:

42. BuzzSumo Infographics: http://bit.ly/buzz-infographic

43. STAGE 2:
CONTENT
PROMOTION.

44. @ROSSHUDGENS
Effective relationship
building = creating
promotable content
while doing so.

45. Survey your target
linking audience
via email outreach
for a content idea.
Let them know
when the post is
live – get shares
and links easily.
Leverage that
communication for
promoting your next piece
not involving them.
@ROSSHUDGENS

46. The process in action.

47. We surveyed ~100 bloggers to
find out how far in advance
bloggers schedule their content
– so ours can be included.
This is what we found.

48. The average lifestyle blogger
plans their editorial calendar 28
days in advance of publishing.*
You might be able to jam your
way in there, but it’s not optimal
for anything event based.

49. When scheduling content
based around holidays
(4th of July, Mother’s Day
etc), bloggers schedule 37
days out on average.
Big events/holidays
mean prep and pitch
your content early.

50. When scheduling holiday content,
bloggers plan their content
calendar 54 days out on average.
November/December
means you need to be
far far on top of it, or
face distribution
difficulties.

51. We improved our process,
created good content, and now
have relationships to leverage.

52. Content marketing
tactics we’re loving:

53. Get aggressive submitting infographics
to Reddit by hosting them on IMGUR.
@ROSSHUDGENS

54. Submit high-authority publications who cover your
content instead of yourself for additional traction/trust.
@ROSSHUDGENS
Also good for multiple
bursts of traffic from the
same subreddit over time.

55. @ROSSHUDGENS
Private message Reddit power
users to QA and then potentially
share your content once live.

56. Submit at the optimal times to Reddit to maximize views.
http://www.siegemedia.com/reddit-submission-time

57. Find your most shared content using Buzzsumo and
submit to Reddit (if it hasn’t been shared already).
@ROSSHUDGENS

58. Search “in the moment” queries to
find targeted prospects.
@ROSSHUDGENS

59. Reach out to people who commented on other blogs
covering your content – they are often warm prospects.
@ROSSHUDGENS

60. @ROSSHUDGENS
Include polls on “best
of X” posts to
incentivize mentioned
to link/share with their
audience to vote.

61. Before creating a listacle
based on a search term,
research SERP and get to
a # higher than others for
CTR boost.

62. @ROSSHUDGENS
Send pitch templates and outreach possibilities to your
team to improve your approach every time out.

63. What’s content
marketing nirvana?

64. 1. Build survey content
through outreach using
your target market.
@ROSSHUDGENS
Generate links/shares.

65. 2. Create top-of-the-
funnel content with
search potential
using templates.

66. @ROSSHUDGENS
3. Leverage survey
relationships to distribute
content templates with
ease/get them ranking.

67. 1. Build survey content
through outreach using
your target market.
Generate links/shares.
2. Create top-of-the-
funnel content with
search potential
using templates.
@ROSSHUDGENS
3. Leverage survey
relationships to distribute
content templates with
ease/get them ranking.

68. Kurt would
be proud.
@ROSSHUDGENS

69. bit.ly/mn-search
Ross Hudgens, Founder, Siege Media
@RossHudgens http://siegemedia.com