Content Marketing That Runs Without You
My very first products business was a little site that sold WordPress themes.
I remember pulling all-nighters in order to build those products while I spent my days doing consulting work. After a few months of this grueling schedule, I finally made it to launch. But then I realized: My work had only just begun.
Now my task was to figure out how to market this new products business. So I bought some Google Adwords campaigns — not knowing what I was doing, but doing it anyway. Then I purchased some banner ads on popular blogs.
My marketing budget was depleted in under a month. Now what?
I turned to blogging. I thought, if I could blog on my new product site every week about relevant topics, maybe I’ll grow my traffic (and sales) organically. I wrote one post. Then another. And a third. But then…
I got busy.
I had to fix some bugs that popped up in the product. New client projects came in. Blogging? No time for that. My content marketing plan fell by the wayside.
That WP themes site managed to make a handful of sales, but eventually dwindled down to near zero.
Starting Again
Fast forward a few years to 2012 when I launched another startup, this time, a SaaS product called Restaurant Engine.
I didn’t want this new startup to suffer from a lack of momentum, the same way my first one did. Still, I was self-funded and couldn’t invest heavily into ad campaigns and the like.
I knew from the start that I wanted this business to lean heavily on content marketing. But I was determined to keep it from fizzling out of steam, like it did in that first business.
How would that be possible? As a solo founder, I’d have a full plate, which included working on the product, making sales calls, handling customer support — not to mention I was still doing consulting work to pay the bills. When would I find the time to write articles and promote content for this new venture?
I needed to do content marketing, without doing the content marketing.
The Mission
So I set out on a mission do content marketing as effectively as I knew how, but systematize and delegate every aspect of it, so that it completely runs without me.
Nearly three years, and lots of learning and refining along the way, I’m proud of the system we’ve built. Every aspect of our content marketing and lead generation runs without my direct involvement. I’m free to work on other aspects of the business, like growth strategies and product development.
In fact, I don’t think it would even be possible for us to achieve the growth we have over our first few years if I didn’t automate our content marketing and remove myself from it.
Automation
So what does our content marketing automation actually look like?
Well, it’s centered around our blog. Every month, our writing team generates topic ideas to fill up our editorial calendar. Those topics are developed into weekly articles, which publish every Monday (sometimes more frequently).
Another person on my team then prepares our weekly newsletter to promote our new article, and schedules it to send every Tuesday. They also post our content to our social media profiles and in relevant groups and forums, to help it spread.
On a weekly basis, my team prepares metrics reports to analyze the effectiveness of our efforts. This tells us which topics are resonating and resulting in conversions. And this data is fed back to our editorial and writing team to inform upcoming topics.
Meanwhile, we’ve got automated email courses and downloadable reports, which turn new visitors into subscribers. Eventually those subscribers convert into leads and paying customers.
Today, we’re expanding our content marketing systems to include a new podcast, among other new initiatives. The Restaurant Engine Podcast is hosted by my teammate Ashley, who also does the interview outreach and show notes. It’s then sent off to our podcast editor, who prepares the audio and uploads it to our site.
All of this runs effectively, whether I’m involved or not. Every task is carried out by a member of my team, according to the procedures and systems we’ve put in place. My only responsibility as the founder is to oversee, tweak and improve those systems and procedures over time.
Results
We’ve been able to reap the same rewards that many businesses do when they commit to a longterm content marketing strategy. For us, those would include:
- Trust and authority in our space. People recognize us as experts who provide value — both in the information we share and the product we deliver.
- Name recognition. I entered a niche market with virtually no brand or personal recognition. Today, we have significant (and growing) brand awareness.
- Strong word-of-mouth referrals. A great product can result in customers referring other customers. Great content results in referrals from fans as well.
- Organic traffic. We see tens of thousands of visitors per month (and growing) who reach us through organic sources. Nothing beats a sustainable source of traffic and qualified leads that grows over time (unlike PPC traffic, which is directly tied to how much you spend).
These are simply results of content marketing. But what about the results of automating our content marketing?
Well, I can say with absolute certainty that we wouldn’t be in the position we are today if I were the one doing all of the content work. We might have a strong blog and audience, but we certainly wouldn’t have much of a business.
While my team has been carrying out our content marketing systems, I’ve been able to talk to customers, make improvements to our product and implement changes in strategy. In other words, I’ve had the freedom to actually run this business.
If I were to start over…
I’d implement many of the same strategies. Except, I’d probably move a lot faster into hiring and systematizing our process. It took me 2+ years to learn all of this, with lots of trial, error, and refinements along the way.
This year, I’m taking all the things I learned — the successes, the failures, the lessons, and the systems — and I’m teaching. I’m sharing my method for implementing content marketing, at scale.