From a recent talk at Craft Content Nashville 2015, this presentation outlines a two-phase approach to content creation that focuses on building a strong, agile foundation with streamlined processes to leverage content into growth. This presentation is tailored to both entrepreneurs and marketing/creative professionals tasked with company growth.

1. Blogging & Storytelling 201:
Intermediate-to-Advanced Content Creation
Craft Content Nashville 2015
#CCN15Blogging201

2. bretthenley.com
themindfulcreator.com
@bretthenley on Twitter

3. Two phases of advanced
content creation
Building the Foundation
+
Leveraging Existing Content

4. First step in building
the foundation?
Shifting mindset from static strategy to an agile framework for
content creation.
i.e. outcome vs. process

5. Static Strategies
• Too often rely on ideal conditions being stagnant (when
the conditions for success will likely shift before you ship).
• Provoke a task-mastering mindset (outcome) vs. process
(influences outcome).
• Can easily become a tactical rabbit hole that locks you into
react, aim, fire.

6. Agile Framework
• Provokes a shift to agile mindset - from what is my
destination to what I am creating day to day.
• Content is part of an ecosystem: Create + share +
measure + leverage + grow.
• Encourages trial and error with consistency and
momentum as key drivers of growth.

7. Why the distinction matters:
The Content Gap
• The content gap: A grey area between what we're
creating and what our audience actually needs
(identified need -> value we provide)
• The space where businesses/content creators spend
most of our time AND feel like we're tossing darts at a
moving target.

8. How do we bridge
the gap?
By shifting our focus from
trying to bridge the gap in a single leap
to
building stepping stones to the other side.

9. Continuous Creation:
Capture Ideas > Create Content > Share > Gain Valuable Context
> Leverage Content that Performs > Repeat
Lean Startup:
Product Dev > M.V.P./Beta > Customer Interaction > Data >
Iterate > Repeat
Looking to Lean Startup
Philosophy for Inspiration

10. Building the
Framework

11. Start with a Content Audit
• An audit helps you benchmark where you stand in your market,
where there are gaps to be filled, and opportunities to fill them
(i.e. create distinction).
• The goal: Record observations and opportunities to identify
"pillars" of core content strategy going forward.

12. What to audit when
you're brand new.
• Categorization: What are they writing about?
• Website: Navigation, internal links, overall organization/hierarchy
of information, anything/everything that strikes as relevant.
• Copy: On-page SEO, headlines, body copy, calls to action, blog posts,
etc.
• Core brand messaging: Is it clear + cohesive? Does it speak to an
identifiable audience in a "human" voice or is it industry jargon?
• Social media: Twitter, Facebook, blog comments, etc.
Blogs/websites in your niche

13. An Established Brand
• Audience: Turn inward first to identify intersection of need, your expertise,
and what value you bring to the table. "You are your best customer" is not
trite.
• Market: Play in the search sandbox to find intent. Start by looking at relevant
keywords and related searches at bottom of SERP.
• Content / Website structure: Look for patterns and clues to what you're
already writing about but not emphasizing in content strategy.
• Analytics: Visitor metrics, demographics and interests data, etc.
• Social media: Twitter search is my go-to because it natively does a great job
displaying relevant search results based on hashtag. Otherwise, audit the
conversations and look for clues as to what peeps need/are already asking for.
• Existing business processes + tools.

14. Next: Identify
Categorization
What the hell do I want to write about?
vs.
What is relevant, valuable, useful?
Specificity influences content structure but also your core content strategy.

15. Start with the audit
Look for opportunities to fill a knowledge gap. These
are the buckets you'll want to create content from.

16. Then: Establish a Content
Creation Process
1. Capture ideas
2. Create the daily writing habit and build a content repository.
3. Separate editing from creating + establish frequency.
4. Sharing: Think integration, not automation. Repurpose talking
points from content into social conversation.
5. Archive -> What happens after it's published? Organized. Backup.
6. Audit regularly to identify opportunities to leverage existing content
into growth (e.g. blog post into lead magnet)
7. Rinse and Repeat.

17. A Few Ideas to Get Your
Leverage On.

18. Email
• Offer more value with exclusive content.
• Bridging the content gap by earning permission: These are
people who have asked to receive content from you, which
puts you closer to conversion + community if you keep
delivering value.
• Giving your people a reason to stick around - not just
capitalizing on traffic, you're creating the opportunity for a
deeper value exchange.

19. The Anatomy of an
Effective Email Opt-In

20. Leading with Value:
Noah Kagan (okdork.com)

21. Aligned with core message:
Jason Zook (jasondoesstuff.com)

22. Social Proof:
Paul Jarvis (pjrvs.com)

23. Clear Expectations:
Joe Bunting(thewritepractice.com)

24. Opt-In Placement:
Jeff Goins landing page (goinswriter.com)

25. Opt-In Placement:
Jeff Goins sidebar (goinswriter.com)

26. Opt-In Placement:
Jeff Goins bottom of blog posts (goinswriter.com)

27. Create a Lead
Magnet
• Offers actual incentive in exchange for opt-in.
• Simple: Doesn't need to be novel length, but does need to be
focused on solving a core challenge/need.
• Empower you to go deeper with content that is already
performing.
• Provides more data to understand what your audience/
potential customers need AND gather leads.

28. Michael Hyatt:
Video series relevant to blog post topic
(http://michaelhyatt.com/no-wind-in-your-sails.html)

29. Recap
• Think agile framework vs. static strategy
• Audit!
• Identify top-level categorization
• Content creation process
• Leverage existing content, starting with email.

30. bretthenley.com
themindfulcreator.com
@bretthenley on Twitter