2018 has definitely been interesting but not exactly the easiest year, in business as in life (they’re so intrinsically linked when you work for yourself, aren’t they?).

Yet there are so many things to be thankful for. We’ve had some amazing experiences, fabulous client projects, workshops and talks, and truly incredible support through it all.

Here’s an outpouring of festive gratitude to round off the Valuable Content year.

1. Brilliant business friends

We feel so lucky to have the support of an amazing network of like-minded business people around the world – old friends and new; thoughtful people we’ve connected with both in real life and online – via introduction, through our content, conferences, talks, social media, or pure serendipity. You have hired us, worked with us, recommended us, advised us and cheered us on and we’re so grateful to you all.

New friends at the brilliant WeContent conference in Bucharest

2. Bristol

This city is something special – its vibe, attitude, and fierce independent streak. The colour, the harbour, the views, the people – we love this place and are proud to call it our home

3. Business books

Our library has expanded nicely this year. Sonja’s favourite book this year is The Business of Expertise by David C. Baker. For Sharon it’s Story Driven by Bernadette Jiwa. And there have been plenty of older books we’ve dived into again and again too. Shout out to the timeless Trusted Advisor by David Maister & Charles H. Green, and the The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. 

Our book is still selling and it’s fantastic to see clients publishing theirs. Dr Helen McCarthy aka The Appetite Doctor, and Jonathan Rees we’re already looking forward to your book launch parties next year. Thanks to our publishers Kogan Page and much respect to Sue Richardson and The Right Book Company team for fuelling people’s business publishing journeys. Ben Roberts and John Espirian – we look forward to your first books in 2019. (Andrea Howe and Bryony Thomas – we’d love to see your next books in print next year too!)

4. Clever people

It’s not just books: we’ve learned so much this year from blogs, from podcasts, video, and from talks in 2018.

We’ve taken inspiration from:

• Henneke Duistermaat on the art of writing without fear
• Newfangled on all things web
• Mark Schaefer on marketing strategy and social media
• Chris Marr on content marketing (Great to meet you, Mark, Jason and Jon in Bournemouth)
• Andrea Howe on getting real with your clients
• Charles H. Green on trust in business
• Jason Miller on B2B marketing
• Jeff Walker on launching online
• Bernadette Jiwa on marketing with love
• Simon Swan on digital transformation
• Margaret Magnarelli on digital marketing with humanity at scale (Looking forward to meeting you at the seaside in 2019 Margaret)
• Andy Crestodina’s blogging survey
• Markie Masters and the brilliant You Are The Media emails, podcasts and conference, on building an audience
• Gill Andrews on creating a lead generating website
• John Espirian on blogging and LinkedIn
• Fabienne Fredrickson on being a Boldheart
• Denise Duffield Thomas on entrepreneurship and money
• Chris Brogan on the art of earning trust and customers

Thanks for your valuable content this year.

5. Clients

It’s been great to finally work with cxpartners this year. They’ve been on our radar for ages, and we’re loving what we’re achieving together.

Delighted to call some inspiring women our clients this year, We’ve got huge respect for everything Caroline Hagen is doing at Reach Brands, and are so enjoying being part of her team. Dr Becky Sage is doing brilliant stuff at Interactive Scientific – we loved working with her and her team to develop the message and story.  Ongoing work with Andrea Howe of the Get Real Project is a joy.

And we’re delighted to have had the opportunity to work for, learn from and make a difference to important social change organisations too this year. We’re proud to have worked with you Community Organisers, Playing Out, Penny Brohn, Rising Arts, Art Within the Cracks.

Also on 2018’s great client list are The Met Office, GW4 Alliance, VWV, Sustrans, The Eternal Business Consultancy, Urban and Wild, Broadley Creative, Mundy & Anson, The Appetite Doctor, Raise Architects, Twist Consultants, Willmore Iles, thank you all for working with us. We wouldn’t be here without you!

6. Coaching

No business is an island so an expert, independent view on what you do is so darned valuable. Massive thanks to long-term coach Chris Thurling, to new guides Janusz Stabik and Susie MacFarland, to long-standing friend and supporter James Perrott, to Chris Grimes on public speaking, and to Mark Panay for his refreshing, left-field view on business and life. We’re so grateful for your guidance, wisdom, support, and patience!

7. Collaboration

Collaboration is good for business. The digital and business world is getting more and more specialist so the ability to bring in and work alongside others is increasingly important. We’ve loved hooking up with others who are brilliant at what they do to in order to make a bigger impact this year.

Shout out to 2018 collaborators Jay and Ali at Yoke Design for branding, Dave Stewart of Fresh Air Learning for transformational walking workshops, Jo Twiselton of Twist consultants for people change and engagement, Piers and David at Atomic Smash for websites, Christian Tait for brand and web design and Rebecca Wallace for training expertise.

Together we can really make a difference. Who’s up for more collaboration next year?

In cahoots with ethical branding agency Yoke

8. Comedy

Especially needed this year don’t you think! Stewart Lee, Marcus Brigstocke, Bridget Christie, Mark Thomas, Mark Steel. And a massive thanks to keynote speaker Jon Burkhart – every business conference needs a Jon Burkhart! Funny people on stage helping us make sense of it all.

Sonja took funny man Jon Burkhart wild swimming at the You Are The Media conference

9. Conferences

Just three this year but they’ve all been awesome. Sonja spoke (and swam) at the brilliant You Are The Media in Bournemouth and at WeContent in Bucharest – her first trip to Romania and she can’t wait to go back next year. Sharon really enjoyed thoughtful Murmurations in Chester.

The best conferences serve up new ideas, new people, new connections. They’re energising and inspiring, and leave you buzzing. These three did all these things. We’re looking forward to more great conferences in 2019.

10. Conversations

Sometimes the best advice, or the greatest ideas, or the loudest ‘aha’ moments arise unexpectedly through conversations. Thanks to the following for some potentially game-changing chats in 2018. Thanks for listening and for sparking new ideas. Kevin Freedman and Nic Alpi, we’re especially thinking of you.

11. Creatives

How flat would life be without beautiful design and illustration? Lizzie Everard – your brand and illustration work lives on and still delivers value year after year. Carys Tait – we love the new map and badges. Christian Tait – we’re using the assets you created for us every day. Gill and Adrian at Marles + Barclay – we hope to work with you two one day too. 

12. Experimenting

Valuable Content is an ongoing experiment. We’ve tried many versions of our business model, seeking to uncover that elusive blend of what feels right, what gets results, and what delivers greatest value and impact – for our audience and for us both. Still going with this one. We’ll tell you when we’ve got it!

13. Family

We’re so grateful for the support of our families, even if they still don’t really understand what we do. ‘All you do is write emails all day.’ (Rosa, aged 16).

14. Gardening

Sharon’s favourite thing. Gardening is creative, active and relaxing. It teaches you patience and perseverance and makes you slow down and notice what’s happening around you. More gardening in 2019 please.

15. Group learning

Groups are powerful. There have been some amazing moments this year in our groups, and we do love teaching. Shout out to our Pub School community, and to our first virtual group. It’s been brilliant seeing your connection and continued progress.

16. Hitting 50 and surviving!

Now we’re both in the fifties club. Hooray for wisdom and caring a lot less about what other people think!

17. Instagram

A joyful social network. Seriously fallen out of love with Facebook, and Twitter’s a bit hit and miss these days, but Instagram is still fun.

18. LinkedIn

This one has been a surprise. LinkedIn is no longer the grey man of the social media sphere. We’ve had more great conversations on LinkedIn than on any other social network this year. The comments we’ve had on our LinkedIn updates are so valuable we’ve added them into blog posts.

19. Listening

The element of our work we love most. Holding a mirror up to companies to help them see them as their customers do, so they can serve them better. 

20. Mailchimp

Even after GDPR email hasn’t died. In fact, it fuels ongoing connection. We’ve increased the frequency of our emails this year, and it’s sparked more conversations with our community. One of the highlights of this year for Sonja was meeting Madalina Constantin of Content Works in Bucharest. Madalina’s name was very familiar because she’s been on our email list for years and opens all our newsletters, but we’d never met her. It was a joy to put a face to the name at the WeContent conference.

21. Music

A joyful soundtrack to the year – kickarse Courtney Barnett, Leftfield, LTJ Bukem, Roni Size, Orbital. Dancing through it all.

22. Manifestos

A sign of a business with belief. We collect them, write them, and inspire them. Writing your own is a voyage of self-discovery and an exercise in business strategy, and we’d love to see more business manifestos in 2019.

23. Maps

Who doesn’t love a good map? They help you understand the terrain, locate where you are, and plot the next steps on your journey. Our visual maps are some of the best tools we’ve created. Fantastic ice-breakers, they get people talking, thinking and moving. They help to demystify content strategy and make it feel doable.

25. Photographers

We can all take pics but great photography is a real skill. There are few who can put you at your ease and capture the spirit and energy of people and events. Thank you, Sarah Hall! We hope to work with you again in 2019. 

26. Pub School Community

Although Pub School is no more, the connections we made are very much alive. And the essence of Pub School – helping people to find their ideas and share them – is still running through every project we touch.

27. Real business stories

True stories, not the glossy kind. We need more of these in business – real, gritty tales because life is never perfect. (See: Huge content lessons from my 3 worst ever speaking gigs).  

28. Running

Changing seasons, creative thinking, a feel good start to any working day. Much more of this next year. (Thanks to Susie Baker and Malcolm Balk for the Art of Running workshops).

29. Sourdough

(This one’s from Sharon.) Thanks for the advice Richard Caddick and the starter, Kimchi Queen, Caroline Gilmartin. The slow sourdough bread rhythm is a good drumbeat to have in your life. And the toast is amazing.

30. Spike Island

It’s been our home for 8 years and we love it. The Spike Design network is still going strong. And we’re very thankful to the Spike Island cafe team – we punctuate most mornings with a flat white and a single shot latte. 

31. Swimming in cold water

Sonja’s favourite thing. Unforgettable memories from my first Coldwater Swim Championships in the freezing waters of Tallinn harbour in Estonia this March, at -0.9 degrees! Swimming in the cold makes me smile and feel alive. Thanks to the South West Seals and all the wonderful people who swim at Clevedon throughout the year. (Lovely post in the Observer on the benefits of swimming in ice water if you’re curious.)

32. The Lion, Cliftonwood

Home of Pub School, and a Bristol institution. We’re grateful for the support of Fiona and team. Pub School might be over, but the debates over jam first or cream first still rage on!

33. Therapy

Not ashamed of this. Working on yourself works wonders. Enough said.

34. Walks

We’ve got so much out of the Fresh Air Walking Workshops we’ve hosted alongside Dave Stewart. We’ve taken groups up mountains, under waterfalls, across rivers, and through ancient woodlands for a fresh perspective on their businesses and ideas. Here’s to adventurous clients who play ‘crapstones’ (ask and we’ll explain), and go out whatever the weather.

Big content thinking on the slopes of Sugarloaf Mountain in the Brecons

35. Websites

Many of our projects centre on websites – the heart of your marketing universe. Getting the structure and words right so that your audience feels at home there is a big job. Those we’ve helped launch, relaunch, reframe this year include cxpartners, Community Organisers, Willmore Iles, Andy Foster’s Practical Architecture for Beginners, The Appetite Doctor, The Eternal Business Consultancy, Rising Arts Agency, Art Within The Cracks. Well done to all of you. And ‘keep on, you’re nearly there’ to Ben McKinney, and Jo Twisleton, Twist Consultants!

36. Writing

Writing helps us make sense of the world, to understand what we care about, what we think, to help others, to connect. This year’s writing includes 28 blogs, 29 newsletters, lots of Google Slides presentations, and many, many many social media updates.  The posts we most enjoyed writing:

• Sharon = How to write less and say more.
• Sonja =  On Serendipity, Humbleness and Growth

Writing is still the best way we know to develop ideas, share thinking, build relationships, help clients, and develop a business. It works for us, and for our Valuable Content Award winners too. Congratulations to 2018’s winners, John Espirian, ISL, Simpleweb Ascentor, UiPath. We hope you’re wearing your badges with pride!

Thanks so much for your interest, support and friendship this year. A happy festive break to you and your families and here’s to an equally fascinating and smoother 2019!

Sonja and Sharon

The post Reasons to be cheerful. Thank you for all your support in 2018 appeared first on Valuable Content.

How do you cultivate a stream of useful sales leads for your business?

There isn’t one thing that you can do in isolation that will guarantee your prospective clients find a way to your door. Marketing with valuable content is a long-term strategy that covers many different activities and many different flavours of content. But there is something that will raise the odds in your favour of the right people seeking you out, and that is to create campaignable content.

We’ve talked before about the need for stock and flow content. Stock being the big heavyweight pieces that deliver over the long term, and the flow being the more ephemeral stuff – blogs, tweets, Instagram posts.

And we’ve written about ‘how, now, wow’ content – the how and now being the helpful, explanatory, relevant, regular streams of content that you use to stay connected to your audience, and the ‘wow’ being the content that stops people in their tracks.

Consistency is good

Over the last few years, we’re seeing more and more businesses getting into the swing of the ‘how’ ‘now’ flow. They’re blogging, they’re sending out newsletters and they’re active on social media. All of this consistency is good and necessary.

But we’re seeing fewer people investing in the big stuff, the ‘knock it out of the park’ WOW! content that makes a big sales impact, before settling back to draw in leads year after year.

But without the ‘wow’ you’re missing a trick

There’s no doubt that creating campaignable content takes a lot more effort. It’s more expensive, it needs more thought to plan, more time to produce, and often an investment in design to make it work.

It takes strategic thinking. And if you’re deep in the groove and getting results from your blogging and social media efforts – inbound leads, good conversations – investing in something more substantial might not feel like a priority.

Sometimes the tricky question of not knowing exactly what content your ideal buyers would find irresistible is what stops people from investing in the Wow content pieces. That old chestnut of ‘what’s valuable for my business?’ looms even larger if you contemplate going really big with something!

But, if you want to up your game, creating some campaignable content could be worth adding to your To Do list.

What is campaignable content?

High value, highly targeted content. It’s not a new idea, it’s where old-fashioned sales campaigns meets newfangled content marketing. But unlike the traditional view of sales campaigns, this approach is far more customer-focused. Rather than starting with ‘we need to sell more x’s’ it begins with ‘what exactly are the buyers of x looking for?’ And rather than making assumptions of what exactly buyers are looking for, it listens to them first.

Qualities of valuable, campaignable content:

Campaignable content:

• Is tied directly to a high priority service/product/offering
• Has a sales target attached
• Involves clients in its creation
• Will be sent to a well-researched, targeted list – with a proactive outreach plan
• Knows precisely where it sits in the buying cycle
• Leads to the next step in the buying cycle
• Builds relationships: actively invites people to take a clearly defined next step
• Is PR-able, and talk-worthy
• Makes you feel proud
• Keeps delivering leads, year after year.

The value of campaignable content for your business

Campaignable content gives your business development activities the boost of momentum that is sometimes lacking from content marketing activities. You will have to set a target, refine it, draw up a list, think hard about the buyer’s cycle. You’ll have to connect with your audience while you’re creating it, throwing up business development opportunities even before you press ‘publish’. And you’ll really have to consider ‘what next?’ So they love this content – it answers their questions exactly but now what? What do you want people to do? What is the next natural piece of content/action?

Campaignable content pulls up the content around it. It raises the quality of everything else you’re doing. It’s active, not passive.

“You can’t stay in the corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” – Winnie the Pooh

The real beauty of this campaignable, stock content is that it will have long-term sales benefit, pulling in leads for you long after you’ve moved onto the next campaign. This sparkling, valuable content has its moment in the sun and keeps on shining brightly, year after year.

3 examples of brilliant ‘wow’ content to inspire you

1. Great State’s Great Expectations: The Football Issue showcases in depth research, strategic thinking, and a real passion for the subject. It was enough to pinpoint the Bristol agency on the radar of a Premier League club, and help turn them into new Great State clients. Original research is a brilliant foundation for campaignable content. Make it super useful to your target clients, and these prospects will see you in a whole new light.
2. Ascentor’s Board’s Guide to Information Risk is a great example of a solid and enduring piece of content targeted specifically at the decision makers in a long sales cycle. It’s delivered a consistent flow of leads over more than seven years. It’s now gated on their site, but you’ll find it here. 
3. Take your pick from Velocity’s spread of brilliant, ideas fuelled, nicely designed, effortlessly cool content that stands the test of time and keeps on performing.

What content would wow your clients? We’d love to know.

You might also like:

• Yin & Yang, inbound and outbound <- a case study in business development harmony at Ascentor
• How to write sales proposals that get a big fat YES!!
• We’re making sales so what’s the point of investing in our website?
• The case for valuable content: the results of seven years of blogging

The post Campaignable content – where old fashioned sales meets newfangled content marketing appeared first on Valuable Content.

A couple of weeks ago we hosted a fascinating Bristol Content Group meet up at our client cxpartners’ lovely open plan HQ by Bristol harbour. The focus of our discussion was change leadership. Perhaps not a topic some would associate with a group of digital, marketing and content specialists and designers, but a subject of increasing importance if we’re to make a lasting impact through our work.

The session was led by change leadership coach and internal communications whizz Jo Twiselton. Jo has worked with many organisations over the years including Nokia, the BBC, and easyJet, helping to establish communication approaches that have got people well and truly on board during transformation. Whether you work in a business or as a third-party supplier, there’s much we can learn from Jo’s experience.

The digital and marketing change challenge

The way customers expect businesses to communicate is changing fast, so our work in marketing and digital is all about transformation. Whether we’re part of a large organisation or a small one, we’re trying to find better ways to connect so people know, like and trust us, to ensure our businesses thrive. But transforming the way a business communicates with the outside world is a tough challenge. And as with any kind of change, so much of it is about bringing people inside your the business on the journey with you. And that’s where things get interesting.

We’ve invested time and money in a new brand, a content marketing drive, the latest digital and marketing systems. We’ve trained everyone and worked hard to make their lives easier, yet people persist in working as they’ve always done. It’s so frustrating! Why won’t they drop their old ways and do things differently? And where are the business benefits we expected to deliver?

If I think back on all the brand and marketing transformation projects I’ve worked on over the years, the ones that have been most successful, the ones that have changed the fabric of the way a business communicates for good, have been the ones where we’ve worked hard with our client to bring the wider team into the process early, and to get a range of people across an organisation – from leaders to teams at the coalface – onboard with the new approach.

As any good digital and marketing leader knows, we’ve learned that you cannot function effectively in silos. So how do we break down internal walls and encourage people across the business to collaborate and contribute their knowledge to create and share valuable content?

How can we become better leaders of change, for our businesses or for our clients?

Here’s what struck me from Jo Twiselton’s presentation.

People before process

We can all remember incidents of poorly managed change. All too often this is because the people bit is forgotten in the rush to get stuff moving. The people element of a change programme (“we need to do some comms”) is usually only considered very late in the day once everything else has been decided.

It’s a false economy to say that we haven’t got time to involve people. If you don’t bring people with you from the start then the transformation will cost more, take more time and be far less likely to deliver and stick.

Change is really hard for people. Work is changing quicker than our brains. Our brains are wired for survival and look for threats – we don’t like things that we can’t predict or can’t control. Organisational change introduces an element of unpredictability about the future and that sends the brain into a fight or flight state. It’s intensely emotional for people.

Jo made a distinction between ‘change’ and ‘transition’. These words are often used interchangeably but are very different.

• Change can be quick.
• Transition takes longer. It’s an internal shift, engaging heart and mind.

As William Bridges says,

“When change happens without transition it’s just a reorganisation of the furniture.”

Transition is what we’re talking about here.

She presented the Change Curve. From shock and denial to anger and depression, and finally, integration and full acceptance, people move through these stages at different times. This model can help us understand how people are likely to react to change so that we can help them make their own personal shifts, and make sure that they have the help and support they need.

The Change Curve

How to communicate through change

Change flows faster in a supportive environment that puts people at the heart of change. So what do we need to do to make change happen more easily?

Here is Jo Twiselton’s advice:

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate! Plan to communicate with people inside the organisation regularly and with honesty right from the start of the project. The more useful information that we can give people through change the better. As we’ve heard any change is emotional – shock, upset, anger, depression, fear. It helps to acknowledge these feelings in our communications. Everyone wants to know ‘why are we doing this?’ and ‘what’s in it for me?’.

2. Start with why and give people a beacon. This is so important in my experience. Set out the intention – why it’s happening – and a meaningful vision for the change, a beacon to follow from the dark to the light. Keep harking back to this clear intention and over-riding purpose. “Keep the vision alive. When change is tricky or lasts for a while, you’ll need a drumbeat to keep people motivated,” says Jo Twiselton

3. Understand your internal audience. Put yourself in their shoes. A close understanding of their world, their motivations, fears, and needs is key if we want to bring people with us. Just as we do when thinking about our external audience, Jo advises us to segment our internal audience and do some proper research (employee journey segmentation as well as customer journey segmentation). What do people want to know? Why do they want to know it? What motivates them or doesn’t? What information do they need? What do we want them to KNOW, FEEL and DO?

4. Active listening to build that understanding. I love what Jo says about her comms role in big change projects. So much of it is just about talking to people, and really hearing what they say – making friends, asking good questions, really trying to understand, and using this insight and awareness to design relevant communications. These constant conversations are the lifeblood of any successful change. It takes relentless hard work in relationship-building and active listening – listening to understand, not just pausing to fill the gap until you can have your say. This kind of listening makes people feel valued and heard. It takes time to listen like this and that needs to be built into our digital and marketing projects if we want them to succeed.

5. Reflect people’s words in your messages. Listen for tone of voice, for the metaphors and stories that people tell about the change, for how they describe the possibility it brings, and build these words into your communications. Reflect them back if you want your comms to resonate.  

6. Tell stories. Forget management textbook speak, tell stories around the change, the reason for change, the process of change, the results of change. Stories are an age-old way of making sense of the world. Find those stories and keep them coming. Tell stories in person, in writing but also visually and creatively too. Good visuals cut through the clutter and hit home fast – they engage the emotional side of the brain and help the message to stick. Jo mentioned the work of business illustrator Virpi Oinonen who helps businesses explain the change visually, storifying change using comic strips. Genius.

Via Virpi Oinonen

7. Pilot. A trial will help people to understand the end game – the promised land. It paints a picture of what their world could be like.

8. Engage and co-create. The less power you have and the fewer options the more you’ll resist change. Get people involved where you can – give them a voice and engage them in decisions around change. Jo talked about co-creation, and about the Change Champion Networks she sets up through an organisation.

9. Get your organisation’s leaders on board and help them communicate this way through the change. People look for leadership in times of big change, so leaders need to be really visible, fronting the communications charge. No hiding, leaders need to stick around and actively be there through the uncomfortable emotional part of change. Not just to ‘plan to communicate regularly’ because you could do that while hiding away, but to have constant conversations with people through the difficult stages of change. As communicators, we play a key role in managing up and getting the leadership team to communicate effectively if we want the change to be widely adopted and stick.

Becoming a better leader of change

As communicators – in digital, marketing, design, content – we want our work to make an impact, to make a lasting difference to the businesses we serve. Success demands that we go beyond delivering great ideas, great systems, great work. We need to get people onside, to engage them in the change and take them on the journey. That’s what makes our roles so increasingly fascinating, and so challenging too.

What strikes me is the absolute synergy between Jo’s ‘people first’ approach to change communication and internal engagement and the valuable content approach to external marketing. We have a mantra here at Valuable Content to help guide our clients’ approach to communication:

‘Help don’t sell, show don’t tell, talk don’t yell’.

This applies whether we want to engage and build relationships with external customers or with people inside an organisation going through change.

I hope these reflections from our Content Group meet up with Jo Twiselton help to frame the change challenge more clearly so you get people onboard. Thinking about the people first means less frustration and more successful projects – not just fleeting, cosmetic change but long-lasting impact and true transformation.

Many thanks to Jo Twiselton for sharing her knowledge, to our clients cxpartners for hosting this Bristol Content Group meet up at their gorgeous offices, and to everyone who came and shared their views and experiences. Event photos by the very talented Sarah Hall aka @saltwaterdays.

Further reading:

3 stories of successful digital and marketing-led change:

• Listening foundations for the Community Organisers rebrand. Hear how our deep listening and research process helped to get people behind this important rebrand project
• Digital transformation done right at the Met Office. How they are making a difference through smart use of digital, motivating people inside the organisation to engage in the drive to share their knowledge and create valuable content:
• The power of purpose for UiPath – the power of purpose as a beacon for the world’s fastest-growing enterprise software company

2 books on implementing change the people first way:

• Making Change Happen – a practical guide to implementing business change, by Jane Northcote (project managed by Sonja)
• Neuroscience for Organizational Change – an evidence-based practical guide to managing change, by Hilary Scarlett 

Help to get your people behind change:

• If you want coaching around internal engagement, change and wellbeing, get in touch with Jo Twiselton and Twist Consultants.
• If you want to take your team on a change walk to get them really talking and thinking about the transformation, talk to Dave Stewart of Fresh Air Learning.
• If you need to step up and hone your personal communication and presentation skills to lead your team through change, call Chris Grimes of Second Curve.
• If you need help to articulate the change story, and a listening and communications programme to get the team behind it, talk to us.

Jo Twiselton, Sharon Tanton and Sonja Jefferson at Bristol Content Group

The post Change leadership lessons for marketers and businesses who want to make a lasting impact appeared first on Valuable Content.

Sometimes a chance encounter can change everything.

Just a few short weeks back I visited Romania for the very first time. Along with my friend Jon Burkhart, I was invited to talk at WeContent – the first content marketing conference in the country.

As Jon and I took our seats on the Tarom Airlines flight from Heathrow to Bucharest my overriding feeling was one of bubbling excitement. I love to travel, meet new people and share my enthusiasm for this valuable content thing.

It quickly became clear that my neighbour in the aisle seat was experiencing a very different set of emotions. The tense-looking man next to me was gripped by flying fear. I’m no stranger to panic attacks and wondered if talking might help.

He introduced himself. Here was Bogdan Florea, marketing manager for UiPath, world leaders in the field of Robotic Process Automation. Bogdan was one of the original members of the UiPath team, a company that has become Romania’s first billion-dollar startup, the fastest growing enterprise software company in history!

Bogdan recounted the story of UiPath’s incredible journey. The content they so generously share has played a key role in their phenomenal growth, and as soon we landed I changed the slides for my talk. I couldn’t wait to tell this story on stage.

UiPath’s story hasn’t left me. The secrets to their success go way deeper than content. There is an inspiring message here for any business that wants to really kick things up and grow.

Here’s what I learned from that serendipitous introduction to UiPath. Fasten your seatbelt. Let’s go.

(I hope Bogdan appreciated the distraction on the 3-hour flight! Here he is with Jon and me on landing and far more relaxed!).

The UiPath Story

UiPath is a clear leader in its field. In March this year, the company valued at $1 billion, a rare enough event for the company to be dubbed a ‘unicorn’. But the road to success has been far from straightforward. Their first decade was a rocky one, and only 5 years ago they considered shutting down.

But in the last few years, everything has changed. 2017 saw their enterprise customer base grow from less than 100 customers to more than 700, pushing the company’s annual recurring revenue up by a staggering 690 percent! Their team has expanded from 10 people to nearly 2000 in offices around the world today.

What changed their fortunes? And what can other businesses learn from this? Here are the lessons I take from my research into UiPath story.

Lesson 1: Change your motivation, change your fortunes

The UiPath team was always committed to building the best technology in their field but between 2005 and 2015 it just didn’t catch fire. It was only when founders Daniel Dines and Marius Tirca changed their motivation – from a focus on building wealth to the desire to do something bigger, for the greater good, making a change for the better in this world – that things started to shift. 

Daniel Dines explains in an interview with Romania’s Business Review magazine: 

“You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to build a decent life. It’s not worth it. Because being an entrepreneur is extremely risky and while doing it you risk ruining your career.

So the right motivation for an entrepreneur is that something deep inside of you, the desire to do something. It changed my thinking completely.” 

This shift in motivation from profit to bigger purpose has changed everything and it’s been pivotal to their success.

Lesson 2: Lead with your purpose and beliefs

When it comes to communicating what it’s all about, UiPath leads with its mission and beliefs, not its product.

The (software) robots are coming but that’s an opportunity. If we automate menial processes and tasks then imagine what humans can achieve? Human work should be creative and inspiring, so the point of their innovative technology is to free up our time and creativity, to allow for ever higher degrees of human freedom. Everyone progresses, everyone wins. 

Communicating by starting with why, not what, is compelling. It’s helped to draw the right people towards them.

Lesson 3: Build a culture based on shared values  

The Romanians are incredibly hospitable people and Bogdan was no exception. After the conference, he invited Jon and me to their office Halloween party to meet the team. As we chatted on the balcony looking out over the lights of Bucharest I was struck by everyone’s openness and clear sense of mission and belief. Every person I met told a similar story about the business and shared the same zeal for making a difference to the world.

Despite growing at hyperspeed UiPath’s culture remains strong. Alongside a shared desire to make a difference their values are surprisingly human – boldness, openness, collaboration and (I love this) humbleness drive all they do. They recruit to these values and everyone I met seemed to share them.

Humbleness is such a surprising word. It stopped me in my tracks. I debated the meaning with Bogdan – do you mean humility? No, not quite. Humbleness is not being proud or full of ego – always having curiosity and a willingness to listen and learn more. They don’t see themselves as the best software engineers in the world but they want to make a difference and together they can make that happen.

Their purpose and values set the tone for all they do – in person, on their website, through the content they share. 

Lesson 4: Do your research – understand the market opportunity

Success takes a lot more than having the perfect technical product. It takes a keen understanding of the market your product operates for. For a few years, UiPath was going in the wrong direction and clients weren’t knocking down the door. They had a good product but didn’t know what to do with it. It was a conversation with a customer in India that changed everything – their client could see the opportunity. UiPath listened hard and shifted focus. They found their niche. 

As Daniel Dines explained in Business Review:

“We understood there was a huge market out there of people who just do repetitive processes all day long, for whom our technology, which emulates what people do, is perfect.”

From that moment things changed dramatically. Their product connected and everything started to snowball.

Lesson 5: Collaborate to succeed

Another step change for UiPath came from their decision to open up their technology and to collaborate freely. That revelation led to alliances and partnerships that have fuelled their growth. They encourage the best minds to contribute and create the next leap in their amazing technology. More than 200,000 developers of all levels are now building upon the free UiPath platform. Marius Tirca, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer explains:

“Our secret weapon for building the best technology is no secret: we play a team sport, where everyone’s an A player, and we keep it open to level the field for everyone.”

They couldn’t have achieved the level of success they’ve had without this willingness to give freely and receive.

Lesson 6: Educate. Share what you know with the world

A desire to open up their knowledge and thinking was another game changer. This desire to educate led first to blog articles and other valuable content, and then to their incredibly popular conferences and events (#UiPathForward) and more recently to their newly formed Academy.

The UiPath Academy takes this willingness to give their knowledge away for free a step further. It offers free training to reskill and upskill people in this groundbreaking new technology. Education is focused on the people who need it most, so it’s supporting diverse communities – women, minority groups, and people whose jobs are impacted by the inevitable rise of automation. It’s the first open online training and certification platform dedicated to RPA users, and more than 100,000 users across the world have enrolled in their online courses since its launch in April 2017.

UiPath is doing all it can to make its knowledge open and free. Share share share is their philosophy. Why keep an idea to yourself? You can get there faster by sharing what you know.

Lesson 7: Put your customers in the limelight by sharing their stories

Shine a light on your customers. Let them talk about the impact of your product and your teaching – that’s the UiPath way. This is a fast track to trust.

For Uipath, this approach embodies their humbleness – we don’t know everything, so we’re collaborating to find the answers – but it’s also perfect ‘show not tell’ valuable marketing. Show the impact, through real-life stories, and your message will resonate more strongly.

Lesson 8: Don’t give up!

“The 2005-2015 period was the most difficult of my life. I was constantly trying to find the perfect product, and failing. We had just enough money to survive. Before we got the first funding round, the money we had in the bank would have only been enough for another three months,” Daniel Dines recalls.

UiPath has gone from a decade of struggle and uncertainty to becoming one of the fastest growing companies on the planet. A clear message for entrepreneurs to hang in there, keep learning and experimenting, to aim higher and keep on keeping on. 

Serendipity is a wonderful thing

The story I heard on the flight to Bucharest totally kicks things up for me.

It’s fired up the energy behind our mission to help other companies uncover and communicate their purpose and story. To share their ideas, change their fortunes and change the world. And a new desire to think bigger, and to collaborate with others who share the same aim.

There are so many lessons here, for me, and I hope for you too. Success for UiPath can’t be chalked up to one action, rather to a series of interlinked lightbulb moments that have shaped their path and propelled them forwards. Creative, inspiring and collaborative, UiPath embodies the human values the world needs to thrive. In the lines of the cliche, they are being the change they want to see. And in a world of robots, the humans are coming.

Congratulations to the founders Daniel and Marius, and to my new friend Bogdan and the whole UiPath team. I learned so much from my first visit to Romania and wish you all the very best on the next stage of your journey. I can’t wait to see what happens from here!

A Valuable Award for UiPath

Want to know more about UiPath’s content and marketing approach? We’ve given UiPath a richly deserved Valuable Content Award. You can read our interview on their approach to content here. 

The post On serendipity, humbleness and growth: 7 inspirational lessons from billion dollar startup UiPath appeared first on Valuable Content.

UiPath is the fastest growing enterprise software company in history. This is a billion dollar Romanian startup that so nearly didn’t make it, but who are now leading the world in robotic process automation.

A chance encounter on a plane to the WeContent conference in Bucharest led Sonja to uncover this amazing story; of how a shift in mindset matched with a massive generosity of spirit has led to their phenomenal, global success. She immediately changed her slides and told their story on stage.

For anyone interested in learning just how far a commitment to the very human principles that underpin a valuable approach to marketing and business can propel you, read on.

Valuable content lessons from UiPath

UiPath perfectly captures what a bigger purpose and commitment to sharing their knowledge with total generosity can do for a company, and for the world.

Here’s an interview with Mina Deckard, the Dali of UiPath’s blog and one of the team members who create the valuable content that has propelled UiPath to high heights. There are so many lessons to inspire your content and marketing efforts here.

Mina Deckard of UiPath

Q: UiPath shares a lot of valuable information in its blogs, tutorials, and resources. Why?

“Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a relatively new technology that has spurred a fast-growing industry. We are lucky to have been a part of its inception, a contribution that has made us responsible for its well-being. Educating everyone about what RPA means, what purpose it serves and all of its ins and outs has simply been our duty.”

“Educating people has simply been our duty.”

Q: What inspires your company to be so generous with its knowledge and ideas?

“UiPath is open-to-use and open-to-learn, two principles to build (anything great) upon. When everyone contributes, whatever has to be accomplished will be accomplished faster and better.

This is not a novelty. The freedom to create and cooperate is simply one of nature’s ways. We are copying and enacting an evolutionary model.

UiPath has nurtured a thriving community of RPA developers who use our product for free (The UiPath Community Edition) and build new and interesting use cases upon it. They are contributing their practical knowledge and together we are building a shared repository of automation ideas and best practices that are made to propel the industry forward.”

Q: What is your content strategy? What type of information do you like to share?

“Content is a loop. Not exactly a strange one, or perhaps not as strange as Mr. Hofstadter’s, but sufficiently self-referential in the sense that every piece of content we share is informed by the realities of our customers, our prospects and the world out there: their challenges, their problems, their experience with RPA, the needs of their business and so on.

And because we cater to virtually any industry and across functions we tend to focus a lot of our content strategy on answering the HOW of automation, as it pertains to each domain, whether it’s finance, legal, HR, healthcare or government.

Justifying the WHY is easy, the ROI of this technology is compelling and easy to prove. Which makes the HOW question even more critical. Many of our customers are generously sharing their experience with automation, which in turn helps new adopters learn fast. We’re documenting everything.”

Q: What results has this brought for your business?

“Our content has helped us grow at the incredible speed that we’ve been growing at and has majorly contributed to UiPath’s preeminence in the industry.

“Our content has helped us grow at the incredible speed.”

Every product guide, every tutorial, every resource article, every thought leadership blog and every tweet we’ve ever done have had a direct contribution to this success.”

UiPath’s content is outstripping the competition

Q: Do you have a favorite UiPath content story?

“Oh, yes! Every piece of content which reflects the collective heartbeat of the UiPath community is dear to us.

1. Here’s an example – a post on the one year anniversary of the UiPath’s fantastic Academy.
2. And here’s a sample of a rich, “how-to” piece of content that you can really fall back on when implementing our technology at scale (which is what every enterprise is now looking to do). A guide to full-scale RPA deployment. It’s authored by UiPath’s Chief of Strategy.

Of course, success stories are the holy grail of our content strategy. (Even when they fail at first. Especially then.)”

Q: Who produces the content at UiPath?

“We’re a global team, spread across regions and between two main dimensions: brand communications and product marketing. And we’re still growing. Two years ago we were… two people…! It still feels unreal.

At UiPath, our experts and thought leaders write their own content.”

Q: How do you ensure you get your content gets found and read?

“For our content producers, 50% of the time is spent on writing, 50% is spent on distribution.

Apart from distributing content through the web, we also go through our sales teams, our partners and specific influencers. Let’s not forget that if you build interesting content, everyone will want to share it. We measure performance to improve our methods.”

“Let’s not forget that if you build interesting content, everyone will want to share it.”

Q: What is your biggest content challenge?

“Great question. Honestly, our greatest challenge is being able to create the content at the pace of our audiences need it.”

Q: What’s next for your website and content?

“More case studies! And then some more! Ha-ha-ha. And of course, strengthening our distribution engine. Always, ongoingly!”

Q: What lessons can other businesses take from your approach to content at UiPath?

“Build a community. Let it speak.”

Human content lessons from UiPath

1. Sharing valuable content is part of your duty to serve your customers and industry. It’s a way of living your purpose.
2. Your customers’ needs and questions = your valuable content.
3. Get your content right and it will play a direct role in your business’ success.
4. Document everything over time.
5. Distribution is as important as creation. In UiPath’s content team: “50% of the time is spent on writing, 50% is spent on distribution.”
6. Don’t forget your sales teams and influencers: They are important distribution channels.
7. If your content is interesting enough, people will share it.
8. Measure the success of your content efforts to help you learn and improve.
9. Don’t forget to write case studies. As Mina says, these are the holy grail of your content strategy. The more honest the better.
10. Build your community and let it speak through the content you share.

A richly deserved Valuable Content Award for UiPath

Congratulations to Mina and the whole UiPath team. A cluster of Valuable Content Award badges is on its way to you in beautiful Bucharest.

>> Read more about the surprising business lessons that have fuelled UiPath’s phenomenal growth: On serendipity, humbleness and growth – human business lessons from billion-dollar startup UiPath

The post A very human Valuable Content Award for UiPath – leaders in the world of software robots appeared first on Valuable Content.

If you want to serve more people, you need to reach more people. That’s the truth.

But how do you do that?

It can be tough to make an impact in a world that’s cynical of anything that looks like a sales message. Even with the best of intentions – you want to find the right people because you know what you’re offering will help them – the shivery spectre of self-promotion can loom large. If any kind of self-promotion feels plain wrong, the temptation can be to slink below the radar and stay small.

Luckily there is an easier and ultimately more successful way of telling a bigger story and reaching more of the right people. Take the spotlight off yourself, and throw it onto the people you want to serve.

“Take the spotlight off yourself, and throw it onto the people you want to serve.”

The very best way of increasing your impact is by being even more helpful, digging deeper into your knowledge, and generously sharing what you know with your people and the wider community.

“The path to long-term success is by creating massive value for your clients.” ― Jeff Walker

We’ve been practicing what we preach this week. We delivered an online seminar, sharing the formula behind valuable content with a group of business owners and marketers from all over the world.

A big chunk of our greatest trade secrets are in this webinar (take a peek!). So much so that some people will be able to take the lessons and run solo with them.

Some people fear giving away so much for free, but we embrace it. The more you give, the more you will receive, that’s what we believe and have seen to work.

“Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.” ― Bob Burg, The Go-Giver

By sharing what we know, we are offering our help to others to guide them on the journey in our new coaching course. Whether or not people choose to work with us, we’re so hoping that what we teach makes a huge difference to many.

Do watch the online seminar. We really hope it helps you to create even more valuable content, for far better business results.

And if you’d like more information on our course, check out more details here.

The post To serve more people you need to reach more people appeared first on Valuable Content.

What does it take to create truly valuable content? The type of content that makes great stuff happen for your business – real interest, more enquiries, more sales, greater love for what you do?

This question has intrigued us for nearly 20 years, and it was top of the list of thorny marketing challenges you shared with us in our survey a few weeks back too.

We’ve witnessed the incredible impact when businesses get their content just right, but as you no doubt know from experience it’s no simple task.

There are a variety of elements that need to work together to get your content right. So what does it take? And is there any way to make the job easier?

The Valuable Content Formula

When we look back at people we’ve worked with who continually create content that connects it’s clear that they follow a similar success formula. It’s a perfectly balanced combination of customer focus, business clarity, a giving mindset, plus systems and skills. This is the foundation for creating valuable content.

So when we’re thinking about people who succeed with this approach, we’ve got people like Andrea Howe of the Get Real Project in mind, or the brilliant team at HSBC Expat and our latest Valuable Content Award winner, copywriter John Espirian whose story we highlighted last week.

All are getting fantastic results from their content efforts, and a collection of shared factors contributes to their success:

1. They know their customers and put their needs first. They’re absolutely clear on the type of people they serve – they don’t try and talk to everyone. And they’ve done their homework. The deep understanding they’ve forged of their customers’ world and how they fit into the story is based not on assumption but by asking them – regularly reaching out, seeking feedback, listening and acting upon it, putting the customer’s needs at the heart of all their marketing.

2. They know their own business. They are clear on their own story and perspective – why, how and what they do. They know their point of difference, what they stand for, what they offer and what ideas they want to share.

3. They share a generous mindset. We boil this down to empathy, curiosity, and openness, with an overriding belief that if you give you’ll receive. Helping before selling is their watchword.

“Marketing done right is an act of generosity. It’s work that matters for people who care.” – Bernadette Jiwa

4. They invest in the skills and systems they need. They have invested in the creative and technical skills required to drive success from their marketing. They have a platform and system that works for them – not just digital systems but personal systems too – so they prioritise and make time for content.

Get the recipe right for your business

There is a balance to be struck here which is crucial.

You might look at the percentages in our formula and assume that we think skills and systems aren’t important. Far from it! It’s just the tactical elements don’t come first. It’s not just about hiring a great writer or creative, or a slick marketing system, you have to have something to say – something that customers are delighted to hear, and that fits with your brand and perspective. Skills – like writing, design, photography – are a big part of creating great content, that’s certain. They take on an equal importance to customers, business and mindset once you’ve built strong foundations. They’re just not where you start.

For many setting out on the valuable content journey, the overriding focus is on skills, systems, and tactics. These are all important and become more so once you’ve done the groundwork. But we know from hard-won experience that it’s the mindset and strategy that really matters most of all. This is the place to start and lay your foundations, or to revisit if your content isn’t making the impact you want.

Valuable content is found at the intersection between your customers’ needs and your business expertise. Stepping back and spending time on the big strategic questions and customer research to uncover that sweet spot is the best place to focus if you really want to drive results from your content efforts.

Make content marketing easier

Yes, content marketing is a challenge but you can make it so much easier. There IS a formula to follow to get your content working so you drive the results you need for your business.

1. Know your customers – focus down and really get to know them
2. Know your business – step back and work out what you stand for
3. Change your mindset – help as much as you can
4. Set up your systems, and learn the skills you need

This is the secret to creating truly valuable content. We will do all we can to help you make it work so your business flies.

Learn the Valuable Content Formula in our free online seminar

If you’re not yet getting the results you need from your content and you’d like to uncover exactly how to make the Valuable Content Formula work for you, take a step back for an hour and listen to the webinar.

> Register here us to send you our free online seminar and learn the secret to content that gets results.

The post Revealing the Valuable Content Formula (and how to make it work for you) appeared first on Valuable Content.

In a crowded digital world how do you stand out? How do you win people’s attention, and draw the right business to you?

Here’s a brilliant example of a freelance business that’s winning the war for attention. John Espirian is a technical copywriter and he’s booked up for work months in advance. In a sea of content, he’s differentiating and winning business from all the right people. How? Here is his story with some great tips for content marketing success.

John Espirian’s content story

John Espirian is a technical copywriter based over the water from us in Wales. He specialises in writing B2B copy that explains how products, services, and processes work.

John set up as an independent technical copywriter in 2009 following a career in software assurance. It was a natural progression for him. In the software world, he was the person with a long queue of people at his desk asking ‘how does this stuff work?‘ He was always the explainer and realised this would be a great niche for him when it came to make the move to copywriting.

The early years of freelancing were difficult at times. Back then he had no website, and social media was only just getting started. Results from advertising his services were patchy. Leads came mainly from old contacts and word of mouth and John knew that these networks weren’t enough to sustain him by themselves. How could he attract and win more of the right clients more easily?

John started his blog back in 2014. But it wasn’t until 2016 that he heard about this thing called ‘content marketing’. When he looked into it he realised there was a framework that could really help him sell, in a way that felt natural and right.

“In a nutshell content marketing is about producing content that helps your ideal customers to feel more educated and smarter and make better buying decisions by removing the sales component from your content and providing helpful, explanatory messages for them.”

– John Espirian

John took to this inbound marketing strategy like a duck to water – no knocking on doors annoying people with cold pitches, no Google ads, just a focus on being consistently helpful and explaining the answers to the questions his ideal clients have.

Here’s Sonja sharing John Espirian’s content story at the fantastic WeContent conference in Romania

John’s ‘relentlessly helpful’ approach to marketing has driven amazing results. He’s booked up way in advance, without ever cold pitching. When he looks at his Google Analytics he’s seen a year on year doubling of his traffic – he’s being found via organic search, and a good proportion of those searchers are contacting him ready to ask for his help. His bank of content has made him stand out and climb the Google rankings.

We interviewed John about his business development journey so far:

Helpful content marketing tips from John Espirian

1. Help first don’t sell first. You don’t need to cold pitch – just focus on producing content that’s genuinely helpful, providing value to your type of customers. If your content is good enough the right people will seek you out.
2. Don’t gate your content. If you put it out there for free your content will get more widely shared and loved. (Check out Mark Schaefer’s excellent post – Updating the argument against gated content). 
3. Don’t worry about giving your knowledge away. Some people will use the ideas you share in your content to do things by themselves. But a percentage of readers WILL become your customers, and that’s the point.
4. Take a long-term approach. Play the long game. Think of a 30-month mindset – and know that sustained effort will lead to results. Have patience and believe in the methodology. Don’t expect immediate results.
5. Have a good understanding of your place and space. What do you want to be known for? Become known for one thing – being ‘relentlessly helpful’ in John’s case.
6. Go where your customers are. Understand where you should share your content. If you’re in a visual business, be where the visual people are – get on Instagram. Don’t like LinkedIn? Tough – if your customers are there, you need to be there too. 
7. Do one platform really well. It’s far better to do one platform well than 5 of them in a mediocre way.
8. Think about your content DNA. Underpin your content approach with your own brand values. Write down 4 – 5 things that sum up your tone of voice and online personality, and keep them on your desk. Whenever you’re writing something, check that it ticks all the boxes. People love consistency – it means you’re much more likely to be memorable.
9. Listen to your customers to find out what they want from you. This is so important if you want your content to be found and loved. Talk to them. Ask them. What are they struggling with? What information will they really value?

Here’s John explaining his content marketing approach, with a heap of helpful tips to take away and put into practice, whatever the size of your business.

How do you gain attention and interest in a sea of content? For John the answer is to be relentlessly helpful. That’s how he differentiates. That’s how he wins. What’s not to love about his approach?

Check out John’s fantastic website and blog here: espirian.co.uk.

“Putting out that free content without a sales message is the longterm route to building trust. And if you’ve got trust then your business will never fail.”

– John Espirian.

Congratulations John, and thanks for the relentless inspiration. Your well deserved valuable content award badge is winging its way over the bridge to Wales!

The post 9 relentlessly helpful content marketing tips from copywriter John Espirian appeared first on Valuable Content.

So, this blog pulls together what we’ve learned from doing and teaching content marketing over the past 15 + years.  It’s a ‘things I wish I’d known when I was starting out’ piece.

So If you’re just setting out, these tips will get you off on the right foot, and help you avoid some of the key pitfalls that can scupper your success. If you’ve been on the journey for a while we hope it’s a good reminder of the principles underlying the approach.  We’d love to know which of these steps have been the most important for you, and if you’ve got any more advice to share with beginners on the content marketing journey.

What is content marketing and why invest your energy in it?

Content marketing is a very human way to do business. In essence, it’s about sharing your story online, sharing what you know and giving value to your audience.

“Content marketing is really just about people using empathy to help other people and that in turn delivers better business results.”

Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insights

It works for business because the content gets found by people who are looking for the knowledge you have and the help you provide. Get content marketing right, and selling becomes a lot easier. You’ll find the right clients coming to you, already feeling that they trust you, and wanting to work with you.

Pushy sales techniques just don’t work well these days – we switch off when it feels like someone is selling us something we don’t want. Content marketing is a way that fits the way we like to buy.

So how do you do it? Here are our top tips if you’re just starting out on the content marketing journey.

Six early steps for valuable content marketing success

Do this

1. 1. Do the thinking first. Content marketing is not a case of writing a few blogs and waiting for buyers to ring you up. Understand why you’re doing it, and what you want to change in your business and your life. Know exactly who you want to help – go beyond standard personas and listen to your customers. Know who you are as a business. Getting clear on your own purpose and values, will help you tell a better story, and attract the kind of customers that believe what you believe. They’re the best kind!
   2. Put your customer at the heart of everything. Their questions = your content. Keep a real person in mind with every piece of content you create.
   3. Help, don’t sell. Develop an attitude of generosity, It can feel hard at first to give away so much of what you know, for free, but it works. It’s the most straightforward, human and accessible way to demonstrate your expertise, strengthen your reputation, and build the relationships your business needs to thrive. We like people who help us.
   4. Get the proposition clear. Have a compelling and easy-to-buy offer at the heart of all this generously given valuable content. Make it clear how people can take the first step to become a customer.
   5. Get the website platform right. Content marketing won’t work without a website, It doesn’t have to be super slick, simple is good. Design it with your ideal customer and her challenges in mind.
   6. Start building your list. Content is a brilliant conversation starter, and you want yours to kick off useful conversations for you and your business. Your newsletter is the place where you can talk one-to-one with the people in your community, delivering value to them consistently. Not everyone on your list will become a customer, but if what you deliver is useful enough, they’ll become your champions – willingly sharing your content and helping more potential buyers find their way into your world. Make email sign up irresistible on your website.  

Six content marketing pitfalls to avoid

Don’t do this

1. Don’t forget that it’s all about people and relationships. It’s about you and your customer. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. You might hear that content marketing is a matter of finding the right keywords and exploiting SEO search power or producing tons and tons of content every month, or that it has to be video or else. Those aren’t helpful places to start and that can lead you off track. Successful content marketers share the same mindset, not the same tactics. Create every piece of content with one person in mind. It’s never ‘we need some content for x, y, z’, it’s ‘our customer needs help with x,y, z.’ Make helping your people the focus of your content marketing activity and you’ll stay on track.2. Don’t try and outsource it all from the start. Writing blogs and guides, or creating videos or podcasts IS hard work, and it can be tempting to think ‘I’ll just get someone else to do it for me.’ If it’s your business, you need to do the thinking and listening work upfront. You’ll gain so much crucial insight from the process in terms of what your ideal clients want, and the challenges that you can help with, that you really want to throw yourself into it wholeheartedly. As you get further down the line, and your content strategy is clear it’s possible to get others to write/create your content for you, but you need to understand the process inside out before you can commission others to help.
2. Don’t let being a perfectionist hold you back. For example, don’t put off working on your website because you want it to be the best ever. You can start marketing your business without a website – blogging on Medium for example, or LinkedIn, but to make a real success of it you need your own website, where people can buy from you. Website projects are notoriously tricky, but it’s worth making your site as clear, accessible and people-friendly as you possibly can. But don’t wait until it’s absolutely perfect (because it never will be). Get the best site you can up as quickly as possible, and iterate as you go.
3. Don’t worry about imposter syndrome. Fear that you don’t know enough, or that you’re not expert enough, or that you’re not interesting enough can stop you from writing. If you make ‘helping’ your main goal it takes the pressure off. There may well be other people who are more expert than you, but they don’t have your unique perspective, your experiences or your desire to use what you know to help your ideal clients.
4. Don’t make it all about you. Nothing kills content marketing flatter than self-orientation.
5. Don’t give up when you’re not an overnight sensation. Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Your credibility and reach will develop over time, as you share more valuable content, and develop more relationships. If your blog post helps somebody or generates a useful conversation (even one Twitter exchange) then it’s a success. Measure connections with people, not social media ‘likes.’

Creating and sharing valuable content drives business success. The decision to focus on sharing helpful, inspiring content over other ways of marketing your business is the start of a journey that can transform your business and your life. Getting the foundations right makes all the difference.

If you are just starting out, there’s lots more free content on all the topics we’ve touched on in this blog and in our regular emails too (you can sign up here for the latest updates). 

Anything we’ve missed? What do you wish you’d known when you were starting out? What bit of advice would you give to a beginner content marketer?

Comments on this post from our LinkedIn community

Simon Swan, digital transformation lead at the Met Office says:

“Lovely blog Sharon Tanton and Sonja Jefferson 😀 really like point 3 – pair sharing is always a good approach I’ve found where individuals can play to their strengths by identifying your staff with expert knowledge and you can contribute on the digital marketing side by providing the keyword research, optimise the content and identify potential partnerships. I’d also throw In the need for resilience eg a content approach takes time and organisations need to be aware of the wider benefits a content approach has to building a brand.” – Simon Swan

Margaret Magnarelli, VP of marketing at Monster.com says:

“Sonja Jefferson *love* the art on this, and Sharon Tanton great points in here–especially the imposter syndrome and the not giving up right away.

My advice: Always be ready to pivot. When you’re first starting out, or even when you’re in deep, you have to try to look at your work objectively to determine whether or not it’s working. This can be hard because hopefully, you love what you’ve created, but it’s where data comes in handy to separate you from your emotions. Obviously, you need to give something a long enough runway to accumulate the potential for results—which is why I like the “don’t give up right away” idea. Also, the ability to pivot and be flexible is further necessitated by the fact that the algorithms and human behaviors that power our success are constantly changing.” – Margaret Magnarelli

Paul Hajek, MD of Clutton Cox says:

“Great advice for both newbies and more experienced content creators alike. There is more science and reasoning to content creation now than there was when I started blogging in 2008 and a vast array of information to help get started. Some basics still apply; planning is paramount and a content reservoir before you publish will help you overcome inevitable dips in content creation.

My firm’s mantra via Marcus Sheridan is “clients ask we answer” mixed with some Doug Kessler advice to be as generous as you can with what you share. It’ll make you happy.

Cutting through social media noise is definitely a modern content problem. Getting through to your ideal client or prospect is far harder. Hubspot created the term inbound marketing have the viewpoint that you should look to build “a topic cluster content program to enable a deeper coverage across a range of core topic areas, while creating an efficient information architecture in the process” This is ideal but if you feel you must write about something that you think your prospects would be interested in – just go ahead and do it. It helps to go off-piste every now and then and despite what you might be told you won’t really know what content will hit the target until you try.” – Paul Hajek

John Espirian, relentlessly helpful technical copywriter says:

“Nice work, Sharon. The advice is spot on helping beats selling, and you have to prepare for the long-term rather than assuming that a few blog posts will help you smash it overnight. I also agree about not outsourcing in the early stages (leave that for when your processes are all bedded in and you’re ready to scale).

Snakes and ladders note: that drop from 21 to 3 has gotta hurt.” – John Espirian

Mark Masters, Founder of the ID Group and You Are The Media

“When we start out on our journeys we tend to look at the ‘finished articles’ ie. the people who have achieved success in their marketplace, those who have found a clear voice, or those who have built an audience.

Wherever we start it is always from zero (writing, audio, video) and we have to be ok with being rubbish. For instance, when I started writing (in 2012), it was just generic articles that were the same as every other ‘what is a brand’ type piece. When I started podcasting (in 2015), I was a mess of ‘ummms’ and ‘errrs’ (Ian Rhodes can vouch for that).

It is only by sticking with a medium, that we can become comfortable with a medium.

The longer you stick at something (as John says), the easier it becomes to pivot (as Margaret says), which comes from resilience (as Simon says….I said Simon says).” – Mark Masters

Brian Inkster, Founder of Inksters says:

“I tend to write about things that interest me as and when they arise rather than having a plan as such. I think this makes the content very genuine and topical and hopefully, it will be appreciated as such.

I would highlight the importance of social media in spreading your content. I may not have seen Sharon’s blog post on this topic had it not been for your LinkedIn post. Twitter used to be very important for sharing content but I think LinkedIn is taking over in importance especially in the more detailed comments/debate you get as can be seen from the responses you have already had and will no doubt still get on here.

It was at one time the case that, with good content on a blog, comments would appear on the comments section of the post itself. This has changed and now more comments will be generated about a blog post on LinkedIn. I copy these into my blog posts to keep them there for posterity and easy reference linked to the original content itself. It is easy for this to be lost within a few days on social media as something else takes it place*. By reproducing it on the original content you are immediately adding and enhancing that content making it even more likely the content will be found in the future through search.” – Brian Inkster

* Thanks for the idea Brian – have now done just that! ~ Sonja

The post 6 winning moves to set your content marketing up for success (and 6 slippery mistakes to avoid) appeared first on Valuable Content.

The results of our Big Content Challenge Survey are in, and they’re fascinating. Thanks to everyone from our email newsletter community and wider social networks who took time out to answer our questions.

We wanted to dissect the content challenge. We were curious to see if the patterns we were seeing in our client work were borne out more widely. Are the fundamental questions that need answering to ensure your content is valuable – who are we and what do customers want from us? – an issue for most businesses or have they been solved? When it comes to content, what’s really front of mind for you as business owners, experts, and marketers in 2018? What are the main challenges you face? 

Based on our client experience we asked people to rate the following challenges:

• Describing what we do on our website
• Differentiating our products and services
• Generating good sales leads from our website and content (How do we attract more of the right work?)
• Creating valuable content for our audience (Are we creating and sharing the right blogs, guides etc?)
• Knowing our niche (What do we do best, and who do we do it for?)
• Attracting more of the right talent (How can we show we’re a great company to work for?)

And we asked them to tell us more about the challenges they face. What else do they struggle with? These freeform comments proved equally as interesting.

You’ve given us real insight. Using valuable content as a key business development driver is no longer a novel concept. However, it’s clear from your responses that the challenge hasn’t got much easier with time.

“The survey is a good prompt that the content issue hasn’t gone away for us.”

“It seems like such a humongous feat of details, direction, amount, timing, content, time available.”

It’s taken us a while to sift through all the responses (83 in total), and it’s been a powerful reminder of the intricacies wrapped up in the business of creating and sharing content that connects.

Here’s the story the survey results reveal, and some ideas on what this means for you and how you market your business.

1. Creating valuable content is a tricksy task

The challenge of creating valuable content for an audience (are we creating and sharing the right blogs, guides etc?) came out on top when we asked survey respondents to rank the content challenges we presented them with.

A familiar story ran through the freeform answers. From “are we writing the right content?” through to “I’m finding it hard to write at all” – the challenge of content creation itself is still the hardest one for our audience. Finding subjects to write about that are relevant to our audience, differentiation, articulating the value that we offer – there’s a lot at play here.

Creating valuable content is a multifaceted challenge. It reveals itself differently depending on the size of the organisation.

For freelancers and micro-businesses, the challenge is mainly around knowing what content to create and finding the time and support to make it happen.

“Thinking time. Content development time. Keeping the momentum up (flow). Knowing that we’re developing useful, valuable content.”

In larger businesses, the situation is more complex. There’s the time factor, for sure, but it’s around getting buy-in from the rest of the business. Agreement on the business development goals for a content strategy can be tough to reach when there are many stakeholders and a variety of opinions.

“Persuading marketing people to allow us to write without slapping selling messages everywhere.”

“Another struggle is getting involved in potential content initiatives early enough to improve and plan properly. Often when the comms team hears about it, the idea has been fully formed by lawyers and sales teams.”

“Getting buy-in from lawyers on the inbound marketing is sometimes difficult.”

2. Understanding what your audience wants is key

For businesses of all sizes, ‘understanding my audience’ was a key challenge. ‘How do I know what content to create?’ is a question that everyone asks.

“Understanding what my target audience wants to know. And feeling that my content is authoritative and helpful and so that I’m not simply adding to the noise. (Aka I’m scared!) Perhaps I need to run a focus group to find out what people want to hear about…. Or run a survey like yours!”

“Not overwhelming people with my passion or knowledge – flipping to make sure the content is viewed from walking in the audience’s shoes, and what’s useful for them.”

“Making it relevant and not always knowing if it’s what clients/followers want.”

3. But the challenge is way bigger than ‘content’

We asked people to tell us about the biggest content and communication challenges they face today. We deliberately widened the question to understand the bigger picture. We know from the work we do with clients that questions around content always go much further upstream.

Content is a practical, visible manifestation of your brand positioning and values. Those business and marketing fundamentals – Who are we? Why do we exist? Who do we serve? What do they want from us? What’s our real differentiator? – drive the content you create. That’s why we’re so fascinated by this work, but also why the job of content can be so complex.

The challenges our respondents share reflect this.

“Simplifying my message and then creating content around the singular point of difference.”

“Differentiating from the crowd, setting ourselves apart by voice and not price.”

“The business model! Working out who we are and what we do, and communicating that clearly.”

“We don’t know whether it’s a content or communication challenge or whether our service just doesn’t actually offer the value we believe it does. Business is slow and we don’t know why!”

“Everything! Content, who, what, why, where.”

4. Less content for content’s sake; more content with a clear goal

We still see a lot of content out there that seems to have been created for the sake of it, without a clear purpose in mind. Not so for our community. It’s heartening to read many comments that reflect the desire to link your content efforts to clear business goals.

“Getting it seen by the right people, having them act on what they’ve seen.”

“Getting people to think strategically about how content supports various business objectives – whether lead gen, retention, employee engagement etc.”

“Not chatting shit that has no meaning or doing stuff for the sake of it.”

“Creating content for the sake of it, rather than evaluating what’s necessary and will have the most impact.”

Client attraction isn’t the only goal. In fact, attracting more of the right talent pipped attracting more of the right work to the post in the survey results. That one was a surprise.

We were interested (and delighted) to learn that some people are getting enough good inbound leads and work through referrals – that’s how it should be – and that finding the right people to help build the business has become more of a pressing issue. We’ve come to the realisation that content marketing has a key role to play in recruitment, and are refining what we do to help with this challenge.

“The care sector is a hard-to-recruit sector. Given this, our recruitment communications prove our biggest challenge.”

5. It takes time, resource and planning

Making time, making time, making time. Every time we survey our audience the issue of making time to keep up the momentum of content creation is raised as a challenge.

“Time is the only factor. I always have things to say and I know how to get good traction with my content.”

“Writing content that sticks and filters the right clients is challenging but we’re learning! Keeping momentum when we’re busy is a real challenge.”

“The consistency of creating it. Time with clients delivering always means I’m failing to deliver new content to the timescale I want to hit.”

Many of our respondents recognise the need for a systematic process and dedicated resource for producing content regularly too.

“Consistency. Creating and sticking to a manageable, repeatable and realistic content schedule.”

“Quality production. We know the story, we have the expertise and the ‘angles’ to position ourselves but struggle to find cost-effective creative / production resource that doesn’t involve us ‘doing’ it anyway”

“I need to create structure and habits around content that interests me and my audience.”

6. The challenge of writing remains

The blank page is an evergreen challenge for content creators. Even if you make the time, there’s still the perennial problem of choosing the right words and putting them together in the right order! The writing part of content creation is still a real blocker for people. Recognising the importance of tone of voice, and the need for writing that makes a genuine human connection can add to the pressure.

“Making my web copy sound like me, whilst still doing its job. I’m great in blog posts and social media updates, but my web copy feels really stiff and dull in comparison.”

“Can someone else do the writing for us or does this mean our brand personality is weakened?”

“Getting the tone right; use of language.”

“Finding the right tone for content around a difficult subject. Wanting to be sympathetic but celebratory. We’re not sure if we’re writing the right stuff.”

7. Mental blocks – mindset and the happiness factor

This is a huge blocker. Content creation is a creative activity, and sometimes you just can’t get yourself into the right mental state however much you try.

“Have completely lost my mojo when it comes to content. Haven’t written a ‘monthly’ blog post since May, lack time, lack ideas, lack motivation. … work & life keep getting in the way.”

“As with most things, it’s not the creation of the content itself that’s the challenge but getting myself in the right frame of mind in the first place to allow the words and ideas to flow – but this says a lot about me at the moment. The other big question I have is what’s the best stuff to share on which channels? Combine these two challenges and I often find myself paralysed and end up doing very little of anything anywhere and then beat myself up! Oh to be a human!!!”

So what do these insights mean to you?

Woah, valuable content is a challenge, isn’t it? We hope it makes you feel better to understand it’s not just you! Don’t give up. There is a path through this. Keep up the momentum and the value you deliver WILL pay off – this helpful approach to marketing is the key to connecting with your audience and to the long-term success of your business.

“Content marketing is really just about people using empathy to help other people and that in turn delivers better business results.” Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group

Where to start to unscramble some of the key challenges:

1. Is this content on track? Use templates to structure your content. Our planning guidelines and checklists will help you shape what your writing, and make sure it stays relevant for your reader. (Try our ‘Is this content valuable’ checklist for starters).
2. Time. If you really want to create valuable content for your business, and time is the main thing stopping you, then you have to make time. Ring-fence it in your diary. Protect it. It’s a key business development activity and needs your full attention. Methods like the Pomodoro technique can get you into writing quickly, so you avoid that awkward ‘starting to write’ phase when you can’t think of anything to say, and are tempted to leapfrog back into ‘I might as well answer this email/check Facebook.’ Write anything until you get into your flow. The flow won’t happen unless you start. (Read: How do you find the time to write great content?)
3. Writing. If you feel your writing skills are holding you back, invest in yourself and learn how to improve them. Henneke Duistermaat’s online writing courses are excellent, we run writing workshops for teams looking to upskill, and there are hundreds of books on the market if you want to teach yourself.
4. I don’t know what to say. Go back to your customers/clients and their challenges. Ask them. Pick up the phone, put out a survey, ask in forums. Your answers to your customer challenges = your most valuable content.
5. Getting buy-in from others in the business. Educate and inspire to bring people inside the organisation with you on the journey (just as you do with customers). Understand the drivers and blockers for your internal audience and create a compelling narrative to frame your content efforts. Keep the communication coming to change hearts and minds. (Hear how Simon Swan has done this successfully at the Met Office.)
6. Mindset blocks. These often reflect deeper issues. If you’re not happy in your life and your business, it’s pretty impossible to create content at all, let alone valuable content that’s going to connect with people. Stress inhibits clear thinking and creativity. Coaching or counselling could be the answer here. Put your own oxygen mask on first, and then you’ll be in the right place to help others through your content. And life will feel richer again too.
7. Momentum. It’s way easier to keep moving when you are moving. Taking small actions consistently will help you keep going. Set yourself achievable targets – a short newsletter, a blog for your favourite client – and reward yourself once you hit those targets. Break larger content pieces into attainable chunks, and reward yourself when you get them under your belt. Share the challenge, buddy up with others, take action, make yourself accountable and the momentum will follow.

We hope this helps. Do let us know.

……………….

Who took this survey?

Our clients and community tend to be in small and medium-sized businesses, mainly in the UK, US, and Canada.

We had responses from freelancers up to organisations with over 250 staff in predominantly B2B/service-based businesses including law firms, designers, coaches, trainers, consultants, care homes, web developers, architects, software companies, brand design agencies, makers, marketers, tech startups, UX specialists, property advisors, copywriters, charities, international building materials companies, sustainability consultancies and a wonderful sounding pet bereavement service in Devon.

[Freelancer/solopreneurs: 41%, Microbusiness: 2-10 staff 32%, Small business: 11-50 staff 17%, Medium business: 51-250 staff 3%, Larger business: 251+ staff, 6%. A mix of business owners, marketers and subject matter experts.]

The post Why is creating valuable content so hard? Research results now in appeared first on Valuable Content.