In this episode I’m joined by Hannah Adcock (@smokingpun) from Contented Strategy. We discuss content strategy for bootstrappers.
We also discuss the work Hannah has done for my product, Feature Upvote.
Nice episode. Recommended. Even if you kind of know these things, it’s good to remind you and put you in a correct mindset to take a look at your own content and to make plans for improvements. Some quotes (not verbatim, but from the memory)
“Half time should be spent on marketing, half on product”, “But I only want to work on product”. “I would leave it for later, and then it doesn’t get done this month, or next month…”.
I totally understand this struggle, and it’s oh so easy to choose programming. Any tips on how to force yourself to work on marketing? Do you allocate certain days in a week, weeks in month, some other way?
What kind of content works best for you - documentation, standalone articles, blog? How do you decide what should be an article and what a blog entry?
Hannah has an idea of “annual content audit”, similar to “annual car check”. I realize how I don’t skip these procedures related to a car, but business related stuff often gets neglected for years. As if that’s less important.
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Thanks!
I totally understand this struggle, and it’s oh so easy to choose programming. Any tips on how to force yourself to work on marketing? Do you allocate certain days in a week, weeks in month, some other way?
I used to do “Marketing Mondays”. On Mondays I’d only do marketing activities. That was the theory…but I often found excuses as to why this Monday I just had to do bug fixes or performance enhancements, etc.
Hiring Hannah to help on a regular basis has made a difference here. Now marketing activities (which for us is content) actually get done. Here is someone whose main task is marketing. When she’s blocked because she needs my contribution, I have a strong immediate financial motivation to get the task done.
What kind of content works best for you - documentation, standalone articles, blog? How do you decide what should be an article and what a blog entry?
Docs help trial customers and existing customers work out how to do things. Articles are the main driver of our SEO traffic - and therefore new trial signups. Blog posts are more about building our brand in general, and product announcements.
It is not always clear even to us which content makes for a good article and which makes a good blog post. I think if something is “evergreen” (likely to still be relevant in a few years) we deem it an article.