Spaceship Content Strategy: How I 40X Content ROI for Top Brands (Circuit Stream, SEMrush, Oracle + More)

Spaceship Content Strategy: How I 40X Top Brands’ ROI (Circuit Stream, SEMrush, Oracle + More)

Download this FREE spreadsheet to help you apply the ideas here.

You have a…

$5,000…

$8,000…

Or $25,000…

Monthly content budget. Awesome. 🤑

Now, how would you turn a positive ROI? 📈

Create 11, 15, 20, or 25 content pieces? And promote the heck out of them?

Well, A-list players wouldn’t do that—at least, not until they have a reliable strategy.

They’d cross out this list:

❌ Bang out me-too posts.

❌ Run them through SEO tools.

❌ Share on social media.

❌ Beg for backlinks.

❌ Rinse and repeat.

Top-gun marketers approach content differently. ✅

They treat content as KING. 👑

For new projects, A-listers would invest in one to four top-quality content assets genetically engineered to return the highest ROI.

Notice I call them “Content Assets?”

Yes.

These are not run-of-the-mill articles from tired writers.

Premium content assets have tangible business equity and the DNA to outperform competitors. 🧬

They beat their peers by 40X because they result from rigorous research, KPI-centric content creation, and tactical content distribution.

Read on to discover my 40X tools, processes, content strategy, and three real-world cases.

Table of Contents

Does Your Content Have Equity?

Top-flight brands see their content pieces as assets with actual business equity. So they invest time, attention, and money into each piece.

These brands treat their content assets like investments. They give their content the same attention they’d give to buying inventory, real estate, or hiring top talent.

They don’t want a skyscraper built in three days for $100.

HubSpot sent one of my content marketing friends this message:

On the other hand, businesses that struggle to justify their content spend do the opposite.

They pinch pennies on their content budget and churn out substandard, copycat posts all day long.

Meanwhile, leading brands hire content and train it to perform.

Like you’d hire talent to perform tasks, these brands acquire content to attract, engage, educate and convert their audiences.

Hire and train content?

Yes.

Almost no content is a born winner.

They need both one-time and ongoing training.

Training your content entails these:

Think of these things as training an employee to perform better.

Just that this time, your employee is your content.

Here’s a quick-win with headlines since 80% of content users would choose to consume or ignore your content based on the headline alone.

Asana, Monday, Pipedrive, Slack, and other top brands trust these headline examples, guides, and templates I’m giving you for free.

Caveat: No Short Cuts

Just because you throw money, time, and attention on your content doesn’t magically translate to better asset performance.

There’s a process.

However, most people execute none, one, or a few of the steps only. Sadly, your content assets won’t gain traction until you take FULL action.

Suppose you follow the process partially, at best. Then, you’d end up with problematic results like those in this message:

Mind you. Jo isn’t some beginner content marketer. On the contrary, she’s one of the top performers in a high-level mastermind where I belong.

So, if you stick with me, I’ll divulge the exact three-step content creation process I’ve used to help top brands and startups etch their names on Google’s search results profitably.

My 3-Step Content Creation Process to Rank and Stay Ranked on Google

Videos, infographics, podcasts, and ultimate guides are great content formats. No doubt.

But that’s if they are content assets you can rely upon to acquire traffic, gain leads, make sales, turn customers into advocates, and boost your CLTV.

You want gold-standard content assets that get you ranked on Google and keep you there.

I mean content assets that let you swagger while destroying your competition like this.

You’ve probably seen the reports about content formats marketers focus on these days. But does it matter what a restaurant serves if diners won’t order it?

Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington on September 13, 2018, a successful businessman said this:

(T)he No. 1 thing that has made us successful by far is obsessive-compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over the competitor


Tweet

That businessman is Jeff Bezos.

Focus on the Customer, NOT Competition

If you leave your success in the hands of competitive analysis tools like SurferSEO, Ahrefs, and ClearScope—you’re doing what everyone is doing.

If you leave your success in the hands of competitive analysis tools like SurferSEO, Ahrefs, and ClearScope—you’re doing what everyone is doing.

You DON’T want to do these:

  1. Try to rank for the exact keywords using the same tools and approach
  2. Focus on word count instead of value delivery
  3. Ignore search intent
  4. Leave your content structure to chance
  5. Ignore content conversion value

Voice of the customer, content angles, and content conversion value are undervalued metrics, but the money lies there.

Let me show you how to create a content strategy that gets you blue-ocean business results.

Process Summary: How to Build Spaceship Content

Building in-demand content assets that rank for multiple high-value keywords and stay on Google’s top performers’ list takes three steps.

Stage 1: Research

Stage 2: Create

Stage 3: Propagate

In-demand Content Asset = Ultimate Business Goal (Research + Create + Propagate)

OR

I = U(r+c+p)

Your business goal is your reason for creating content.

What conversions do you want?

That’s U.

We’ll explore each of them, and I’ll give you real-world examples from my experience working with successful brands.

But first, let me show you the results we generate with this process.

I Ranked 3 Articles for 100+ Keywords Generating Over $250,000 ROI Per Year

I’ll give you three examples here—one from 2020 and two from 2022. My three-step process worked and still works for these content assets.

Ranked 100 Keywords on Google’s Top 3 Results

I published this post in February 2020, and by November that year, it’s already commanding some mouth-watering results.

That content ranked for 36 to 39 keywords monthly in Google’s top ten for various relevant search terms.

This is the second content asset. It went live in June 2021. It ranks position one for 15 keywords, number two for five keywords, and no keyword positions in number three.

Here’s the keyword ranking graph.

This third content asset ranks 40 keywords between positions one and three; five keywords rank number one, two keywords rank number two, and 33 keywords rank in position three.

Like the other content assets, this one has grown in rankings steadily since I published it in July 2021.

Attracted 106 Organic Backlinks from 52 Domains

Ahrefs said the first content attracted 55 backlinks from 23 referring domains. Interestingly, these backlinks came without any link-building efforts.

The second content asset has 28 backlinks from eight referring domains.

And the third asset has 21 backlinks for 23 referring domains.

Gained $2200+ in Monthly Traffic Value

Without these content assets, these companies would have to spend $2418 monthly to acquire this volume and quality of traffic for the keywords it ranks for on Google.

The first content asset has a $418 monthly traffic value.

The second content asset gets $1,495 worth of traffic for free every month from the keywords it ranks for on Google.

The third content asset gets $326 in traffic value every month based on its keyword rankings.

1,878 Organic Traffic Monthly from 3 Content Assets with ZERO Ads

The first content asset has 469 monthly organic traffic.

About 272 organic visitors land on the second content asset monthly.

The third asset gets 1,137 organic traffic from its keywords monthly.

$18,000 in Monthly Revenue from One Content

Let’s look at the first content asset.

Do the math.

$418 x 12 months = $5,016.00 traffic value per year from ONE piece of content.

This content asset will generate traffic, leads, and conversions in perpetuity.

Assuming we do essential content asset maintenance to keep the post relevant for five years, that ONE content would generate over $25,000 in traffic value in that time.

Guess you get the picture.

Would investing $1,000 or $2,000 in that one content asset be worth it?

You bet it’s worth every dollar.

But that’s based on ad savings alone.

There’s more.

This training company tutors extended reality professionals from Boeing, VMWare, GE, Lockheed Martin, United States Department of Defense, Raytheon, Koch, and more.

So, it sells extended reality courses for about $4,000, relying on that content asset to acquire and convert leads.

Remember, this content asset generates about 469 highly-targeted organic traffic monthly.

Based on standard eCommerce conversion numbers—about 1% across the industry. This site converts more than 1% of its traffic, though.

And without ad traffic.

So, this company generates over $18,000 monthly from its courses, thanks to this content asset.

Result:

This content asset returns $5,000 yearly to the company, money they’d have spent on ads. And it generates over $200,000 in yearly revenue.

You bet investing $2,500 in that content piece is worth it.

We’ll get identical results if we apply similar calculations to the other two content assets.

So, how do I create content assets like this one?

Stage 1 Research: Discover In-Demand Topics, Develop a Strategy, and Build an Outline

Research is where A-listers win before they even start writing, but amateur content creators skip, rush, or ruin this process.

The research stage has three substages, with each substage building on the next one.

Substage 1: Find in-demand and profitable topics

Substage 2: Build a content-specific strategy

Substage 3: Develop a strategy-focused content outline

Let me show you how it works, with examples to go.

Find In-demand Topics and Valuable Keywords

Goal:

Match the keywords your most valuable customers use on search engines with their search intention.

Process:

Your keywords must have ready business value—preferably bottom of the funnel search terms.

Also, you want topics that will attract substantial search traffic, not just rankings. SEMrush’s data says half of Google’s searchers don’t click on search results anymore.

So, be picky about the keywords and topics you invest in. 

You can optimize for multiple keywords to rank your content for various relevant search terms. More on this point later.

First, list 20 direct and indirect—but relevant—solutions you give your customers.

For example, if you offer a carting software for eCommerce businesses, you’d have a list like this:

Using that list, match the keywords that searchers use on search engines to the solutions you offer. Prioritize longtail keywords.

Here’s how you do it:

Choose an item from the list of solutions you offer and follow the steps below.

1. Decide If Topics and Keyword Numbers Make Sense

First, open Ahrefs or other SEO tools, like SEMrush or Ubbersuggest.

Use search terms that best describes how your audience would describe the solution you offer or the problem they want to solve.

We’ll use “cart abandonment” in our example.

Your goal:

Know the search volume for that solution. Try variations of your search term since searchers with the same search intent might use different search terms.

For cart abandonment, I might search for “cart attrition,” “cart drop out,” or “abandoned purchase.”

In short, you’re looking for numbers to vet if there’s sufficient demand for a solution you offer.

Next, find the keyword’s search volume to traffic ratio.

In other words, what percentage of searchers click through from search results?

If the keyword doesn’t deliver traffic, it’s pointless ranking for it, except you’re seeking to boost your brand authority and awareness only.

I’ll assume you’re looking to win inbound traffic.

You’ll do it by vetting the search volume and click-through rates of relevant keywords that match your audience’s pain points, aspirations, and desires.

Remember Jo from the mastermind I mentioned earlier?

She probably fell victim to chasing keywords that had volume but not clicks. So her percentage clicks fell even though she was gaining search ranking.

How do you find more relevant keywords to vet?

2. Find and Harvest More Relevant Keywords

Go to Ahrefs’s Keyword Ideas panel and use each search feature to find keyword ideas.

If you click on phrase match, you’ll find other relevant phrases searchers use to find solutions to the same problem.

The Search Suggestions feature will give you search engine search suggestions.

And the Questions feature will give you a list of related questions searchers ask on the topic.

I like using Questions because I get to see what people are asking and how many of them are asking those questions.

Notice the search volume and click-through rate for potential keywords, questions, and search suggestions.

Also, keep a list of keywords you discover that match your business goals but don’t relate to the research topic at this time.

For example, I found the keyword “cart abandonment email.” The ratio of clicks to search volume is high—a whopping 97% or expressed as 0.97 in the screenshot below.

That means that 97 people out of every 100 searching for this keyword click on search engine results.

Although the search volume is low—200 searches a month—this keyword is worth your investment.

3. Populate Your Content Asset Research Spreadsheet

Enter all your relevant keywords into a spreadsheet. Take “relevant” seriously here.

If a keyword wouldn’t lead your audience to make business decisions in your brand’s favor, don’t include it.

Your spreadsheet should look something like this:

You’d need only a handful of highly relevant keywords. Anywhere from five to 20 keywords is enough—depending on the depth of the content.

Those are the keywords you’ll bake into your content asset.

You could name this spreadsheet tab after the primary keyword for which you’re trying to rank the content. In this example, I called the tab “Cart Abandonment.”

I’d do a month’s worth of content strategy work using this spreadsheet. One tab per content, containing all the valuable keywords and topic angles I want to explore per content asset.

Typically, I’d create one piece of content a week—four assets a month.

But, with a team, I’d usually create more content per time if necessary.

The business purpose of the content also influences my research. So, what should this content accomplish?

In short, I try to marry business goals with search intent in the most frictionless way possible.

Resource: I created a spreadsheet template you can access right away for your content assets’ keyword and topic research. Get it HERE.

Use the Power of Observation: Gauge Keyword and Topic Sentiments

You’ve looked at the numbers. Now, consider the emotions behind them.

Listen to figure out how your audience FEELS about these solutions they want, their challenges, and their experiences.

So, how do you listen to your audience’s EMOTIONS?

Use forums, blogs, communities, and social media.

I’ll open the Notes section of the spreadsheet above. Then, I’ll enter any findings I make from my qualitative research.

Here’s what I’ll do to get qualitative data:

  1. Enter my primary keyword into Google and observe the results that show up
  2. Read Amazon reviews if the product or related solutions are available on Amazon
  3. Read the comment sections of highly watched YouTube videos on the topic
  4. Visit Reddit and browse relevant subreddits for the most upvoted replies or questions
  5. Read Quora questions and answers to find relevant topics, questions, and answers there.
  6. See if Stack Overflow offers any useful information or ideas.
  7. Use Answer the Public to find more questions my audience might be asking.
  8. Read reviews on G2, Trust Pilot, and other review platforms to understand what buyers praise or criticize
  9. Visit leading, niche, or product-specific industry communities and forums. For example, I’ll search PayPal’s forum for a topic about PayPal if I create content targeting their users.
  10. Scrape job boards like Glassdoor, Indeed, or Monster for information about a company or topic.

Apart from using the power of observation on Google—the first item on the list above—everything else is optional and niche dependent.

However, aim to use three or four of these qualitative research channels.

Let’s explore what you’ll find and what they might mean.

These are just examples.

Reminder: Populate your spreadsheet with your qualitative analysis findings. This FREE document helps you stay orderly as you build your Spaceship Content Strategy, that way, you won’t miss anything. 

Stage 2 Research: Build a Content-Specific Strategy

So you found in-demand topics and built your valuable keywords. It’s time to turn that data into a strategy.

Here’s what you’ll accomplish here:

  1. Validate the search intent for that keyword
  2. Align search intent to your business goals
  3. Analyze competitors’ for content demand gaps
  4. Decide the optimal content formats you’d use
  5. Assign a goal to that specific content based on the stage of the buyer’s journey (that is, identify KPIs and prepare to track them)
  6. Identify supporting, unique content upgrades to offer (i.e., lead magnets) that tie nicely into the content and buyer’s journey
  7. Incorporate one or more hard-to-replicate values (HTRV)
  8. Identify potential marketing promotion or collaboration opportunities
  9. Document your strategy for this content (and put someone in charge of it)

If you stick with me, I’ll show you how to build an impregnable strategy using these eight keys.

1. Validate Keyword Search Intent and the Buyer’s Journey

You want to know why your audience is searching for a keyword.

It could be for these reasons:

1. Awareness: Want to learn something new on the topic—your top-of-the-funnel (ToF) content. Searches may include “How,” “what,” or “why” questions.

2. Attention: Expand their knowledge about that topic or item. Reflects top-of-the-funnel (ToF) or middle-of-the-funnel (MoF) intentions. Searches with “guide,” “case studies,” “tutorial,” “review,” or any search that’s asking for more than the basics.

3. Action: Take some action. Reflects middle-of-the-funnel (MoF) or bottom-of-the-funnel (BoF) content. Possible search terms: “shop,” “near,” “trial,” “download,” or “visit.”

Determine if searchers are seeking awareness, attention, or action by doing these two things:

  1. Observe the Google SERP
  2. Examine the keyword data

Tracking your Keyword Value helps you understand search intent:

1. The keyword’s commercial value: The higher the keyword value, the more the commercial intention of the keyword. In this case, people are either searching to expand their knowledge on the topic or to take action.

2. The keyword’s educational value: High search traffic keywords with low or no keyword value shows searchers want to learn something for the first time or confirm something they already know. They don’t want to buy.

In the qualitative keyword data section of the spreadsheet, your observations and interpretations columns should help you see patterns in your audience’s questions and queries. Those patterns reflect their search intents.

Observation goes a long way here.

What types of content is Google ranking?

Is it ranking more ToF, MoF, or BoF content for that keyword?

The pages that appear in a Google search reflect people’s behavior when searching for that topic. So, for example, if people are looking to shop, Google will show more BoF or MoF content.

Also, BoF intent search results would usually come with Google ads.

How to Vet Search Intent on Google (with Examples)

The search results screenshot below has no ads and many “How-to” and “Why” articles ranking.

It’s informational and ToF.

Compare those results with when I remove the word “capacity” from the search term.

The top-ranking content pieces are videos.

This trend shows that people searching for the term tend to consume video content more than text or infographics.

The keyword has commercial intent, as you’d see from some of the search results.

But it could be purely informational too. That’s why it’d pass for MoF content.

So let’s remove one more word and leave it at “Phones.”

You’ll notice that this is a BoF keyword.

Why?

People are searching to buy a phone.

So Google served me some ads and showed bestbuy.ca in the search results.

You see how Google’s search results ties directly to search intent.

Look at Your Keyword Data

When you look at Ahref’s data, you’ll find only a handful of data for the first keyword, “phone memory capacity.”

Although “phone memory” shows commercial intentions, 70% of searchers don’t click through to the page.

It shows that the search intent for this keyword isn’t to click.

You’re beginning to form a complete picture of the search intent for these keywords. 

“Phone” gets 40% clicks, but only 32% is organic; paid traffic contributes 8%.

Data suggests this keyword is tough to win, but it also has buyer intent since two in every 25 of the 61,000 monthly searchers click on ads. In short, more than 4,800 people click ads when they search for this keyword.

But if you win this keyword, you’d save a ton of money while attracting many buyers since over 18,000 searchers click the keyword’s organic results.

The keyword gets 26,000 clickthroughs a month in total, including ad clicks.

So, you might want to rank for it—supposing you have the strong domain authority to compete against BestBuy, T-Mobile, and other big brand names.

Search Intent Summary: In your Search Intent Summary column of the spreadsheet, summarize your findings.[Download Spreadsheet] 

For example, I’d summarize our experience with the ‘Phone Memory’ keyword as “MoF content with some keyword value. Good for ranking but not for traffic.”

For the ‘Phone’ keyword, I’d summarize it like this, “Clear buyer intent keyword. Include BoF optimization for this keyword. Comes with tough competition.”

This information will guide how I create the content outline, optimize the content for conversions, and execute the promotion side of my content strategy.

2. Align the Search Intent to Your Business Goals

Based on search intent, you’ll know the buyer’s journey and if this content is best for Top of the Funnel (ToF), Middle of the Funnel (MoF), or Bottom of the Funnel (BoF).

So you’ve collected data about the buyer’s journey for each keyword and topic on your list. Now, align them to your business goals.

If your goal is brand awareness and industry authority, TOF keywords would be a priority.

You’d prioritize MOF and BOF keywords if you want to drive clicks and conversions on your website.

3. Find Content Demand Gaps

What is your audience asking for but not getting?

What audience pain points are your competitors ignoring?

Here’s how to find content demand gaps, step-by-step:

Step 1: Open your Content Asset spreadsheet

Step 2: Copy and search for one of your keywords on Google. Preferably, switch your browser to incognito before searching.

Step 3: Compare the top-ranking pages for that keyword against the notes you made in your Observations and Interpretations column.[Download Spreadsheet]

See if you can find any content gaps.

Step 4: Do these analyses for all your listed keywords.

Step 5: For each keyword that you find a content gap, enter your findings in the Content Gap column of the spreadsheet.

4. Decide Your Best Content Format

Your audience will consume content in different ways. For example, some messages do better as videos, others as texts, infographics, or audio recordings.

Although most content formats would need some text, you want to know either of two things.

What other content formats should you include in your text content? For example, would a supporting video enhance your content users’ experience?

Secondly, should you switch content formats? For example, you might convert an article to a video format and make the video the main content.

A simple way to crack this is using Google search.

1. Enter your keyword into Google and search for the content format ranking the most—one keyword at a time.

Notice the content format Google ranks in terms of delivery and structural formats.

Delivery formats include visual, aural, and text.

Structural content would be any of these:

  1. Step-by-step guides
  2. Listicles
  3. Case studies 
  4. Interviews
  5. Reviews and tear-downs
  6. Roundups
  7. User-generated content
  8. Contest and quizzes
  9. Product demos
  10. Knowledge base content

What you find on Google should inform your content format.

Google’s data does the heavy lifting of telling you what content structures capture your audience’s interest.

2. Open each of the top 10 ranking pages to see how many of these content delivery and structural formats they use.

Do they combine video, infographics, text, and audio content?

In what order do they combine them?

Delivery formats include visual, aural, and text.

Structural content would be any of these:

  1. Step-by-step guides
  2. Listicles
  3. Case studies 
  4. Interviews
  5. Reviews and tear-downs
  6. Roundups
  7. User-generated content
  8. Contest and quizzes
  9. Product demos
  10. Knowledge base content

What you find on Google should inform your content format.

Google’s data does the heavy lifting of telling you what content structures capture your audience’s interest.

2. Open each of the top 10 ranking pages to see how many of these content delivery and structural formats they use.

Do they combine video, infographics, text, and audio content?

In what order do they combine them?

For example, look at the pages that rank for “cart abandonment rate.”

They share these three things in common:

  1. Stats related to the keyword
  2. Visual content: graphs and images
  3. They are listicles

5. Set Content Asset Goals and KPIs

How do you measure performance?

When is this content doing its job, and when does it need a rework?

Your content’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) let you measure your asset’s performance and inform your content update decisions. But your KPIs depend on your buyer’s journey.

For example, your KPI won’t include subscriber count if you’ve published TOF content to win Google’s Snippets in search rankings.

Let’s explore some KPI examples to help you set yours.

Top of the Funnel Content KPIs

Middle of the Funnel Content KPIs

Bottom of the Funnel Content KPIs

6. Decide the Content Upgrades to Use

Your content upgrade is any contextually relevant offer to your content users to boost engagement, collect contacts, win trust, or even make a sale.

Brian Dean reported a 785% conversion boost[1] by implementing a content upgrade.

Circuitstream.com uses a content upgrade[2] in their article, Top 18 AR/VR Conferences to Attend in 2022, to build their email list.

HubSpot uses content upgrades on just about all its posts.

Each content piece comes with a unique resource that relates to that content.

For example, in this content on 15 Facebook ad examples, you’ll see a button with a call to action to download a contextually relevant resource—50 more Facebook ad examples.

Click on the button, and HubSpot leads you to a page dedicated to that resource, where they educate the reader on the value of this free resource.

And then, HubSpot invites the visitor to fill out a form to access the free resource.

But your content upgrades don’t have to be PDF downloads all the time. You can create resources in any of these 21 formats:

  1. Workbooks
  2. Email course
  3. Checklists
  4. In-depth guides
  5. Videos and demos
  6. Transcripts
  7. Reports
  8. Cheat sheets
  9. Resource lists
  10. Audio recording
  11. Printable graphics and documents
  12. Throw a challenge
  13. Case studies
  14. Scripts and templates
  15. Article as PDF
  16. Toolkits
  17. Swipe files
  18. Spreadsheets and calculators
  19. Software
  20. Quizzes and interactive content
  21. Paid content upgrades

You only have to use one, two, or three content upgrade types.

But with so many options, you’d wonder when it’s best to use a content upgrade type.

Let’s look at each item on the list and when you’d get the most benefit from using them—with examples.

Workbooks

Best for TOF, MOF, and BOF content.

Workbooks help visitors apply your content lessons. If you’ve taught them something that demands taking action, providing a workbook for them to practice or apply your lessons makes sense.

Here’s an example from CMI.

If you’re targeting a BOF audience, then parts of the workbook might need the audience to pay to complete the task.

Email Courses

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Email courses are great for product launches and lead nurturing. Your visitors would use this content upgrade to dive deeper into the topic.

This content upgrade type is also a great option if your product or content needs users to develop a new habit, complete lengthy processes, or explore new experiences.

Checklists

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Checklists help your readers remember the key ideas in your content.

For example, if you create a content asset on how to buy a house or car, you can include a checklist to help your readers remember all your key points.

Also, you can offer your checklist as an exit-intent popup.

Like this one:

In-depth Guides

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Offer an in-depth guide that dives into the details of the content and invites your readers to download the guide for free.

Here’s an example from Writing Revolt.

Here’s another example from Tidio.

Video and Demos

Best for TOF, MOF, and BOF content.

If you’ve recorded a close-group webinar relevant to a piece of content asset you’re creating, you can offer that video recording as a content upgrade.

Here’s an example from Gartner:[3]

Video content upgrades also make sense if you produce a content asset in video format to accompany a written or aural content asset.

Also, you can offer a video series, as Maie Forleo does.

Transcripts

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Offer cleaned transcripts of your podcasts or video recordings as upgrades. Again, you can use a transcription service to get this done.

Don’t transcribe with software. It won’t be clean enough to impress your subscribers. Use human transcriptionists.

Reports

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Only a few things demonstrate subject matter authority, like original reports. Apart from gaining mentions and shares, these reports can become hard-to-replicate values (HTRV) that you offer.

Brands already use this high-value offer to attract and keep leads.

HubSpot publishes the State of Marketing Report.[4]

Jungle Scout publishes the State of the Amazon Seller Report.[5]

Social Media Examiner publishes the Social Media Marketing Industry Report.[6]

If you try to leave the page without getting a copy, you’ll get a pop-up inviting you to take the free offer.

Now, your turn; what “state of” would you publish?

Cheat Sheet

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Cheat sheets compress everything about the content your readers just consumed or a tangential topic into one page. Think of it as a summary.

Here’s an example from Bill Widmer:

Resource List

Best for TOF and MOF content.

One marketer saw a 600% subscriber boost[7] by offering a resource list of top Facebook Groups for creative business owners.

Audio Recording

Best for TOF and MOF content

You can repackage your content as audio and provide it as a downloadable content upgrade. This advice applies to written and video content alike.

Printable Graphics or Documents

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Offer printable graphics or documents if they are contextually relevant to your content. Your audience can print and stick them on noticeboards, walls, or a piece of stationery.

Throw a Challenge

Best for TOF, MOF, and BOF content.

You can invite your readers to join a challenge. Challenges can help you turn cold or disinterested traffic into warm, excited, conversion-ready leads.

This content upgrade can also become a way to spark social media awareness as you can invite participants to share snippets from the challenge with a hashtag.

Case Studies

Best for MOF and BOF content.

Case studies help you demonstrate that your product, service, or idea has real-world validation. For example, if your content discusses a high-level concept, you can increase conversions by offering case studies of actual success stories.

Here’s an example from Hydro.ai:

Here’s another example from Atlan:

Scripts and Templates

Best for TOF, MOF, and BOF content.

Contextually relevant scripts and templates help your audience save time and get to work on your ideas as soon as they consume your content.

Headlines carry a ton of weight in your email messages, blog posts, videos, and other marketing messages.

That’s why I created templates and scripts to help you get ahead.

Article as PDF

Best for TOF and MOF content.

You can offer your content in downloadable PDF format in exchange for your reader’s contact information.

Toolkits

Best for TOF and MOF content.

Toolkits are a collection of tools and resources your visitors can use to solve their problems or pursue their aspirations.

For example, this content upgrade class would cover any collection of tools for web developers, designers, ad managers, writers, or any target group.

Swipe Files

Best for TOF and MOF content.

A swipe file is a collection of inspirational pieces that match your user’s needs.

For example, a content asset on graphic designs can include a graphics design swipe file, and one on Facebook ads can consist of Facebook ad swipes.

Here’s a landing page swipe file from Ahrefs:

In short, Toolkits are a collection of tools, and swipe files are a collection of inspiration materials—what you’d create using the tools in the toolkit.

Spreadsheets and Calculators

Best for TOF, MOF, and BOF content.

Spreadsheets are like workbooks, but they can also be calculators or valuable in other ways, or even monetized.

You can use spreadsheets to share valuable resources with your audience if you’re in the data science, finance, business, marketing, accounting, or other numbers fields.

For example, I shared a useful spreadsheet in this post to help with your content asset research and writing.

Get 77% better results with my FREE Research Spreadsheet: Checklists can BOOST performance by nearly 80%. Download my research spreadsheet to apply the ideas here.[DOWNLOAD]

Software

Best for TOF, MOF, and BOF content.

This content upgrade class is a hard-to-replicate value offering. So it’s a big win if you can create it.

It doesn’t have to be a complicated software solution. Instead, you need a simple solution that helps your readers accomplish something related to the topic you just discussed.

And if you have a set of related content, you can always use that software as content upgrades on those content pieces.

For example, in their content about “How to Write a Great Headline That Drives Clicks (Step by Step),” Optinmonster offers their headline analyzer as a content upgrade.

You can also use software content upgrades for exit intent popups.

See Qualaroo’s example.

Quizzes and Interactive Content

Best for TOF, MOF, and BOF content.

Quizzes are engaging, so they’re fantastic for all lead categories—from top to bottom of the funnel leads.

Why?

You can tie quizzes and most interactive content to any conversion goals.

Here’s an example from Beardbrand:

Paid Content Upgrade

Best for MOF and BOF content.

The goal of every content upgrade is to drive conversions.

But gaining email subscribers is not the only relevant conversion you can drive with content upgrades.

You can drive sales too.

You want to use paid content upgrades in BOF content assets only. You can use these paid content upgrade formats:

First, let’s discuss limited content access.

I bet you’ve seen paid content upgrade examples multiple times—maybe even used them—but never recognized them.

Picture this:

You found an article on Google search and clicked through to it. The content is top quality, so you’re reading it and suddenly get a popup asking for payment to access the full content. That’s a paid content upgrade.

Brands like Statista, WSJ, The Economist, Guardian, the New York Times, AdWeek, AdAge, and many news outlets use this content upgrade model.

Here’s an example from this AdAge article.[8]

Discount offers: Offer your readers a timely discount with a clear deadline to act on the spot while they’re on the content.

Here’s an example from Optinmonster:

Gated content: You can offer gated content if your business creates unique resources. Academic websites like Research Gate use this approach.

Limited time offers: these are content upgrades that demand that you act within a short time to access the benefits. Here’s an example from eCommerce Platforms:

Invesp used paid training on their BOF content about eCommerce cross-sells as a content upgrade.

They have a sidebar banner featuring the content upgrade, but I had ignored it as it looked like an ad on the page. What drew my attention to the offer was their exit intent.

Here’s that exit intent:

The lesson is to provide your content upgrade in ways your audience will notice them. An exit intent popup can help.

7. Incorporate One or More Hard-to-Replicate Value (HTRV)

Find and incorporate one or more hard-to-replicate values (HTRV)

The goal here is to identify and create valuable add-ons your competitor can’t copy or replicate so easily. This unique value offering builds a moat around your content and secures ongoing lead generation.

Your hard-to-replicate value offering may or may not be a lead generation tool, but it MUST add measurable business value. For example, it should generate traffic to your content and site, AT LEAST.

Preferably, you want an HTRV that ties closely to your MOF and BOF goals—generate leads and sales, and drive brand advocacy from customers.

Think of your HTRV as insurance for your content asset.

This insurance matters because SEO tools are getting more sophisticated. So anyone who can access them could build better outlines, capture your keywords and understand user sentiments better.

When the competition gets tough, your HTRV might be the hero to save your brand from search traffic collapse.

You have five HTRV categories to choose from, including these:

  1. Interviews
  2. Product demonstrations in your content
  3. Sponsored or original research
  4. Software tools
  5. Branded Benchmark

Let’s explore these Hard-to-Replicate Value (HTRV) examples.

Use Interviews

Interview an expert and provide the interview video and transcript in the content. Then, write up and add the key takeaways to the content to prime viewers to watch your interview.

You may provide the interview in an interactive video format to generate leads from viewers.

Use Your Tool or Product in Your Content Assets

Use your tool the way no one could use it.

For example, SEMrush publishes custom research based on SEMrush data, like the one I did for them here[9] and here.[10] And they also use SEMrush for demonstrations when writing on SEO topics.

You might also notice this pattern in many SEO tool providers’ articles—Neil Patel uses Ubersuggest in his content, I used Monitor Backlinks[11] for demonstrations, and Ahrefs does this too.

Sponsored or Original Research

Sponsor or coordinate custom research and use your findings in your content. This HTRV is more effective for supporting or disproving a commonly held industry belief.

Brian Dean’s original studies come to mind. These studies help him gain unsolicited backlinks and media mentions.

Remember the “State of” reports I mentioned earlier? These are also HTRV that come under original research. See HubSpot’s example:

Here’s another example:

CMI publishes its B2B Content Marketing Insights[12] with partner brands annually.

Build Software Tools

Build and offer a custom tool for users to interact better with your content, implement your ideas, or see opportunity gaps (that your product fills or doesn’t fill).

For example, CoSchedule offers a headline optimizer tool.

Ahrefs offers a backlinks checker tool.

Looks like Ahrefs is seeing massive results with offering HTRV. So they’ve added a ton of free SEO tools to their repository.

Ahrefs provides more than ten free tools, including these ones:

You can offer calculators and other tools that align with your industry and content assets.

Create a Benchmark

In SEO circles, Ahref’s Domain Rating (DR) and Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) have become the standard for measuring the power of a website. The higher a site’s DR or DA the more authoritative.

But can’t talk about benchmark reports without mentioning Guinness. Arguably, no business has maximized this high-value tactic like the Irish brand.

In 1951 a Guinness executive, Sir Hugh Beaver had an experience[13] that would lead him to launch the Guinness Book of World Records in 1954.

What started as a marketing campaign in 1955—a year after Sir Beaver conceived the idea—got so much acceptance that it quickly became a standalone product.

And then, in 2001, Guinness World Records became an independent company from Guinness but maintained its Guinness brand identity.

Caveat:

Don’t copy existing benchmarks.

For example, some SEO tools have tried replicating Moz’s DA and Ahref’s DR metrics without much success or recognition.

And almost no one would succeed in competing with the Guinness World Records.

8. Promotion or Collaboration Opportunities

In this section, you’ll research and plan your promotion and collaboration opportunities. You’ll need the spreadsheet I prepared for you to complete the tasks here.

How to access the spreadsheet Section for partnerships: Open your spreadsheet, and at the bottom of the page, you’ll see the partnership button. Click to open.[Download your spreadsheet here]

First, identify your collaboration needs:

  1. Interview subject matter experts
  2. Build contextual backlinks
  3. Feature on podcasts
  4. Guest posts
  5. Email list promotion partnerships
  6. Paid promotion partnerships

Next, identify what value you have to offer in return for these partnerships. Identify who can benefit the most from your offering and has the capacity meet deliver your desired promotion goals.

Find these potential partners’ contacts and initiate a relationship with them.

Let’s discuss the stages a bit.

Identify Your Valuable Strengths and Assets

List out your assets:

Can you make any other valuable offer in exchange for these partnerships?

List the partnership category you’re working on—based on the five options above—and identify your unique offering for each group.

Let’s assume your content strategy includes interviewing subject matter experts. If you have a substantial email list, social media follower base, thousands of YouTube subscribers, or website traffic, you can pitch them the extra exposure they stand to gain.

So, in your spreadsheet,[Download] click the Partnerships tab and go to My Offer to itemize the value you’ll offer in exchange for the opportunity you seek.

List Potential Partners Who Would Benefit from Your Assets

If you’re looking to interview subject matter experts, then search Google for “top [field] influencers,” “top [field] executives,” “top [field] experts,” or variants of these search terms.

Here’s what my search for “top eCommerce experts” yielded:

And if you’re looking to interview people from a specific company—say Lululemon CEO or CMO—search “[company] [position],” like I did with “Lululemon CEO” on Google.

For podcast features and guest posts, if you already know the podcast or websites you’re looking to feature on, list them. Otherwise, search Google for “[field] podcasts” or “top podcasts in [field],” and then for each podcast you find, search for the host’s name.

Email list partnerships need more attention. Start with your lowest hanging fruits—people in your network who are likely to reply to your messages:

  1. Your email list 
  2. Slack and Facebook communities you belong in
  3. Industry forums
  4. Friends
  5. Social media followers
  6. Software or products you use
  7. Customers

And then you can go for cold prospects later. People whose programs, products, services, or websites you’ve interacted with but don’t have any direct relationships with them.

Paid partnerships would include

  1. Social influencer marketing
  2. Paid website and podcast features
  3. Paid email features

Paid partnerships don’t have to be expensive. Use your assets to negotiate a good deal.

Would this partner be willing to feature in your newsletter for a 50% discount on the paid promotion? Great.

Find Your Potential Collaborator’s Contacts

You can find your contact’s email address by using prospecting tools, searching Google, and looking on their websites.

Your spreadsheet has space for email addresses, LinkedIn, and phone numbers. Except you plan to call your prospects, you probably don’t need the phone number column. 

Prospecting tools like Hunter.io, Clearbit Connect, Lusha, and Anymail Finder, can help you find your prospect’s contact information. Lusha finds phone numbers.

Also, scan their websites for their contacts. Ensure it’s their direct contacts, not customer service or HR.

Find them on LinkedIn by simply searching their names, their company, and adding LinkedIn. Let’s use our Lululemon example, “Calvin McDonald Lululemon LinkedIn.”

9. Document Your Strategy

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s report I cited earlier, only 43% of marketers have a documented marketing strategy.

So, almost six in ten marketers don’t have a documented content marketing strategy.

But SEMrush says that 78% of marketers[14] who reported having a very successful marketing year in 2021 documented their content marketing strategy.

Looking at the data, you’d agree that you stand a better chance—nearly 80% chance—at content marketing success if you have a documented content marketing strategy.

If you want to replicate your successes and avoid failures, document each content-specific strategy.

As a business, you probably know your ideal buyer personas. But your content-specific strategy is an ongoing, ever-evolving experience.

Why?

Strategies must adapt to market changes, dynamic customer demands, industry disruptions, and competition.

To ensure your content aligns with these dynamics I mentioned, I created a spreadsheet to help you document your strategy.[Download] The resource will help you enjoy content marketing ROI growth.

Stage 3 Research: Develop a Strategy-Focused Content Outline

Your strategy is clear.

Congratulations.

Welcome to club 43%, where we get results through documented marketing strategies.

It’s time to apply your strategy to a content asset outline.

Warning:

Never create your content asset without an outline.

That’s like attempting to build The Empire State Building without an architectural drawing. 😱

A mental model is never enough.

Develop Your Outline with an SEO Tool

Here’s why outlines matter:

By now, you have a fair idea of what your content would focus on, what it’ll ignore, and what gaps your competitors aren’t filling that your content would fill.

You’ll bring these elements, notes, and learnings from your research together in your outline.

Start with ready data from SEO tools like Clearscope, Topic, or SurferSEO.

Let’s look at each tool.

Topic: Best Outline Creator SEO Tool

Topic[15] is one of my favorites because it provides helpful information I’d use to make other content asset development decisions, not just keywords to fill into my content.

It brings Google’s top results for the keyword I’m targeting into the tool so I can complete my analysis in one place.

But what I like the most about Topic is its competitor outlines feature—I consider it superior to Clearscope and SurferSEO in that aspect.

Knowing your competitors’ outlines has multiple benefits.

For example, let’s assume a competitor occupies a Google snippet you’d like to steal. That competitor’s outline structure can be helpful information on what Google wants on its featured snippets.

SurferSEO and Clearscope

SurferSEO has an outlining tool, but it’s not nearly as detailed as Topic’s.

Besides, I’m not sure how Surfer arrives at its outline recommendations—does it just take my competitors’ outlines and paste them for me to copy?

I wouldn’t recommend using this tool to outline your content.

Although Clearscope does a better job by showing me what my competitors’ outlines look like, it squeezes that information to a corner on the page.

And they’re far from comprehensive too.

Again, I wouldn’t recommend using Clearscope to outline your content.

Find Relevant LSI Keywords

Latent semantic index (LSI) keywords are search terms related to your primary keyword.

If your primary keyword is “mixed reality,” then your LSI keywords might include words and phrases like “augmented reality,” “Microsoft Holo Lens,” “real world,” and “virtual reality.”

You can find and use dedicated LSI keyword tools like LSI Graph[16] or Keysearch.[17] But you don’t need them.

All three SEO tools I listed earlier—Topic, Surfer, and Clearscope—offer robust LSI Keyword lists. Just take and insert the words into relevant parts of your outline so that your writer will use them.

Complete Your Outline with Your Gray Matter

Except in the rare event where a top ranking page isn’t quality content, I’d recommend you borrow a leaf from the outline structure of Google’s top results. But you know better than to copy them verbatim.

Please go through the notes you made on your spreadsheet[Download] while researching keywords and sentiments, and then insert them into relevant sections of your outline.

Suppose the reader has intentions to buy. You’d focus on showing benefits, case studies, examples, and demos. Format your content to align with the keyword search intent.

Fill in the competitor gaps you noticed into relevant sections of your content. Also, leave notes to help the writer understand what to do with the information you’ve provided on the outline—even if you’re the content writer.

If you’ve developed an internal outline structure, feel free to follow it. But I enjoy including these elements in my outline:

Content Creation: Forge the Most Valuable Asset on the Topic

A sharper blade makes for a cleaner death

Kindred, League of Legends

Tweet

Writing is where most writers start from and then add some research as they dim fit.

But the sharper your research, the more impact your content would have on your readers, and the more money you can make per piece of content.

This realization is why HubSpot isn’t afraid to invest $10,000 on a piece of content. They know the asset can generate over 40X ROI for them.

Prepare to Create a World-Class Content Asset

If your content strategy includes featuring industry experts, this is the time to reach out and ask them to contribute to your work.

Remember to make an offer they can’t refuse.

Create the Content Using the Outline

I’ll put the outline to work at this point to create my high-impact content asset.

Read on to discover the seven steps I use.

1. Assemble the Content Asset Using Its Outline

I’ll use the section-by-section research resources, competitor analysis, market sentiment notes, keywords, and brand character analysis to craft a convincing copy that evokes action in readers.

Here’s a checklist I use to write my posts:

Action: Compel action through emotional stories and cases that resonate with the audience.

2. Edit for Grammar

Bad grammar can distract readers from consuming otherwise great content. So here’s how I tackle it.

First, I use grammar editing software to help me catch obvious grammatical mistakes.

But I don’t stop there.

I’d enlist the help of a trained editor to catch any errors the editing software missed.

3. Edit for Brevity and Reader Sentiment

Read the content and shorten phrases to eliminate run-over sentences. Also, choose words that match the reader’s emotions and trigger more robust sensory responses in them.

4. Edit for SEO, Business Conversion, and Compelling CTAs

Use the instructions in the outline to amplify the business goals of the content and plant potent calls to action (CTAs) in strategic parts of the content asset.

This editing stage is also where I apply on-page SEO suggestions from a reliable SEO tool like Rank Math or Yoast.

5. Edit for Aesthetics and Content Structure

Make each subhead, graphic, and accompanying copy stimulate the reader to appreciate the visual composition of the asset, and then consume and act on the content.

6. Proofread Content Asset for Cohesiveness

Eliminate edits-induced typographical and grammatical errors by passing the copy through editing software and having a human editor look at the work a second time.

7. Pack and Deliver the Content Asset

Extract and label images, create backup copies of the content asset, and provide any upload or publishing notes to help the content manager upload and publish the asset.

Finally, read the published work to ensure it’s ready to win, and then make any post-publishing fixes as needed.

Create and Publish Your Content Upgrade

Once you’ve decided on a content upgrade, you can start working on it, especially if it’s software or other high-level resources.

Resource-heavy content upgrades take time to create, and you should use them only if you plan to publish supporting content assets at a later date.

But if your content strategy aligns with offering swipe files, transcripts, short email courses, or other non-intensive content upgrades, this is the time to create them.

Usually, my content upgrade creation process follows the same path as my primary content asset creation process:

But, at times, content upgrades are natural offshoots of the main content asset and may not need further research—the spreadsheet I shared with you is a ready example.[Download]

Content upgrade research can be light or intensive, depending on the complexity of the resource.

Your main content asset would dictate your content upgrade type and how much work would go into producing it.

For example, bottom-of-the-funnel content assets would naturally work better with BOF content upgrades:

You can add more than one content upgrade to a content asset, A/B test them for performance, and then decide to either keep them or use only one content upgrade.

 

Track and Improve Content Performance

Tracking traffic to your content is focusing on the wrong KPI if you’re trying to measure content performance.

Traffic is a content promotion KPI and not a content performance metric.

An excellent content asset may lack traffic but converts well. Send in more quality traffic and watch your conversions go up.

So what content performance metrics should you track?

It depends on your business goals.

You decided on your business goals in Stage #2 Research under “Set Content Asset Goals and KPIs.”[Download]

Use relevant tracking tools[18] to capture and measure performance.

For example, if you’re tracking content asset engagement levels, you might benefit from using scroll maps, heat maps, and Google Analytics.

Apply the insights you gain from your tracking to the content asset.

For example, if you notice that a lot of people are dropping off before they reach your CTA, you can do any of three things:

1. Move your CTA up a bit to ensure visitors see them on time before they drop off.

2. Work on your content’s wording and engagement to make people read past their typical drop-off point.

3. Use the two: Add a CTA where most visitors will see them before they drop off and also work on improving how far they read.

Propagate Your Content Asset

Top-flight content assets are cheaper to market in the long run and command higher ROI.

I distribute content using these broad channels:

And then, I dial in on the most profitable options and invest in channels that drive the most results.

Partner and Collaborate for Content Asset Distribution

In this stage, I’ll send in those email messages and start following up with the partners I already identified during my research phase.

I’d use the email scripts from our email marketing kit to get this work done. My approach to paid and unpaid partnerships is the same, but the offers are different.

I manage outreaches with Woodpecker or Mailshake.

The same outreach tactic we used to gain content distribution partners goes for reaching out to and gaining blog and podcast features.

I also use this tactic to gain social media influencers and community collaborations.

Again, all that changes is my offer in each situation.

You probably noticed the apparent trend for building partnerships and promoting my content through communities:

  1. Identify the offers I’ll make
  2. Identify best-fit partners, influencers, and communities who will benefit the most from these offers.
  3. Find and collect the contacts of these partners, influencers, and communities.
  4. Reach out to them with my offer
  5. Follow up and close the deal

That’s it.

If, after exploring these channels, I still feel the need for more content distribution work, I’d use paid promotions on Outbrain, Facebook, Google, and other paid promotion channels.

Go and Get It Done… Or Let Me Do It for You

Now you know why top brands outrank everyone else for high-value keywords—they have premium content assets.

I’ve divulged the templates, processes, and strategies A-players use to crush their competition.

You have two choices:

  1. Take this guide and use it 
  2. Hire me for the job

Regardless of the path you choose to explore, you can take advantage of my FREE, no-strings-attached, 1-on-1 strategy session.

We’d chat or hold a Zoom call about your business. Then, I’ll look under the hood of your content assets to find these:

  1. Quick wins in your content you can take advantage of right now
  2. Critical content asset fixes you need to make
  3. The degree of alignment between your business goals and your content

And based on the complimentary session, you may choose to go ahead and apply the ideas in the content or hire me to take care of things for you.

Request your FREE, 1-on-1 Strategy sessions now.

Excellent work on this, Nicholas. Content depth, sentence structure, benefits for the readers, it’s all in there!

Infor M3 Cloud

Niches

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