Hey all, it's been a month since I started working as a Content Marketer at an early-stage startup. It's a check-in bot for MS teams and Slack to reduce and replace meetings+ and increase employee productivity. Currently, there are two of us on the marketing team. We've doubled down on LinkedIn and would like to add blogs in the next month or so+build a distribution system. To give you more context: • We are primarily content-led. • We are looking to bring in a couple of more people to the marketing team. (Hiring has been challenging) • I've never driven growth through content. This will be my first time. What do you folks suggest would be the best direction to take to acquire users through content? I would love some tactical advice and guidance. :') 💖

I am not an expert in marketing strategy, but from my experience, I suspect many will recommend SEO. If your goal is short-term success (coupled with long-term success), I suggest getting recommended by "industry leaders". If you're focused on long-term growth, SEO is the baby. Of course, quality and valuable pieces. I also think it may be challenging to show potential users the problem you want to solve. Maybe it's just me, but people figure these things out before now although your bot could make scaling productivity faster. My point is: You'd possibly do extra work showing people what the problem is and how your bot solves it. BTW, I'd be pleased to work with you if you're looking to hiring freelance content marketers.

Hey @thousands-baker-29740, You need to focus on your audience and the problem ms you solve, and address those. Look into the jobs to be done method - really cool to ideate content topics. I'm preparing a course around this for SaaS companies. Let me know if there is anything specific I can help with :)

If you haven't read They Ask You Answer yet, I highly recommend it. Might give you a clearer idea of where to take your content in the next 12 months

Hi @thousands-baker-29740, first identify who your users are and do a research on their persona. This will give you a hint as to their behaviors and pain points. Like @brief-oyster-42975 says, SEO is a good approach but i will add that you should focus on building quality and thought leadership pieces. SEO can get you to the top of the SERP but quality content that shows authority will most likely convert. Content marketing coupled with SEO is one of the best marketing duo I've seen. Do you have a content strategist yet? I could inbox you to discuss more if you wish.

Hey @eager-address-92735, so we have our validated personas and are creating content for them but I'm particularly looking to create more BOTF content for the next 4 months. Sure, I'll DM you.

Few things that have worked well for companies that I have created content for 1. Collaborations. As you have mentioned it is a productivity tool, if you can get some backlinks or strong testimonials and repurpose those blogs again through your own content funnel it will help in awareness 2. Authority content (as mentioned before as well) will work well. Specially for a problem which goes downwards from management to lower level. Putting content around pain points of management and how your product solves will definitely get you few eyeballs. A lot of founder’s office folks like read such articles and try new products to increase productivity. Such topics which can be seen as productivity hacks are often shared internally between different decision makers. (I have seen form filling activities from multiple decision makers of the same company in very quick successions) 3. Creating few comparison blogs can also help in demand generation, although this again will not give quick results but definitely MOFU strategy you can try out. Do let me know if any of this is helpful to you 🙂

This is helpful, @adamant-carpenter-16278! Thank you.

I would look to create bottom of the funnel content first. Things like Your Brand vs Y, case studies, use cases. that kind of stuff. It's all good and well creating SEO content that gets lots of traffic but your conversion rates will suffer. Starting with content that has high intent is going to get them conversions early

To add, check the Grow and Convert blog they have case studies you should find helpful!

Thank you @brave-intern-83588 @fancy-microphone-20209 I've been an ardent follower of grow and convert.

no problem @thousands-baker-29740 more than happy to jump on a call if you want any thinking time or brainstorming. Or a good chat 🙂 I'm also at a start-up with a two person content team

That would be great and so helpful, @fancy-microphone-20209. Let me know when it would be possible to do that. :)

Hi @thousands-baker-29740 not sure if ya'll have a sales team but at past companies in similar positions to the one you are in we would use content in conjunction with sales. So if there were themes that would coming up during meetings with sales reps we would write about that content and then have sales reps email it out to people on their radar. You could also turn content into gated assets and target people through paid ads that way to collect emails / leads and qualify prospects that way

Hi @boundless-waiter-50718 yes we do have one person who is responsible for direct outreach. Thanks for this idea, will implement it.

Hey @thousands-baker-29740! You have some gold suggestions here. • To add to this, you can find creators on LinkedIn who align to your niche (your product's) and collaborate with them. Share your product with them, onboard them and make them a free user (if that works) and ask them if they would like to create a LinkedIn post or tweet about it to their audience. • Another helpful collaboration idea is connect with fellow marketers and prospects and put a weekly tip content on your LI company page where each of these tips are given by your ideal prospects. • For blog posts, create comparison blog posts and product-led blog posts. Not just attaching a CTA for more sign-ups or so but actually talking about the pain points of customers and weaving in your product and its benefits. An example of how I've done. Userpilot also does this skillfully. Hope this helps:-)

Hey @enough-dream-92022 these are some really interesting and thought-provoking suggestions. Thank you. I'll definitely incorporate these (and credit you once we execute these). 🙂

That's awesome! Feel free to DM me for any questions if they come your way✨

Hey @thousands-baker-29740, I just wanted to add a little cherry on top of all the valuable things the other marketers said. Make sure all the content you post is aligned with the brand your startup created. I'm a Startup Marketing Partner and I see how challenging it is for startups to nail this from the beginning. You mentioned you've defined and validated your Personas already, which is a very important step of your brand. But a Brand in my opinion is made up of: • Goals • Identity • Positioning • Audience • Communication strategy • Promise • Reasons to believe • Services • Competitors • Empathy flow I’m not a big fun of excessive preparation and little action but I found this work to be extremely useful in guiding you in every decision of your company, particularly when it comes to content. Therefore, I eencourage you to make sure your content is aligned with all these aspects of your brand. Hope this helps! Alessandro