HOW TO CREATE KILLER BLOGS, PODCASTS, VIDEOS, E-BOOKS, WEBINARS (AND MORE) THAT ENGAGE CUSTOMERS AND IGNITE YOUR BUSINESS Revised and Updated ANN HANDLEY AND C.C. CHAPMAN
Copyright 2012 by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Handley, Ann, 1963 Content rules : how to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, E-books, webinars (and more) that engage customers and ignite your business / Ann Handley, C. C. Chapman. Rev. and updated p. cm. (New rules social media series ; 13) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-118-23260-6 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-28303-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28405-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28700-2 (ebk) 1. Internet marketing. 2. Social media. 3. Web sites Design. I. Chapman, C. C. II. Title. HF5415.1265.H3577 2011 658.8 72 dc23 2012001608 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Colin. Miss you every day. A.H. Goofy Monkey, Buddy, and Sticky Noodle I do everything to keep you smiling. Now and always. C.C.
Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Big Fat Overview (Sometimes Called an Introduction) xi xv xvii PART ONE THE CONTENT RULES 1 Chapter 1 The Case for Content 3 Chapter 2 The Content Rules 13 Chapter 3 Insight Inspires Originality: Who Do You Want to Attract? 21 Chapter 4 Who Are You? 31 Chapter 5 Reimagine; Don t Recycle: Anatomy of a Content Circle of Life 55 Chapter 6 Share or Solve; Don t Shill 69 Chapter 7 Stoke the Campfire 95 Chapter 8 Create Wings and Roots 101 Chapter 9 The Care and Feeding of Fans 115 Chapter 10 Attention B2B Companies: This Is the Chapter You Are Looking For 121 vii
viii Contents PART TWO THE HOW-TO SECTION 141 Chapter 11 A Blog as a Hub of Your Online Content 143 Chapter 12 If Webinars Are Awesome Marketing Tools, Why Do Most of Them Suck? 155 Chapter 13 What s the Difference between an E-book and a White Paper? (And When Should You Use Them?) 171 Chapter 14 The Single Biggest Secret to Creating a Compelling Customer Success Story (Formerly Known as a Case Study) 183 Chapter 15 From Dumpy to Sexy: An FAQs Makeover 189 Chapter 16 Video: Show Me a Story 197 Chapter 17 Podcasting: Is This Thing On? 207 Chapter 18 Photographs: The Power of Pictures 211 PART THREE CONTENT THAT CONVERTS: SUCCESS STORIES (WITH IDEAS YOU CAN STEAL!) 219 Chapter 19 Reynolds Golf Academy: 221 Greensboro, Georgia Chapter 20 The Cool Beans Group: 227 Greensboro, North Carolina Chapter 21 U.S. Army: Fort Knox, Kentucky; 231 Fort Monroe, Virginia Chapter 22 AskPatty.com, Inc.: Thousand 235 Oaks, California
Contents ix Chapter 23 Qvidian: Lowell, Massachusetts 239 Chapter 24 HubSpot: Cambridge, Massachusetts 243 Chapter 25 Kodak: Rochester, New York 251 Chapter 26 Boeing Company: Chicago, Illinois 257 Chapter 27 Indium Corporation: Clinton, New York 263 Chapter 28 PinkStinks: London, England 267 PART FOUR THIS ISN T GOODBYE 271 Chapter 29 This Isn t Goodbye, and a Gift for You 273 About the Illustrator: Sean Tubridy 275 Index 277
Foreword M arketing is about publishing great content. How many times have you heard a statement more or less like this? Tons, right? By now every marketing professional and entrepreneur on the planet understands this fundamental truth. We don t need convincing. But what the many content-marketing experts have failed to do is tell us how to create that content. What, exactly, should I do? In my experience, the art and science of creating content had never been adequately explained to marketers. Perhaps you would build a website and spend a bunch of cash on the design. But the best that the designers could do with the content was put in some filler text. Okay, then what? You stared at lorem ipsum for days not knowing what to write, and then defaulted to some gobbledygookladen drivel about your products and services. Ugh. There is a better way, and this book will show it to you. The answer: Tell stories. Think about it. All good films and all good fiction are really about the story, right? Without a compelling, conflict-driven story, all the other elements don t mean much. Here is a classic story line from countless books and movies: Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Boy loses girl. Boy (and sometimes girl) is miserable for most of the action. They finally get back together. They get married. xi
xii Foreword How and why they break up and then what they do to get back together are what make the story interesting. How interesting would that same book or movie be were it to have this plot: Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They get married. At best, such a plot would be an insufferable bore. At worst, it becomes propaganda. In fact, it s just the sort of propaganda most marketers and business writers construct every day: Here s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product. Sadly, this classic propaganda-driven marketing is everywhere. It s not just text-based content, either. Video and other information is also mainly propaganda. As you read the book, you ll be reflecting on how you can introduce storytelling into your work. How can you make your content interesting, like a great movie or novel? How can your website, blog posts, videos, and other materials be made more interesting? Ann and C.C. show you how! Throughout Content Rules, you ll learn how to construct interesting and valuable information using many of the same skills that journalists and storytellers use. You ll learn how to identify an audience, how to develop a distinct point of view and voice, and how to construct a narrative that is exciting and engaging. Content Rules includes many success stories from consumer brands, business-to-business (B2B) outfits, government agencies, and other organizations together with ideas you can steal from each. When I created the New Rules Social Media book series with John Wiley & Sons, I said that it was essential to have a book about how to create killer content. And I knew just the people to do it. Ann and C.C. are storytellers, journalists, and marketers. In my opinion, that s the perfect combination of skills and expertise to identify and deliver rules that we can all use to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, e-books, webinars, and more.
Foreword xiii I ve followed the work of both Ann and C.C. with keen interest for nearly five years, learning from them as they pave the way forward to new forms of marketing. They must have more than a thousand blog posts, hundreds of videos, and dozens of articles between them. Now, in one place, you have access to their greatest hits. David Meerman Scott Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR and Real-Time Marketing & PR www.webinknow.com twitter.com/dmscott