121 CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGIES: TIPS, RESOURCES, EXAMPLES, TOOLS, & MORE!

Below is a conglomeration of content marketing strategies. We have compiled what has become a fantastic resource for our company. We hope you can use it for your own. We have content marketing articles, tips, resources, examples, case studies, tools, inspiration, and more. This post starts with the tips, but don’t forget to scroll down to see the other amazing resources and tools!

We will constantly be adding to this list. Enjoy!

CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGIES:

• Technical Hacks for Content Marketing - Awesome slide deck from Justin Briggs on how to utilize technical SEO for content marketing.
• How to Scale Credible Content -  Joe Griffin at iAcquire writes how their company scaled the identification of credible content producers.
• Twenty experts weigh in on solving their biggest content marketing pain points.
• Weird, Useful, Significant Internet Marketing - Great slide deck by Ian Laurie from Portent at SearchLove.
• The Case for Content: 620% Organic Growth - How adding quality content to different types of pages can increase traffic greatly, by Geoff Kenyon.
• How to Increase a New Website to Over 100,000 Organic Visits per Month - Great advice on content strategy here by Nick Eubanks.
• Data-Based Content Marketing That Won’t Break the Bank – One of the best pieces on content marketing, by Kane Jamison. It outlines how to utilize data with your content.
• Content, Conversion, and Calls to Action: Untangling the Ugly Mess - Joel Klettke writes about the importance of understanding your customer buying cycles.
• Why Creating Tools Can Be a Better Investment Than Creating Content – Awesome Quicksprout post about how creating tools can be the best content.
• Don’t Silo Me, Bro: Integrating Content Strategy Across Disciplines - Good content strategy post by Adria Saracino on the Distilled blog.
• Viral Content from ViperChill – This is a collaboration of the most popular posts from ViperChill. Great stuff here.
• Two great posts on MOZ about evergreen content here. One by Chris Fielden and one by Nick Eubanks.
• Creating and Developing Content Assets - The five stages of high quality content development by Venchito Tampon.
• Content With a Purpose: From Search to Conversion to Lifelong Customer - Slide deck from Mackenzie Fogelson about how to strategically use content to achieve business goals.
• The Content Marketing Manifesto – Great slide deck by Rand Fishkin. It talks about how content is the keystone to inbound marketing.
• 10 Unconventional Keyword Research Tips for Content Ideas - Some unique ways to generate content ideas.
• The Definitive Guide to Copywriting and the Advanced Guide to Content Marketing - Useful guides by Neil Patel at QuickSprout.
• How to Win Fans and Influence Users – Great slide deck about repurposing content to get the most bang for your buck by 97th Floor.
• Creating a Multi-Channel Content Marketing Strategy - Post on BlueGlass about combining earned media, paid media, and owned media.
• 5 Strategic Steps to Big Content -The process of creating big content by Mackenzie Fogelson.
• The New SEO Process (Quit Being Kanye) – Great post by Mike King (ipullrank) about the evolving SEO process and how content should be utilized.
• Awesome post by Jason Acidre about how to maximize evergreen content to fuel your sales and marketing. A must read.
• The New Rules of Big Content Promotion - Good tips from Simon Penson at Zazzle about the keys to promoting big content.
• The 38 Most Creative Content Ideas I’ve Ever Seen - Experts share their thoughts on creative content ideas.
• How to Become a Content Brand - Great insights about how some of the leading content brands operate.
• Bad Linkbait Needs to Die – Great post by Cyrus Shephard on MOZ about the benefits of creating linkable assets.
• Content Marketing through Email - John Doherty shares some great advice about a neglected strategy: content marketing through email.
• Great and useful content marketing checklist from Siege Media.
• 72 Ideas to Energize Your Content – There are some good ideas here to help mix up your content marketing efforts.
• How to Build Links to and Through your Branded Content - Good, actionable tips on utilizing your content with link building.
• 60 Experts Reveal Their Favorite Content Marketing Books – If you want to read books about content marketing, here’s a solid list.

DATA GATHERING TOOLS:

• http://data.gov.uk/ – The United Kingdom’s Open Data Project.
• http://www.data.gov/ and http://www.census.gov/ and http://www.bls.gov/cex/ – The U.S. Government has some good data available as well.
• https://books.google.com/ngrams – Google N Gram Viewer.
• http://www.gapminder.org/ – Gapminder shares lots of different data sets often.
• http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory – Google Public Data.
• http://www.reddit.com/r/datasets/ – Datasets on Reddit.
• http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home – Google Consumer Surveys.
• https://www.surveymonkey.com/ – Survey Monkey.
• http://www.quora.com/Data/Where-can-I-find-large-datasets-open-to-the-public – Good list on Quora of more data sets.

DATA VISUALIZATION TOOLS:

• http://www-958.ibm.com/software/analytics/manyeyes/ – Many Eyes from IBM.
• http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/ - Create interactive data visualizations.
• http://www.google.com/drive/apps.html#fusiontables – Google Fusion Tables.
• http://www.statsilk.com/ – Create interactive graphs, maps, and charts.
• http://visual.ly/ and http://infogr.am/ and http://piktochart.com/ – Easily create infographics.

Feel free to reference http://pointblankseo.com/visualizations from Jon Cooper for a deeper dive on data visualizations.

MISCELLANEOUS TOOLS & RESOURCES FOR CONTENT IDEA GENERATION AND CREATION:

• https://github.com/abenzer/represent-map – Map making tool on Github.
• http://xaviershay.github.io/tufte-graph/ – Graph making tool on Github.
• http://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker/ – Content Idea Generator tool from Portent.
• https://socialcrawlytics.com/ – Use Social Crawlytics to see what types of content your competitors are sharing.
• http://raventools.com/blog/tools-instant-content-ideas/ – 15 free tools for instant content ideas.
• http://flowsmapper.geo.census.gov/flowsmapper/map.html – Nice map/data tool from the US Census Bureau that can be used to generate content ideas.
• http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/instant/about.html – Google instant search / DONT HIT ENTER (h/t Wil Reynolds).
• http://memegenerator.net – Make memes.
• http://www.tagxedo.com/ – Create pretty word cloud pictures.
• http://www.greenlaneseo.com/outdated-content-finder/ – Awesome tool from Bill Sebald: Find old, outdated content that needs updating.
• http://www.google.com/trends/ – Google Trends.
• http://ubersuggest.org and http://soovle.com and http://www.wordstream.com/keywords – Keyword idea generators.
• http://radurls.com/ – Tool that finds trending URLs in real-time – Use for content generation.
• http://buzzsumo.com/ – Social insights for content marketing campaigns (and SEO too).
• http://trendsmap.com/ – Real-time Local Twitter Trends map.
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday – Useful resource from BBC to find news content from the past.
• https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch – Facebook Graph Search.
• https://twitter.com/search-advanced – Advanced Twitter Search (sentiment, question).

For more content (and other related) tools, check out this awesome post by iAcquire: http://www.iacquire.com/blog/200-online-marketing-tools-from-pubcon/

PAID CONTENT DISCOVERY & MARKETING TOOLS:

• http://disqus.com/
• http://nrelate.com/
• http://outbrain.com
• http://stumbleupon.com
• http://zemanta.com
• http://taboola.com
• http://simplereach.com/
• http://www.sharethrough.com/
• http://written.com/
• http://newscred.com/
• https://contently.com/
• http://www.onespot.com/

EXAMPLES OF GREAT CONTENT:

• http://www.matthewisabel.com/projects/deathrates/geographic.html – Mortality rates in the U.S. – data fromhttp://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf
• http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/cinemagraph/ – Collection of cool cinemagraphs.
• http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/13/russia/ - Amazing piece by the New York Times.
• http://flowingdata.com/2013/10/14/pizza-place-geography/#more-32532 - Pizza place geography around the country.
• http://www.businessinsider.com/we-found-where-the-hipsters-are-coming-from-2013-9 - Analysis of where the Brooklyn-area hipsters are coming from.
• http://www.dangersoffracking.com/ - Cool visualization of information about the dangers of fracking.
• http://www.yeedor.com/data-portraits/ – Beautiful visual data portraits by Yeedor. Here’s a cool one about coffee statements: http://www.yeedor.com/self-portraits/coffee-statements-2011/
• http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/slate_labs/2013/10/united_sports_of_america_map_if_each_state_could_have_only_one_sport_what.html - If a state could have just one sport, what would it be?
• https://mozy.com/blog/infographics/mustaches-who-made-them-famous-and-who-followed/ – Infographic about moustaches and who made them famous.
• http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/microsites/googleplus-for-small-businesses/ - Awesome interactive small business guide to Google Plus.
• http://hereistoday.com/ - This one really puts things in perspective.
• https://www.sweatergenerator.com/#/main/landing – Fun microsite and campaign by Coca Cola.
• http://www.happier.co.uk/infogram/amount-top-companies-earn-per-second.html – How much do the largest companies make per second?
• http://planefinder.net/ – Live plane tracking tool.
• http://www.cabletv.com/the-walking-dead – The Walking Dead interactive graphic.
• http://www.concerthotels.com/minimal-music-quiz - Really fun and addictive music quiz that wouldn’t be too hard to make.
• http://www.techadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/mobile-phone/iphone-5s-vs-peppa-pig-phone/ - Funny comparison of an iPhone 5S and the Peppa Pig Phone.
• http://www.rehabs.com/explore/your-face-on-meth/ – Great interactive visualizing your face on meth.
• http://www.footballasfootball.com/ – NFL team logos redesigned as European football (soccer) badges.
• http://www.matthewisabel.com/projects/deathrates/geographic.html - Mortality rates in the U.S. for various afflictions.
• http://www.concerthotels.com/100-years-of-rock – 100 Years of Rock Music.
• http://www.marketplace.org/topics/wealth-poverty/income-upshot - What does a person’s income say about their life?
• http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/11/07/interactive-this-is-how-much-money-twitter-owes-you/ - A tool released the day after the Twitter IPO that calculates how much Twitter “owes” you based on your follower count.
• http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1600-Pennsylvania-Ave-NW-Washington-DC-20006/84074482_zpid/ - The White House listing on Zillow.
• http://dev.citysdk.waag.org/buildings/ - Buildings in the Netherlands shaded by color based on when they were built.
• http://www.thistothat.com/ - A very simple but very useful tool. A testament to the fact that content and tools do not always have to be beautiful and amazing.
• http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/#/?start=1985&end=2008 – When income grows, who gains?
• http://incoming.shopify.com/ – A real-time look at sales from around the world on Shopify sites.

“BORING” PAGES ON YOUR SITE – MAKE THEM FUN!

• http://mailchimp.com/2012/ – MailChimp made their annual report fun.
• https://www.airbnb.com/annual/ – Airbnb showed their company progress in a beautiful way.
• https://www.distilled.net/contact/ – Even a “Contact Us” page can be used for quality content (scroll down and watch video).
• http://www.quicksprout.com/contact/ – Funny and useful contact page from Neil Patel.
• https://www.distilled.net/about/people/ – Another from Distilled. Make your “Meet the Team” page entertaining!
• http://moz.com/about – Beautiful and informative About page from MOZ.
• http://www.andrewreifman.com/# – Show off your skills (click on About section).

WEBSITES FOR INSPIRATION:

• http://flowingdata.com/
• http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

If you have any suggestions that should be added, please email us at info [at] wallaroomedia [dot] com

Post by Brandon Doyle

10 Surprising Success Tips from Amazing Sales Guru Tom Hopkins BY KEVIN DAUM

Need a nudge toward success? Tom Hopkins has been training winners for nearly 40 years. Here are his 10 surefire tips.

In a recent column I found myself quoting a man I met nearly 30 years ago. I didn't just use one of his quotes, actually, I found I have been quoting him regularly without even thinking about it. That man is Tom Hopkins, author of more than 20 books including Selling For Dummies.

Hopkins has been helping sales people and executives achieve success for more nearly 4 decades and his advice never grows old.  I was lucky enough to sit down for a rare personal conversation with Tom last week and get him to share his insights. We discussed whichsuccess actions seem to surprise people the most. We agreed that these were 10 of the most effective tips:

1.    Covet your time. Time is precious--only 86,400 seconds in a day.  Average people waste most of those seconds in unproductive or unrewarding ways.  Successful peoplemanage their time efficiently.  They are aware of how they spend it and make conscious choices to use it wisely whether to work, relax or regenerate with family.

2.    Have a personal mission statement. Hopkins has his personal mission statement at his desk: I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment. Mine is peppered throughout my published writing: Inspire people to pursue the awesome experience. Successful people identify what they are about and make their choices accordingly.

3.    Spend 5 minutes a day prioritizing. Without prioritization, it's difficult to be efficient and productive. Hopkins suggests taking 5 minutes at the end of every day to sit down, assess and choose the 5 or 6 priorities for tomorrow so you can begin with clarity.  Successful people don't squander effort and energy on unimportant issues.

4.    Surround yourself with likeminded people.  Wealth, status and accomplishment have their own rewards, but the more success you attain, the lonelier you can become, since others may no longer feel comfortable or relate to your lifestyle. Successful people are careful about who shares their time.  They look for people with a similar outlook, who can help them grow emotionally and spiritually.

5.    Be a follow up specialist. Many people talk a good game and then never deliver. Sometimes the cause is hypocrisy and sometimes it's simply being sloppy and careless. Successful people do what they say they'll do, and they pay close attention to detail so small issues don't get neglected and become major catastrophes.

6.    Take the best of the past to create the future. The world is full of shiny new toys and methods. It's easy for humanity to get lost in the glitz and glamour of modern technology.  Successful people embrace modern tools for communication efficiency and continue to use traditional and rare methods like handwritten thank-you notes to enhance connections.

7.    Don't be a lemming. If you are always heading the same direction as everyone else, you may move forward, but you'll have little control of your destiny. Successful people often figure out what everyone else does only to do the opposite, which many times puts them ahead of the pack.

8.    Keep a thick skin about rejection. For many each no is like taking a punch in the gut or a slap in the face. The way to get up and keep going is to remember that it's just business. Successful people know that the key to getting life's few brilliant "yeses" is to positively cope with the many "noes" you get on the way to receiving them.

9. Make others feel important. The greatest craving of most people today is recognition. Unfortunately, so many people are so tightly focused on their own status and problems they are ignorant to the needs of others.  Successful people recognize, support and encourage others on their journey, which brings synergy, energy and satisfaction to all involved.

10. Strive for more. Tom Hopkin's overall philosophy for success can be best summed up by his commitment on how to live life:

"I commit to learn more,
thus I'll serve more,
thus I'll build more,
thus I'll earn more,
thus I'll save more,
thus I'll be able to bless others by giving more."

Thank you for blessing us with your wisdom Tom.

Why Entrepreneurs Prefer Online Businesses BY STEVENPAPAS

The last decade the has Internet changed everything about how human beings live and interact. We now have the whole world at the click of a mouse. It has also revolutionized the way people work and do business. A few years ago, running a business online was still considered something wild and risky, only to be tried by computer whizzes and tech-savvy entrepreneurs. Today, more and more average folks are deciding to start their own businesses online. Why is that? Here are the advantages of starting a business online.

Unbelievably Quick Start-Up

It takes months and a lot of hassle to get an offline business started and even years to make it break even, but online business to get started is just a matter of having your website designed and hosted. Once your site is created, it’s online and ready to get promoted. Now, anyone in the web can access it. In the online world, things happen much faster than in the traditional.

Almost Zero Start-Up Costs

What stops most people from starting their own businesses is the prohibitive cost. It takes much more money than anybody has lying around to start a business. However, you can start a business online with just a computer, an internet connection and a little software, which in some cases can be obtained for free. When I was still working in the corporate world as a financial advisor, I would often speak with local businessmen who wanted to get a loan to get their venture started or others who just wanted to increase their cash flow through a loan. Almost every one of them was in mortgage debt. They would constantly buy to let mortgages.

Much of the expense of running an online business comes in the form of advertising. It’s not cheap if you let others do it for you. However, if you’re smart about it, you can advertise your business all over the Net for absolutely nothing as long as you are willing to work hard. There are proven techniques for getting your website noticed and they don’t have to cost you anything. When I started my own venture of software reviews and coupons site, which now makes me a fulltime job income, I was totally unaware of free promotion techniques and Google rankings. Since I launched it last autumn I ‘ve made over 70 guest posts and 1,000 comments in hundreds of blogs and forums and with the right on-page and off-page SEO I managed to get ranked first page for my niche keywords.

No More Day Job

Running an online business, won’t give big money instantly but, once the cash starts rolling in, you can kiss your day job goodbye. This means no more slaving for somebody else, no more racing to the office each morning in rush hour traffic, and no more problems with annoying coworkers. You can work in your pajamas any time it suits you and be your own boss. It took me 3 months to get my first dime but I had cut my costs substantially since I quit my day job. I have reduced the monthly phone bill to half and gas expenses to a quarter cause I don’t have to call the so called-prospective clients and trying to sell myself by phone. I don’t have to drive back and forth to the office, customers or the banks, pay office rent and parking lot (Let alone the parking fines). All this time I used to waste on that kind of clutter, I now give to grow and expand my ventures.

A Company Of One

You can run a successful and lucrative online business without hiring any staff at all. This cuts down on headaches tremendously and also saves costs. Another great thing about running your own company online is that you keep all of the profits. You can simply outsource the tasks you need done or hire a virtual assistant to help out, and then you can manage all of its operations yourself. I am currently in the phase of automating my first website by outsourcing certain tasks to others. As a result I can focus on more strategic activities. That’s how I managed to start a second website last month.

Worldwide Reach

Small businesses operate locally (at first), but as soon as an online business is live, it has a worldwide reach. People from all over the world can buy your products and services 24 hours a day. This increases your profit potential by leaps and bounds. You can also automate the entire payment process after some time, so that you can be earning money and work less.

Time Is Money

Working online saves you a lot of time as well. For example, you don’t have to go from house to house distributing brochures. There’s no more morning commute, which means that you cut as much as an hour of wasted time out of your day. Then, you can spend your time focusing on making money. Sometimes people in the corporate world confuse the state of busy with that of being productive. They are two totally different terms. If you spend your morning answering stupid emails or calling those prospective customers for the 5th time or driving your car , then you are merely being busy. You end up feeling emotionally drown but you have not produced anything at all.

Technology Is Incredible

Once you get started and find out all the different technological possibilities there are out there, you’ll be amazed at what you can do. There is software that allows you to do just about anything business-related, and this saves you money and time. You can automate tasks that you’d otherwise have to hire people to do. Even if you’re not a high tech person, everything is designed to be user-friendly and easy for non-techies as well.

All of this is making starting an online business easier and more attractive. It’s not just for high-tech marketers or computer geniuses anymore! It may seem difficult to get started at first, but stick with it and all of this new technology will become second nature. When you get your first online payment, you’ll be hooked! And don’t forget: be productive, no just busy

FREE ONLINE ENTREPRENEURSHIP COURSES

• Accel Partners: The Benefit of Picking the Right VC

  Stanford University

  Marc Fleury believes the relationship between VC and entrepreneur is very important. He offers a few pointers on how to find the VC that is right for you.
  VIEW COURSE
  00:15:20 6

• Accretive Technology Partners: Raising Venture Capital

  Stanford University

  Accretive Technology Partners' founding members discuss how to find the right venture capital partner for your business.
  VIEW COURSE
  00:39:12 16

• Adaptive Path: Creating Meaning for Employees

  Stanford University

  Janice Fraser, founding partner and CEO of the consumer experience consulting firm, Adaptive Path, offers insight into the leadership qualities paramount to ...
  VIEW COURSE
  00:14:18 7

• Adding Value to Companies

  Stanford University

  Former CEO of Intuit, Bill Campbell, discusses how he ads value to both established and start-up companies that already have management teams.
  VIEW COURSE
  00:07:59 4

• Affymax: Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry

  Stanford University

  The CEO of Glaxo-Wellcome Group's Affymax Research Institute, Gordon Ringold, discusses his definition of an entrepreneur - someone who says, I can do it, not ...
  VIEW COURSE
  00:43:13 14

• AgraQuest: Creating Need for Your Product

  Stanford University

  Pam Marrone, founder of AgraQuest, offers insights into how she built a successful biotechnology company from the ground up.
  VIEW COURSE
  00:20:47 9

• Angel Investment

  Stanford University

  Ron Conway and Mike Maples Jr. discuss the history and significance of angel investing while offering insights into how to work with this unique type of VC.
  VIEW COURSE
  00:35:28 11

• Aruba Networks: Transferring Big Company Culture to Startups

  Stanford University

  Dominic Orr, founder of Aruba Networks, discusses the excitement and challenge of working within the start-up phase of building a company.
  VIEW COURSE
  00:45:13 13

• AuctionDrop: Taking Risks in a New Venture

  Stanford University
  VIEW COURSE
  00:42:05 17

• Autodesk: The Personal Side of Management

  Stanford University
  VIEW COURSE
  00:33:21 17

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