Product & Content Marketing Guide
Product & Accelerated Word of Mouth Marketing
Your product (/service) can and should be the biggest source of growth! Ideally a product/service will “speak for itself” and lead to natural growth. However, it can definitely be supercharged to make this as easy as possible.
Product
Develop a growth loop. Ask yourself: How can we create a growth loop instead of the traditional funnel? A funnel is focused on moving one person from awareness to the final conversion goal, but a growth loop is the idea that a customer will continue to generate sales over and over again, either by purchasing again or by referring a new purchaser.
To start, consider ways that your actual product or service can promote growth. For example, could you include printed collateral or packaging that promotes sharing on social media? (Look at “tagged” photos on Instagram of your favorite brands for ideas).
Consider when and how to prompt happy customers to write reviews and/or to refer someone directly.
Consider how your product or service could naturally encourage a new user to invite friends. (Facebook is the ultimate example of this, as your experience is improved when you invite and connect with friends.)
Accelerated Word of Mouth
Consider the following segments of people to accelerate Word of Mouth marketing:
Customers: Offer referral rewards (percentage off next purchase, added value, or cash) if customers refer a friend. Encourage sharing photos on social media. Reward reviews.
Family/friends: Send a personal email announcing a campaign and give one clear ask (with a few assumed asks, like following on social media). Clear ask example: Forward this email to two people you think may be interested in this.
Affiliates/Ambassadors/Influencers: Recruit a group of superfans to become your ambassadors. Decide (1) how to motivate them (cash, discounts, rewards, early intel, revenue share from products they sell?) and (2) how to corral them (Facebook group, email list?). Give them a monthly ask and even consider a monthly challenge: leave review on Google/Facebook/Nextdoor, join Facebook groups to chat about the product, post on social, email their friends and family… Make this as easy for them as possible by giving marketing collateral and specific asks.
Virality is another interesting term when it comes to Word of Mouth marketing. Virality is the idea that something will spread exponentially, and that one customer or contact actually equals many more than just one.
User Generated Content (UGC) is a viral marketing tactic where a business will prompt users to create and share something with their audience, creating a network effect. This may be a challenge (the ALS #icebucketchallenge is one of the greatest examples of this), a giveaway prompt (ie. repost this story of ours and write your dream vacation on the slide, and we’ll choose a winner to receive a free suitcase…), results to a quiz, an event (Chick-fil-A Cow Appreciation Day), or a funny/pretty/interesting thing that would be photographed (King of Pops’ witty popsicle sticks, a mural on the wall of a restaurant…).
Tips & Best Practices
Be sure that your UGC campaign points clearly back to your business and isn’t a distraction.
View your “product” as the entire customer experience: your website, check-out, shipping, follow-up, etc. Maintain your brand across the entire experience.
Word of Mouth is the closest you'll come to a “silver bullet”. It can be (nearly) free and incredibly effective.
Additional Resources
Growth Hacker Marketing book by Ryan Holliday
This HBR article about “jobs to be done” theory
Email, Social Media, Blogs, and PR
Content Marketing is a marketing theory suggesting that giving potential customers consistent value will earn trust and brand equity, eventually paving the way for more effective conversion efforts.
Think of value as something helpful, funny, pretty, interesting, etc. It could also be something that offers you literal value (a discount or an extra), or something that makes you feel “in the know”.
Content Marketing generally happens through four major channels: email, social media, blogs, and media (PR).
Email Marketing
Email marketing can be separated into three main categories: Beginning of the Loop content-driven awareness, Middle or End of the Loop conversion, and Second Loop conversion & reengagement.
We also think of emails as either a newsletter campaign (they get it because we have something to say) or a triggered campaign (they get it because of an action they took).
Beginning of the Loop strategy: Collect email addresses in trade for either killer content or a discount/added value. This would be a triggered email and could potentially kick off a welcome series of emails.
Middle/End of the Loop strategy: This welcome series could then include conversion-focused tactics. An abandoned cart could trigger a conversion-focused email, for example.
Second Loop: If someone has already made it through your funnel, think through what actions you’d like them to take in order to create a new growth loop. Could they purchase again? Could they write a review? Could they refer a friend?
Consider a very content/value-driven email newsletter that happens on a cadence. This allows you to send an “extra” email without bugging people. You can then include a “P.S.” or a footer with a product update or call to action.
Be sure that your contacts are segmented properly: Do you know their location or other demographics? Do you know where they stand in your funnel/loop? This is particularly important if you have very different customer segments (ie. wholesale and retail customers).
Social Media
Social Media can be used to attract new customers, but it will most likely be used (1) to trigger/remind people you exist and (2) to share new product updates.
The bio + highlights + the most recent 12 squares in your feed need to = your website and give an overview of what you are and what you do. With this in mind, be sure to include posts at least every 12 that give an overview of your company. These won’t get very much engagement, but they will be good to have in the feed for new people to see.
Set up a templated system so that you don’t feel like you’re having to come up with 100% new content every day. I’d suggest 4 different categories, which would then make each category show up in a diagonal when posted. For instance: Content / Product / Content / Behind-the-Scenes
Content = Anything that is a “gift”. It may be something pretty, something funny, some secret intel, a valuable tip or fact… It’s something that enriches their lives in some small way without asking for something.
In addition to the time it takes to make and share the posts, timeblock twenty minutes of social media a day to do the following engagement activities to build a following (focus on the locations you want to start with):
Share a story or two, tagging other people when applicable (they are then likely to reshare).
Follow and comment on people in your target locations in hopes that they’ll follow you back. Make it a real and engaging comment on a recent post.
Comment on posts from people you are already following as a way to just remind them you exist.
Focus on just the one or two social media channels that make sense for your customers. For example, if your clients are mostly women over 50, TikTok may not be the best use of your time. If your clients are generally business leaders, perhaps LinkedIn would make more sense than Instagram.
Blogs
Blogs have two very distinctly different benefits: (1) they are an avenue to share new content, and (2) they are an organized platform for SEO-focused articles.
If sharing new content is a focus, consider setting a blog cadence (once or twice a month?), and share each new blog post via your social and email channels.
If SEO is a focus, consider only focusing on 3-5 key articles and leverage “hacky PR” to get the most from these articles.
SEO is particularly appealing because you can win a high spot for a term that you couldn’t otherwise pay for, and it’s something that can live on for a long period of time (as opposed to paid SEM, which only lives in the high rankings when it’s the highest bidder).
SEO is successful when the search engines know what your article or website is about and when they see certain signals that your webpage is the best answer to what the user is searching for.
This involves a mastery in three key areas: the technical skeleton, the content, and the authority of your webpages.
Consider interviewing other leaders on your blog. When you share the article, ask if they would like to share it as well. This allows your article to reach a new audience, and it also provides an opportunity for backlinks, if they are willing to link to the article from their website.
Hacky PR
Media reach-out is one of our favorite marketing channels, as it can enhance social, SEO and even ad efforts. It is rarely ever a silver bullet, but it can still be a powerful tool. When reaching out to media, consider the following: who, what, and how.
WHO to reach out to
Start a Google Sheet that collects names and contact information for media contacts. Consider lots of different sources: local traditional media like newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV stations; online blogs and magazines; podcasts; Instagram influencers; Facebook groups; freelance writers; etc.
We recommend time-blocking an hour or so a week to research and add to this list.
Reach out to some big national publications because why not! But focus on one area (ie Atlanta) to begin with.
Find contact information by digging through websites, clicking by-lines in articles, searching folks on LinkedIn, looking at social media bios, sending DMs asking for emails, etc.
WHAT to pitch
Craft a specific pitch/angle; don’t reach out with a generic, “Would you like to post about us?”
Consider the founder story: would publications from the founder’s hometown or alma matter want to feature them?
Reach out to media individually with a pitch; don’t send a mass email! Keep the email incredibly short. Make the subject line intriguing.
Consider pitching a guest blog ie, “We’d love to write an article for you about The Top 10 X… We have fantastic resources from our users that we think your readers would enjoy.”
HOW to get the most from coverage
Follow up. You won’t hear back from most of these (they receive plentttty of pitches), so follow up once or twice, potentially even following up in a different medium like Instagram DMs. Connect with them on LinkedIn.
If you are picked up for something, be sure to have them hyperlink to your website and any important SEO articles to maximize authority for your website. Using PR plugs for SEO credibility is the way to make PR last!
Know that one press mention generally leads to more.
Truly cultivate these relationships. If someone writes an article about you, thank them afterwards and share the impact! Send a follow-up gift :)
Share any write-ups with your audience via social (especially LinkedIn) and/or email. Include “As featured in…” on your website and even email signature.
Tips & Best Practices
There are other avenues to share content, like video blogs, podcasts, event series… Don’t let these major four categories hinder you.
Before you decide to create your own blog, YouTube Channel, podcast, etc, ask yourself: could you be a guest on an already-established blog, channel, podcast instead?
Aim to get the most from each piece of content. If you write a blog, keep SEO in mind. Share it as a piece of social and email content. Include influencers/ambassadors in the blog so that they are encouraged to share. Consider running a Facebook ad that points to the blog.
Additional Resources
Neil Patel’s content marketing article
Hubspot’s content marketing article (full of great free templates)