Writing a blog can be difficult, especially for busy, nonstop marketers and agency owners.
We know it – trust me! With blogging as a #1 means of earning our traffic and revenue, we sympathize.
It’s never been easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding to maintain a business blog and write consistently.
To do it consistently, and to do it well, you need a process.
Your process serves as your guidepost for making sure you never just sit stuck, wondering what to do next.
The goal of this guide is to show you that process and give you a in-depth bird’s eye view of everything you need to write a blog and do it consistently. Then, we’ll dive into the nitty-gritty of how, when, where and what when it comes to impactful blog writing.
Ready?
[bctt tweet=”Get a bird’s eye view of everything you need to write a blog for your business, and do it consistently. ??” username=”ExpWriters”]
The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Blog & a Regular Posting Schedule: 7 Step-List
Know the Foundations of Writing a Blog that Matters
The Golden Rule in Writing Blogs
How Long Should Your Content Be?
4 Steps for Creating Compelling Headlines That Click With Your Audience
6 Steps for Writing a Blog and Doing it Consistently
Self Editing Like a Pro, Even If You Aren’t One (Infographic)
How to Come Up with Blog Ideas (Infographic)
Let’s dive in!
Know Your Foundations: Writing a Blog Post That Matters
Here’s a quote to inspire you (Chuck Close):
Just like anything else, the blog writing process starts with a foundation.
Without this foundation, everything else becomes confusing and inefficient. With it, you can regularly create great content that your readers will love.
The foundation involves three things:
The “Golden Rule.” Write for ONE reader.
Determine Content Length. Focus on creating the right content.
Create a Strong Headline. Intrigue your ONE reader.
[bctt tweet=”The foundation of #writing a great blog post: write for 1 reader, determine length, create a strong headline. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
Let’s dive into these a little deeper.
1. Foundation: The “Golden Rule”
The “Golden Rule” of writing a blog is simple; write for ONE reader.
The hope would be that you already have a good idea of who your ONE reader is.
Hopefully you also have a good idea of where they are, what problems they’re having, and how they communicate.
Entire books and long form guides have been written on defining, finding, and targeting your ONE reader (also called target audience, target market, etc.)
You should read them. If you don’t have time for that, Forbes has a great evergreen piece on decoding your target audience.
Don’t fall into the trap of attempting to write for a viral audience.
As Forbes contributor AJ Agrawal points out, ‘Go Viral’ is not a smart marketing strategy.
Since most viral content is based on trends, it’s not evergreen and therefore has an exceptionally short shelf-life. That makes it a bad investment.
Avoid the masses and follow the “Golden Rule” by writing for ONE reader. It’s the only strategy that has long term value for your blog.
2. Foundation: How Long Should Your Content Be?
Google the above question and you’ll find that there are over 179 million answers telling you how long your content should be.
Everyone who’s anyone has tried their hand at answering this question – it’s clearly one of the biggest debates among content marketers across the web.
I’ll say that long-form has tremendous benefits. I’ve created an argument for long-form content here: in all reality, it does the best for SEO purposes. That’s also why I launched authority content at Express Writers last year.
But along with realizing the benefits of long, authoritative content, you want to think most about how to do the right content.
Less of the wrong, high-volume, no return content: more of the right content.
Rand Fishkin, the founder of Moz, has a great statement on this point. He says: to focus on creating more of the right content.
What does the right content accomplish?
Fishkin outlines four things:
The right content serves visitor’s intent by answering their questions and helping them complete their goals.
The right content delivers an easy, pleasurable, accessible experience on every device and every browser.
The right content gets the right information and experience to visitors FAST.
The right content does all of the above better than any of the competitors in the space.
But that’s all well and nice to hear what you need to do. How do you actually go about creating the right content when writing a blog?
You create your content with these things in mind and use your editing efforts to ensure that they’re followed.
4 Steps for Creating Compelling Headlines That Click With Your Audience
While I’m sure you’ve heard it more times than you can count, compelling headlines are crucial if you want readers to actually read your blog.
Copywriting legend David Ogilvy is famous for saying:
But you know the headline is important. How do you create one that works?
Do you use a template that so many others have already used? That’s certainly the easiest option.
Do you list a dozen different options and narrow them down one by one until you find a winner? That can work too.
Do you include a number or ask a question? Sure, go for it.
The truth is, there isn’t a stand-alone strategy that works best for creating compelling headlines when writing a blog.
What is a given, however, is that you must identify who your one reader is and you build your headline around what would intrigue them to read on.
How to Actually Create the Headline
While your headline will differ depending on your ONE reader, there is a simple formula that you can use to short-line the process.
After all, writing a blog is hard enough. You don’t want to spend five hours coming up with an intriguing headline.
Jeff Goins, founder and owner of the popular blog Goins, Writer, has a headline writing formula that many of the top bloggers in the world utilize.
It looks like this: Number or Trigger word + Adjective + Keyword + Promise
Your best bet is to brainstorm at least 10 headlines that follow this formula. This shouldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes.
If you’re feeling ambitious and really want to nail it with your headline (which you should), using Upworthy’s editorial process is always a good idea.
If, after coming up with your headlines, you’re able to combine this simple formula with the four U’s of headline writing, you’ll have something that will truly intrigue your ONE reader.
Those four U’s include:
Unique
Ultra-specific
Urgent
Useful
Let’s take a look at an example of a high performing blog that has utilized Goins’ formula along with the four U’s and ONE reader philosophy.
First off, we see that the ONE reader is sales reps.
Following Goins’ formula, we can immediately write off three of the four factors that make great headlines.
Number or trigger word? Check. Adjective? Check. Keyword? Check.
While no promise is made directly, it can be assumed that Aja Frost, the writer, will provide alternative phrases for sales reps to use that aren’t so harmful (which she does).
What about the four U’s?
Well, is it unique? You don’t see too many articles related to deadly sales phrases.
Is it ultra-specific? No doubt about that.
Is it urgent? If you’re a sales rep then I’d say it’s pretty urgent to get rid of bad practices that are preventing you from making sales.
Useful? For sales reps, definitely.
Simplifying the Headline Creation Process
If you want a simple headline creation process that can consistently get you results, just follow the steps outlined below.
Step #1: Focus on your ONE reader throughout the creation process.
Step #2: Come up at least 10 (or 25) headlines using Goins’ formula.
Step #3: Create a chart to see which headlines pass the four U’s test.
Step #4: Choose your headline based on the results.
6 Steps for Writing a Blog and Doing it Consistently
Step #1 – Creating Outlines That Provide Structure for Your Content
Outlines are crucial if you don’t want to end up fumbling around for hours trying to come up with ideas for what to write.
While you already know that you should be writing for ONE reader, your outline helps ensure that you put yourself on the right path to solving their problems or answering their questions.
Putting this together should be a fairly simple process.
You’ll want to start by doing some research about your title so you have a general idea of what to include (20-25 minutes should more than suffice).
While you may be sucked into trying to find the perfect template and using it to detail everything you plan on writing about, this can be a huge waste of time.
The outline isn’t what makes great content, it just provides the structure to help you do it.
As you get into the actual stage of doing extensive research, you’ll also find that you’ll want to alter many of the things that you’ve included; either by including more, giving more detail, or eliminating parts of it.
Think of your initial outline as something that will guide your research. By thinking this way, you’ll ensure that you don’t end up wandering mindlessly with 53 tabs open during the research stage.
If you’re looking for some inspiration as to exactly how to structure your article, Ginny Mineo of HubSpot wrote a tremendous guide on how to write a blog post outline.
Her outline for a fictitious article titled “How to Use Images to Generate Leads on Twitter” looked like this:
As you can see, it isn’t overly extensive. It does, however, provide the structure necessary to move to the next step.
Step #2 – Researching for Your Blog Post
While every step associated with writing a blog is important, the quality of your research will have implications across the board.
As time consuming as it can be, it cannot be avoided if your goal is to create great content that your ONE reader will love.
Not only will it help you put together awesome content, but researching well means that you won’t give yourself the opportunity to have nothing to write when you get to the drafting stage.
Fortunately, you’re in a time when it has never been easier to find resources, data, case studies, images, etc. that you can include in your content.
Before we get into where and how to research, a few words of caution are necessary…
There are a TON of resources out there that you can use. And as we mentioned previously, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and end up wandering aimlessly with 50+ tabs on your screen.
If you take the route of trying to find as many resources as possible, you’ll turn a blog post that should’ve taken you 4-5 hours into one that takes 4-5 days. Kevan Lee, the director of marketing at Buffer, says that the research phase tends to take him about 40 minutes per 2,000 word article.
His average time spent on each part of the writing process looks like this:
While Kevan’s experience enables him to complete the process sooner than most, this is still a solid guideline for where you want to be.
A good rule of thumb is to stick to your initial outline as much as possible and find 2-3 resources per sub-heading that can be used within the content.
If you find something that doesn’t relate to your current outline but feel that it could positively impact your content, go ahead and include it.
Just don’t do this with every ‘great’ resource you find.
Where Do You Research for Your Blog Article?
While there are tons of options for performing research nowadays, nothing beats search engines.
Google, Bing, and Google Scholar are all great options that allow you to find relevant and authoritative content quickly.
Other solid options include StumbleUpon, Twitter and Facebook searches, online publications, research-based sites, industry blogs, and good old-fashioned books.
To make sure that your sources are legitimate and authoritative, your best bet is to gauge link quality using Alexa.
This easy guide should help you do that:
Last but not least, be sure that you understand how to cite sources if you intend to use them in your content.
Step #3 – Writing Your Blog Content
While it doesn’t always seem like it a lot of the time, actually putting the fingers to the keyboard and writing a blog is the easy part.
You have your outline. You’ve done your research. You know what you want to accomplish.
Now you just have to get to work!
Other than words, however, there are a few other things that you’ll want to keep in mind along the way.
#1 – Visuals MUST Be Included
BuzzSumo ran a study of over one million articles and found that articles that included an image every 75-100 words got 2x the shares of articles with fewer images.
Visuals, which includes images, videos, screenshots, and infographics, need to be a major part of your content if you want to keep your reader’s attention.
#2 – Keywords are Important, But Not More Than Purposeful Writing
SEO expert and Entrepreneur contributor Jon Rognerud recommends that you should include your keyword 2-5% of the time.
He warns, however, that including a keyword should never be your main priority.
Instead, focus on creating content that serves your reader’s purpose for being there and only use keywords when they make sense in the text.
Basically, when someone reads your content, they shouldn’t be able to pick out what keyword you’re using unless they’re actively searching for it.
#3 – Utilize Up-to-Date Statistics and Facts
Everyone wants to create evergreen content that’s still earning traffic years down the road.
But that doesn’t happen by accident. As Content Marketing Institute contributor Al Gomez points out, evergreen content is always comprehensive.
To be comprehensive, your content needs to include a strong mix of up-to-date statistics and facts.
And since search engines care about fresh content, you’ll also need to make sure you’re updating your evergreen content with new statistics and facts as time goes on.
Don’t Fret the First Draft
As you’re writing your article, don’t worry about getting everything right the first time.
Your initial content will be molded into great content through the editing process. For now, just get those fingers typing.
Step #4 – Self Editing Like a Pro, Even If You Aren’t One (Infographic)
“The difference between good writers and bad writers has little to do with skill. It has to do with perseverance. Bad writers quit. Good writers keep going. That’s all there is to it.”
But while this may look like nothing more than inspirational talk to motivate writers, it’s important to understand that Goins is actually talking about the fact that good writers commit to editing.
As he says, “They’re (good writers) resigned to the fact that first drafts suck…”
Effective editing is the name of the game when it comes to creating great content. No one, not even Stephen King, regularly produces first drafts that are ready made for publication.
Here’s a look at a simple guide that can help you with the process of editing and proofreading your content:
Optimizing your content for SEO isn’t easy, but it certainly is necessary.
After all, isn’t your goal of writing a blog to rank on search engines and generate traffic?
Rather than providing you with a short overview that lacks the girth to actually show you how to optimize for SEO, you’d be much better served taking a look at this extensive guide on How to Write Content for SEO.
You’ll find everything you need there to ensure that your content is performing up to its fullest potential in search engines.
Step #6 – Blogging Consistently by Creating a Regular Blogging Schedule
When it comes to content marketing, statistics across the board show that consistency is the key to success. HubSpot’s survey of over 13,000 of their clients showed that the companies that published 16+ blog posts per month received about 3.5x more traffic than those that published 0-4 posts per month.
This isn’t much of a surprise to anyone in the content marketing game. Everyone knows that more great content equals more success.
The problem that most bloggers face, however, is that they feel they don’t have the time to post consistently enough to keep up.
Fortunately, by organizing your content marketing efforts and creating a regular posting schedule, you can create an efficient system that allows you to consistently produce great content.
How Do You Create a Regular Posting Schedule?
Before you get started, you’ll want to choose the right platform for creating your editorial calendar.
If you’re looking for a free version to get started, Google Calendar can do the trick. Be aware, however, that it’s limited in its abilities.
If you want something that will make the process easier and are willing to drop some money to save time, DivvyHQ and CoSchedule are both great options.
These paid options are especially useful if you plan on collaborating with co-workers or contractors.
Ian Cleary of Razor Social put together an incredibly useful article on getting started with an editorial calendar on each of the three platforms. You’d be wise to check it out.
How Often Are You Going to Post?
You already know that more is better when it comes to posting on your blog. But what is even worse than not posting enough is not posting consistently.
It’s almost impossible to develop a loyal readership if you aren’t consistent with when and how you’re posting your content.
Be realistic about how often you can post. Once a week is fine if that’s all you can accommodate with the resources you have. When you make your decision, however, stick to it.
How to Come Up with Blog Ideas (Infographic)
One of the biggest fears of bloggers when they first create a regular posting schedule is that they won’t be able to come up with enough ideas to maintain their schedule.
That’s why it’s important to maintain a running list of 20-40 ideas.
Your ideas should be based on the main goal of your blog.
Are you trying to educate potential customers? Are you trying to build your personal brand?
Know what your main objective is and base your blog ideas off of it.
If you need further guidance or inspiration, this list should help:
Determine Your Process and Create Content Consistently
The key to positioning yourself as an authority within your niche is to create content consistently.
As this guide has shown, you can do that by determining your process for writing a blog and committing to a regular posting schedule. Feeling overwhelmed and need some content assistance? We’re here for you.
Seven years ago, I delved full-force, head-first, neck-deep into the industry of content marketing.
Throughout my seven-year, full-time career as a self-taught expert, I’ve been hands-on in creating, producing, and training on internal content services that have answered a demand and fulfilled a need for our clients, with the help of an amazing remote team I assembled.
To date, my agency (bootstrapped and on zero outside funding) has sold over $4 million worth of content services to over 5,000 clients.
I was born with a natural love for both “writing and the internet” – a writer by 12, and an entrepreneur by 16, writing books, creating companies, and learning how to make money online when I wasn’t in school. But at age 19, I found myself in college trying to get a degree I didn’t even want (R.N.). I think I would have made a terrible nurse – the trade just wasn’t for me. So I dropped out, went and followed my heart, and taught myself online writing. I became a top freelancer fast, and within three months had more work than I could handle. Within 5 minutes of that realization, I created an agency at age 20, and Express Writers was born.
And now, one of my 2017 goals has just happened. After five months of hard work, and over 400 hours of heart, soul, energy and 5 a.m. mornings, my ultimate industry course is finally here.
It’s targeted to the entrepreneur, freelancer, and agency staff member: and within this course, I’ve created an entire curriculum with practical advice on how to build, execute, track and maintain content that works – from A to Z. We’re talking all the way from finding your audience and building a persona for any audience, to planning out your keywords, building an editorial calendar, promoting your content, publishing, analyzing, and auditing – from beginner level, all the way to advanced.
I created this course because I believe that with the right strategy and execution knowledge in place, anything is possible through great content marketing.
By itself, content marketing has fueled my business the past 6 years. (Here’s a case study I wrote about that late last year. Neil Patel wrote about my agency as an example of a content creation business that does what they say.) We physically live out what we preach – content drives 95-99% of our agency leads and has brought over 5,000 clients right into our doors.
Beta launch of our Content Strategy Certification Course is complete! The course launched as a school September 1, 2017. Check it out here.
Why There’s a Tremendous Industry Need for a Practical Content Strategist Certification Course
In the industry, here’s what I’ve come to realize:
1. Businesses today know they need content marketing more than ever.
Back when I was on the phones in 2011, I had to convince people why they needed it. Today, 89% of B2B marketersnow invest in content marketing – and we see it. My staff and I have to “convince” on the “why content” question a lot less.
2. But, businesses don’t know what they need in content, or how to make their content marketing work well for them (read: ROI).
I think of great content marketing like a well-oiled, rotating water wheel. You have to show up daily and consistently put content out to get something back. If you have your process, people and a source of amazing content ideas down pat, success happens. (For me, content marketing produces 90%+ of my business leads.)
But getting there is such a struggle. What do you invest in, how often, where do you put it – and how do you know if it’ll net rankings (or brand awareness/traction – whichever goal you’re going for)? Wait – do you have a goal?
All of that is the meat of content strategy.
And if you don’t know strategy or have a working one implemented, your content marketing return on investment (ROI) is going to be much, much lower that it could be. The cool part: if you do know it, returns can be HUGE.
To date, I’ve created products instead of “knowledge.”
But it’s time to delve in, head first. I believe that knowledge is power.
Personally, my road to success has been self-carved, and self-created.
What I taught myself fuels my expertise.
And since the landing page for the course went out in early May, I’ve gone so much more indepth than I said I would with the course content.
This insane task is, easily, the best thing I’ve ever done in my industry.
I’ve considered renaming my course “Ultimate Content Marketing Certification,” because my students are going to learn everything in the fundamentals of brand content marketing.
I’ve even slated top experts to appear on video with me which will go in certain modules of the course to give my students that much more depth on the subject. While building the course, I put in days that started at 5 a.m. and ended only when I crashed in bed at 10 p.m.
Easily, you could start a content marketing agency after you take my course. Easily, assemble your own content team. Easily, teach your clients (or your boss’ clients) amazing content techniques that result in trackable ROI. Show them who to target, what to create, what to track, how to measure, how to update = for tangible, working, worthwhile content results.
My office whiteboard got super messy while I planned and worked all the content out.
Exploring the Content Marketing Ecosphere: How Does Content Strategy Fit In as An Integral Part?
Here’s a few crazy stats about this industry of content marketing:
It’ll be worth $313 billion by 2019.
Billions of funding have been put into content marketing startups by now – VC investors realize the value of the industry and SaaS creators/entrepreneurs within it.
And 91% of B2B marketers that are “very committed to content marketing” see success (CMI).
And out of the 89% of marketers that actually do content marketing, only 3% rate their content marketing as “very successful.”
Per the CMI study, here are those two stats in contrast. 89% of B2B marketers use content marketing:
Yet only 3% rate it as extremely successful:
What causes the drop?
A lack of direction with content strategy.
OK, great – next logical question:
But what the heck is a content strategy?
Ah, great question.
It can be hard to even answer this one.
Because as Michele Linn of CMI said so aptly, your “editorial calendar is not a content strategy.”
The truth: content marketing without a solid content strategy is nothing. And a viable, content strategy is the arena, the action area of your content marketing.
And my course solves these problems.
Strategizing for and creating great content, publishing and managing the content that goes into your content marketing, is all a part of what goes into content strategy.
Here are the other moving parts and tasks that make up the whole of a great content strategy that can be put into action and churn out ROI at the other end (and this is what my course teaches, in whole):
Knowing your position of authority and differentiation in the field.
Knowing how to define your audience (and customer) persona, and creating a persona for each of your main target audiences.
Creating a brand style guidelines that includes your persona so your writers never mess up on brand voice and target audience.
Being able to define your exact customer needs, and create content for their defined pain points at all points in the sales cycle.
Planning worthwhile topics that attract and hold the attention of your ideal customer.
Knowing how to use Quora, BuzzSumo, and online forums to research hot topics that will make it top-read on your publication platforms.
Defining and going after your best guest blogging opportunities.
Being aware of key directions your content focus should be in for definite return on content investment.
Discovering the right keywords for your niche and brand that will result in ROI (finding them CAN be second nature once you know how).
Creating a monthly editorial calendar using one of the easiest tools in the market.
Focusing, mapping out, and creating content types worth your time.
Pre-publication, knowing how to prep and optimize your content for SEO to make sure people Googling your keywords can find your content.
If it’s for your clients, you’ll need to know how to set content expectations in terms of measurable ROI.
Being able to measure the actual ROI of your content, adjust accordingly, and maintaining and updating your best posts for more results.
Knowing content promotion fundamentals, email marketing, and a ground-floor social media marketing strategy.
We have an internal notebook that I created just for this role, and candidates in my team that progress to eligibility for the training (after client satisfaction rates are solidified, successful content writing has happened, editorial training, etc.), receive 1:1 mentoring and real-time critique from me after they take the training. The final step in the training has always been to create a fictional content strategy. If they pass, they’re golden – and clients love their work with the reports they get.
Here’s another thing.
The course is based on the training I wrote three years ago and update seasonally since – but it’s 10x better.
I’ve talked to my Strategists, analyzed the training myself, and realized we needed more. Videos, cheat sheets, shortcuts, and more tactics, knowledge, and strategy lessons.
So, the idea for the certification course was born.
The idea went bigger when I realized the continual need in the industry that I couldn’t just answer easily with a “product:” implementing a working, ROI-focused content strategy.
I think that giving brands and marketers the keys to the success of their own content will result in amazing things.
It is one of the most up-to-date strategy courses in the industry.
You’ll be ready to start implementing immediately once you go through the materials, because I’ve created my course around actionable teaching that translates to skills you can take home today and start earning your customer’s love, trust and business with, or use to build and create amazing content for your own brand.
We’ve sold literally thousands of these products in the past 6 years, and the strategies have resulted in serious brand ROI. Last year, I even built and launched a new content level from the ground up to answer an industry need: and today, people are buying it – and experiencing online results from this level for their brand.
Everything at Express Writers, from products to staff roles, is a result of my “ear to the ground” attitude in the industry. I’m building, teaching, and creating based on real industry needs.
We’ve been our own guinea pigs, too. And what I test on us results in success – we’ve netted top 3 positions in Google for long-tail, low comp keywords by creating in-depth, visual and long-form content strategically around it.
This very month, back in 2011, I was plowing the seed of an idea, hiring five writers, and coding my own website.
I decided to launch the idea, and came up with a business name in five minutes: Express Writers.
As we move into our 6th business anniversary (and my 7th in the industry), I thought it would be awesome to get on video and sharing the story behind Express Writers – on camera!
So, for the first (ever) video story that I’m finally doing, I’m sharing the story of how I started out in freelance writing at 19 then stumbled into creating Express Writers out of $75, a hope and a dream.
That was what I started with – and nothing more.
We’ve been bootstrapped all the way, learned some hard lessons, went through some crazy times, and came out stronger from every hard-knocks lesson learned. Today, we’ve served over 5,000 clients, and have grown by leaps and bounds: 200-300% year after year. This year, we were able to break all previous year’s records for client satisfaction rates and monthly income.
But the story behind Express Writers’ creation isn’t complete without the real, raw, personal side of my life that I chose to change for the better (a personal, forced lifestyle that I chose to leave – and if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be here writing this blog today.)
Here it is.
The real, raw, true story of how Express Writers came to be.
What made us, what shaped us, and what we’re doing today in the industry.
Enjoy.
The Entrepreneurial Story: How Julia McCoy Founded Express Writers From $75, Grew a Company Mindset, and Life Lessons in Business (Video Transcript)
I run a writing agency, and 7 years ago I started with nothing but $75, a hope, and a dream.
Today, we have the best client satisfaction rates that we’ve ever had, and we just surpassed our biggest month in sales.
So, how have I been able to do it in such a competitive industry? Here’s my story.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Watch @JuliaEMcCoy’s #video story behind the creation of Express Writers. #entrepreneur” quote=”Watch @JuliaEMcCoy’s #video story behind the creation of Express Writers. #entrepreneur”]
Everything started in my business back when I was 19. I was in the middle of nursing school, and I was failing miserably. One day I woke up, and I asked myself: what do I love to do, and how can I make money doing it?
I knew what the answer was in my heart: it was writing. That went back all the way before I was 12. I was always writing, and by age 12 I had a 200-page medieval fiction on a floppy disk. Along with that, I had early entrepreneurial roots. I figured out how to make money using the internet at 13: I was earning cash doing surveys. And by 16 – I don’t know where this idea came from, it was just in my head one day – I decided to go around the neighborhood and ask people if they needed help using their computer. I posted ads in the grocery store, and within a few days, I had several clients and I was making $40/hour at 16.
So at 19, when I found myself in the middle of college trying to get a degree that I didn’t even want, I decided I would just try to figure out online writing and make a career out of it. And the next three months, I taught myself how to write, and I wrote hundreds of articles for very cheap clients: but that was how I honed my early writing skills. I also started learning a lot of SEO and content marketing back then.
Before I knew it, I had more work than what I could handle. My next logical thought was, why not start a business? And Express Writers was born.
I had one goal when I started my company back then: it was to find a group of writers who had passion in online writing, and who I could teach the elements of SEO and content marketing to, and we could learn and progress as a whole. I noticed a phenomenon back then: a lot of so-called writers didn’t know the standards of how to write for SEO, or the reader. So I started my business with that one goal, and clients began to trust me and to look to me for SEO and content marketing advice. And that’s when I started blogging regularly on my site, expresswriters.com.
But the story is not complete without sharing a personal story. I grew up in a religiously suppressed environment. My dad was the pastor of a church, and at 21, I found myself locked up in my room by my parents and given a letter for my birthday that said I was a disgrace to my family. We were not allowed to lead normal lives, and my business was looked down on. So when I got that letter, even though that environment was the only thing I knew, I knew that it wasn’t normal and I had to get out.
So six months later, my sister and I made the decision to leave in the middle of the night. And we did. It was very hard, but I had the opportunity to go follow what I loved to do, and go follow my dreams and chase my passions once I got out of that environment.
I did that, and completely bootstrapped, without any outside funding, we grew 200% in the next few years. The first year was $50,000, and in the next few years we hit $300,000, and last year we just surpassed $650,000.
As an entrepreneur, you often hear that failure precedes success. And that’s not just a quote or a fun saying, that’s the truth. Early last year, I found out that two trusted managers in my staff were embezzling. I had to fire them, and rebuild the team, and that took 5 months of hard work.
I learned that with a supportive environment, ongoing accountability for your staff, and most importantly, the right people, there is no limits to what you can do as a business. That experience taught me what it means to create a great company culture, and serve our clients with the best customer service.
The CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, said:
“The secret to successful hiring is this: find the people that want to change the world.”
And for me, that was finding people that shared my goal, a gigantic goal, of creating the best copywriting agency on the planet, and giving our clients the best content that they’ve ever gotten.
But in the five months of rebuilding, it was the hardest thing to find the right people. One of my biggest lessons was that it’s not about the roles in your company, it’s about the environment and how your staff support each other.
So when we were rebuilding our company culture that year, and with a goal to give our clients the best customer service we possibly could, I decided to let our commissioned sales rep go. And it was scary, because she was getting us sales, but she was chasing the sale instead of the relationship with our customers.
So I replaced the commissioned sales rep with an expert to do the consulting and the selling at Express Writers. I was honored to find an industry content marketing expert to join the team. After she was working here for a week, I went to one of our clients, and I was very straight up. I asked: Could you rate the difference in experience between the commissioned sales rep and our expert? And he said that the difference was 100x better. I knew we were on the right track.
So last year, even though we went through a lot, and it took 5 months to find the right people, when we found them there’s no limit now to what we can do as a company, because we’re able to learn and progress together. Our team is large but small enough to be able to do that, which gives our clients the best service.
So we’re seeing the highest writer retention rates, we’re able to provide full time jobs for the writers we have, and we’re seeing the highest client satisfaction rates that we’ve ever had as well.
So, 3 lessons in business.
Everything changes when you find the right team. That’s #1. When you find the right people to work right next to you in the daily grind, work becomes delightful because you support each other. I’m so honored today to lead in my staff full-time a group of women that all share the same goal, to serve our clients best and to evolve and progress with the industry.
I encourage communication in my team. Even though we’re remote, we’re so close-knit. We have daily Skype threads that address the different topics we all talk about.
The second lesson in business is: in the trenches of failure, success is often born. Failure is really hard to go through, but I believe that it’s one of the greatest ways to learn the lessons that will teach you growth.
And the last lesson is, success is a progression. It’s not something you hit and plateau at, it’s a continual progression, something you work very hard at every day.
So this summer, a big goal of mine is to launch a course. I’m launching a content strategist certification course. I’m going to certify in content strategy, and I’m putting together everything I’ve learned in the last 7 years of finding the right keywords for your niche, what tools to use, how to use them to get your best content opportunities, how to find trending topics, how to put together an editorial calendar – which is what we get paid to do daily for our clients. So all of that is going into a course, and it will be out this summer. If you want to sign up to get notified, the link will be in the description of this video.
Thank you so much for watching! You can follow me at @JuliaEMcCoy on Facebook and Twitter, and @ExpWriters on Twitter.
Conclusion
What did you think?
Go easy on me in the comments. 😉
I’d love to hear your feedback – I’m an introvert, so, video isn’t easy for me. You just might inspire me to do it more!
And don’t forget…
Update: September of 2017, my course officially launched! Learn about my certification course here: contentstrategycourse.com <—- I’m so excited about this!
What if I told you that one of the biggest marketing geniuses in the world was small, green, and featured copious amounts of ear hair?
Yoda, the beloved sage of the Star Wars series, is more than a source of infinite wisdom.
I’ll admit I’m a total fangirl of this amazing (*cough* best *cough*) character in the undying classic that is Star Wars, but today I’m here to share that Yoda is also one of the most profound examples of marketing genius anywhere in the world of film, content, or television and an inspiration for any content marketer.
How, you might ask, did Yoda achieve this iron-clad status as one of the most recognizable figures in the world? The answer is simple: through a series of intelligent, calculated marketing moves that can be applied to content marketing just as well as they can television and film. And I’m here on the blog ready to break it down today. Nerds, read on!
[bctt tweet=”What if I told you that one of the biggest marketing geniuses in the world was small, green, and featured copious amounts of ear hair? Learn how #Yoda has inspired great #marketing ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Inspirations from The Greatest Story Character: The History of Yoda
Known for his funky style of speaking and quiet yet wise presence, Yoda is one of the most beloved global figures in all of film. In fact, if you said the word “Yoda” to any person anywhere in the world, it’s likely that the person would at least be able to conjure an image of a small, wise green man wearing long robes.
This is no accident. Yoda is iconic because he’s been designed to be iconic. Throughout the last 40 or so years of his existence, the people behind Lucasfilm and Disney (the new owner of Lucasfilm) have groomed the little green guy to be unforgettable, viral, relatable, approachable, and highly quotable, all of which have led to his widespread popularity.
To understand why the character of Yoda is so genius, you first need to know exactly what’s gone into making Yoda who he is. Here’s a brief history of Yoda’s existence and appearance in the Star Wars movies: A ripe 900 years old, Yoda is a member of a mysterious species that nobody fully understands. Yoda serves as a Grand Master of the Jedi Order and has dedicated his life to teaching young Jedi the way of The Force.
Before the epic Battle of Endor takes place in the series, Yoda joined the Jedi Order and mastered lightsaber battle. After dedicating most of his first 100 years to studying with masters of the Order, Yoda became a master himself and began to pass on what he had learned to younger Jedi.
For the next 800 years, Yoda dedicated himself to training more than 20,000 Jedi to fight for good and live their lives on the Light Side. While it may not seem like there’s much marketing wisdom to be gained from a far-out story of a small green warrior, every piece of Yoda’s construction was deliberate, and it’s been one of the biggest things that has allowed Disney and Lucasfilm to enjoy shockingly high ROIs year after year.
A Timeline of Yoda’s Original Appearances
In constructing an 800-year storyline for our wee green friend, the Star Wars franchise secured dozens of appearance possibilities for all of their characters, Yoda especially. Yoda’s major appearances include the following (scroll past infographic for timeline + film clips):
Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back: The Death Star has been destroyed, and Luke travels to Dagobah to train with the infamous Yoda, a renowned Jedi master. This is the first time audiences are introduced to Yoda and the episode in which his quirky yet wise personality is laid out.
Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi: The Empire is planning to use a Death Star to destroy the rebellion and Luke finally confronts his long-lost father, Darth Vader. Yoda dies, but not before proclaiming that Luke must face Darth Vader to become a fully recognized Jedi.
It is perhaps one of the saddest scenes in cinematic history:
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace: In this prequel, Yoda returns as a younger Jedi master. Set approximately 35 years before The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda foresees incredible danger in Anakin’s training as he leads the Council.
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones: Broadcast in 2002, Yoda appears for the first time as a CGI character. In this episode, Yoda is the Master of the High Council and arrives just in time to save Anakin and Obi-Wan and defeat a former apprentice gone bad – Count Dooku – with his powerful (and astonishingly, almost hilariously, quick) lightsaber moves.
Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith: In 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, Yoda pioneers the Jedi Council as they pursue the Sith Lord and helps guide Anakin when he has realistic visions that someone he loves will lose their life.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In 2003, Cartoon Network released an animated television series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars in which Yoda gets to work saving Jedi knights and protecting Coruscant from the Separatists.
Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles: A seven-part series that debuted in 2013, The Yoda Chroniclesstars Yoda and follows the beloved Jedi through a series of adventures with his trusty Padawans.
Yoda’s Subsequent Appearances in Film, Books, and Clothing
One of the greatest things Disney has done with the blockbuster Star Wars series is to release specific character films, several of which are predicted to star Yoda.
While Yoda didn’t appear in the most recent The Force Awakens, the number of times he has appeared in household and lifestyle products throughout the last several years is downright impressive.
It is amazing how accessible Yoda has become and how this character has been integrated into our daily lives. For example, you can:
And even dress up your Halloween pumpkin with a Yoda-themed pumpkin push-in kit.
The possibilities are truly endless. If you’d prefer to purchase a Yoda-themed toy that will teach you to use The Force from the comfort of your own home, you can buy a Yoda figurine from one of Disney’s many toy lines – a line for every film appearance Yoda has ever had.
The Genius of Star Wars Marketing
Despite the fact that the Star Wars Franchise was launched nearly 40 years ago, Disney purchased it for $4 billionback in 2012.
That’s a lot of dough.
The buyout ranked as the fourth largest in Disney history and, while many critics shook their heads at the thought of paying such an astounding price for an aging franchise, it’s clear that this move was one of marketing genius.
In a satisfying outcome that’s proved naysayers wrong, however, Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm has been one of the most lucrative business deals in history.
Here’s why: immediately after the purchase of Lucasfilm, Disney began branching out from movie tickets, into things like action figures, and even special-run branded coffee creamers. Today, major makeup brand CoverGirl has even drawn upon the strong female leads in Star Wars and launched aStar Wars collection cosmetic line that allows makeup aficionados to choose sultry looks for the Dark Side or airy applications for The Light Side.
While the Star Wars franchise has exploded in recent years, it didn’t take long after the merger for the cash to begin rolling in. In fact, just four days after Disney purchased the franchise, their shares were rising again and, since then, Disney stock has doubled in value.
One of the largest drivers of Disney’s insane success with Star Wars has been the introduction of upwards of 100 new Star Wars toys.
Since The Force Awakens debuted at the end of 2015, Disney’s Star Wars-themed toy sales (many of which were Yoda figurines and toys) raked in $2 billion, with Disney itself claiming a drool-worthy royalty rate of 15%. In addition to the success of its toy lines, Disney has also killed it with marketing tie-ins across a huge selection of industries. Brands like Pottery Barn, Adidas, and even Lucky Charms have unleashed Star Wars-themed products.
This example of dominating corporate synergy is a real spectacle, and it wouldn’t be possible without the popularity of Star Wars and its lovable cast of characters, including our favorite green sage, Yoda.
What Makes Yoda’s Character So Effective? 4 Key Reasons
Needless to say, none of this fame and fortune happened by accident.
Star Wars has always been very intentional about their marketing, and the creation of Yoda has been no exception.
[bctt tweet=”4 factors that make #Yoda so memorable: 1. An ideal, well-developed character 2. Accessibility 3. Humor 4. Likable, relatable #HappyStarWarsDay #Maythe4thBeWithYou ” username=”ExpWriters”]
1. An ideal, well-developed character
For a movie character to live long beyond its original appearance in the film, it needs to be great enough to dominate anywhere— even other forms of content in the future. Part of what makes Yoda’s character so durable is the fact that it is endlessly unique.
From his wonderfully odd syntax to his what-the-heck-is-that appearance, there’s nothing else quite like Yoda in the universe of film, and this is one of the reasons he’s remained such a favorite character. When you think of it this way, there’s no question that Star Wars nailed it when they created Yoda: in addition to being the ideal character for the franchise’s earlier films, Yoda has also adapted seamlessly into more modern content. Since his original inception, Yoda has expanded into virtually every type of content available, including, of course, social media –
Yoda has his own Twitter account @notrealyoda, with over 129,000 followers – to products like shoes, clothing, and even food.
And wherever he is, we know Yoda by his outstanding characteristics: he’s never once lost his voice style (or shall we say, style of voice was never lost, once). Nor his wisdom, nor his greenness, nor his Buddha-like tranquility in expression. This is such a unique, well-developed, outstanding character, you simply can’t forget it once you’ve been in touch. Change your life, he will.
2. Accessibility
For anything to be long-lasting in the world of marketing, it needs to be accessible to customers. The reason that Yoda stands out as one of the best-loved characters in all of Star Wars is that he is endlessly accessible. Viewers can quote Yoda’s many lines and have used his likeness to create everything from fan videos to Yoda-themed cutting boards and baby hats.
This accessibility is an essential component of all long-lasting content, and it’s worked especially well to turn Yoda into the recognizable brand he is today.
3. Humor
In addition to being accessible and owned almost entirely by viewers, Yoda is a character that lends himself easily to hilarity. This is evidenced by the thousands of Yoda-themed memes that currently exist online.
Over the last several years, Yoda has been used to demonstrate everything from a snarky sentence structure patrol boy to an example of what it takes to become a “digital marketing Jedi.”
4. Likable and relatable
There’s a reason that Yoda claims a title as the 25th greatest movie character of all time, according to Empire magazine. Yoda is endlessly relatable, and it’s this trait that Star Wars viewers love so much about him. In movies as in content marketing, you can’t reinvent the wheel, and sometimes it’s wise to stick with the old standbys of relatable, exciting, lovable characters. Disney has done this by making Yoda a character that appeals to virtually all viewers.
Yoda: The Content Marketing Hero You Never Expected
While Star Wars aced it with many of their characters, none are as definitive and memorable as Yoda. Known for his funny syntax, infinite wisdom, and sick lightsaber moves, Yoda has won a spot in the hearts of Star Wars fans everywhere, and there’s no sign of this stopping anytime soon.
Thanks to Disney’s ongoing marketing genius, Yoda’s marketing prowess continues and the little green buddy keeps bringing in money, presence, and a loyal fandom for the company.
Yoda’s success wasn’t an accident, however. Lucasfilm and Disney built the character by employing a series of tried-and-true tactics that work in both film and content marketing. By creating a relatable, accessible, unique, and flexible structure, these iconic companies created a timeless movie character that has a few valuable things to teach us about good marketing. May the force be with you!
Express Writers Celebrates Star Wars Day (In Pictures)
You can bet your socks that everyone in our remote office is a Star Wars fan. 😉 So, we’re contributing some office pictures of our Star Wars gear!
Here’s my shelf in the office where quite a few Star Wars characters have a home:
Here’s a group of us with Star Wars gear on for Star Wars day! 😉
Are you a Star Wars fan? Let us know in the comments! 😉
Modern copywriting: while it may be similar to the copywriting of years past, it’s a different animal entirely.
Today, copywriters must be Jacks and Jills of all trades – switching effortlessly between marketing prowess, fine-tuned technical know-how, poetic turns of phrase, and hard-driving SEO experience meant to produce results.
If this sounds like a tall order, it’s because it is!
Modern copywriting is hard, and few people understand what it takes to excel in the field.
Read on to learn more about the seven key pillars of modern copywriting, and how they set the art this craft apart from anything that’s ever existed before.
How Do You Define Modern Copywriting?
That’s a great question, and it’s also a complex one. In many ways, modern copywriting is anything that’s being created right now. That’s not the extent of it, though. While modern copywriting is certainly content that’s being produced in the current era, it’s also a different type of content entirely.
Today’s copywriting is dedicated to so much more than just making sales. Instead, it’s about building relationships, defining brands, telling stories, creating laughs, playing on reader emotions, and learning how best to present a product, good, or service to interested consumers.
Thanks to all of these things, today’s copywriting is a drastically different pursuit than anything that’s existed in recent years, and it’s adapting every single day to become more functional and targeted for rising and developing brands.
The 7 Essential Pillars of Modern Copywriting
Just like any other industry out there, modern copywriting has a rulebook, and the people who excel in the industry know how to play by it. With that in mind, here are the seven foundational “laws” of modern copywriting, and how they all influence the industry for the better.
1. A focus on the customer
In the days of old, copywriting focused on the customer, but for all the wrong reasons. The copywriting of the past was all about making sales and convincing readers that they needed a product, good, or service, regardless of whether they did or not. Most of the time, this approach came off as pushy and sales-y because, hey, it was.
Today, though, copywriting takes a much different approach to relationships with customers. Instead of trying to shove something down peoples’ throats, the copywriting of today uses a complex series of emotional appeals, facts, statistics, and storylines to create a real, ongoing relationship with consumers.
Instead of thinking of customers purely from the standpoint of, “What can this person do for me?” Today’s copywriters look at customers as a unique group of individual people. To honor them as well as possible, copywriters attempt to create truly valuable content that addresses consumer issues and helps them solve problems, alleviate pain points, and build healthier, happier lives.
In this way, modern copywriting is more customer-centric than anything that came before it.
2. A dedication to quality and relevance
Before Google got as smart as it is today, and before consumers demanded quality, copywriters and marketers often settled for scrapped, spammy, and just plain bad online content. The attitude was, “As long as I’m putting something up on this web page or blog, it’s good enough!” Today, this no longer flies.
Modern copywriting is all about creating truly high-quality content that stands out. Spammy, black-hat techniques are no longer the norm and, today, it’s the best material that is the most likely to get noticed.
Contrary to the copywriting mindset of just a few years ago, when the creator who could put out the most content in the shortest period was the winner, today’s copywriters earn respect by crafting unique, original material that consumers (and search engines) love.
3. A focus on social media distribution
As I mentioned at the start of this post, today’s copywriters are evil masterminds who know how to use all of the things of the internet. Instead of being just writers, or just social media experts, the modern writer is both, and a whole lot more!
Today, copywriting that succeeds is copywriting that’s meant to be distributed on a wide selection of platforms. Because of this, the majority of modern content is designed for distribution on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
In addition to the fact that these social platforms often produce more engagement than a blog or website, they’re one of the most efficient ways for modern creators to connect with audiences in an effective and meaningful way.
4. A willingness to engage in storytelling
While storytelling has been around as a marketing strategy since the beginning, it’s become the focus on online marketing in recent years. Today, the pervasive notion is that copywriting is nothing without good storytelling and that any brand worth its snuff will understand how to craft a good tale for its audience.
From advertising to product launches, storytelling exists everywhere, and modern copywriting is credited with developing, perpetuating, and fine-tuning the practice.
5. A focus on additional types of content (video, audio, and visuals)
Modern copywriters know that, for a piece to be interesting, engaging, and compelling to increasingly discerning audiences, it needs to feature everything the audience wants and nothing it doesn’t. This is why so much content today features multi-modal assets, such as visuals, graphics, and video content.
By interspersing content with these unique formats, today’s copywriters succeed in creating an interesting and engaging body of work that truly benefits and fascinates consumers, rather than simply leaving them cold.
What’s more, adding visuals and videos into modern content is a wonderful way to ensure that a piece’s readers are getting the most out of the information offered.
6. Freedom to be as creative as possible
Anyone who has ever seen Dollar Shave Club’s launch video understands that creativity is here to stay in the world of modern content.
While the buttoned-up marketers of the 1950s would have cringed at such a bawdy, funny piece of content, today’s copywriters understand that creativity like this is one of the most effective ways to reach tough audiences.
By making a marketing message funny and unique, it’s possible to do virtually anything, and modern copywriters specialize in taking a brand’s message and making it creative. This, in turn, helps readers connect with the brand and makes it easier than ever before for brands that specialize in so-called “boring industries” (such as razor production) to stand out as marketing gurus.
7. A willingness to break the rules to make progress
Today, pushing the envelope is the only way to make true progress, and modern copywriting knows this. Today, copywriting has broken the metaphorical shackles it used to exist within to develop a creative, innovative, flexible mindset that allows it to adapt flawlessly to virtually any industry.
While this may seem like a luxury, it’s a necessity today.
The reason is simple: before the last several years, companies have never been so profoundly involved in online marketing as they are today. And this massive switch to the digital world has created a whole host of new challenges.
How does a brick-and-mortar tax compliance company, for example, create compelling content that makes people want to visit a local location? These are tough issues to solve, and modern copywriting has had to adapt and get creative to address them.
By breaking some of the long-held rules of the industry and being willing to make bold moves that push the boundaries of the industry, modern copywriting manages to extend incredible value to companies in all sectors. What’s more, it’s managed to make marketing something collaborative, engaging, and exciting, rather than icky and stale.
The Case for Modern Copywriting
While it’s obvious that the copywriting of today is different than the copywriting of yesteryear, few people understand how truly critical modern copywriting has been in overhauling the face of marketing as a whole.
While it goes without saying that today’s copywriting is more creative, unique, collaborative, and innovative than anything that’s existed in the past, it’s also true that all of those traits have given modern brands the freedom to express themselves more fully than ever before.
By creating a platform for expression, differentiation, collaboration, and branding, today’s version of copywriting has made shopping more exciting for consumers while also making the process of developing, launching, and marketing a brand much more enjoyable and inspiring for entrepreneurs.
So, how’s that for some positive changes? In a way, you could say that modern copywriting has sort of altered the world – for the better, of course!
Need modern copywriting services to help your brand shine? Contact Express Writers to hire our skilled copywriters today!
