I've created content that has:

Generated thousands of backlinks.
Generated hundreds of shares.
Generated millions in sales.

How? Prioritizing research...

Here are 9 ways marketers can use research to increase the likelihood of content success:
Customer Research

One of my fav ways to figure out who an audience is for a SaaS product is to run an analysis of the reviews that a company (and its competitors) are getting.

Scrape all the job titles for the reviewers and do an analysis of most common job titles.
Audience Research

In a remote world, the location of your audience isn't always the most important anymore BUT tools like @AudienseCo offer a great insight into this.

It's also valuable for learning how your audience self describes themselves. Here's my audience:
Social Share Research

Want to create content that gets shared? Study the content that has already gotten them. Use @BuzzSumo to better understand what links get love on FB, Twitter, Pinterest or even Reddit.

Look for trends on the 'type' of content that resonates.
Media Behaviour Research

What podcasts, newsletters, blogs, YouTube channels and other media channels does your audience follow on a regular basis? Tools like @sparktoro help with this...

This is powerful cause you can use it to find the stories that have content-market fit.
Backlink Research

What type of content in your industry generates the most links? In Martech, we found that free tools get the most links followed by definitions (ie. what is SEO) followed by stats posts.

Export industry content by links, track by content type and analyze it.
Top Content Research

Go to Reddit and sort the content in a niche Subreddit by the top posts. Go to Product Hunt and type in a keyword relevant to your industry.

See what content has generated the most engagement to see trends around the type of content people want.
Community Research

Want to tap into a community? Do a search for the sites that get shared within them the most. You can do a quick search in Hackernews for @TheHustle and see a ton of their greatest hits in this community.
More Community Research

Go inside of the Slack channels, Facebook groups, Discords and spaces where your audience is spending time. Look for threads that get tons of engagement.

These are insights around what your audience cares about and wants more information on.
Virality Research

Go to the search bar on Twitter and type:

[KEYWORD or Phrase] min_retweets:50 min_faves:50

This will give you only the posts on that topic with a minimum of 50 retweets and 50 likes. Use this to get insight into what type of content people resonate with
That's enough research ideas for now...

The team at @FoundationIncCo might not like that I'm giving away all our strategies for free... But it's real.

These research techniques and tools can unlock some amazing insights & returns.
If you made it this far... You're my kinda people.

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For more tweets about B2B marketing, SaaS & how you can unlock success in marketing.

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More from @TheCoolestCool

23 Dec 21
Great storytelling is a gift to your audience.

You can give them this gift by studying the principles that have helped stories shape culture. I've used these ideas to craft stories that have reached millions.

Here's 7 ways to improve your storytelling:
The Gift Of Curiosity

Our curiosity gap is the most powerful practices online for creating stories worth reading. It's the gap between what we know and what we want to know.

Don't reveal everything in the headline or require 'prior reading' to see if a story is worth reading.
The Gift Of Simplicity

Bruce Lee once said: Simplicity is the key to brilliance.

Don't overcomplicate your story. Don't try to sound smart just for the sake of sounding smart. Speak plain english and communicate clearly. Remember:

It's better to use 5 words than 10.
Read 11 tweets
16 Nov 21
Winter is coming.

November and December are known in B2B as months where leads slow down and deals take forever.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here’s 11 ways to secure the bag and make the rest of the year count.

[THREAD] 💰 🧵
USE ADVANCED TWITTER SEARCH

Every single day someone puts up a post that they’re hiring or buying.

Hiring agencies, designers, cleaners, real estate agents and more. Buying SaaS, gifts, plants and more.

Find your buyers using search and engage with them.
FOLLOW UP WITH THE OPPORTUNITY THAT WENT COLD

Remember back in September when you almost closed that deal but they didn’t bite? Follow up.

Remember that prospect that ghosted? Follow up.

Send an email asking how things are going and see if it makes sense to re-engage.
Read 15 tweets
2 Nov 21
Let’s be honest.

Content & SEO are the most underrated & disrespected part of the marketing mix. We’ve got…

CMOs getting laid off each week. ai companies claiming to replace content writers. And traditional media budgets still getting more love than SEO.

Here's why👇
We spend too much time talking about things that CEOs don’t care about:

DA35 Links. Do Follow Links. Trust Flow. Open Rates. Time Spent On Site. Engagement. Alexa Rank.

When we should be talking about:

SQLs. MQLs. Assisted Revenue. Leads. Sales. Pipeline Growth. Etc..
We don’t embrace the idea that content can contribute to a long term competitive advantage.

The power of an SEO moat is real.

If you can own the SERP across multiple keywords in your domain; you will be able to print money for years to come.
Read 12 tweets
5 Oct 21
If you’re a SaaS marketer, you need to study Airtable.

The SEO & growth strategies they used become a $5B startup and reach 1M users are so impressive.

Here's a few things you can learn from them 🧵
Every month, an estimated 10-15M visits hit their Airtable's website from various sources.

Organically (SEO) more than 245k people reach the site through search. That’s a lot of people.

One of the major attraction spots on Airtable’s website is the templates landing page:
Here's some key metrics:

The templates rank for 16.4K organic keywords
Attracts over 9500 visitors each month
The organic traffic value is $42,000

Meaning... You would have to pay Google $504,000 to capture that much traffic through PPC a year.

This is why SEO is important.
Read 12 tweets
24 Sep 21
Spoiler: Remote work doesn't mean working from home.

Remote work means: having the flexibility to work from a co-working space, a local cafe, that restaurant up the street, next to the beach, a cottage in the woods or your parents backyard before a BBQ.
Remote work means having the ability to take a midday shower after a run, a spontaneous catch up with a friend, a tea party with your kids and a moment to just relax and chill after a big deliverable.
Remote work means skipping that long commute in the morning, avoiding road construction, reducing your carbon footprint, reducing your budget for gas & not being forced to sit at a desk for multiple hours a day.
Read 7 tweets
10 Sep 21
I've had social posts reach 100,000+. I've had blog posts reach millions. I've created strategies that have made millions. All because:

I've studied Content Marketing for YEARS 🧠

Grab a coffee and enjoy 👉 Here are 23 resources and techniques for fast tracking your skills 🧵
Use Wayback Time Machine to See The Golden Era Of Marketing Forums 🧠

You can learn a TON by browsing through old marketing AMAs in forums like GrowthHackers. You can literally find old AMA's between the community and the CEO of Zoom discussing their growth plans. So valuable.
Study & Research The YouTube Archives 📺

Go to Google and type in "Interview [Brilliant Mind]" and listen to a bunch of their interviews. For example, you can go to YouTube and find a TON of @aprildunford interviews that will arm you with a ton of value.
Read 17 tweets

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