In this video interview, I chat with Joe Pulizzi about his latest book, Content Inc, his 6-step business-startup process and the future of content in general.
Joe Pulizzi is the founder of Content Marketing Institute, the leading education and training organization for content marketing, which includes the largest in-person content marketing event in the world, Content Marketing World. Joe’s fourth book Content Inc. was just released. His third book, Epic Content Marketing was named one of “Five Must Read Business Books of 2013” by Fortune Magazine. If you ever see Joe in person, he’ll be wearing orange.
Watch the interview with Joe Pulizzi now:
During his extensive research Joe stumbled upon the ‘Content Inc. Mode’, a 6-step concept to create a successful ‘content-first- business.
The 6 Step Content Inc Model
- The “Sweet Spot”: Identify the intersection of your unique competency and your personal passion
- Content Tilting: Determine how you can “tilt” your sweet spot to find a place where little or no competition exists
- Building the Base: Establish your number-one channel for disseminating content (blog, podcast, YouTube, etc.)
- Harvesting Audience: Use social-media and SEO to convert one-time visitors into long-term subscribers
- Diversification: Grow your business by expanding into multiple delivery channels
- Monetization: Now that your expertise is established, you can begin charging money for your products or services
How do entrepreneurs know when it’s the right time to ask for money?
‘With all this free content out there, won’t people walk away once you want to start charging?’ I asked Joe. “Entrepreneurs & Start-ups need to think about monetization from the beginning, but the audience will help them define which products or services they should focus on. Too many start-ups fail because they begin with the product, and then struggle to find an audience for it.
Isn’t there too much content already?
Joe says there has always been too much content. A great content marketer knows that he has to focus on one specific audience, one content niche that’s small enough so that he can position himself as the expert in that field and then deliver consistent, relevant content that his readers will want to read & subscribe to.
I’ve found my sweet spot. How can I figure out my tilt?
The sweet spot is about the business, where the tilt is all about the audience, it’s about their needs. Joe recommends using Google Trends to figure out your content tilt.
Content Inc. is THE launch model for start-ups
So many tech start-ups fail because they start with the product, instead of starting with the audience. Unfortunately they often come from tech or engineering backgrounds and create great products, but don’t have the marketing knowledge. Joe highly recommends his model to all start-ups because it focuses on the audience’s need, instead of trying to find an audience for an already created product.
Read the book!
I highly recommend it. Mine has lots of notes and highlighted parts in it! It’s one to read several times 😉 Get it on Amazon