Practical Content Strategy & Marketing: The Content Strategy & Marketing Course Guidebook

by Julia McCoy, Mark Schaefer (Foreword)

a real-life, practical industry guide on content strategy and marketing. (Second edition launched July 2021) Practical Content Strategy & Marketing is your go-to guide on a practical content strategy and marketing education, created by author Julia McCoy as a written accompaniment to her new course, the Content Strategy & Marketing Course (contentstrategycourse.com). If you run a business, or if you’re trying to break into a top-dollar content marketing career, you need to know the practical concepts involved in content strategy and marketing. The “how,” the “why,” the “where” of content. Content marketing itself involves so many platforms, formats, content types, strategies, tools—and to get the most ROI from your approach to content marketing and strategy, you have to know how to do the most important content marketing practices. Forget FOMO and trying to figure out too many things. This guide will teach you the most important foundations and skills you actually need in order to get far in our booming industry of content marketing. For the first time in the industry, Practical Content Strategy & Marketing lays the “hows” of content marketing and strategy out, in a step-by-step approach, book form. Each section has written exercises built to solidify what you’re reading and learning—you’ll be able to fill these out with a pen. Don’t be afraid to mark up this book! Why is this book different? You’re not going to find corporate, birds-eye, mumbo-jumbo fluff in this content marketing guide. Quite the opposite. The author, Julia McCoy, won her way to the top (awarded as the top 33rd content marketer in 2016) the hard-knocks way. She dropped out of college and built a content agency, Express Writers, on nothing but $75 and the tenacity to go and follow her dream and see it through. Five years later, Julia’s business has served over 5,000 clients and employs over 40 team members, and her content consistently ranks at the top of Google and among the highest-shared for guest publications. Her go-to marketing strategy? A practical, hands-on content marketing approach that has ended up bringing her 99% of the clients her agency currently works with. With Julia as your guide, learn the principles and physical “how-to” behind these six key cores of effective content Along the way, you’ll get to build a working content strategy from the ground up, using the Brand Strategy Exercises in each module. Have your pen and thinking cap ready—and a brand you want to build an entire working strategy for! Practical Content Strategy & Marketing is a field guide for the smartest content marketers who know that strategy is the key to thriving in our world of new marketing through content. leading business marketing expert Mark Schaefer joins Julia to write the foreword, and guests Sujan Patel, Michele Linn, Steve Rayson and more appear in guest lessons throughout the book.

Genres: Business

390 pages, Paperback

Published November 29, 2017

About the author

JULIA MCCOY is an author, entrepreneur, mom, and wife. She dropped out of college at nineteen years old and escaped her father's cult at twenty-one to pursue her dreams to write for a living and find healing and life fulfillment. Her content agency, Express Writers, grew from nothing to over $4.3M in revenue in just seven years, and she was named an industry thought leader in content marketing by Forbes in 2018. Today, she's the author of two bestselling books, founder of The Content Hacker, and lives in Austin, Texas, with her daughter, husband, and fur baby.

Reviews

[Hamid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like her previous book, it is good

[Jessi Bone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical Content and Strategy & Marketing is the field for the smartest content marketers who know that strategy is the key to thriving in our world of new marketing through content. You learn the principles and physics behind these six key cores of effective content marketing core functions, audience persona discovery, understanding keywords, how to build content cores, practical content creation, and content promotion. If you run a business or if you are trying to break into a top dollar content marketing career, you need to know the practical concepts involved in content marketing. Content marketing itself involves so many platforms, formats, content types, strategies, tools and to get the most ROI from your approach to content marketing practices. This guides will teach you the most important foundations and skills you need in order to get far in our booming industry of content marketing. Julia McCoy guide allows for a straightforward approach to a complex field of marketing it is far more than sharing information and her straightforward approach allows a simple understanding of a complex problem. It is far better to approach this with no understanding that to believe you have it all figured out. Being a business owner, this allowed me to see how marketing is far more than advertising which has been the understanding for years. In order to market your business, you need to understand that the content of the business is far more than the simple business type but also the type and business you own and the type of service or product you are offering. That the consumer understanding exactly what that is paramount to marketing in any business.

[Mrs. Varela · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an expert in the field of content marketing, Julia McCoy shares her knowledge in an educational handbook. In her introduction, she suggests that "content marketing, without content strategy, is nothing." In other words, a plan of action is a necessity to reach your audience in this competitive field. Particularly with online marketing you want your content to stand out above all others. Here the author introduces practical concepts and steps to make that happen.

The first section of the book lays out relatively easy step-by-step lessons as well as graphs and data to back up the reasoning behind your strategy. Included are several guest experts who share their knowledge in content promotion, blogging, rank tracking, etc. The author also uses her own writing business to model her practical marketing strategies.

The next section contains six modules beginning with the core foundation of what should add leverage to your content strategy. McCoy also offers an interactive Content Strategy Certification Course that uses this book as its companion. Throughout the book she stresses the importance of consistency in all aspects of maintaining your content from conception to gaining a return on your investment. Content strategy and marketing is an ongoing component to creating and maintaining an outstanding presence on the internet. This guidebook is great for bloggers, copywriters, freelance writers and all others interested in the field of online marketing who wish to excel at reaching their audience.

[Robin Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't Waste Your Time

Same old, same old from this author. The information isn't current and easier obtained from a simple internet search and common sense. The writing style is plain awful, and at times, doesn't make much sense... The book doesn't flow well. Much better authors out there who stay current and can teach you a thing or two about today's content marketing.

[Roberta Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is not bad. But is more marketing than content strategy.