Deeper Understanding Leads to Higher Profit

I admit it.

I love content marketing, and that small peek behind the scenes of how content marketing works posted on Ghostwriter Dad might’ve been my favorite thing we published last week.

In many ways, the post was like writing a detailed explanation to myself.

With our many projects in production, new enterprises constantly added, and the content marketing we have running on autopilot, there is a definite beauty to how everything is woven together.

Yet keeping it sorted in my mind is not the same as sharing it with you.

Sharing it with you helps me to understand it more.

Deeper understanding leads to higher profit.

Higher profit leads to better teaching.

Better teaching leads to better content marketing.

For you.

Win, win.

Getting Started

Writer Dad has had steady attention paid to layout and design, first with an overhaul at the beginning of the year, then with steady tweaking since. David does terrific design work with natural instinct, but we’re always taking note of what works and what doesn’t.

What works for us with our content marketing will work for our clients with theirs.

Win, win.

Dave added a button linking to my Facebook profile (which I will add to the Ghostwriter Dad sidebar shortly) as well as a link to my author’s page at Copyblogger.

With over a dozen posts either archived or ready to publish, I thought it would be nice to highlight the copy as part of my online portfolio, available at a click.

We started our week of content marketing at Writer Dad by introducing the new feature, “Life’s Better With the Right Words.”

The site’s tagline is also a core belief.

Though the series discusses the role language has played in my life, its true purpose is to provide my home site with content that bonds, while also allowing me to write and publish the opening section to my someday book, Verbal Currency.

This is intelligent repurposing, the goal being being to produce quality content that is exceptional enough to use more than once. This is evidenced in Tuesday’s followup, “I Am a Writer,” which used the skeleton of the Copyblogger post, “Are You a Writer,” written way back in September of ‘08.

I ended the week an open letter to my mom, then posted her response the following day.

Again, the purpose was bonding. My mom’s presence on the site humanizes the content. This takes WD’s biggest strength and helps to make it stronger.

Viral Potential

At David’s home site, he announced the launch of Things My Child with a discussion about the site design itself.

Things My Child Says ran three posts throughout the week, “Burning Down the House,” “Learning Your Colors,” and “Boobies and Other Quotes.”

Things My Child Says is off to a steady start, but we’re still toying with our content marketing strategy. We want to draw the most audience participation while also minimizing the work required on the backend.

This type of project, like the Creative Copy Challenge can have a sudden viral effect, and though there is no direct monetization on the site, its success could afford us with a low maintenance, high profile payout in the end.

This tactic is working with the Creative Copy Challenge, which had another stellar week. Challenge #9 generated almost 100 comments, while Challenge #10 pulled in the highest number yet, currently 116.

On to the Inkwell

Collective Inkwell had a phenomenal week, the best since the site’s initial launch nine months ago.

Though our direct marketing for the Inkwell wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been, the content was stellar. On Monday we wrote about six people to trust in the world of publishing. Then on Wednesday we asked, “Is Your Website Keeping You From Getting Published?”

Both posts were sharply focused on our target audience.

Both posts generated traffic and subscribers.

Win, win.

We closed out the week with our final posting of Available Darkness at the Inkwell. Though we’ve loved serializing the story at our first mutual online home, our Friday slot will be better served with content focused specifically on our readers.

This coming Friday we plan to unveil the book’s domain to our Inkwell audience and move the readership there.

This will be our second live book site, as Dave is also working on finishing up the site design for Penny to a Million, my first chapter book, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2010.

Building For the Future

The biggest accomplishment this week took place behind closed doors.

Cindy published a wonderfully thoughtful happy birthday to me, but her real fire was lit while preparing content for Children Write the Future, which now has a firm release date set for March 15, 2010.

Children Write the Future will be our flagship product and we couldn’t be more excited. Not only will we have a ton of content locked, loaded, and ready to fire on launch day, we also have a sound content marketing strategy in place.

March 15 cannot come soon enough! :)

This week we’ll be locking the site down while it’s under construction, and sending an email to our subscribers letting them know what’s happening behind the scenes, what they can expect.

All subscribers will have early access before the site is relaunched to the public.

I wrote new copy for the homepage inviting any new subscribers the same early access. Ideally, we would like to gather another hundred or so readers into the early fold.

Our Current Flagship Product

Our current flagship product, Potty Training Power, had a stellar week. We hit our initial goals for the relaunch and expect an even better second week. In addition to the slight redesign, we went in and scrubbed the copy and replaced all the stock photos with Dave’s art.

We felt it was important to unify the branding.

We posted to the blog just once with a potty training poem.

Our First Portfolio Site

Lastly, I was finally able to give SeanMPlatt some overdue attention.

Though I’m not too hip on the idea of a vanity site, it does makes sense seeing as how much our projects are spread all over the place.

If there are people I’ve known for over a year who don’t have a clear idea what I do, that is obviously my fault.

Though we can’t show off any of our ghostwriting jobs, Sean M. Platt dotcom will be a three page portfolio site to display all our major content marketing projects.

One page displaying all active projects, a services page, and a simple landing page I can use it in my email signature, on Twitter and in forums. This is more strategic than anything I’ve yet done.

That’s it for the week, thanks for reading!

I enjoyed the responses from last week, both in email and Twitter, but please don’t be shy. If you’d rather comment, I’d love to hear. I’m eager to know if this weekly behind the scenes of content marketing is something your’e interested in reading.

Thanks!

See you next Monday.