Content Warfare: The Content Marketing Book I Wish I Wrote

This is the content marketing book that I want to write.

This isn’t normally a place for book reviews and I’ve never written a book review before in my life (outside of a quick Amazon review or something). But this book has actually energized me to the point of words coming out of my fingertips onto the keyboard and feeling the need to spread the word that this book is a must-read for marketing professionals (or those responsible for marketing at their company).

Though in Ryan Hanley’s voice, tone, and vernacular, supported by his experiences and stories (which are extremely similar to my own), it is the content marketing book that I have in my head.

Content Warfare: How to find your audience, tell your story and win the battle for attention online

“Life changes when we make ourselves available to creativity.”

Content Warfare starts off with a rather poetic introduction, which honestly caught me as a pleasant surprise, then builds a foundation of necessary understanding, followed by more in-depth information on leveraging content marketing to grow your audience and your business.

The book shifts through gears at the perfect RPM, just like his spot-on analogy for scaling your content marketing efforts.

If you are a business owner or marketer who wants to learn more about shifting to content marketing for your business or even someone who has been involved in (online) content marketing you’ll find tremendous value in this as a read-through and to keep on the shelf for referencing.

For those not yet involved in digital content marketing efforts, this will serve as an excellent introduction and foundation of information as well as provide guidance on how to start and what to do.

More veteran “Content Warriors” will find themselves re-focused, re-energized, and armed with more ammo to get buy-in when necessary.

It took me a week (about 4 real “sittings”) to get through this, and the reason I had such a hard time was because I had to keep stopping to take notes or was actually so inspired that I had to get up and take action on something.

A Few Key Takeaways From The Book

There are far too many gems to really give justice here, but here are a few key takeaways on content marketing and life in general that can give you a glimpse into what to expect from Content Warfare:

The Connected Generation Is Not About What Year You Were Born

Today, there is the connected generation or the unconnected generation, regardless of what year a person was born. The connected generation is open to communicating and building relationships and make buying decisions based on digital content and interactions. The unconnected generation is not.

Know Your Audience: What information do they want? Talk About It In their Language.

“Valuable content educates, entertains, inspires (preferably all three), and does so in the language of the consumer.”

Creating content that actually makes sense to the people you are writing for is a necessity in them actually receiving value from what you are offering. It also helps you when showing up in Google search results because customers don’t know to search for worn out calipers, but they know their wheel squeaks when they make a sharp right turn.

Just Start

The Pick Crew’s take on Derek Sivers’ multiply philosophy. (Not from the book, just relevant to it.)

“You get as many opportunities as you make for yourself.”

Yes, you want to be wise with your efforts, but putting off execution until you can be perfect means you’ll never do it.

Start. Fail. Learn. Adjust.

You’ll get far greater impact with that sequence then not doing anything.

Create Quality

“Frequency of publishing is not a variable in the equation of content value.”

My philosophy has always been that high quality content is the cost of entry, and that frequency is the force multiplier. People often get confused for some reason when asking “should I post a lot or should I post quality” when the two options here are not mutually exclusive. You should first be creating something that your audience wants and will love, then the more frequently you can do that, the more impact you will see.

You can’t publish a bunch of garbage every day and think you’ll see results, particularly if you’re comparing it to publishing something awesome but less frequently.

Set Goals

“The goal dictates mechanics.”

They say a goal without a plan is just a wish. Creating that plan to turn your wish into a goal means knowing where you want to be. Once you have a defined goal, you can create a road map for getting there. Trying to execute tactics without a goal will just have you wasting time and effort.

Your goal dictates your tactics, don’t let the urge to try different tactics dictate your goal.

Have You Read Content Warfare Yet?

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Content Warfare: The Content Marketing Book I Wish I Wrote