Agent Gee is busy writing for busy people.

The Smart Noob’s Guide to Content Marketing

You’re smart and you hate superficial, simplistic ideas about content marketing.

Content is king. Build a blog and the audience will come. Publish daily, push content to social streams, do some push ups, and wait. Also, try some plug-ins and pump up life into your half-dead website. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

You see, these are all empty platitudes. In theory, they sound so simple and doable but they mean nothing in practice. So it’s good to avoid feel-good ideas that are actually bad for your content marketing education. Especially when you’re starting.

What’s Content Marketing, Really?

It’s a streamlined process of moving beneficial ideas to valuable online audiences for commercial advantage. There, simple and smart. But it ain’t easy, of course.

Now let’s pin down four crucial elements to get the most out of this definition:

streamlined process
beneficial ideas
valuable audience
commercial advantage

It’s not just a process. It’s a streamlined process, meaning a smooth, frictionless way of doing things. You follow steps or rules or principles, all of which guide your and your team in accomplishing goals. You have, for instance, an editorial calendar to publish articles on time without having to wait for someone. Your writers won’t have to struggle with meeting deadlines, they already anticipate it. A pattern was established, thanks to your streamlined process.

An effective content marketing plan thrives on good ideas, ideas that benefit the audience. You already know what these beneficial ideas are. They are relevant to your day-to-day needs. You feed on these ideas to create similar ideas, reframe a problem or spot potent solutions. Make sure your audience are getting their own share of beneficial ideas too.

Your content needs an audience. By audience, I mean a select group of people, not everyone online. Tailor your content to this specialized group and you’ll waste no marketing effort.

Content marketing is commercial. Free content and all the good stuff? Sure. Give them away. Just don’t forget that it’s all part of the sales process. You’re attracting people to your brand. You’re helping them see a need for your product. And you’re guiding them through the buyer’s journey.

That’s it for now. Dwell on the definition, remember those four elements, and watch out for my next post.

Filed Under: Clear Copy & Marketable Ideas

The Art and War of Freelancing

The most successful freelancers are artist-warriors. They are artists who take pains to make their ideas concrete. They are warriors who brave the fierce competition, face repeated rejections and dance to the tune of uncertainty.

The Artist and the Warrior.

These are two archetypes that gave birth to the Fearless Freelancer. Most freelancers are mere freelancers. Only a few freelancers are truly fearless. But who are they, exactly?

Fearless freelancers understand the age-old emotion called fear. They were once consumed with fear, silenced by it. Harsh words from editors, peers and critics stung them bitterly. They retreated into their cocoons and vowed never to step out of it again. They did, until something happened.

A baby was born. Kids are growing up fast and needing more. Bills are piling up. These situations demand the Artist’s resourcefulness and the Warrior’s resilience. Something propelled the fearful freelancer out of his or her comfy cocoon. That something is the Artist and the Warrior inherent in us.

These archetypes are characters waiting to be expressed. Tap their superpowers if you are afraid to make tough career choices. Remember, these are not models to emulate. These archetypes are YOU.

You are the Artist and the Warrior. You may not be aware of this, but it only takes a few minutes of reflection to go from fearful to fearless.

Filed Under: Freelance Work & Warriorship

Three Things Highly Productive People Don’t Have or Do

I know you. You admire people who have accomplished a lot. And you want to be like them: prolific artists who make art all day, productive entrepreneurs who make money nonstop.

More than once you wondered what secrets they’re hiding and what tools they’re using. You wondered too if you can replicate their success by adopting their setup.

What if you got it the other way around? What if they get more things done because they lack things you aspire to have?

They Don’t Have Exaggerated (and Unrealistic) Expectations

Remarkable people know their limits. They know they’re not spending their full eight hours at work. They know they can’t finish a novel in two days or build a business overnight.

To an outsider, these highly productive individuals seem to live boring lives. They code, write or sit in front of their tools all day. Instead of an “I can do everything” mentality, these people limit their attention to a few tasks. To things that matter. They really get things done, and not just mark a hundred items as done in their to-do list.

They Don’t Have the Urge to Use Everything

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like nails.

Most of us are guilty of picking up the hammer all the time and looking at things as nails. We love the luster of newer tools and toys even if we don’t have a need for them.

What if a pen, a paper, a pair of hands and an attentive brain are all you need? Will you stop searching for the “best” distraction-free software?

They Don’t Take on More Than What They Can Handle

“What you don’t do is as important as what you do.” Whoever said this is genius. Our amateur selves are prone to starting everything but reluctant to finishing what we have started. Insanely productive people are finishers who ruthlessly focus on a few key projects.

Don’ts, not do’s. Substracting stuff, not adding things. You get the gist, right? Now go back to work.

Filed Under: uncategorized