Content Marketing

Workbook
A Beginner’s Guide to Applying
Content Marketing to Your Business

Third Edition
 Table of Contents

The Purpose of This Workbook and How to Use It ....................................................................3

Case Study: Townsend Security ....................................................................................................5

Section 1: The Power of Storytelling ............................................................................................7

Section 2: Building a Content Creation Framework ..................................................................8

Section 3: Planning a Long-Term Content Strategy ...................................................................9

Section 4: Generating Content Ideas ..........................................................................................12

Section 5: Creating Quality Blog Content Your Audience Loves to Read and Share............14

Section 6: How HubSpot Uses Blogging to Rank #1 on Google .............................................16

Section 7: Extending the Value of Your Content Through Repurposing ................................18

Section 8: Creating Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages ..................................................................21

Section 9: How to Create a Successful Video Marketing Strategy ..........................................23

Section 10: Building a Guest Blogging Strategy Powered by SEO .........................................25

Section 11: How to Effectively Promote Content .......................................................................27

Section 12: Measuring and Analyzing Your Content .................................................................29

Your Completed Workbook ..........................................................................................................31

Content Marketing Workbook 2

 The Purpose of This Workbook and
How to Use It

Welcome! You’re here because you want to grow your business and career by becoming a content
marketing expert.

To start, what is content marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing and business process focused on creating and
distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined
audience and ultimately drive profitable customer action.

When done correctly, this helps create a relationship with your audience, which leads to trust. And
when your audience members trust you, they’re more willing to do business with you when they’re
ready to make a purchasing decision.

To communicate with your audience, you need to produce content. Content has the very important
job of pulling people from one stage of the inbound methodology to another.

Your content should attract the right people to your site, engage those people into leads, and
nurture and help close them into customers. But it doesn’t stop there. Your content should also
delight your customers and turn them into promoters of your brand.

In a nutshell, content marketing is the art of communicating with your prospects and customers
without having to sell to them. As opposed to advertising your products and services, you’re
creating helpful, engaging content that your prospects and customers can enjoy and learn from.

Content Marketing Workbook 3

The following activities and resources will help you create and grow a repeatable content
process for your business. Each section connects to a lesson featured in the Content Marketing
Certification course. If you haven’t done so already, I highly encourage you to sign up for this
course and complete each lesson before working on the practical exercises. This course has
become the industry standard for content marketing professionals. In fact, more than 40,000
professionals across the globe have completed the Content Marketing Certification since it
launched in 2016.

Earning your Content Marketing Certification and completing this workbook are the first steps
toward becoming an expert in the industry.

Here’s a list of suggestions to get the most value out of this workbook:

• Please save this workbook to the desktop on your computer. This way your progress
will be saved correctly as you complete each section.

• If you prefer to have a hard copy to write on, then print this PDF.

• Join the Content Marketing Professionals group on Facebook. We believe the best
way to learn content marketing is by implementing strategies, sharing ideas, and
discussing what you’ve learned with a group of marketers, just like you.

• Tweet me (@JustinRChampion) and HubSpot Academy (@HubSpotAcademy). We’re

here to support you, and we want to follow your journey.

Now let’s get started!

Content Marketing Workbook 4

 Case Study
Townsend Security
Need proof that this workbook is a transformational resource? Learn more from a business that
completed the practical exercises from each section and sustainably grew their business (which
is still growing today).

Written by Ken Mafli, Townsend Security’s Senior Digital Marketing Manager

Townsend Security is a leading provider of affordable enterprise-grade encryption key
management for an organization’s data at rest. We are a smaller company that routinely goes up
against competitors whose marketing budgets dwarf our own. So how do we make our voice
heard? Simple: a rock-solid, completely human-centric inbound content marketing strategy.

In the eight-plus years we’ve been doing inbound, we’ve seen upward of 1,085% more non-
paid traffic to our website. The real shocker: In that time, my team has grown its monthly new
contacts by roughly 19,000% for non-paid leads. The disparity between those two numbers is
a perfect example of the power of inbound: more highly qualified web traffic that converts to a
much higher rate of leads.

Content marketing is continuously evolving. HubSpot has proven time and again to be on
the forefront of the best-producing content marketing strategies. In 2016, we were invited to
participate in a beta program that HubSpot was conducting that would later be known as the
topic cluster framework. In it, you produce a pillar page — a webpage that completely informs
prospects about a specific topic. From there, you surround your pillar page with subtopics (e.g.,
blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.), each with a link back to the pillar page.

With this methodology in hand, we created our first pillar page and launched it in the first week
of January 2017. Over the next six months, we continued to optimize it, all the while promoting it
via social media and online information security magazines.

The results were outstanding. Our pillar page brought record-high organic traffic and a record
number of leads. We couldn’t be happier with the results and with the guidance that HubSpot
provided through its free resources and one-on-one consulting.

Content Marketing Workbook 5

That said, content marketing isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re looking for a “slap it on the website
and they will come” approach, you’re in the wrong place. You need true grit and the unwavering
resolve to fully understand what your personas need at each step of the buyer’s journey — and you
need to provide it like no one else does. If you provide your prospects with the experience they
deserve, you — like us — will be amazed by the results.

The Content Marketing Workbook is the road map you will need to chart your course toward
success. Throughout this workbook, you’ll learn from some of our examples. I’m confident that by
using this workbook, you will build a unique content strategy that’s tailored to the needs of your
personas. By doing so, and by executing on that plan, you will find your own path to success and
reach results you never thought possible.

Content Marketing Workbook 6

 1
Section 1
The Power of Storytelling

Everyone loves a great story. People want to feel connected to a group, to belong. Stories give us
a reason to communicate and relate. Stories are stimulating and give us something to believe in.
Stories make us feel better, smarter, safer, or even loved.
Business storytelling is similar. It’s about creating alignment between your business and your
prospects and customers.
But telling your brand’s story is more than what you write on your website, your blog, or even
social media. It’s your value, your mission, and how you communicate them consistently to your
audience — wherever they are.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: The Power of Storytelling

RESOURCES
Blog post: Executive Summary: The Golden Circle With Simon Sinek

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

In the box below, write your business’s “why.” This should be written in the form of a one-
sentence purpose or mission statement.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Here’s Townsend Security’s “why”: Townsend Security creates data privacy solutions that give
organizations the ability to keep their data safe.

If you get stuck and need help, complete the lesson “The Power of Storytelling” in the Content
Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 7

 2
Section 2
Building a Content Creation Framework

A content creation framework is a structure of processes for publishing content — from the
beginning stages to post-publication.

With a framework in place, your team can foster creative ideas in an organized, scalable manner.
A framework strikes that perfect balance between autonomous creativity and long-term content
sustainability.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Building a Content Creation Framework

RESOURCES
Blog post: How to Create an Editorial Calendar in Google Calendar [Free Templates]
Blog post: How to Hire a Freelancer in 5 Simple Steps
Tool: HubSpot CRM

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

If you don’t already have the following free analytics platforms in place, sign up for them:

• Google Analytics

• HubSpot Marketing Analytics

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

If you don’t already have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform in place, sign up
for HubSpot’s free tool.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 3

An editorial calendar is the first step toward achieving a sustainable content creation process.
Use this free template to create an editorial calendar for your business.

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Building a Content Creation Framework” lesson
in the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 8

 3
Section 3
Planning a Long-term Content Strategy

Planning provides a road map for your content. You’ll be making confident and more tactical
decisions regarding what topic you’ll be talking about, what format your content will take, and
when you’ll be publishing it.

With a content plan, you and your team can stay organized and even factor in ad hoc content
requests like company initiatives or other on-demand marketing tasks.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Planning a Long-Term Content Strategy

RESOURCES
Template: Long-Term Content Planning Worksheet [Google Sheets]
Content offer: Content Gap Analysis

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

If you don’t already have a primary buyer persona established for your business, create one using
HubSpot’s free Make My Persona tool.

In the box below, write a quick profile for your primary buyer persona.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is an overview of Townsend Security’s primary buyer persona, Growing Awareness Andy:

• Andy’s quick profile: Andy is an IT professional whose job touches on cybersecurity.

While his title might not always reflect his data security responsibilities, he has taken on
these duties in an effort to help his company with its cybersecurity challenges.

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 • Awareness stage driver: Key stakeholders in his company are uneasy about the
company’s current security posture, and recent breaches in the news have only
highlighted the need for increased security. They are not sure what they need in order
to better secure their data, but they know they have to do something.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Perform a content audit and an event-based audit for your business using this Google Sheets
template.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 3

Identify the buyer’s journey for your primary buyer persona. The goal is to help this buyer through
each stage: awareness, consideration, and decision. And while there’s no magic number for the
amount of content within the buyer’s journey, let’s start by identifying three pieces of content.

**For the awareness stage, we recommend identifying a comprehensive educational resource like
a guide or ebook.**

1. Awareness stage
In the box below, outline a content format and theme. (Think of this like a working title. What do
you want to communicate?)

2. Consideration stage
In the box below, outline a content format and theme. (Think of this like a working title. What do
you want to communicate?)

Content Marketing Workbook 10

3. Decision stage
In the box below, outline a content format and theme. (Think of this like a working title. What do
you want to communicate?)

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is an example of the buyer’s journey Townsend Security identified for its primary buyer
persona, Growing Awareness Andy.

• Awareness stage:

· Content format: Guide

· Theme: The Definitive Guide to Encryption Key Management Fundamentals

• Consideration stage:

· Content format: Webinar

· Theme: Encryption Key Management Simplified

• Decision stage:

· Content format: Product evaluation

· Theme: Alliance Key Manager

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Planning a Long-Term Content Strategy“ lesson in
the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 11

 4
Section 4
Generating Content Ideas

Humans are always coming up with new ideas. Whether we’re lying in bed, commuting to work,
or going for a run, our minds have a seemingly endless ability to generate new ideas.
But as natural and easy as this process might sometimes feel, it gets tricky when your job
depends on it.
A content marketer — or any creative, for that matter — doesn’t have the leisure to have an “off
day.” Your content ideas fuel your work. Run out of gas, and your content initiatives will stall.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Generating Content Ideas

RESOURCES
Blog post: How to Figure Out What Keywords Your Potential Customers Are Using
Book: A Technique for Producing Ideas
Tool: HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

In the boxes below, write down a few blog post ideas that support an educational topic your
business wants to be known for and build authority around. For now, consider creating a
descriptive working title for each blog post.

Blog post idea 1:

Blog post idea 2:

Content Marketing Workbook 12

Blog post idea 3:

Blog post idea 4:

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a list of blog post ideas that Townsend Security identified for its topic “encryption key
management.”

1. Key Management: The Hardest Part of Encryption

2. Trying to Outfox the Other: A Brief Look at Cryptography and Cryptanalysis

3. 3 Ways to Fast-Track Your Encryption and Key Management Project

4. Fixing the TDE Key Management Problem in Microsoft SQL Server

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Generating Content Ideas” lesson in the Content
Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 13

 Section 5

5 Creating Quality Blog Content Your

Audience Loves to Read and Share

Think back to the last blog post you read. Did you skim through it as opposed to reading it
because the introduction didn’t hold your attention? Did the content seem to ramble as opposed
to getting to the point? Were you unable to find a helpful next step to continue your journey?
If you answered “yes” to all of these questions, the author who wrote the blog post probably
didn’t pay close enough attention to the structure of the content. And he or she is suffering the
consequences: You, along with many others, stopped reading the post.
All effective blog posts have a blueprint. You might not easily see it, but it’s there, and it’s meant
to help you, the reader, through your journey to making a well-informed, confident decision —
whatever that decision might be.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Creating Quality Blog Content Your Audience Loves to Read and Share

RESOURCES
Training: Business Blogging Course
Blog post: How to Write a Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Guide [+ Free Blog Post Templates]
Tool: Moz Keyword Explorer

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

For almost every piece of content, come up with at least five to 10 different headlines.
In the box below, write five different headlines for your business’s next blog post.

Content Marketing Workbook 14

 PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Write your business’s next blog post.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a blog post that Townsend Security created to support one of its primary topics,
“encryption key management.
(Click here to read the blog post.)

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Creating Quality Blog Content Your Audience
Loves to Read and Share” lesson in the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 15

 Section 6

6 How HubSpot Uses Blogging to Rank #1

on Google

Here at HubSpot, blogging is our primary source of traffic. In fact, a significant percentage of
HubSpot customers first stumbled upon our brand and our website through our blog — usually by
searching for something on Google and clicking through to one of our blog posts.

To understand how HubSpot uses blogging to rank in search, we have to first understand how
blogging helps anyone rank in search. Blogging on topics that are relevant to your business will do
two things: help you build relevance to rank for more search queries and help you build authority
on those topics to rank higher in search results.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: How HubSpot Uses Blogging to Rank #1 on Google

RESOURCES
Blog post: How to Optimize Your Content for Google’s Featured Snippet Box

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

In the box below, identify 2 blog posts that have a chance of winning the featured snippet.

Content Marketing Workbook 16

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE
Below is a featured snippet for one of Townsend Security’s website pages.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Choose one of the blog posts from the previous practical exercise, and optimize it for the featured
snippet.

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “How HubSpot Uses Blogging to Rank #1 on
Google” lesson in the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 17

 Section 7

7 Extending the Value of Your Content

Through Repurposing

Imagine you’re a content creator tasked with writing blog posts, content offers, video scripts, and
so on as part of your daily job function. That’s a lot of content to create.

Repurposing content allows you to extend the value of your content by changing it to serve a
different purpose, like transforming the messaging of several blog posts to create a guide or
reusing content from your guide to help you create an educational video series. The messaging is
the same, but the channel or format in which it’s consumed is different.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Extending the Value of Your Content Through Repurposing

RESOURCES
Blog post: How to Repurpose Campaign Content for Different Channels (and Never Waste
the Leftovers)

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

Repurpose one of your blog posts into an infographic using Venngage’s free infographic maker.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is an infographic Townsend Security created by repurposing stats from one of its educational
pieces of content.

Content Marketing Workbook 18

 PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Create an awareness-stage guide for your business. However, instead of starting from scratch,
consider how you can repurpose the current assets you have at your disposal.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a guide that Townsend Security created for its topic “encryption key management.”

Content Marketing Workbook 19

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Extending the Value of Your Content Through
Repurposing” lesson in the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 20

 8
Section 8
Creating Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages

If you want to create effective content that converts visitors into leads and eventually customers,
you need to create a helpful, positive user experience that solves for both the searcher and the
search engine, not just one or the other.

Here’s how you can solve for both: Create targeted clusters of relevant content that each covers a
specific topic in depth. These targeted clusters then need to lead to a centralized hub, known as a
pillar page.

A pillar page (also known as a content pillar or power page) is a website page that covers a specific
topic in depth and is linked to a cluster of related content.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Creating Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages

RESOURCES
Blog post: Topic Clusters: The Next Evolution of SEO

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

Repurpose one of your awareness-stage guides into a pillar page.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a pillar page Townsend Security created by repurposing content from its awareness-stage
offer, “The Definitive Guide to Encryption Key Management Fundamentals.”

(Click here to read the pillar page.)

Content Marketing Workbook 21

 PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

If you don’t already have a solution for a pop-up form on your website, sign up for HubSpot’s free
tool.

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Creating Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages“ lesson in
the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 22

 Section 9

9 How to Create a Successful Video Marketing

Strategy

Thanks to the rise of technology, video is used more widely as a business strategy across
marketing, sales, and service teams. When done correctly, a video marketing strategy is an
effective way to attract, engage, and delight your audience in a human and helpful way.

But creating any old video isn’t enough. You need to create memorable videos that engage your
audience.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: How to Create a Successful Video Marketing Strategy

RESOURCES
Training: Video Marketing Course
Blog Post: How to Get Started With Video Marketing: A Checklist for Marketers

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

Create a script for one of your educational website pages using this template.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a snippet video script that Townsend Security created by repurposing content from its
encryption key management pillar page.

Content Marketing Workbook 23

 PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Using the script you wrote, create a video and embed it on your website.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a video that Townsend Security created and embedded at the top of its encryption key
management pillar page.

(Click here to view the video.)

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “How to Create a Successful Video Marketing
Strategy” lesson in the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 24

 Section 10

10 Building a Guest Blogging Strategy

Powered by SEO
Guest blogging is an effective tactic that helps your business in more ways than one. Not only does
it help you build authority as a thought leader within your industry, but also, and more importantly,
it’s a powerful way to optimize your website for search when done correctly.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Building a Guest Blogging Strategy Powered by SEO

RESOURCES
Training: SEO Training Course
Blog post: A Simple SEO Strategy for 2019 (The ‘Middleman’ Method)
Tool: Moz Link Explorer

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

Do research on Google and find five websites that you’d like to write a guest blog post for. Write
them down here:

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Start building a relationship before reaching out for a guest blogging opportunity with each
company you identified in the previous practical exercise. One effective way to do this is to start a
discussion by commenting on one of the company’s blog posts.

Content Marketing Workbook 25

 PRACTICAL EXERCISE 3

Repurpose one of your educational pieces of content into a guest blog post that links back to your
website.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a guest blog post Townsend Security wrote for Infosecurity Magazine.

(Click here to read the guest blog post.)

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Building a Guest Blogging Strategy Powered by
SEO” lesson in the Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 26

 11
Section 11
How to Effectively Promote Content

One of the biggest challenges marketers face when creating content is visibility. Creating great
content simply isn’t enough. A successful content strategy should include a promotional plan that
strategically shares content with the people who will benefit most from it.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: How to Effectively Promote Content

RESOURCES
Training: Social Media Certification Course
Template: Social Media Content Calendar

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

Create 10 social posts by repurposing content from one of your educational website pages.

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE

Below is a tweet that offers an interesting snippet with a relevant image from Townsend Security’s
encryption key management pillar page.

Content Marketing Workbook 27

 PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Identify a top-engaged social media post that offers a link to one of your website pages with a form
on it and boost it with ad spend. **If this is your first time purchasing a digital ad, then start with
minimal budget you’re comfortable spending as an experiment.**

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “How to Effectively Promote Content” lesson in the
Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 28

 12
Section 12
Measuring and Analyzing Your Content

There are a ton of metrics out there that you can report on to understand your content’s
performance. For a blog post, you might be interested in webpage visitors, time on page, and
referral traffic. For a video, maybe you’re more interested in watch time, social media shares, and
impressions. And if you’re offering a webinar, landing page conversions for registration might be
your top metric. Regardless of what type of content you’re measuring, there are numerous metrics
that impact its success.

Let’s put it into practice.

LEARNING MODULE
Lesson: Measuring and Analyzing Your Content

RESOURCES
Blog post: 15 Metrics Every Marketing Manager Should Be Tracking
Template: Monthly Marketing Reporting Templates

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 1

Use your CRM and web analytics data to inform your ad campaigns and see exactly which ads are
turning prospects into loyal customers. **If you don’t already have a paid ads tracker in place, sign
up for HubSpot’s free tool.

PRACTICAL EXERCISE 2

Create a monthly marketing report to communicate the performance of your content creation
efforts.

**If you need a reporting template, then click here to access one.**

Content Marketing Workbook 29

TOWNSEND SECURITY EXAMPLE
Below is a list of metrics Townsend Security reports on each month:

• Target keywords’ search engine results page position

• Total average search engine results page position

• Organic search traffic

• Visitor average time on page

• Visitor bounce rate

• Total inbound links

If you get stuck and need help, complete the “Measuring and Analyzing Content” lesson in the
Content Marketing Certification course.

Content Marketing Workbook 30

 The Results
Your Completed Workbook!

Congratulations! By completing the practical exercises in this workbook, you’ve taken a step
toward transforming yourself into an effective content marketer. Give yourself a pat on the back.

The next step is to continue growing your plan and stay consistent in your approach. Always be on
the lookout for new content opportunities that provide value to your audience. Remember, your
audience is the reason you’re doing this in the first place — if you want to start a relationship with
audience members, make sure to give them the care and attention they deserve.

Want to have your example featured on HubSpot’s blog?

HubSpot Academy’s mission is to educate and inspire people so that we, together, transform the
way the world does business. If you put in the effort and see results, we want to know about it.
Share your example with us for the chance to be featured on HubSpot’s blog. We’ll even link to
your website, giving you a boost in authority.

Click here to submit your example.

Keep up the good work!

Justin Champion
HubSpot Academy

Content Marketing Workbook 31