MIA #08: How to Execute a Content-Led Growth Strategy (+ Template)
How to use the creation and strategic distribution of content to engage your audience, and encourage them to pay, stay, and invite their friends.
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What is Content-Led Growth?
Let’s make it simple by breaking down the elements of this phrase.
What is Growth?
Growth is how businesses make more money, acquire more customers, or both.
Therefore it suffices to say that your business (or brand, or startup, or company) is growing if you are able to;
increase profits (i.e. make more sales, increase revenue, lower costs),
or increase volume (i.e. acquire more paying users/customers, increase product usage, reduce churn).
What is Content?
Content is all and every material (written, printed, recorded, filmed, broadcasted, designed, animated, coded, etc.) that you create to inform, engage, or entertain your audience.
There are two major sides to the coin of content—content creation, and content distribution.
This article focuses on content creation. I discussed content distribution through customer acquisition channels in my previous article, which you can read here:
We can now say that Content-Led Growth is a strategy where the primary driver of business growth, whether in terms of increasing revenue or acquiring more customers (and keeping them), is the creation and strategic distribution of content.
A simple marketing hack is to create content (or products, or services) that your audience or customers need to solve their problems and distribute it in the channels that your customers are.
Where are your customers? What are your Customer Acquisition Channels?
1. Your Digital Product
Think web apps, mobile apps, desktop apps, etc.
This is why there is such a thing as “Product-Led Growth” where your digital product is the distribution channel or medium through which your customers can experience the value you offer, and you can engage them with content, and encourage them to pay, stay and invite their friends.
2. Your customers are also on:
Social Media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat)
Email Lists (your email list and others)
Blogs (your blog and others)
Websites (your website and others)
Search Engines (e.g. Google Ads, Bing Ads)
Paid Social platforms (e.g. Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads)
App Stores (e.g. Apple App Store, Google Play Store)
Online Communities (e.g. Slack, Discord, Facebook Groups)
Online Forums (e.g. Quora, Reddit)
PR platforms (e.g. TechCrunch, TechCabal)
Webinars (your webinars and others)
Podcasts (your podcasts and others)
Video platforms (e.g. YouTube)
Physical Events (your events and others)
Fun Fact 🙂: I have a first degree in Biochemistry, not Marketing so I think content sits at the heart of distribution. More accurately, it is the blood of distribution.
It is content that powers your marketing channels—social media, blogs, emails, websites, etc—carrying valuable information to your audience. Without quality content, these channels become lifeless, much like a body deprived of blood.
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What kinds of Content can you create?
Every piece of marketing is content.
You are not limited to blog articles and social media posts. You can create:
Some content is best suited for the channel:
Best Practices for Content Marketing
Create Content like you create Products
Create content like you create products—make it valuable.
Create spreadsheet templates, google docs, calculators, etc. to solve other problems that your core product doesn’t solve for them.
Tailor content and resources to your Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) and Personas.
Use SEO to capture existing demand.
Utilize social media and communities to build awareness and create demand.
Ensure that each piece of content you produce can be a winner.
Get mileage out of your content: slice it, dice it, combine it, repurpose it, redistribute it, update it, and expand on it.
Create zero-click content; offer valuable standalone insights per channel without the need to click to an external link.
Tailor Content to Audience Stages
Your audience doesn’t just care about your product features. They care about themselves.
For B2B Demand Generation or Growth, you need to use content to take them through the problem-aware, solution-aware, lead, opportunity, and expansion stages.
Funnel Stages, Definitions & Content Types
Zero-click Content
This is content that’s native to any platform — a Twitter thread, a LinkedIn post, a 60-second TikTok / IG reel that immediately jumps into the “how to” demonstration.
Easily consumed by anyone scrolling their feed, yet still provides value to the creator.
Give the audience what they want.
Give away the punchline.
Post a defensible hot take.
Summarize the heart of your idea in bullet points.
Create content on the Channels that fit your Market, Product & Business Model
The list of channels is endless. It is not advisable to pursue them all at the same time.
Weigh the pros and cons of each channel with a channel matrix.
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TL: DR
Get a PDF summary of this article here.
Content sits at the heart of distribution. More accurately, it is the blood of distribution.
It is content that powers your marketing channels—social media, blogs, emails, websites, etc—carrying valuable information to your audience. Without quality content, these channels become lifeless, much like a body deprived of blood.
Growth is how businesses make more money, acquire more customers, or both.
Your business (or brand, or startup, or company) is growing if you are able to; increase profits (i.e. make more sales, increase revenue, lower costs), or increase volume (i.e. acquire more paying users/customers, increase product usage, reduce churn).
Content-Led Growth is a strategy where the primary driver of business growth, whether in terms of increasing revenue or acquiring more customers (and keeping them), is the creation and strategic distribution of content.
A simple marketing hack is to create content (or products, or services) that your audience or customers need to solve their problems and distribute it in the channels that your customers are.
Your customers are on your digital product—web apps, mobile apps, desktop apps, etc.
Your customers are also on Social Media, Email Lists, Blogs, Websites, Search Engines, App Stores, Online Communities, Online Forums, PR & News Platforms, Podcasts, Webinars, YouTube etc.
You are not limited to blog articles and social media posts. Create spreadsheet templates, Notion databases, templates, calculators etc., to solve other problems that your core product doesn’t solve for them.
Create content like you create products—make it valuable.
Your audience doesn’t just care about your product features. They care about themselves.
For B2B Demand Generation or Growth, you need to use content to take them through the problem-aware, solution-aware, lead, opportunity, and expansion stages.
Use SEO to capture existing demand, use social media and communities to build awareness and create demand.
Get mileage out of your content: slice it, dice it, combine it, repurpose it, redistribute it, update it, and expand on it.
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You might find these interesting:
Content is King - Bill Gates — Why Bill Gates thinks “content is king”.
Content marketing ≠ blog posts - by Emily Kramer — How to create high-impact content that solves actual problems for your audience.
Hiring within our network:
Marketing Director at Clover Trading
B2B Growth Marketing Manager at RemotePass
Chief Marketing Officer at 1inch Labs
SEO Specialist at FlexAI
Product & Partner Recommendations:
James Praise — I partner with founders and marketing teams of Product-Led startups to drive long-term growth using SEO, Performance Marketing, Product Marketing, and Lifecycle Marketing, from acquisition to retention to revenue.
Clay — Clay combines 50+ data providers, real-time scraping, AI, and outbound workflows, so you can send automated, 1-1 personalized campaigns (and book more meetings than your sales team).
Testimonial — Testimonial makes it easy to collect text and video testimonials from your customers in minutes, with no need for a developer or website hosting.
Reform — Reform is the fastest way to create shareable and embeddable forms that look great, are awesome to fill out, and integrate with the rest of your work.
Writesonic — Writesonic is an AI-powered content automation platform with 100+ features like Facebook ads, landing pages, Quora answers, Twitter tweets, and Instagram captions.
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