HOW TO CREATE KILLER BLOGS,

PODCASTS, VIDEOS, E-BOOKS,

WEBINARS (AND MORE) THAT
ENGAGE CUSTOMERS AND
IGNITE YOUR BUSINESS

Revised and Updated

ANN HANDLEY AND

C.C. CHAPMAN
Copyright © 2012 by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Handley, Ann, 1963–
Content rules : how to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, E-books, webinars (and
more) that engage customers and ignite your business / Ann Handley, C. C. Chapman. —
Rev. and updated
p. cm. — (New rules social media series ; 13)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-23260-6 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-28303-5 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-28405-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28700-2 (ebk)
1. Internet marketing. 2. Social media. 3. Web sites—Design. I. Chapman, C. C.
II. Title.
HF5415.1265.H3577 2011
658.8’72—dc23
2012001608

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 For Colin.
Miss you every day.
—A.H.

Goofy Monkey, Buddy, and Sticky Noodle—

I do everything to keep you smiling.
Now and always.
—C.C.
 Contents

Foreword xi

Acknowledgments xv

Big Fat Overview (Sometimes Called an Introduction) xvii

PART ONE THE CONTENT RULES 1

Chapter 1 The Case for Content 3

Chapter 2 The Content Rules 13

Chapter 3 Insight Inspires Originality:

Who Do You Want to Attract? 21

Chapter 4 Who Are You? 31

Chapter 5 Reimagine; Don’t Recycle: Anatomy

of a Content Circle of Life 55

Chapter 6 Share or Solve; Don’t Shill 69

Chapter 7 Stoke the Campfire 95

Chapter 8 Create Wings and Roots 101

Chapter 9 The Care and Feeding of Fans 115

Chapter 10 Attention B2B Companies: This Is

the Chapter You Are Looking For 121

vii
viii Contents

PART TWO THE HOW-TO SECTION 141

Chapter 11 A Blog as a Hub of Your Online Content 143

Chapter 12 If Webinars Are Awesome Marketing

Tools, Why Do Most of Them Suck? 155

Chapter 13 What’s the Difference between an

E-book and a White Paper? (And When
Should You Use Them?) 171

Chapter 14 The Single Biggest Secret to Creating a

Compelling Customer Success Story
(Formerly Known as a Case Study) 183

Chapter 15 From Dumpy to Sexy: An FAQs Makeover 189

Chapter 16 Video: Show Me a Story 197

Chapter 17 Podcasting: Is This Thing On? 207

Chapter 18 Photographs: The Power of Pictures 211

PART THREE CONTENT THAT CONVERTS: SUCCESS

STORIES (WITH IDEAS YOU CAN STEAL!) 219

Chapter 19 Reynolds Golf Academy: 221

Greensboro, Georgia

Chapter 20 The Cool Beans Group: 227

Greensboro, North Carolina

Chapter 21 U.S. Army: Fort Knox, Kentucky; 231

Fort Monroe, Virginia

Chapter 22 AskPatty.com, Inc.: Thousand 235

Oaks, California
 Contents ix
Chapter 23 Qvidian: Lowell, Massachusetts 239

Chapter 24 HubSpot: Cambridge, Massachusetts 243

Chapter 25 Kodak: Rochester, New York 251

Chapter 26 Boeing Company: Chicago, Illinois 257

Chapter 27 Indium Corporation: Clinton, New York 263

Chapter 28 PinkStinks: London, England 267

PART FOUR THIS ISN’T GOODBYE 271

Chapter 29 This Isn’t Goodbye, and a Gift for You 273

About the Illustrator: Sean Tubridy 275

Index 277
 Foreword

 M
“ arketing is about publishing great content.”
How many times have you heard a statement more or
less like this? Tons, right? By now every marketing professional and
entrepreneur on the planet understands this fundamental truth. We
don’t need convincing.
But what the many content-marketing experts have failed to do
is tell us how to create that content.
What, exactly, should I do?
In my experience, the art and science of creating content had
never been adequately explained to marketers. Perhaps you would
build a website and spend a bunch of cash on the design. But the
best that the designers could do with the content was put in some
filler text. Okay, then what? You stared at lorem ipsum for days not
knowing what to write, and then defaulted to some gobbledygook-
laden drivel about your products and services. Ugh.
There is a better way, and this book will show it to you.
The answer: Tell stories.
Think about it. All good films and all good fiction are really about
the story, right? Without a compelling, conflict-driven story, all the
other elements don’t mean much.
Here is a classic story line from countless books and movies:

Boy meets girl.

They fall in love.
Boy loses girl.
Boy (and sometimes girl) is miserable for most of the action.
They finally get back together.
They get married.

xi
xii Foreword

How and why they break up and then what they do to get back
together are what make the story interesting.
How interesting would that same book or movie be were it to
have this plot:

Boy meets girl.

They fall in love.
They get married.

At best, such a plot would be an insufferable bore. At worst, it

becomes propaganda.
In fact, it’s just the sort of propaganda most marketers and busi-
ness writers construct every day: “Here’s our product. It is great. Here
are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product.”
Sadly, this classic propaganda-driven marketing is everywhere. It’s
not just text-based content, either. Video and other information is
also mainly propaganda.
As you read the book, you’ll be reflecting on how you can intro-
duce storytelling into your work. How can you make your content
interesting, like a great movie or novel? How can your website, blog
posts, videos, and other materials be made more interesting?
Ann and C.C. show you how!
Throughout Content Rules, you’ll learn how to construct inter-
esting and valuable information using many of the same skills that
journalists and storytellers use. You’ll learn how to identify an audi-
ence, how to develop a distinct point of view and voice, and how to
construct a narrative that is exciting and engaging.
Content Rules includes many success stories from consumer
brands, business-to-business (B2B) outfits, government agencies, and
other organizations—together with “ideas you can steal” from each.
When I created the New Rules Social Media book series with John
Wiley & Sons, I said that it was essential to have a book about how
to create killer content. And I knew just the people to do it. Ann and
C.C. are storytellers, journalists, and marketers. In my opinion, that’s
the perfect combination of skills and expertise to identify and deliver
rules that we can all use to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos,
e-books, webinars, and more.
 Foreword xiii
I’ve followed the work of both Ann and C.C. with keen interest
for nearly five years, learning from them as they pave the way for-
ward to new forms of marketing. They must have more than a thou-
sand blog posts, hundreds of videos, and dozens of articles between
them. Now, in one place, you have access to their greatest hits.
—David Meerman Scott
Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR
and Real-Time Marketing & PR
www.WebInkNow.com
twitter.com/dmscott