CaddieOpen in CaddieDownload for Mac

The Greatest Content Marketing Hack

Shared by Caddie Library · Updated
App Masters11:43Open on YouTube
Chapters show their main points

The bottom line

Posting a query on Help a Reporter Out (HARO) makes your target market send you content, guests and clients for free. That gives you ready-made articles and a steady flow of buyers without chasing them.

Key takeaways

  • People contribute because a press mention grows their brand. 4:54
    • Contributors can say we were mentioned on Tech.co, and the link may also help their SEO.
    • The publication gets quality content, so every party wins.
  • HARO lets you ask for exactly the people you want to reach. 6:45
    • You can seek game publishers, app marketers or foodies, whatever your target market is.
    • A query that lists your own website needs an Alexa ranking under 1 million, so a brand new site won't qualify.
  • The answers become articles that are mostly written for you. 2:56
    • About 80 percent of the Entrepreneur.com post was already done from guests' content.
    • One Tech.co post on seven little-known app marketing strategies came entirely from contributors.
  • The same queries bring in guests, and their PR firms become clients. 1:55
    • In 2013 it filled a podcast with guests, enough to publish twice a week.
    • Past interviewees, reached through PR people, became agency clients.
  • Contributors share the finished post, which widens its reach. 10:51
    • Emailing them when the post goes up makes them more likely to share it, since they were part of it.
    • Requirements such as a minimum number of downloads filter out poor fits.

All I'm doing is interviewing people. I'm just asking questions, they give me the content.

Steve P. Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 A podcast with no name and no guests

An unknown newcomer can still get yeses by posting a request where the right people are already looking.

  • Being unknown did not stop guests from saying yes. 1:01
    • In 2013 he was not a name in the space and only needed people to interview.
    • Pitches now come mostly from PR people with a client to place.
    • Early guests were beginners, and that was fine because he needed bodies in the chair.
    • He still uses the service whenever the podcast runs low on potential guests.
    • PR clients have budgets, and after an interview the talk can turn to app marketing and a possible hire.

2:36 Turning contributions into articles

When contributors supply the material, writing becomes assembly, and the same source is Help a Reporter Out.

  • The author's job is only to assemble and polish what others send. 3:26
    • The Entrepreneur.com post credits past guests by name for their input.
    • The work is copying, pasting and making it flow.
    • The Tech.co query asked anyone with success for little-known app marketing strategies that drive downloads.
    • One contributor, from audiobooks, is now coming on the podcast too.
    • The finished post is shared across social media, which positions the author as the expert.
  • The tool that makes this work is Help a Reporter Out, called HARO. 5:25
    • The site is helpareporter.com, and you sign up and log in.
    • Journalists from major publications use it.
    • It works in two directions, and journalists are the first.
    • The site is where you go when you want to create content like this.

5:52 Signing up as a source

Help a Reporter Out puts you in front of journalists, and one short form turns you into the journalist.

  • Signing up makes you a source for major publications. 6:10
    • A daily email lists who is looking for what, and you reply with a pitch.
    • The same service landed mentions in Entrepreneur, Inc and Forbes.
    • In the early days it also booked a few podcast appearances.
  • The query form lets you act as the journalist. 6:42
    • Under "my queries", you hit submit a query. The media outlet field matters little.
    • You can list your own site, or a publication you write for.
    • Workaround: he first listed his previous employer as the outlet to recruit app developers for his podcast.

7:42 Writing the query and what it returns

A short, specific pitch brings in contributors, and the contacts it creates grow the business.

  • The query is a short pitch with a headline, a body and requirements. 7:56
    • The headline is plain: seeking app developers for podcasts. Then you pick business as the category and high tech as a secondary one.
    • His sample pitch cites 20,000 downloads a month across 200 countries.
    • Interviews run over Skype for 30 to 45 minutes.
    • The deadline can be a real due date, or any date in the future.
  • The process suits anyone building an agency or consultancy. 10:17
    • You ask for the people you want and they come to you.
    • He says it built multiple six-figure businesses without hunting for clients.
    • A few clients arrived after a podcast interview, when guests learned he runs a marketing agency.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, app marketing agency and podcast host. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) lets you post queries so your target market contributes content, which you wrap into articles and podcast interviews. Steve used it from 2013 to fill his podcast with guests, land bylines on big publications and win agency clients without hunting for them.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript282 lines
0:00

oh hey you're here what is up all right today I want to share with you the greatest content marketing hack of all time it's one where you can get your target market to contribute content to you allow you to easily create content and attract the right people that will eventually become your customers it's brilliant something that I came up with it's brilliant you got to watch this all right stay tuned what is up appt nation it is Steve P young founder of at masters CO and this is the greatest content marketing hack you will ever find anywhere in the world all right this was a strategy that I use in the very beginning days of the podcast I was not a name in the space this was 2013 I was just trying to get people to say yes to come on right and so I use this service that i'm about to share to get people to say yes to get people to come to me and say hey yes i'll be interviewed on your podcast and

1:24

that's how i was able to build up a little bit of a buffer where i could publish twice a week at the time and really bring people on now in the beginning there were a little bit of a beginner that's okay for me I just wanted people I needed people to interview that's all I wanted especially in the beginning and to this day now I still use this service to when we're running low on potential guests to get more guests to say hey I'm interested in coming on to the podcast and when I use it these days I generally get PR people pitching me and say hey I have a client that wants to come on to the podcast and that's good for me because eventually what these what these clients have are a budget right they have a budget to hire a PR another PR firm and then if they need somebody just from an app marketing perspective usually after the interview they'll will talk and they might consider hiring us as well we've landed

2:24

a couple of different clients were past interviews who we've gotten in contact with with a different PR person and then eventually became our client as well so it's a really really great hack and this hack allows you to from a Content perspective right these have a blog post and here's a blog post i wrote for entrepreneur com now this is content that i already had from the podcast that i already interviewed people but i'm able to put these type of quote these block blog posts together i'm able to put them quickly together because all I'm really doing is use the content that people provided for me and wrapping up into a good article so really eighty percent of the article is done already for me and as you can see you know i'm tributing a lot of the content to people that I know generic games fatima dan council past guests of mine and he's put real content together dennis another pass guess and now friend

3:21

you know they all gave me content that i can use to then create this blog post right here alright here's another one that was purely this was completely given to me contributed by those from using this site and i'll share this site soon but this is another content article that i wrote this is called seven little app marketing strategies that drive downloads here you go one affiliates and again the guy gave me all the content that i needed to write about it some of this content already had but a lot of these they contributed and guest look I got somebody from audiobooks and now he's going to come on to the podcast too so really cool strategy and to put content together because all you're literally doing is copy and pasting and making sure it flows nicely this content was things that this content is called seven app marketing little-known app marketing strategies that drive downloads and that's what I did I just

4:24

said hey anybody out there that have found that has found success what are some app marketing little-known app marketing strategies that drive downloads and I'm going to write this on tech co so got contributed content put this blog post together now I'm able to publish this blog post into the blogosphere shared across social media and then be sort of the expert that put this blog post together so they tribute little-known app marketing strategies to me but event but I got content from somebody else I know it's a shame but why people want to do this and contribute is because their mention on these publications and whether it's a PR or other things they can say hey we were mentioned on tech co and things like that so it's a really great way to grow your brand and maybe even for SEO this is get backlinks to so it makes sense for you to contribute it makes sense for me to actually put these

5:14

contributed content together and make sense for tech co to have great quality content on their blog as well so really a no-brainer it's a win for every single party involved now here is the site that you go to when you want to create content like this this is called haro for short but it's called help our reporter out and the website is called help a reporter dot-com go to the site sign up login and this is a place where two ways one journalist from as you can see these major publication go to when they have a story that they want to write and they're looking for people so I've been able to get on entrepreneur I think inc Forbes a lot of different big publications just using this strategy and I've been mentioned on them and then early days I was able to get on a few different podcasts because of the strategy too so when you sign up you can be sort of a publicist or somebody a source in a way right you want to be a

6:18

source for all these major publications and what happens is you get an email every single day that shows you hey here's what's going on here's what who's looking for this publication and you can respond and make your pitch to this publication's okay but you can I've used it as a journalist I've become a journalist so I'm going to show you how to do this after you sign up you go in to help a reporter and here's your account and go to my queries and as you can see we've used this quite often you hit submit a query now this is important the media outlet isn't important you could put your website if it's not up there just know that if it's going to be your own website then it needs to have an Alexa ranking of less than 1 million so it can't be brand spanking new when I first started here's a little tip when I first started the podcast I actually put my my company that I worked for as the media outlet and I said hey I'm looking

7:15

for app developers to interview him during the podcast I was able to get through that way because I used it at my previous company so I used that particular submission to that website to get on there so that's a real work around but you can probably find build up a little bit of ranking in LexA and then use your media outlet or if you write for some of these publications then put them as the the media outlet and then some rate you're just going to put like for us we've been we put seeking app developers for podcasts right so here it is and then you can make your query what you're looking for so for us it's hey app developers we want to highlight you on the number one app business podcast blah blah blah blah blah and then the requirements will usually have some requirements now so in the beginning we're just said k anybody wants to come on come on but right now we say hey you you know to share us your

8:17

downloads because if you're not a good fit if you're just a beginner you might not be a good fit for the podcast so these are things that you can say must have a million downloads must have two thousand downloads must have your own company things like that you can ask for that in the requirements but this is pretty general and you can put anything you want in here then you select the category for us it's going to be business and the secondary categories can be high tech now if you're in a crunch you can put a legit date like a due date or you can just make it sometime in the future and I'll just do this the 12th and they'll submit that's it so here i put hi app developers would you like to be highlighted on the number one app business podcast and this is the query with 20,000 downloads a month across 200 countries at masters co is the place where mired app develops we have a brand new thing here now but

9:12

that's what we put in here and we want to know what you have learned we're looking for great app developers to interview on our podcast that interviews happen via skype and generally take about 30 to 45 minutes and now what would use this like i said PR people come to us and then pitch their clients who then you know we've gotten a few clients this way who come on we do the interview we have a good time there's like whoa I didn't know you had marketing agency yeah I'm like I do like oh we might look let's let's continue the conversation and we've landed a couple of different clients just using this strategy so it's a brilliant strategy like I said in the opener to use to actually create the content like have people contribute the content right for me all i'm doing is interviewing people i'm just asking questions they give me the content especially like this blog post seven little-known app marketing strategies

10:00

they contribute that content one get the contributed content get get content that is pretty much written for you and to attract the people that will potentially become your clients it's a brilliant strategy that I sort of hacked my way around when I started to know about help a reporter out it's a brilliant strategy that you can use if you're just starting out trying to build that agency try to build that consultancy your consulting business use help a reporter out look for the people that you want so you can easily say hey I'm seeking game publishers for this blog post or i'm seeking app-developers app marketers i'm seeking foodies whatever you need whatever target market you're going after you can put that and people will come to you give you the content that you need oh and the best thing is when you get people to contribute content you can email them when the post goes up and they're more likely to share it because

10:57

they were a part of it as well so you even get more shares for your particular blog posts it's a brilliant strategy go check it out start using it start building up the content like I said in my previous video it is the best strategy it has allowed me to build in multiple six-figure business and not have to look for clients go out there make it happen and i'll see you on the next video where I will share with you some of the tools that we use to come up with content marketing ideas and how you can really scale up your content marketing through guest blog posts so stay tuned for that very next video I'll see you then bye