Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business

Foreword

“Marketing 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.

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: