Through working with over 75 B2B brands, I’ve developed my own framework for building content strategies that convert. The best part, it is designed to work for social, search, product and thought leadership content and compound over time so you work can work as hard as you do.
It’s the Content Moat Framework.
In my experience, most companies are only doing one area of this framework well.
If you want to build a marketing moat that will compound over time, you have to nail all three.
Let’s dive into the details for what’s it like to work with me and how I handle the strategy and execution of all three components.
Here is a behind-the-scenes view of my process and how I use my content moat framework to get you results.
I can’t put together a coherent strategy without understanding the basics of your product and how customers use it. The goal is to not become a de facto expert. Instead, I learn the basics to uncover what needs to happen in order for each piece of content to do the following:
First, I’ll start by learning more about your ideal customer profile.
I do this through a mix of in-person interviews with your team, customer interviews, sales and support call recordings, online VOC research, and research software tools like, Ahrefs and Sparktoro.
You need a strategy to give you focus and direction. A good strategy will incorporate all three elements of my framework – insights, community, and content efficiency.
So, anything you create has staying power and will still grow months or even years from now.
However, it shouldn’t take 2 months or longer. That’s why for all of my strategy clients, you’ll have a MVP strategic roadmap within the first 3-6 weeks of working together. This matters because even the smartest marketing strategy isn’t going to be perfect.
The fastest we can start executing, the faster we’ll learn what works. We can use that to refine the strategy and process moving forward.
Now, it is time for the fun part. Producing all of the content and marketing assets outlined in the initial strategic roadmap.
Content moat “content” combines the following key components, which makes up the insights of part of my content moat framework.
Content Positioning – Positioning isn’t just for brand. It also matters for every marketing asset you create. Are you clearly conveying why your brand is tied to the topic or conversation at hand?
POV – When anyone or any bot can product content, having a POV and some original insights, helps you not create “copycat content.” Do you have something unique to add?
Depth – Are you covering the topic comprehensively? This isn’t about hitting a specific word count. It is about being thorough and exploring all angles that might be relevant.
WIIFM — What’s in it for me? Why should anyone care about this piece of content?
Search Intent – If search is a key distribution channel, search intent matters a lot. Does the content you are creating match the intent behind the keyword you are targeting?
Once new content is approved, it’s time to format and publish the post.
If you use WordPress, Webflow, or Ghost, I have a publishing process SOP and a small team that handles the final post optimizations and formatting in your CMS.
Community is how you can 10x your content distribution efforts while also getting more customers and retaining existing ones longer.
When many people think of community, they think of launching your own branded community (be it a Slack channel, Facebook group, forum, membership site, etc). While
I’m a massive advocate for building branded communities – especially now – that’s not always a realistic move.
Let’s face it – there are some brands that are unlikely to build thriving branded communities. For example, if you have a SaaS company that helps swimming pool managers with timesheet and schedule management, the chances of these same pool managers wanting to spend time interacting in your brand’s Slack channel or forum is pretty low.
However, community can still work extremely well even if you don’t launch your own. Instead, it is about building real relationships with the superconnectors in your niche.
Over time, you and your company are now seen as superconnectors in your niche.
When you do this well, community is embedded throughout the strategy and creation process.
The final part is distribution and getting the word out once the asset is live.
I have distribution frameworks and SOPs that can help you maximize the potential for each piece of content on search, email and organic social.
Plus, my tiny team and I handle the entire distribution plan for each piece of content we create. We also share monthly content marketing reports with you and your team.
The result of taking a community-first to distribution is more word of mouth sales and going to your site first when they are looking for information on X, Y, or Z. And, they share the content you produce – unprompted without you having to do more than maybe send a tweet or two.
The final component is the easiest one, but the majority of companies don’t do this well – or even at all. That’s leveraging your existing content and community you’ve built. This can take many forms from updating evergreen assets and newsletters to social posts, guest posts and various AI use cases.
Admittedly, I was really skeptical when I first came across this strategy. However, it REALLY WORKED. There are many different approaches, but what I’ve done is l look at a client’s existing posts. I specifically look for any content that is ranking on the top of page 2 or has lost at least 35% of their search traffic in the last year. Then, I look at the top three posts that are currently ranking for my client’s desired keyword.
How can I make my client’s post 25% better?
What are the gaps that we’re missing?
Every single time, I’ve followed this principle. The post has ranked in the top 3 for that keyword – and oftentimes the featured snippet — Usually within a couple of weeks of republishing the post.
Another strategy that can be extremely well – especially for brands that don’t have a vast content library and/or have strong community relationships – is leveraging repurposing with content curation.
The premise is simple – amplify and curate the top content from the superconnectors in your community as well as your customers.
For example, when you give a microphone to the cool things that your customers are doing that can be some of the most powerful marketing for your brand (without having to really market).
Another strategy that has worked well for me is leveraging pillar posts and other long form content assets and repurposing sections of them into guest posts on third-party sites.
This builds authority in your niche and is also a great, whitehat way to build backlinks.
The added benefit is that you don’t have to write 100% original content for each guest post. You can take the core components of your original content asset and just add 25%
– 40% new stuff so that you don’t get dinged for duplicate content. It is way faster to write that way since you are not reinventing the wheel for each pitch every time.
Note: I’ve had similar success using a modified version of this guest post process but for executive and founder social post. The only key difference is a bigger focus on writing compelling hooks and extracting / adding more personal stories.
If you are business meets these criteria, then we’ll probably be a great fit:
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Jessica Malnik works with B2B SaaS and professional service firms to build marketing moat that compound over time using her signature content framework. As both a strategist and executor, she helps clients develop strategic content marketing roadmaps, scale content production, and provide guidance on campaigns and individual pieces.