Starting Content Marketing — An Interview With Emilia Chagas

When and how should startups invest in content marketing? What is the value for startups and how do you measure it? I interviewed Emilia Chagas, content marketing expert, journalist, and CEO/co-founder of Contentools to find out.

Why did you start Contentools?

I was a content manager for over eight years, at enterprises and SMBs, and a journalist before that. The work of a content manager inside a marketing team is very clunky. There are so many tools and broken processes that it’s very difficult to create content with a team.

We would start creating content and have difficulty getting all of the approvals so we could publish it, distribute it, measure results, and improve. I wanted to solve this broken process for marketing teams. That’s how I came up with the idea for Contentools.

What is Contentools?

Contentools is a platform for marketing teams to organize the entire creation process around brainstorming ideas, planning, creating, distributing, and analyzing content — all the main pillars for digital content strategy. Contentools works as a hub for these teams.

We have thirteen thousand marketers working with the platform in more than 70 countries. The majority of our operations are in Brazil and part of the team is in San Francisco.

Were there things you did early on that made a huge impact on your business?

One thing that I think we’ve done differently is we focused on marketing early. Many Silicon Valley go-to-market frameworks recommended not hiring marketing until series A or later.

There are a lot of success stories of startups that started thinking about marketing and positioning, creating a community, searching for the right customers, and searching for the right sources for the right customers early — companies like ProductHunt, Hubspot, and Intercom. These companies, from the moment that they began, they started creating content, they started creating a community, they started by searching for channels for new customers — not only focusing on product, product, product. The marketing that we did early on and the co-marketing partnerships and free tools that we developed gave us a lot of reach from the beginning.

As a content marketing expert, what advice would you offer to other startup founders?

It isn’t easy for founders to think about content marketing in the beginning because there are so many things to do. Often content will take a back seat. But, when creating a new market or launching a new product, you may have a lot of explaining and convincing to do. This can and should be done through content.

One thing that startups know from the beginning is the problem they are solving. They can start creating content around the problem. This evergreen content will generate results for them for years. This type of content will fill the top of their marketing funnel with people who understand the problem they have and will potentially look for solutions. They don’t know the solution, they may not know that there is a solution, but they are trying to learn more about the problem.

If I start creating content around the problem, I’m creating more assets for my company online. These online assets help my customer and help my company become an authority early on. More often, I see founders blogging about the solution but the solution will change as the market evolves. So that’s not at all evergreen content.

Another mistake that founders often make is they invest everything in a single channel. If that channel is not yours, it’s not proprietary, not your domain, it can cause a problem if something changes — like when Facebook and Google Search change their algorithms. To avoid those risks, you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket and you should be driving traffic to your Web site and building the audience around your domain.

How do you measure content?

You should always measure content with revenue.

How much of your revenue is coming from your content? How many people are attracted to your Website from it? How many of them are subscribing to a newsletter? How many of them are following your drip campaigns and requesting demos or signing up for the product? How many are actually buying your products and coming back to buy more? You can also look at whether the content is creating more opportunities for your sales team.

Many people approach content more as a branding strategy, but the measurement is harder. Measuring by revenue is a more straightforward approach, especially for startups with tight budgets and audacious goals.

For every piece of content that you are actually creating, you should define a desired outcome beforehand. So if you’re brainstorming on the content idea for a partner’s Website or podcast or any other type of content, you should always know the desired outcome for that piece. That will help you make sure that you’re putting the right amount of effort into it and also choosing the right channels to publish and distribute and the right budget to spend as well.

Do you have any final advice for other startup founders?

You really have to fall in love with the problem that you’re solving and have a connection with your customer. I don’t know how long this journey will be, but I’m actually enjoying the ride and would do it again, for sure.

Also, choosing the right co-founders is important. Having a diverse team that can complement each other is not always easy. It is easier to be part of a team where everyone agrees all the time. But, if that is happening to you, you’re probably missing out on something. People who think differently come up with different approaches to the same problem.

Want More?

Listen to the full interview with Emilia here:

You can also find Emilia on Twitter.

This interview was conducted for Beyond Product. For more from Emilia and the other 50 startup leaders interviewed for Beyond Product, get your copy at B&N, Amazon.com, or any of your other favorite retailers.