Guerrilla Content: 30 Growth Hacks To Content Marketing Success On A Limited Budget

My journey to content marketing began in 2004, when I started working for a market research company that was well-known but very few people knew about.

They appointed me their first VP Marketing. My small team (me included) had no budget to begin. We were a research company and conducted many surveys for clients who needed the data to create reports or get good PR.

The first time I experienced success with content marketing, which we now refer to as content marketing, was when my website crashed due to all the traffic it received for an article that I wrote based upon survey data from American Cleaning Institute. They are real!

The article was entitled "Survey reveals how many of us pee in the shower." (77% is the answer, if you are curious. Gross, right?)

The main lesson I took away was that a single piece of fun, useful, or entertaining content could outperform all copywriting for product pages. This is why we were the best company to conduct survey research. You have to be a guerrilla baby in order win this game!

Quick Takeaways

• Guerrilla marketing is the art of using available or free resources to attract your audience.
• Growth Hacking – This is the science behind testing creative ideas using demand metrics and analytics to sell products and gain exposure.
• You can get a huge ROI with content marketing by using both growth hacking and guerrilla tactics.

Here's a great example to get your creativity flowing.

96.3 Free air guitars on Rock Radio:

How to make content marketing work with almost no budget

Survey research was my greatest asset at the research company. I used the information to update our website regularly to generate inbound leads for our sales department. I learned SEO basics and created a list with target keywords to help me create and distribute stories about our most recent research.

Our website saw an exponential increase in traffic. For the first time, inbound leads began to come in on a regular basis. I spent time with the CEO to teach him about digital marketing and paid search.

He saved my job, my home and possibly even my marriage. You can read Mean people Suck to find out the rest of the story.

Growth Hacker Content Marketing

Many people were curious about my original proposal for content marketing at SAP. They wanted to know how much software I was gonna sell through blog posts.

My direct manager saw the decline in effectiveness of traditional advertising. She understood that the digital age required more consistent and engaging content marketing.

We were spending hundreds of thousands on advertising landing pages at the time. These landing pages had a low bounce rate, zero organic search traffic, and no social engagement. To build our thought-leadership content hub, I requested a fraction of the cost.

For a third of what a throwaway landing site would cost, I created a content marketing program that served as the landing spot for advertising and reached new people through great content marketing.

We saw a 20% drop in bounce rates, an almost immediate increase in organic search traffic, and increased social engagement once we began publishing.

This is growth hacker content market. It was self-funded – the site had a high return on investment. We were constantly testing, improving and iterating on our results.

Guerrilla Content: How to Growth Hack Your Content Marketing Success on a Limited Budget

Now you have a website. How do you create enough content and maintain relevance to your audience while producing a steady volume?

Here is where I refer to Guerrilla.

Guerilla content: Content created with very little budget by simply repurposing items your organization already owns.

People ask me all the times how I find the time to create and share content. I reuse content I have already created. I check my email inbox. Each is an answer to your question!

It is usually only a few paragraphs long and detailed enough for a blog post. My powerpoints are transformed into slideshares. My keynote speaker notes are turned into articles, and my speaker videos into lead generation resources. I was able to find 5 new clients through this example that I gave during the pandemic.

Why limit the reach of content created for just a handful of people to hundreds or even thousands?

All 24 of my first blog posts on SAP's Business Innovation were white paper summaries that I created from campaign content.

Here are some examples and ideas for Guerrilla Content.

30 Guerrilla Growth Hacks To Content Marketing Success

1. Identify the top trends and issues that are on the minds of your customers or executives
2. Your prospects and ideal audience profiles should be surveyed to determine their top challenges. This should guide your editorial strategy.
3. Find out the most common mistakes made in your industry
4. Ask your customers and executives to profile you. Greatest challenge? What did you do to solve it? + Create a profile photo and publish it as a blog post.
5. Ask multiple experts what the future holds for your industry
6. Ask for feedback from people about their worst mistakes
7. Please share the best examples of . . Content marketing in our case
8. Answer the most basic questions about your solution category, such as what, why, and how.
9. To find "best of" lists, use Klout, Buzzsumo and Topsy or Slideshare.
10. Infographics: Highlight content that you love (OPC = Other People's Content)
11. Follow these people
12. To read blogs
13. Slideshares,
14. Linkedin Pulse articles,
15. Videos,
16. Conferences,
17. Books,
18. Quotes,
19. Facts, etc.
20. Define the terms you need to know about [your topic]
21. 8 Steps to Success in [your topic]
22. Best Practices for [Topic]
23. What [Hot Topic] means for [Your Topic]. My example: What Google's new algorithm means for you
24. Use campaign materials to create new content, or repurpose existing content.
25. Research reports that cover the area of Coverage
26. Highlight analyst reports
27. Marketing keynotes and Speaker notes can be turned into articles
28. Customers service representatives are an invaluable resource. Ask them to identify the most important questions and FAQs of your customers
29. Simply remove the promotional elements to transform customer testimonials (talking head) into "customer profiles videos".
30. Ask employees to send you notes from events.

Also, I recommend that teams meet once a quarter to brainstorm content ideas. These resources will help you brainstorm your own Guerrilla content marketing idea list:

• Top Tips and Resources to Create Blog Topics Your Audience will Love
• The Ultimate List Of Blog Post Ideas
• 8 ways to brainstorm and manage a year's worth of content ideas

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Marketing Insider Group can help you create content that will generate ROI without breaking the bank. Although we are not free, for less than one webinar sponsorship, we can provide you with a year's worth of content ideas, full articles, and reports that show our value.

Visit our annual blog service or contact us for a free content marketing assessment.