It’s a good day to tell a marketing story with a successful ending. 💯

Have you ever heard of Nerdwallet? If you haven’t, don’t stress. This teeny tiny finance startup did what most would call the unthinkable: in seven years, the under-the-radar company grew to be worth $500 million with millions of visitors to his website. *insert round of applause*

Clearly NerdWallet is the shining example of why company size doesn’t always matter. Which is why companies from all verticals try to replicate this very successful content-first marketing strategy. But, is it worth doing so? Let’s find out:

Taking Over Organic Search

The founder of Nerdwallet, Tim Chen, had a realization in the midst of struggling to get traction for his business: organic search was the move. With the end destination of organic search in his mind, here’s what he realized:

• It’s a necessity to create large amounts of good content.
• Using said content will result in increased backlinks.

The real math is, the more stellar content you create and push out, the more opportunities exist to rank for keywords. Boom.

Set The Content Bar

Once Chen had this realization, he set the bar for content super high: he would push out 500 pieces of content and links every month. And ya know what? He stuck to that. The next year, he produced THOUSANDS of pieces of content per month.

The volume of content, combined with the quality, resulted in Nerdwallet ranking for nearly three times as many keywords as their closest bank competitor.

This success story only gets better (which is why you need to keep reading).

Q: How do you make your content visible to the entire world?

A: You create a content distribution plan.

No matter what content you’re putting out into the world, it’s more important now more than ever to have a specific plan for doing so. The stats of content production are mind-boggling, so let’s just leave it at this: the content space is REALLY. LOUD. 🔊

To silence the noise for your customers and have them focus all of their attention on you, it’s a priority to create the best of the best content and distribute it seamlessly.

But, how to do that? Sit back, relax, and let Foundation Inc tell it how it is.

It’s Not One Size Fits All

In other words, not all content should be sized to just one distribution plan. Different content types and formats require their own plans. Take the time to plan how you would promote your various pieces of content. Would you market an ebook the same way you do a podcast? Answer: nope.

Paid? Organic? Both? None?

Foundation recommends starting organic. When content is posted to your site, develop a plan for pushing it to your social channels, reaching out to influencers, and even posting in forums.

Once your organic distribution is rockin’, then you can get to the point of seeing how paid distribution would work in your favor. Each biz is different, which is why it’s important to test both options to discover what works well for you.

Ready to sit down and crank your plans out? Keep reading for a step-by-step guide.

There’s one gift that Santa can’t deliver: reuniting kids with their families.

Today’s Watch comes from the Red Cross. It’s devastating, heartbreaking, and nothing like what you’d expect from a Christmas ad. We’re not going to make light of it. You should just watch…