Dear engineer, stop trying to do marketing

When you're starting out, it's easy to just fly by the seat of your pants. A blog here, a social post there. You write some, your engineers or community members write some.

Good, you're starting. And part of that is just doing.

But then, you get funding. Hire some folks. Start to coordinate efforts.

👽 YOU NEED A CONTENT MANAGER 👽

Leaving this up to yourself or your engineers creates disorganized and, thus, ineffective efforts. It's all wasted if it's not coordinated from ideation to writing and editing to final reviews and publishing.

I did this for Red Hat's Opensource.com site for 10 years and genuinely love bringing the process to teams and companies. Startups especially need this process and strategy as they get things up and running for the first time, but all companies can benefit from a content or marketing reset or refresh.

Times in tech have been especially hard with layoff after layoff, particularly impacting marketing-content-community teams. But one thing I've learned over the years, engineers cannot make it in the game of business without us. You may have figured out how to engineer software to solve an important problem, but if you don't set up your show-and-tell side of the house with some serious know-how and process, it will all fall by the wayside... getting you nowhere fast.

Why does this matter? Competition is fierce.

And what I can promise you is that you don't really understand how the following works well enough to do it yourself:

• write compelling content consistently (nailing the tone, audience, links)

• pitch your content and company (to publications, podcasts, webinars)

• create and maintain partnerships with similar businesses/integrations (co-webinars/gigs/blogs)

• manage your community of customers and contributors (real engagement with real humans overtime that makes an impact)

I highly recommend you read this article by the team at Plane.

⚡️ YOU NEED A 30-60-90 DAY CONTENT STRATEGY PLAN ⚡️

Here's how it works:

🎧 Get on a call with an expert about where you are on your journey regarding content, customers, and community. Doesn't have to be a big deal. They ask the questions, you just give the real answers.

✍ They go back to their desk to make a plan.

This is my 4-step process.

1️⃣ Review and research any materials you've shared with me, your website and other content, your audience and industry... all that good stuff.

2️⃣ Create a 30-60-90 day content strategy plan (or general marketing plan).

3️⃣ Add a healthy dose of structure and process: I build content calendars and editorial workflows for you.

4️⃣ Delivery! You and your team are set up to execute a stellar new content plan.