The Hedgehog’s Guide to Content StrategyJosh BraatenCollegisEducation.com@JLBraaten

Josh Braaten• Director of Inbound

Marketing, Collegis Education• Vice President of Minnesota

Search Engine Marketing Association• Co-Founder of Glass en Masse

The lowly hedgehog has many predators, all posing unique threats.

The eagle has razor-sharp talons and beaks.

Snakes are poisonous and just plain nope.

Wolves have knife-like teeth.

Against all of these incredible threats, the hedgehog has but one defense.

When the going gets tough, a hedgehog rolls up into a ball, protecting itself with its spines.

Predators fall flat on their faces against a hedgehog’s spines.

Where Most Content Fails

Jumping Head-First Without a Plan

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Not Staying on the Ball with Content

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Jumping Between Tactics Before Success

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Reaching Too Far, Too Fast

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Hedgehog Content Marketing

Presenting… The Hedgehog Concept

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Hedgehog Concept

The intersection of:1. What you’re good at2. What you’re

passionate about3. Where you can make

money-Good to Great

By Jim Collins

A narrowly-focused content marketing strategy, the strength of which derives from the precise execution of a select number of consistent tactics targeted at a specific and known customer persona.

Alternate definition: The content marketing strategy to invest in if you don’t have a lot of time or money but want scalable results.

Hedgehog Content Marketing

How to Act Like a Hedgehog

A Hedgehog Knows His Audience

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Personas Promote Concrete CustomersHarry Hedgehog Motivations:

• Eating tasty fruits• Spine maintenance

Paint Points:• Loveable, but sharp-witted• Embarrassing spine shedding

Goals:• Luxury spine-care products• Variety of fruits; delivered

“A fruit basket and a bubble bath sound lovely right about now.”

Message Maps Connect Needs to the Brand

Awareness Consideration Close Stay

Mindset:I love fruit and wish I could find healthy recipes and people who appreciate it

Mindset:I have high standards and only want to purchase fruit from those that “get it”

Mindset:Will my fruit both look and taste pristine if it’s shipped to me?

Mindset:My friends appreciate when I find them “hidden gems” online

Message:This is a place for high-quality fruit recipes, gifts and conversations

Message:Our company is an authority on fruit quality, which can be verified by our growing community of fruit enthusiasts.

Message:Our fruit will impress you and your friends/family in every way or your money back.

Message:Show your fruit savviness by sharing these recipes and exclusive discounts with your friends.

Keywords and Topics

Keywords help break down all of the individual conversations you want to have with people.

Keyword Avg. Monthly Searches (exact match)fruit 49500

fruit salad 49500fruit baskets 40500

grapefruit 40500fruit pizza 33100

fruits 33100fruits basket 27100

fruit dip 14800fruit smoothie recipes 14800

kiwi fruit 14800fruit basket 12100fruit cake 12100

fruit cake recipe 12100fruit bouquet 12100

fruit salad recipe 12100fruit arrangements 9900

fruit basket delivery 9900fruit trees 8100

cheap fruit baskets 8100fruit bowl 6600

fruit of the month 6600fruit smoothie 6600

Map Keywords to Your Brand

Keywords discipline you to remain consistent in your brand and focused on the goals and journey of the customer.

Awareness• Fruit bouquet, basket

and bowl arrangement how-to’s

• Fruit recipes blog

Consideration• Fruit of the month club

benefits, features and testimonials

• Fruit basket delivery

Close• Customer fruit basket

arrangements• Cheap fruit baskets

Stay • Customer fruit recipe “selfies”

Create a Consistent Platform for Your Brand

Daily Weekly Monthly

Social Media:• Customer fruit “selfies”• Curate fruit recipes• Share fruit arrangement

content

Blog:• Fast and easy fruit

recipes for the week (Mondays)

• Fruit recipes to try this weekend (Thursdays)

• Build-your-own fruit arrangement how-to series (Saturdays)

Newsletter:• Curate fruit recipes from

the blog• Curate best customer

fruit arrangements• Advertise fruit of the

month club and fruit baskets

At the end of the day, it doesn’t take a lot to give the customer what they want.

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From Good to Great Content

“In each of these dramatic, remarkable, good-to-great corporate transformations, we found the same thing: There was no miracle moment.

Instead, a down-to-earth, pragmatic, committed-to-excellence process—a framework—kept each company, its leaders, and its people on track for the long haul.”

- Jim Collins on Good to Great, JimCollins.com

Good to Great Content Marketing

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Search for Each Topic to Know What’s Good

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Deepen Your Understanding of Your Customer.

Tools such as Google Analytics, Qualaroo and Usertesting.com create a path to better know and serve your customers.

Scale the Content That Needs to Be Created

Scale Who and How Many People See Content

Share With Friends

Pay to Promote to Fans

Syndicate to People Like Your Customers

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Scale How Often and What You Write About

Daily Weekly Monthly

Social Media:• Customer fruit “selfies”• Curate fruit recipes• Share fruit arrangement

content

Blog:• Fast and easy fruit

recipes for the week (Mondays)

• Fruit recipes to try this weekend (Thursdays)

• Build-your-own fruit arrangement how-to series (Saturdays)

Newsletter:• Curate fruit recipes from

the blog• Curate best customer

fruit arrangements• Advertise fruit of the

month club and fruit baskets

Content Strategy Produces a Flywheel Effect

Goal Completions

This chart plots blog traffic gained over time, illustrating each month’s effort as a different band of traffic.

A flywheel effect occurs when each incremental effort becomes easier as successes start to add up.

Monthly blog traffic for the last year

Thank YouJosh BraatenCollegisEducation.com@JLBraaten

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