Blogging & case studies for Shopify Plus [2015-2016]

Shopify Plus is the premium enterprise version of ecommerce giant Shopify. I started on their content team just as it was being built, in mid-2015. Over the year I worked with them, I:

• Pitched ideas, sourced quotes and research to back up my posts, and created posts covering topics ranging from robotics to enterprise email marketing to R&D, and how those topics impact and interact with enterprise ecommerce
• Worked on industry event and marketing calendars to supplement the content strategy
• Worked with my editor and Shopify Plus clients to create case studies (Hawkers, NOBULL)
• Had several posts hit 150-400 social shares, with the most successful one hitting over 600 social shares

Example blog posts 

• What to do After You’ve Lost a Loyal Customer
• What is Project Management? A 101 Guide for Fast-Growing Ecommerce Businesses
• May the Fourth Be With You: How George Lucas Fought For His Vision & Changed The World

Project spotlight: Growth and outreach

Since the Plus blog was pretty much brand new when I started, we wanted to build traction and brainstormed on ways to do so. My idea? One of the best places to start with getting more promotion was with people who have a vested interest in promoting us, like Shopify Plus partners. 

With that in mind, I went through the database of apps/companies that integrate with Shopify Plus and reached out to companies who were a good brand fit to see if any of their users would be interested in being a case study on the Shopify Plus blog spotlighting their app, if anyone on their team wanted to exchange guest posts, or if they had any new feature releases that we could spotlight in a future post.

This project resulted in over 500 social shares, multiple guest posts and case studies, and also helped us build beneficial relationships with others in the space.

Freelancer Planner Kickstarter: concept, strategy, and marketing [2015]

It’s always bothered me that most planners don’t actually teach you how to plan – they just give you a place to write things down. There’s also a glaring gap in the planner market – most business-based planners are not only boring and/or ugly, they’re not created for freelancers.

I had printable versions available at my personal site that were designed to fix the first problem (teaching you better planning habits as you plan) and had received enough feedback on them to know that they worked. But I wanted to create something that solved both problems in one go, and that was nice to look at to boot. And it had to be physical, because as much as I love a good productivity app, there are benefits of physical writing that can’t be ignored.

2015 was the year I did it – funding it on Kickstarter and jumping in with both feet despite a shorter runway than I had planned on (due to personal/health issues). Here’s the overview: 

Concept and creation

• Oversaw creation of planner, providing concept sketches to designer and working closely with designer to refine concept and create something both attractive and functional
• Did extensive research into Kickstarter best practices and created backer levels based on said research (along with choosing length of campaign based on research)
• Wrote the script for the video
• Wrote all copy for the campaign page
• Once we were 100% funded, I sent out our printable planner prototype to backers to get feedback so that we could iterate based on that feedback (something I learned from my UX clients!) – what was sent to the printers was actually version two of the planners

Marketing and strategy

Social media marketing

• There was a “pay with a share” option to download a one-page printable, which generated over 50 shares
• Posted regular updates on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
• Changed all social profile links to drive traffic back to campaign during time of campaign
• Embedded “click to share” buttons on the campaign page and shared them with backers regularly via campaign updates
• Outreach to Twitter users who had tweeted about freelancing, productivity, or similar Kickstarter campaigns
• One particularly effective tactic was posting thank you tweets, where I’d find the backer’s Twitter username and giving them a shout-out that day on Twitter – people loved these

Content marketing

• Kept up regular posting on my site while the campaign was going, with topics related to the campaign and linking back to the campaign
• Recorded several videos for YouTube (then crossposted those videos to my own site) with call-to-action embeds to check out the campaign and back it
• Reposted older content on Medium (that had previously performed well on my site) to get more mileage out of it
• Guest posted on several sites to drive traffic back to campaign

PR and outreach

• Lots of blogger and journalist outreach, which netted (among other features) a features on CreativeBloq and AGBeat, along with a Twitter shout-out from the Freelancers Union
• Submitted the campaign to ProductHunt and promoted ProductHunt link
• Review outreach to several bloggers with related niche followings, received several reviews while campaign was running

Results

• The backer report showed that the social media and content marketing/guest posting strategies drove a significant percentage of backer support and overall traffic to the campaign
• We passed the funding goal with well over a week left on the campaign
• By the end, the campaign was funded to 156% of its goal

Content production at Sitepoint [2014]

I approached Sitepoint just as they were starting to amp up their business and marketing section, which was the start of a great working relationship. Their audience is freelancers with a heavy slant towards designers and developers, including some developers who are in the beginning stages of creating their own software or startup. I created my own topics and pitched them to the editor, sourcing quotes where needed.

Between mid-July 2014 and early December 2014, the fourteen posts I wrote for Sitepoint received:

• Over 45,00 views total (46,832 to be exact)
• With an average of 3,345 views per post
• And an average of 200 social shares per post
• The most successful post had over 10,000 views and 477 social shares in that timeframe

From the editor: “You’ve been killing it. Your articles are consistently on point and almost always perform well. It’s nice to sit down to work on an article and *know* it’s going to be good.” (Josh Earl)

Content highlight: Project Management for Freelance Developers course for SitePoint Premium

SitePoint Premium (formerly Learnable) asked if I’d use my years of experience as a freelance project manager to create a course for their library. And thus, Project Management for Freelance Developers was born.

My work

• Create and outline course content (both modules and individual lessons)
• Create slides for course
• Record screencasts for course videos
• Light editing to remove dead air, streamline content, etc.
• Promote the course once it went live

Results

• Most popular course on the site in its launch month (April 2015)
• Fourth most popular course on Learnable for all of 2015
• Currently has 4.2 star average with 85 user reviews

Content highlight: 90 Day Freelance Biz video for SitePoint

Having previously done a video for SitePoint Premium, I pitched them the idea of doing another one, breaking down my systematized process for quickly building up a freelance business. The outline was approved and I set about recording it.

My work

• Content outline & development
• Script for video/speaking during video
• Video recording and editing

Once published, it was doing so well on Learnable, that they republished it on SitePoint.

Results

In the first month of being live, the video was watched over 2,000 times and got great feedback on social media (and plenty of shares–124 in two weeks on the Sitepoint repost alone).