Kyle Gray - The Story Engine: An entrepreneur’s guide to content strategy and brand storytelling without spending all day writing

Dont forget to claim the templates and downloads that go with this book!

To help you put many of the ideas in the book into practice quickly, I have created some easy-to-use templates. Theyre free to download and modify to fit your needs.

Grab them at

thest oryengin e.co/resources

Copyright Kyle Gray, 2016.

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1546424581

ISBN-10: 154642458X

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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The Author and Publisher assume no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any Purchaser or Reader of these materials

Any perceived slights of specific people or organizations are unintentional.

Cover and Interior design by Vanessa Mendozzi

www.vanessamendozzidesign.com

Images on cover used under licence Shutterstock.com

Contents

Foreword by Tom Morkes

Content marketing, a diamond in the rough

Content marketing is the most underrated and underutilized tool in the traditional online marketers toolkit.

Thats a shame because content marketing can be the most lucrative, compoundable form of marketing you can do for your business.

Ill explain why in a second, but first, I think its worth exploring why so many people shy away from content marketing (at their own peril).

Ive found there are two reasons why most people dont invest in content marketing:

#1. Creating captivating and compelling content that turns new traffic into customers is hard. You cant create great content that grows your business in 5 minutes a day (and anyone who promises something similar is lying). From strategy to execution, creating content that ranks in major search engines, gets readers to share and sign up for your list, and to eventually buy your products or services, takes time, money, and energy.

#2. You typically wont find a profitable return on investment in the first month of deploying content. In most cases, it takes a great article or blog post about 6 to 12 months to generate enough traffic to validate the cost it will take to create it. This is a hard pill to swallow, especially when most marketers would reference the immediate ROI you could hypothetically get from paid advertising on platforms like Facebook or Google.

In other words: content marketing is for those who are playing the long game.

Most people just dont want to invest months or years into something that may not turn a profit for many months or years down the road.

And thats where you and I, if were willing to put in the work, can profit greatly.

In my own experience, content marketing is the reason I was able to go from $0 / year to multiple 6-figures / year in less than 3 years. And this growth is looking to continue.

Why?

Because great content gets more valuable over time.

Of course, the question then becomes: how do I create great content?

Enter: The Story Engine by Kyle Gray

I met Kyle Gray on a remote island in Thailand when Kyle first started working for Dan Norris. We were both doing the digital nomad thing and, as luck would have it, we both started working for Dan around the same time. My work was focused on positioning and marketing his first book The 7 Day Startup.

As Kyle highlights in The Story Engine, that book, which started as a series of blog posts on the WP Curve blog, went on to be a massively successful bestseller that generated new interest in WP Curve, as well as helped Dan spin off his own personal branded business.

This is one of many stories that Kyle shares in The Story Engine that both prove the point that content marketing is powerful, even beyond growing your business, and to demonstrate that there is a replicable system - a science - behind great content creation. This book will show you what that is, how it works, and how to implement it for your own business (or personal ambitions).

Too long, didnt read:

What Im trying to say is this:

1. Everyone who is in business for the long haul should create content regularly.
2. Those who plan to create content regularly should read and follow this book.

The Story Engine will provide you the strategy, framework, and process to turn content marketing from a sometimes confusing, difficult task into a manageable process for growing business.

I highly recommend you buy a copy for yourself and everyone on your team who is involved in content creation. You wont be disappointed.

PART I - Un Introduction To Content Marketing

Chapter 1 - Baptism by fire

I was on my way to Thailand to start working for a startup. I was going to meet my boss for the first time, in Bangkok at a conference for location-independent entrepreneurs.

The startup was called WP Curve. It was a small but rapidly growing company that provided unlimited small WordPress fixes at a monthly membership fee. In little more than a year, this startup had grown from a tiny bootstrapped team to a thriving company.

What was unique about this startups rapid progress was that its primary and exclusive driver for growth was content marketing. WP Curves content was getting the same results for pennies that most companies hope for when they sink thousands of dollars into advertising. My boss, Dan Norris, was a cofounder of WP Curve, and had spent many years carefully honing his craft in content marketing. His was a hard-won skill that came from trial and error, relentless attention to detail, and from a bold sense of generosity toward his audience.

As I was joining Dans company, all that hard work was all beginning to pay off. WP Curve was growing quickly, Dan had his first speaking opportunity at this conference in Bangkok, and he had just launched his first book (of many), The 7 Day Startup, which was wildly successful.

Content marketing is a demanding craft and it was difficult for Dan to balance it with the demands of managing a growing business and personal brand. Thats where I came in.

My job was to take over the content marketing operations for WP Curve, to transform the blog from a one-man show to a thriving and scalable team of writers. I was to do all of this without compromising the quality that had lead to the blogs hard-earned recognition.

The plan was for me to work remotely from Thailand, which allowed for a good quality of life at a low cost, and which lined up nicely with the Australian time zone where Dan lived and worked.

The three days of the conference passed in a blur; there were documentaries being filmed, hundreds of fascinating conversations taking place, early risers looking to make new connections at the breakfast bar, and night owls ready to explore the Bangkok nightlife. Between sessions and meetups we would meet in his room to discuss our strategy and goals for WP Curves content. With our high energy and enthusiasm, ideas were flying and ambitious goals were set.

After the conference Dan returned to Australia and I remained in Thailand to begin my work.

The struggle begins

My performance metrics were simple: publish ten long-form blog posts a month on the WP Curve blog. I did not have to write all the posts myself, but I was ultimately responsible for ensuring that they met the quality standards Dan expected.