Joe Pulizzi

Joe Pulizzi is a content marketing evangelist, speaker, author and founder of Content Marketing Institute, the leading content marketing educational resource for enterprise level brands. He writes one of the most influential content marketing blogs in the world, and also writes for Entrepreneur.com and LinkedIn.

Growing up, Joe had a multitude of entrepreneurial influences. His father was a chef and restaurateur, and his grandfather and uncle were in the funeral business. He always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur, but it wasn’t until he followed the traditional path of getting a degree and a job that he was able to explore his interests and make the leap.

Joe spent time cutting his teeth in the marketing industry at Penton Media, the largest independent business publisher in North America. While there, he ran the content marketing group (which wasn’t called “content marketing” at the time), and spent a lot of time working with customers who didn’t want to go the traditional advertising route for their businesses.

It was during this time he formed the main ideas that became what we all know today as content marketing. His first blog post in 2007 called “Why Content Marketing?” outlined his ideas and from there, an industry was born.

Joe says one of the most important things you can do to generate business is to become the leading expert in that field. And the easiest way to do that is to own your own category. Today, when anybody Googles “content marketing” his article is the first thing listed, and that’s because he invented the term and has the longest history with it.

Another important piece of advice he has is to make sure you are differentiating yourself by telling a different story than everyone else. If you are in an industry with a lot of other competitors (hello WordPress consultants!), how are you different from the next guy? What’s your story? A lot of people find their story by niching down to a smaller audience. It’s counterintuitive, but you’ll build authority much faster that way.

There is so much more to this episode with Joe so don’t miss! Be sure to tune in to hear all the incredible insights and wisdom Joe shares.

Please join us in thanking Joe for being here today, and thanks to you as well for joining. We’ll see you next time on WordPress Elevation.

 Elevation Round

Q: What’s the #1 thing any freelancer needs to know?

A: They need to position themselves as the leading expert in some informational niche and build an audience.

Q: What’s the best thing you’ve done to find new customers?

A: Build an audience.

Q: How do you stop competing on price?

A: Be the leading expert in something. Go small. Market to a small audience, build your base, then you can charge whatever you want. It takes about 18 months if you do it right.

Q: Any tips for writing better proposals?

A: Don’t write proposals!

Q: What’s your favorite CRM tool?

A: This isn’t really CRM but I love Pippity. It’s compatible with WordPress. We are using Salesforce for our CRM.

Q: What’s the best way to keep a project and a client on track?

A: Set proper expectations with a client and put those into the agreement.

Q: Any ideas for getting referrals from existing customers?

A: Give your customers something to talk about.

Q: What’s the #1 thing you can do to differentiate yourself?

A: Telling a different story than anyone else, especially if you have a lot of competitors.