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After reading The 7 Day Startup book that quickly became a bestseller in 3 Amazon categories, I knew that Content Machine was another epic must-read book. It turned out to be a gold mine. Dan Norris does a fantastic job breaking content marketing down into a very specific in-depth process. His advice is actionable, without the usual fluff that most writers use to fill out the pages.

After reading this book, you will have a clear plan with templates and resources to assist you creating your own marketing strategy.

Dan wants this book “to be the most actionable book on content marketing in the world” and I think he achieved that. If you are a bootstrapping entrepreneur, you have an online business but not so much of a budget for advertising, or you have a blog that you want to grow, this book is for you. You won’t find a more extensive book on content marketing, so detailed and packed with so many resources and templates.

A few things about the author: Dan is a serial entrepreneur, that after “failing at entrepreneurship for 7 years” started to use Content Marketing with the techniques documented in Content Machine to build his successful business WP Curve.

If you read his book The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch (and I recommend you do that), you’ll get more insights into his past experiences, failed startups and successful breakthrough. You will understand where his experience comes from, and you’ll know that he’s not here to sell you dreams. Skipping the glamorous startup talk, he’s giving you exactly what you need to know to make your business work.

Chapter 1: How to Build a Business with Content Marketing

After reading just the first chapter of the Content Machine book, you will see that he gives you the right amount of details and information that you need to work on to start making your business profitable relatively quickly. In this chapter, Dan helps you identify if your business has the characteristics of a high-growth business and how to develop your business with content marketing. But don’t stop here, you’ll miss the best parts! The rest of the book is dedicating to helping you create high-quality content that makes you stand out, that build authority and can be easily scaled.

Chapter 2: Content Marketing Basics

In the second chapter, Content Marketing Basics, you’ll be introduced to everything you need to know about content marketing. Not only in this chapter but throughout the entire book, there are plenty of examples of best practices and downloadable material to help you build your own strategy. You’ll learn the difference between bad and good content.

Chapter 3: High Quality Content

Then, when you move on to the third chapter you get to understand what high-quality content really means. You’ll learn innovative ways to generate content ideas and an entire framework on how to multiply these ideas. It can’t get more practical than that!

I love how Dan differentiate a blogger from a content marketer:

[Tweet “A blogger creates blog posts. A content marketer markets a business.”]

Chapter 4: Differentiation

In the “Differentiation” chapter, you will learn different styles of content marketing and how other small or big companies managed to create remarkable content and strategies. I’m sure you’ll get inspired and find out a style “that resonates with you and one that can be disruptive in your industry”.

Chapter 5: Scale: Building The Machine

In the 5th chapter, you will learn how to build your business using content marketing, but most importantly how to grow and sustain your strategy in the long term. You’ll get everything there is to know about building and executing a successful marketing strategy, from designing and styling high-quality content to promoting it using various channels. You will find even the steps to building a content marketing team that will make sure your content strategy grows and prospers in the long term.

Wrapping it up

Here is a list of things I learned from this book (and I hope you’ll do too):

• Dan’s definition of content marketing: [Tweet “Content marketing is releasing something interesting that grabs attention for a business and builds trust.”]
• Make sure you have a profitable business idea. So that your marketing efforts will not be in vain.
  “When someone isn’t able to grow their business from high-quality, differentiated, scalable content marketing, something is fundamentally flawed in the way the business is designed.”
• The 10 characteristics of high-growth business
• There must be a logical link between the content and the business. Otherwise, you could have great content and sound business and still fail.
• It takes a long time to build momentum, don’t make the mistake to give up too soon!
• I’m sure you know this one: quality over quantity. High-impact content that people care about – that’s what matters.
  [Tweet “You don’t get rewarded for the amount of content you produce.”]
• A complete framework on how to generate content ideas: where and how to look for inspiration.
• Be generous and offer your genuine help to the community. It will pay off!
• Have clear goals for your strategy and always measure your progress.

I now realize that I could go on and on with amazing examples from the book, but it’s best to let you discover them for yourself. There’s just too many things to learn!

So here it is: Content Machine, is the only book that you need to read if you want to build a 7-figure business with no advertising budget. I’m so excited over the information I learned from this book, that I want to start applying them right away! How about you? Did you read the Content Machine book? What was your favorite part?