Creating as a marketer can get pretty dull. Looking at competitors isn't all that fun. I get some of my best ideas from looking at content from organizations outside my niche. I thought I would gather some of my favorite lessons from other organizations as a way to force myself to deep dive into new industries and learn in the process. Today, I am going to be highlighting the marketing that CoSchedule does.

What Is CoSchedule?

CoSchedule is a marketing platform to help teams of all sizes streamline their marketing efforts. It can be challenging to tackle marketing projects, and marketers tend to focus on different, siloed areas. There are so many specialties in marketing: SEO, content, social media, email marketing, branding, and product marketing are just a few specialties off the top of my head. CoSchedule helps marketing teams bring all of these areas together and streamlines reporting.

If you are like me, you probably had a preconceived notion of what CoSchedule does from years ago. I was pleasantly surprised by how much they’ve grown after doing this marketing deep dive this week.

1. Build Out New Income Streams Based On Audience Needs

One of the most important things organizations can do is pivot and create new income streams in our current times. CoSchedule accomplished this flawlessly with CoSchedule Academy. Marketing is still a very interdisciplinary field. Many marketers didn't go to school for marketing, and they come from all different backgrounds. Marketers still need excellent education, and certificates like Hubspot Academy and Google Analytics Academy have become extremely popular.

CoSchedule created a paid academy that marketers can utilize. These courses create mostly passive income streams for their business which is so important today. Many organizations can build new income streams like courses, memberships, group consulting, templates, etc. Creating products you can sell on your website passively (without needing a demo) is essential.

Passive products lead to larger business investments. Many organizations focus on list building, but you don't have to give every small product away for free. Consider making your next freebie a low-cost product that upsells your software or product offering.

2. Simplify Your Core Offers Whenever Possible

As software companies grow, the need to provide upsells and packages increases. You want to deliver lots of software upgrades, but this can cause your customers to feel confused.

CoSchedule took a different approach to share their core offers. Instead of offering a million small products, CoSchedule offers two options: Marketing Calendar and Marketing Suite. Customers can make a decision quickly, and they feel the value of all the access they are getting with each offer.

If you can, reduce the number of options. Consider pre-bundling some of your software upgrades and making it as simple as possible on the front end.

You might also decide to sell products in a more a la carte fashion, but that doesn't have to be the main show on your website. You can create individual product pages that show your potential clients how to decouple some of the bundles you've built.

3. Don't Hide Your Product

One downfall of many startups is that they hide their product. It can be extremely challenging to find a product photo without signing up for a sales conversation. Potential customers should be able to see your product without signing up for a demo.

Your product is your biggest asset. You wouldn't purchase a product at Target without seeing a picture first. Yet, many software companies expect customers to hop on a demo without previewing the user experience of their application before.

Last year I demoed with an organization that wasn't too public about what their product looked like. The demo didn't go well because the user experience was poor. I was also pretty blown away by the proposal I received and the price they wanted me to fork over. No thanks! It's so important to be upfront with products and pricing. Your sales leaders will thank you for communicating this stuff.

4. Create Multiple Ways To Opt-In To Larger Marketing Cadences

Creating opt-in opportunities in your marketing department is great. One could argue that CoSchedule is a bit more aggressive on this. I ran into so many pop-ups while gathering screenshots for this post. On the other hand, I’ve been on CoSchedule’s list for years, so they are doing something right with acquiring new email addresses.

All content from CoSchedule features multiple ways to schedule a demo, but they also feature a ton of ways in each article to subscribe to their newsletter and get freebies in return.

Marketers could learn to include a few more opt-in opportunities on pages, especially if you provide a ton of value.

5. Create Content With Juicy Headlines

CoSchedule never fails to impress with juicy headlines that make you want to click and learn more right away. Take this screenshot, for example, a recent article on 1,900+ power words! Most organizations write lists of 7 or 10. CoSchedule went above and beyond on the quantity on this list while still focusing on quality.

The truth is that sometimes a list of ten tips works (you’re reading this article after all!) These massive listicles might take some time to produce, but they are so actionable. This CoSchedule article will be something that marketers bookmark and share on social media so they can keep coming back to it.

Consider ways to strip out the noise and create a longer guide that makes a big impact. You might not be able to pull off a list of 1,900+ words, but maybe you can spend a little bit of time going deeper to create lists in the 50-100 sphere.

Here are some ideas that typically make great long lists:

Statistics (50 Statistics About ________ You Need To Know)
Questions (75 Questions You Need To Ask Your _________)
Quotes (60 Quotes About _______)
Articles (The 50 Best Articles About ________)
Tools (The 50 Best Tools _______ Use To Succeed)

When you focus on long lists, you have to sacrifice depth, but not forever. Utilize that long list as fodder for new content. Each statistic, question, quote, or tool could be expanded into another article.

6. Problems Don't Need High-Level Solutions To Be Powerful

Speaking of headlines, let’s talk about some of the helpful solutions CoSchedule has built, like the headline analyzer, social message optimizer, and email subject line tester.

One of my favorite parts about these tools is that they solve a genuine problem for marketers. Creating stellar headlines, social messages, and email subject lines is hard. CoSchedule uses data and helpful prompts to help their customers understand these complex issues. Whenever I use these tools, I feel like I walk away with something valuable, and it’s completely free.

Headline Analyzer has gotten a significant facelift since the first time I used it. CoSchedule found another way to monetize and bring value to their audience by creating a Pro version of this tool called Headline Studio. The cost starts at just $9 a month, and it has the potential to generate a lot of value for CoSchedule.

Providing free value is something that all companies can do. Create a template or analyzer for your audience. If you find that your audience is getting a lot of value from this tool, consider giving the tool a freemium model.

7. Leverage The Power Of People To Create Great Content

People have a huge impact on content. When you see the face behind the content, you are more prone to relate to them. CoSchedule knows that and utilizes people’s faces flawlessly. For example, this is a page for their podcast: Actionable Marketing Podcast. Every story they share has a face attached to it.

Attaching faces to names has a considerable impact:

Potential customers might see a face they recognize and immediately want to click.
Potential customers might see a face that feels warm and inviting to them that makes them want to click.

CoSchedule leverages humans and their faces on many aspects of their site, including their about page.

8. Build A Case For Your Organization

It can be challenging to get a marketing budget off the ground. Many organizations want to focus on product development and sales, while marketing teams aren’t taken care of. CoSchedule created a wonderful, free tool to help marketers make a case for their software. When I say free, I mean completely free. I went through this entire process without inputting my email address.

The Case For CoSchedule is a quick clickable quiz that outputs some great results.

At the end of the quiz, you get a customized report with your company’s name on it, and you can even create a PDF of it. There’s a ton of helpful information in the report. I will say that I wish there were a bit more explanation with the quiz. I was unsure of what projects meant, so I just put a generic number in the report.

Overall, I found it incredibly cool that they put together this free tool.

9. Utilize A Variety Of Content Creation Methods When Possible

Companies often get stuck on one or two types of content, but CoSchedule does a good job of varying things. They have blogs, guides, reports, a podcast, books, and tons of tools. Your audience is probably made up of a variety of learners. Giving customers options on how they choose to interact with your marketing collateral is critical.

It’s important to take your time when doing this! You can’t jump into the pool too soon on content variation. Stick to one type of content until you have the marketing bandwidth to tackle more roles. CoSchedule has a bigger marketing team, and they work with other contractors. You can’t be the CoSchedule of your industry overnight.

10. Build Out Helpful Affiliate Content

Last but not least, we are going to talk about CoSchedule’s affiliate program. I am a part of several affiliate programs in my other life (on The Happy Arkansan). Customers make the absolute best partners because they know other people in your target market.

CoSchedule did an impressive job of building out their affiliate program landing page and providing a ton of helpful information. If you are considering an affiliate program, you should look at their site and make sure that you are providing enough information. Affiliate relationships work best when you can build a deeper relationship with affiliates and provide consistent communication.

Conclusion: You Can Learn From Other Organizations

After doing a deep dive on CoSchedule’s content, I was able to think through so many exciting ideas and strategies. If you are looking to generate some new content ideas, consider doing your own deep dive on a site soon! What was your favorite idea or lesson you learned today?

Note: I’d love to turn this into a series. Leave a comment below with some of your favorite companies who are crushing the marketing game right now!

10 CoSchedule Marketing Tips To Make Your Content Unstoppable