WORKWEEK

If you aren’t familiar, Reforge is a fantastic place to find courses and “artifacts” from senior and executive-level marketers just like you. Artifacts are simply templates, decks, etc. that folks used at their companies. I find the artifacts specifically helpful for gut checks on how to approach something, how to organize it, and how to potentially communicate it. 

Keep in mind––Reforge is a paid learning resource. You may not be able to access these links without a subscription. I promise, this will be the only newsletter that links off to Reforge courses exclusively. I’m getting a lot from it, and if your company reimburses for learning platforms, definitely get this one reimbursed.  

Finally, it must be said, these are not affiliate links. I am in no way paid to promote these, nor do I benefit from you using these or not. 

All right, let’s go. 

1. Content marketing strategy template: A good template starting place if you need one for building out a strategy deck. It’s so rare you get to see what other people use, and this is also helpful for gut checking your own, critiquing and taking what you like and leaving what you don’t. 
2. How we do customer stories at Dovetail: First of all, if you haven’t explored Dovetail’s website and content––you are missing out. They are world-class at content marketing, and several links here will be from them. This is a great example of documenting how a team approaches particular types of stories, and it has inspired me to work with my team to create something similar. 
3. Content creation calendar at Reforge: What I love about this calendar is that it breaks down the production timelines into a visual calendar, focusing on the amount of time each step takes. Then, it bakes in out of offices and company holidays. It seems like a helpful calendar to use with folks not on the content team so they can see what work everyone is doing, when, and you can explain why it takes the time it takes. So often, content production timelines get squished, and a highly-visible calendar like this could help with pushback on why those timelines exist to begin with.
4. Content hub and pillar content strategy at Dovetail: You can feel the passion this person put into this presentation, which makes it just fun to read. It’s also a really great example of an effective hub and spoke model, with justification for why their larger team should invest in it. 
5. Content library for client reference and brainstorming: This is a great list of fantastic pieces of content other companies have done––and I just love the idea of having a document to collect all of them and use for brainstorming. 
6. AI prompt to create a marketing campaign: My two maternity leaves have really left me behind in AI use cases, I feel like. I just haven’t had the time to explore much with the tools, especially in any professionally practical way. Well, thank goodness Kieran Flanagan has. You can legit just copy and paste this into ChatGPT, and it will walk you through several answers. I then asked it to create an outline for a Google Slide presentation to present the ideas––and that was very good, too. 
7. AI prompt to create a landing page: Here is another one from Kiernan, and while I haven’t tried it, I’m just impressed in general by his detailed instructions for AI. Worth a try, esp. if you are a small team!
8. Using AI to audit existing marketing materials: This one takes a lot of upfront work, but similar to Kiernan, I’m impressed by how detailed Hazel is with this work. And she says this reduces the workload from 40 hours to 1-2. Holy cow. 
9. AI prompts and best practices for product marketers: If you are ever in need of really deepening your understanding of content marketing and brand storytelling, looking for product marketing courses or material is a great place to look. And these prompts are helpful for product marketers, yes, but also content marketers, with a few tweaks.