{"id":1740,"date":"2020-02-19T12:48:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T12:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.co\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2024-06-12T13:01:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T13:01:47","slug":"100-hour-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.co\/100-hour-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we spent 100 hours creating a 16,223 word guide for Project.co!"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

There’s a satisfyingly coarse American proverb that goes: “Knowledge is like manure. It’s only good when spread\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think in many ways, this proverb cuts right to the heart of SaaS marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have a ridiculous amount of knowledge about your own software tool – the amazing things it can do, the many ways it can be used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But until you spread that to your audience, it\u2019s basically useless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the last few months, communicating that value has become a bit of an obsession for our team here at Project.co. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m really keen to show people the things they can achieve using the tool we have created. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The centrepiece of this approach is what we\u2019ve called Project.co Learn. This is a comprehensive, 16,000+ word guide – an end-to-end manual that lays out everything <\/em>about how to get up and running and achieve success using Project.co.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you might expect, this hasn\u2019t been a particularly quick or easy thing to do. It\u2019s taken a lot of time and effort – around 100 hours, actually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what exactly have we done? Why have we done it? What do we want to achieve? And how did we do it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read on to find out more…and hopefully, we can avoid any more hypothetical questions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Project.co Learn?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As I\u2019ve already alluded to, it\u2019s a comprehensive, no-holds-barred guide to our software tool, Project.co.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It walks a user through every single feature <\/em>of our tool, from sign up to success, with instructions, screenshots, gifs, top tips and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s designed in a modular way, so a reader can go through that whole journey – or they can navigate right to the part of the guide they might be having trouble with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why build a knowledge base like this?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, there are a variety of reasons that I\u2019d categorise into two equally important points: one, to support our existing users, and two – less obviously – to reach and persuade would-be users to sign up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, it\u2019s important to communicate the value of our tool to existing users: to support them with features they may be having trouble with, and to educate them about things they may not have been aware they could achieve with it. The more we can educate our users about the nuances and features of Project.co – and how to get the most value out of it – the better they\u2019ll be able to use it, unleashing the full potential of the tools we\u2019ve worked so hard to build. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s acquisition. While a knowledge base like this would appear to be entirely <\/em>support-focused, I\u2019m also aware that there\u2019s a likelihood this content will be viewed and used by people who aren\u2019t our customers yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It gives them the chance to check out our feature list and nuts and bolts of the software tool without creating an account – and they also get to see that we\u2019re a user focused company who are really invested in supporting our customers. This has <\/em>to make a good impression on people considering using our tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an added bonus, the extra content can all be indexed for search purposes. If we\u2019re creating great content about broad, widely searched issues like how to manage projects and tasks –  there\u2019s a certain visibility that might come with that, giving us the chance to reach and educate new <\/em>people about Project.co.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The knowledge base, then, is designed to enhance both our acquisition and retention efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our plans moving forward<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve got big plans to continue developing the Project.co Learn section over the coming weeks and months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most notably, we\u2019re currently in the process of creating a range of video content – combining live action with screen recording – to repurpose each article into video format. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This will certainly involve a fair amount more time input – but the foundational work has been done. This is very much rooted in the idea of Gary Vee\u2019s content pyramid model<\/a>, which is all about maximising the effort you put into your content by repurposing it, \u2018chopping it up\u2019 and sharing it as widely as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a minimum, we\u2019ll be looking to get this content out there on YouTube, cut it down into social media clips, we might look at creating some webinar\/SlideShare style content – but it will all be much easier having input the significant time and energy we already have on getting the foundations in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our desired result with all of this is to market our product through education. The more we can reach our target market with support full, helpful content that helps them use Project.co the better. By creating once and repurposing we\u2019re maximising the value we get from the content we create.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also the fact that we\u2019ll be continuing to evolve the tool itself – and as we do so, maintaining Project.co Learn will be so important. It\u2019s crucial that we keep up with this, with changed sections, updated screenshots, etc. as and when they need to be changed so each section is correct and relevant whenever someone views it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to close by sharing the actual process by which we created this fairly significant suite of content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bulk of the work was a collaboration in Google Docs. We created a list of features we wanted to include, and then worked through it – section by section – fleshing out the copy and reviewing it with our internal team. Google Docs is an awesome tool to collaborate in this way, with one central document and source of truth, rather than 54 different versions of a Word document floating around in people\u2019s inboxes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to use gifs liberally as part of this project. Our aim with this is to give mini windows into each section as we\u2019re discussing it. A gif used in this way has more value than an image and less friction than clicking a video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wand we used a free tool called Licecap<\/a> to do this. Licecap is a super easy tool to use – you just drag the box around whatever you want to record, name your file and it records right to your desktop as a gif file. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once the copy and graphics were signed off, we created the guide in Wordpress, using a plugin called WeDocs to set up the navigation, and another plugin called AddSearch as a search plugin for users to find stuff they\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, as you\u2019d expect we used Project.co to manage the tasks, deliverables and deadlines! This is ongoing work as we continue to record the feature videos to live on these pages and further afield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, in a nutshell – that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been up to!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m confident that demonstrating the full <\/em>value and power of Project.co in this way will be a great way to educate and empower our audience moving forward, helping them unleash the full potential of the tool to achieve amazing things in their business. Yes, we\u2019ve spent a lot of time and effort on it – but I\u2019m sure that this will be more than worthwhile in the long-term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m interested to know whether you guys have ever put together a huge document like this to educate or support your audience – and what sort of results you got from it? Do you think this is a good way to educate and support your audience? Is there anything we could have done better? Let us know in the comments!
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We created a comprehensive, 16,000+ word end-to-end guide that lays out everything about how to get up and running and achieve success using Project.co.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":288731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-journey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Why-we-spent-100-hours-creating-a-16223-word-guide-for-Projectco.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgGBe0-s4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}