Content Marketing Best Practices That You Need to Follow Right Now with Arnie Kuenn

Welcome to the podcast. I’m Shane Barker, your host of Shane Barker’s Marketing Madness Podcast. Today, we’re exploring content marketing best practices—strategies every marketer should follow to boost campaign results.

Joining me is Arnie Kuenn, the author of two acclaimed content marketing books and founder and CEO of Vertical Measures. He’s a recognized thought leader in content marketing strategy, and he conducts conferences, workshops, and seminars worldwide. Listen in as he advises young marketers on generating content ideas that can go viral. By the end of this episode, you’ll know how to maximize your content marketing efforts. It’s definitely worth your time.

So hey guys, what’s going on? It’s Shane Barker here with Arnie Kuenn today, the CEO of Vertical Measures. Arnie, thank you so much for taking the time today. I really do appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely. So why don’t you tell the audience—just give us a bit about your background. I mean, like I was saying earlier, before we started this, I’m not even sure where to start, because you’ve done so many different things. I was telling you we only have an hour, and this could probably be a two- or three-day workshop on Arnie’s life—what’s happening, how he got to where he is today. But tell us a bit about yourself, like where you grew up, and give us a little background.

Phoenix doesn’t know how to handle rain, right? When they get rain, people lose their minds. It’s like Sacramento—we get rain, but once it really rains, people are like, “I don’t know how to handle this.” You said you drove in rain last year. It’s not like it’s snow—it’s just, “Drive slower.”

So yeah, when it rains out there, it rains hard.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s absolutely true.

Definitely need it. Anyway, go ahead—sorry about that. Tell us a little more about your background.

Wow, that’s crazy. And your wife’s also part of the organization, correct?

That’s awesome. So she’s the brains. That’s what I’m hearing—I’m translating, because my wife does the same. She helps me with my books. Actually, she’s the one who runs things. People see me more than they see my wife, but at the end of the day, she’s the glue that keeps it all together. I get that.

So, see, that’s you and I—we’re the same. I’m not good with numbers. We joked about this on another podcast. I was like, “I’m in accounting, this is so difficult.” Sometimes I lie and say, “Oh, I’ve been doing this for three years,” when it’s been ten. I’m always doing that. My personal timeline is skewed—I feel like my brother’s probably 12 when he’s 35 and just got married with a kid. So it’s my timeline, always skewed about that stuff. But that’s great you and your wife work together. You’ve been married for how long?

You’re a soldier. You are absolutely a soldier—37 years.

Yeah, I know—I was like, “Man, we’ve got all kinds of stuff. This guy’s been married 37 years. I feel like I’ve got the oracle of relationships.” I think we should make that a separate podcast, so let’s stick with content today. So, was there something interesting about growing up that nobody would know about you—like most people didn’t do this or deal with it?

That’s awesome. So where you grew up is now a museum. The cool part is you can actually remember ’70s music. Some folks I’ve talked to say the music was great, though it’s kind of a blur for me. I was born in the mid ’70s, so that means I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s. It was always fun—my mom and dad were California hippies. They were big into all types of music. Now I’m at a point where I feel like I’m getting old, because every new song on the radio just drives me nuts. I remember my mom saying, “Oh, she’s so old,” and now I’m that person—my son’s like, “Oh, I love this song,” and I’m annoyed. I’m losing my hearing, losing my hair, thinking, “This is it—getting old rocks, right?” So you ended up going to Kent State, I think?

Wasn’t that Vietnam? Weren’t those riots about Vietnam?

Yeah, well, can you imagine now, with how the media flows and everything that happens? I’m not saying students dying isn’t a big deal, but it’s crazy how media can blow things up. Like, I was giving an example: I was in Charlotte for the riots, not for the riots—I was just happy to be in Charlotte consulting. My mom in Sacramento freaked out, saying, “Oh my God, people are dying,” and I was literally in the middle of the streets thinking it wasn’t that crazy. But the media can take something to the next level sometimes. It was crazy being in the middle of it—helicopters and all that. So how did you get into content marketing? I also recall something about Icon—did you work there?

That’s why I asked about Icon—because I know something about it. I used to own a copier company. Nobody really knows that about me, so people might be surprised—my mom will just say, “I knew he had a copier company.” It was called Sacramento Copiers. I remember Icon and remember doing a lot of lead generation in Phoenix too, because we did so well in Sacramento. Long story short, I had a big company with 130 employees. My copier guy came in one day and said, “Hey, I want to break off and start my own copier company.” I said, “Yeah, you’re awesome—let’s do it.” That’s how I got in the car and started up five websites, doing lead generation. But the leads were too much for him to handle, so I ended up with these websites. He wasn’t selling a lot of copiers—did more service stuff—so I leased the lead-gen sites out to different companies. I’m familiar with Icon because of that. I thought, “It has to be Icon—it’s got to be the copier industry.”

It was when I said, “I have to ask him about that,” because it’s such a small world. I’m no longer in the copier industry now, but it was an interesting industry. The reason I liked it was, I went in—I didn’t want to upset people, but I made big copier companies here in Sacramento mad because we weren’t on their radar. We were just one website, then I came on and pushed the market to the next level—literally overnight, in a few weeks, we were number one for a lot of keywords. Before that, everything was handshake, offline. So people asked, “What’s going on here?” Then they realized we were a two-person team, which made them furious. They were worth millions, hundreds of millions in one case.

Eventually, they came back and said, “If my buddy is doing more service stuff, we want to lease those websites.” We ended up selling them. It was phenomenal—easy money. Because they couldn’t do what we did, so they couldn’t handle the leads, which is a great problem to have. It was fun, though, because it was this older industry that just didn’t adapt. I went in a few months later and they were like, “Oh my God—like, the VP of this company actually contacted me, saying, ‘Hey, we’re gonna lease these websites from you.’” He said, “Oh my God, come in tomorrow. You guys made it so I couldn’t sleep for weeks. Where’d you come from?” There were five copier companies and we popped up out of nowhere. It caused me a lot of stress, but I said, “Hey, I’m here to help.” Now they can lease the websites. I’m ready to help the company. It’s funny—it’s the copier industry.

That’s it—she’s here, and I’m here, and that’s how it goes. This isn’t what you have to do with podcasts, but I’ve realized that if you start off with one person listening, then move to two, you’ve doubled your audience. I tell people, every week, I double in size. They say, “That’s crazy.” I say, “No, that’s what I mean.” It’s the kind of podcast I run—aggressive, but we obviously push extremely hard, and we double numbers. That’s just numbers, which is great. And if your wife, or your kid, or someone else listens, we might have 10 people now—like 10 times the number before, and I don’t even know.

Yeah, maybe send them a fax or something—ship over a copy machine to get them all set. Now that we’ve talked about something most people on the podcast—my wife, the only person who’s listening—doesn’t care about (the copier company), let’s turn to the content marketing side of things. Because obviously it’s copier stuff. And now, how did you get into content marketing? Like, how did that become your transition?

So that’s awesome. Where are you selling the book at?

So you must be a proud dad of that. That’s awesome. How long did it take you to put it together? I mean, trust me, I’m working on a book right now, and I won’t tell you how long I’ve been working on it, but it might have started in the ’70s.

I don’t want it compared to my effort, because your effort and my effort are different, and you’re coming out with yours on Amazon, I don’t want to compare apples to apples here. Maybe three, four years?

Yeah, congratulations on that. I know writing a book isn’t easy—lots of moving pieces. I think I’ve said on every podcast that I talk about my book that never seems to come out, but it’ll come out one day. I swear it will—either when I die, they’ll find all nine pages I wrote. They’ll be like, “God, he was on to something!” I read them like all nine pages felt like ten and eleven was going to be crazy if he ever got there. But anyway, we’ll see in the next year whether I come out with my book or if I just keep talking about it on podcast 958 about how I’m going to come out with this book that’s…

I think I’d need two people: one to interview me, and another to kick my ass. For the next month, that continuous need might force me to finish. Then again, the first person might already be doing that, so maybe I only need one. I’m trying to figure out a simpler way to do this. That’s the hardest part for me—I have started, but getting all that information out is tough. My team writes all the time, and I have tons of content online. We could compile 5,000 articles into a book, but I still want it to be me. I want that personal feel. Between that and everything else I’m doing, it’s interesting. I like the interview idea.

And that’s it. I can smell it—I feel like we’re one step closer every time we talk about it. That’s good. Like I said, if I had a dollar for every time I talked about my book, I could retire. I wouldn’t even have to read it—that’s the cool part. So we just have to keep it moving. I’m excited about that. So we know a bit about Vertical Measures; it’s been around for how many years now?

Yeah, that’s awesome. The content marketing side of things always interests me. Obviously, the name of the podcast is Content That Converts, and content can be anything, but I like talking with people deep in the content space, because it’s so interesting. It’s going to keep evolving. We’re the same in that I started writing for my blog maybe seven years ago. I actually keep my original blog post up there, and I teach a class at UCLA on personal branding and how to be an influencer. I keep that post up because we read it with the students, and they say, “God, your first blog post was terrible,” and I go, “I know; that’s the point—people want to hide from that.” But you’ve got to start. That’s the hardest part for all of us, right? We all want to do this in a book—be an example—but you just have to do it.

So you can look back on this and laugh, “God, that’s terrible,” yet see where I am today, compared to teaching others. It’s a full cycle: from where you started to where you ended up. Right? It’s interesting. But anyway, the content side of things—when you guys talk about Vertical Measures, what exactly do you do in one line? It can be longer than one line, but basically, do you focus on content? Is it about backlinks? I mean, if someone says, “What’s the perfect client for you? What do you guys do? How are you that perfect fit?” I can’t do it in one line—I know that. But I said, “Let me set them up for failure on this podcast,” which is why nobody listens to it.

Well, we’re really counting on that—trust me, but I wish. I mean, like I said, between them and my aunt and Aunt Louisa and Auntie Jane, you just grew the audience by 50%. I’m telling you, this is what we do. Well, I just got a text—he’s like, “Auntie Luis is gonna listen?” I’m like, “No, shut up. Numbers are going crazy right now.” I tell you, we’re gonna have The Rock on next or something. Wait, you see those conversion rates now—just whispering in my ear. This is crazy, man.

I don’t think there’s a period in there. I like that, though—it’s a little bit of a run-on, and I’m used to that, so any editors can say, “He never stops sentences.” But I didn’t want to stop. Kind of like your book: “Please don’t write your book. Please don’t put your book out.” So that’s awesome—60 full-time employees, huh? That’s crazy, man. I had, many moons ago, a business with 130 employees, but I always told myself I probably would never have people, not that I don’t like having people in-house, but I’ve gone a different route. It was just a lot—lots of pros and cons. So that’s interesting—60 people. So do you guys have a big old office there?

So yeah, once again, there’s something about being belly-to-belly and having those conversations. My office here in Sacramento is mainly for the podcast. I don’t really even have clients come here—it’s set up if they do, but I have a whiteboard we painted on the wall for fun stuff. I just found the remote thing made sense for me in this business. But I get that—there’s part of me that misses having people physically here. I have my office, other people have theirs, and I’m by myself in this remote area—like Montana or something.

What does “end” mean? I’ve heard of this word.

So here’s the deal. My current office is a real office, not a home office. I just made that transition a year ago. I used to have a big office a long time ago with 130 employees—that’s another story. After that, I worked from home, but there was no end to my workday. I’m potentially a workaholic, and it was unhealthy—I was 30 pounds overweight, and it just wasn’t good. Everything is remote now, and I have an office here, but I barely use the office at home. I try to keep separation because my work-life balance is a lot better now, thanks to processes and hiring the right people. You know how it is—you feel more confident.

I come in here for podcasts and such. I’ve got a beautiful setup—my wife did all the decorating, and I had the credit card, so that worked out. Now I also have other companies—like a wholesale real estate business—but that’s separate from this. This office is mainly for me to get stuff done in the morning, maybe squeeze in a workout.

Back then, I was working nonstop; it was hard to break away. But as you put processes in place, like with your team, you can produce content at scale. We can create quality content at scale, do backlinks, everything. We mainly focus on writing blog posts, conversions, traffic, link development—stuff we’re good at. We tried to do everything, but I decided that’s not the route I want. So now we’re scaling the areas we excel in, like producing really great blog posts at scale. Most companies struggle with that, right?

Anyway, congratulations on your 11 years and 60 employees—that’s awesome. We’ve talked about your books, so I get that. Now, let’s talk content. There are obviously many types of content, and it depends on the product or service, but which kinds of content have you found work really well for clients? Maybe you could give an example, without giving away your secret sauce, of course.

And I think there’s a lot to that, because what you’re saying is simple—it should be the first thing people think about, yet most companies don’t do it. It’s really about understanding the pain point of your client. They have an issue, you feel you have a solution, so figure out what that issue is. There are plenty of places to find the questions people are asking—Quora, for example, or BuzzSumo to see what’s being shared.

It comes down to creating content with a purpose. If your product solves ten specific problems, you should answer those questions in detail, not just with a Q&A but by fully explaining them. The next level is using something like SEMrush to find relevant keywords and build out your posts. The first step is just writing about it, then improving as you go—longer posts, better calls to action, and so on. But the core idea is: why should you be number one? If you answer that clearly by solving the right problems, your content is on the right track.

Yeah, I love that. The journey—it’s so important to understand who your ideal client is and what journey they go through, answering questions all along the way. It’s not always about saying you’re the perfect solution; sometimes it’s just about getting people on your site so they can explore your other content. That’s the big question—how do you pull them in?

Content is a long-term play. People ask, “How long will content marketing take?” and I tell them it’s not overnight. Unless you already have a crazy domain authority, you’ll need time. Even then, it had to get there somehow—usually by creating solid content and ranking over time. For instance, we don’t have any salespeople—it’s all inbound. That’s great because you get consistent leads, but if I take a day off, we have no sales that day. Still, the inbound marketing is driven by content. We write for a lot of sites, produce a lot of articles, and now my website ranks well for numerous keywords, which leads to sponsor posts, more traffic, etc. But it’s been a long journey.

I’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into my site. My wife used to ask, “How much business is that generating?” and I’d say something like, “My traffic’s going up,” without a specific number. It’s a slow build—eventually it pays off. She’d wonder why I kept hiring writers, and I’d say, “It’s a long-term plan.” And now it is paying off, but it takes time. People worry about the competition, but there’s still room to break through if you create the right content.

Yeah, that’s the key. And the cool part is that even though it’s more difficult, there’s so much software out there—so many solutions to explore. We just demoed some software where they show not only keywords, but they do a lot of the brief creation for writing. Kind of automation—AI stuff—really cool. It’s always evolving. And of course, it’s: how do you use it? For us, I’d jump in and go, “Oh, this is awesome,” and we automatically get it. Not everyone does. But still, it’s interesting. I love where the space is going, and I love the automation (or not exactly automation, but the software you can get your hands on). It’s cool to see.

So let me ask you something. A little birdie said you might be—this is ironic, I’m glad you’re sitting down—into yachts. Is that true? You like yachts? Did I hear something about that?

Yeah, I hear you—San Diego, I love. I’m actually heading down there in another month. That’s definitely going to be…

So that’s obviously why you moved to Arizona—yachts and water. I was thinking, “Arizona for that?” If someone asked me, “Where would you go for a boat?” I’d say, “Wait, Arizona? Doesn’t it rain there?”

Yeah, I don’t blame you. Once you get that yacht in the water, I’d love to come over, pay $500 for a few gallons of gas, eat caviar, sip champagne—live that life.

Makes sense—safety first. So what’s next? I heard something about a nickname. What’s your nickname?

That’s awesome. How long have you had that nickname?

Since you were like five years old?

Wow, see, that makes sense. Since you were five. And I did say I wasn’t good with numbers, so I disclosed that. But…

I was right on. That sounds about right, and I appreciate that. So we’re near the end of this. We’ve clearly made a connection, had a great time, and I’m gonna come out to live on your yacht a bit. I’m excited about that invite—my wife and I can handle the money side, so we’ll be fine. But I have a question that probably has nothing to do with 70% of what we’ve talked about. We didn’t even touch on family or, say, high school friends, just got together—that kind of stuff.

But let’s do something fun: if you could max out a credit card (say it’s a $50,000 limit, all on American Express, due at the end of the month), or if someone gave you a $50k gift card (maybe Auntie died and left it to you)—where would you go? Where would you spend it?

Oh yeah, we already know you want the yacht.

That makes sense—totally.

Man, that’s it, and that’s 50,000 you gotta—there must be a few more things. Is that all gold-plated? You just got 60? Yeah, I mean, hello. Then I’ll do my teeth and get a grill. Is that what you meant—are you actually getting your teeth done?

Yeah, when we talk to your dentist, I go deep. We really interview a lot of people—this is almost like applying for a job at the FBI. Most people don’t know that about this podcast, but we want to make both of our listeners intrigued about who we have on. So we…

Based on what we know, I think you’d be a good candidate. You’re very elusive, love to be on yachts. I know you’re—I mean, you’re just hard to hold down. You’ve got like 14 businesses; you’re writing books every few weeks. Very creative. We appreciate that. Well, I think we’ve given the audience everything they can handle today. They definitely know about you. And the cool part is, if you ever do apply for the FBI, they can just listen to this podcast—I can short-circuit the whole process. Just go to Shane’s podcast, and that way I can gain a listener. Everybody wins.

We’re going hot and heavy. It’s Friday, so we go all-in. Arnie, it was a pleasure, my friend. Great talking to you. Congratulations on your success—please keep in touch.

Thank you. All right, bye.