I’ve had content marketing clients who peace’d out after 2 months of working together.
And clients who stick with it, see results and expand their content operation.
Between the two, I see 3 key differences:
1) An offer that converts
This is the pillar of any sort of marketing.
Even the best copy can’t sell a s***ty offer (or an undefined one.)
With clients who haven’t validated their offer, the content is directionless.
Even if the content is high-quality, it tends to be all over the place.
There’s no core they can pull their audience into.
Actual examples:
- A full-service digital marketing agency that offers ‘a la carte’ services and takes on any client
- A blockchain startup that doesn’t sell a product (they’re a social network)
2) Investing in paid traffic
Too often, businesses use organic content as a crutch.
Because they don’t want to spend money on traffic.
And they think organic is “free.”
This is bad, short-term thinking.
First, it costs money and time to create content.
And the ROI of content marketing is compounding.
Meaning, it takes time for you to see results.
Another way to look at it:
Your best piece of content is the one you published last year.
Not only that, but paid traffic lets you shorten the results curve.
Why wait 3 to 6 months for organic traffic to kick in, when you can just spend $5 a day and buy all the eyeballs you want?
Organic and paid traffic work in unison.
For example, if you didn’t touch your ads, let them run as-is, and started posting daily across all your social media accounts…
…you’ll see your ROAS double or triple.
Why? Because your brand becomes more credible in the market.
3) Moving fast and breaking things
One, this is the silent killer of marketing results:
Worrying about how you’ll be perceived by others.
We’ve had pedantic clients who obsess over every word of copy.
And clients who let us do whatever the hell we want, within reason.
Guess which type gets better results?
The latter.
The truth is, nobody gives a f*** about you or your brand.
The only care about what you can do for them.
If you’re solving their problems and making their lives better…
…they don’t care about your shaky handheld video or the typo in your email.
Two, content loves speed.
And you have no idea which piece is going to perform well.
I’ve written posts where I thought they’d be a guaranteed hit…
…that ended up bombing.
I’ve written throwaway posts in less than 10 minutes with barely any thought.
…that ended up making sales.
The market decides what’s good content.
And a viral post is the result of the 10,000 average and s*** posts that came before it.
So, the best solution we’ve found is to ship fast and ship often.
Save Up To 5 Hours A Week On Content Creation
My friend Katya Varbanova put together this bundle of 100+ social media templates and swipes. And included training on how to use this bundle to grow and audience of buyers.
You’ll never worry about what to post again. Read more or click the button below to purchase.
** Bonus tip: posting every day **
If your content is mainly on social media, this is even more important.
Because social media is ephemeral.
A single post has a lifetime of 24 hours at most, after which it’s buried in the feed.
If it’s an epic post that goes viral, maybe it’s got a week.
So, why spend 3 hours writing and editing a post that…
…90% of your audience won’t even see ‘cause of algos…
…and is buried by the timeline in a few hours?
I’ve seen people say their organic engagement goes up when they post less.
What they don’t realize is across 20, 50, or 100 posts…
…they’re getting less engagement on average than someone who posts every day.
The increased engagement they see is due to novelty.
People are surprised to see them in their feed, so they are more likely to engage.
It’s the same thing that happens when you don’t email your list for 3 months and suddenly email them out of the blue.
You get a big spike in open rates.
Here’s another reason why your engagement on an individual post does not matter at all.
Many of your buyers are lurkers.
They don’t engage with any of your posts, but they read every single one.
One day, they show up in your DMs, credit card in hand, ready to buy.
Post every day.
Your bank account will thank you.
Here’s a summary for the bottom-scrollers 😛
- Validate your offer first before you start content marketing.
- Don’t use content marketing as a crutch to avoid investing in paid traffic.
- Stop worrying about how people will perceive your “brand” and just start posting.
- Post every day because you have no idea which piece of content the market will respond to.
This is pretty much my entire marketing philosophy in 4 points.
It’s how I approach every client engagement.
In fact, we now use these criteria to reject prospects who aren’t a good fit.
Because we’ve done this enough to know who’s going to be a good client and who’s going to flake.
Can your business win at content marketing?
If you fit the 4 criteria above, then yes, you can win at content marketing.
And we can help you do it.
