For many folks, having too much content might sound like a bit of a nice problem to have. It’s a bit like those people who start freelancing and find themselves with too many clients. Might sound pretty damn ideal to the person struggling to pick up their first client but really, it’s a sign that something’s not quite right in the business.
And it’s the same with your content.
If you’ve got too much and it’s all getting a bit confusing then it’s a big glaring neon sign that you’ve got some content marketing problems. Much like if you’re struggling to create any content to market your business. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and reckon your content is even losing you sales whichever way you look at it.
The content-time conundrum
When we start out in business we have oodles of time – even if it doesn’t feel like it. So we go into marketing mode to get our business out there.
Of course, we follow the path of least resistance and start with social media. It’s free, easy to set up, and we’ve got time to make videos and take photos. So much time, that we create a bunch of content and spend lots of time on the channel so it starts working.
Starting out content versus consistent content
Then we get clients and we realise we need to be smarter about marketing because all those hours spent on Instagram now need to be spent on delivering the work.
Off we go to look for some advice on what else we can do. And you’ll bump into people who tell you to build a website, start a blog and create a lead magnet. Which we duly go and do.
So now we’re maintaining at least one social media account (possibly more because why not when we had time?), creating a website and a blog, and a lead magnet. Oh, and writing all the emails that need to go with the lead magnet.
Next thing you know is you’ve got five different lead magnets, and three half-finished landing pages, you’re spinning the social media plate, you forgot to write a blog for three weeks, and you have a mailing list but you don’t actually email it very often.
Regardless of whether you sell a product or service, if you’ve been in business for over a year, you’ve probably got content that isn’t serving you particularly well. And you’re probably short on the time you need to create everything that you think you should have.
If you have been in business for several years and know this is your business kryptonite, you’ve definitely got a hot mess of content on the go.
At the two extremes of this – either no time to create content or too much content – is the same issue: you’re not sending a clear message to your audience.
No time to create content means what you do have is probably out of date and unlikely to be sending the right message to your audience. Having too much content will feel like stomping through a swap while running away from a monster in a nightmare.
And much of this stems from our urge to constantly churn out content.
Confusing constantly with consistently
What happens is that our little human brains confuse the idea of doing something consistently with doing something constantly. And not only that, we’re pretty bad at going after the quick win rather than the long-term gain.
It’s why we’ll spend ages crafting daily social media posts for our cold audience – because that is who we’re trying to target on social media — and not so much time nurturing the people who have stepped into our inner circle.
But I’d argue that looking after the people who are already interested, who might have even bought from you, is far more important than broadcasting to the cold audience who don’t know who you are yet. It’s this side where we need to really focus on being consistent but often is the least consistent of all.
Let’s start with those lead magnets.
Lead magnets don’t exist in a little vacuum. You create them, chuck them up on your website and forget about them. Yet, for these to earn their content keep they need to:
- Have a download page
- Be shared near and far (and on a regular basis)
- Have a thank you page
- Be followed up by nice emails
- And a sell
Because, ultimately, your lead magnet needs to lead to a product.
What we do is try a lead magnet for a bit, then forget about it when we have another sparkly new idea. Instead, we should be testing our first one, updating it, testing it some more and seeing how we can appeal to more of the right people.
And when we do this, we should then be paying attention to who our subscribers are. Your lead magnet should really be working hard in the background to help you segment your audience.
If you can get your lead magnet to tell you more about who is downloading it, you’ll be able to open more conversations with people. And create better content that they need.
Consistency here is time better spent than daily posts on social media.
Next, let’s come to the newsletter.
About six months ago, I wrote about a coach whose newsletter I’d signed up for as research for a client. I duly forgot about it because they never sent any emails. Until one day, they did. Lots of them and all sales. It made me notice but not for the right reasons.
Your newsletter is the one thing you should be consistent about every single week (or however often you post it). Now, I’m saying beat yourself up for not posting something if you’re ill, under stress or generally burnt out, but your newsletter is the piece of consistency you really need in your business.
You see, a newsletter done well will have people looking forward to it arriving. I know that on a Thursday I will get the You Are The Media update, Sian Meades-Williams Journalism Jobs and Popbitch.
The odd times those emails have rocked up a day early or not at all, it has thrown me. I come to rely on these to punctuate my week. (I actually pay for one of these and get it a day early but still open it on a Thursday).
So the more you can be consistent with your newsletter, the more people will come to look forward to reading it. And that’s a good marketing place to be in.
I could probably write several essays on newsletters (and might well do that as a series at some point). But for now, I hope I’ve convinced you to commit to a regular newsletter.
As Mark Masters, founder of You Are The Media says, when someone signs up for your newsletter, you are making a commitment to delivering something to them. There are two sides to this arrangement.
And then there are blogs
Or your podcast or video channel. This is the content that sits on your website that you own. When it comes to your own content, I’m going to guess that it either is at the bottom of your to-do list or has at one point been at the bottom of your to-do list.
We don’t always prioritise our own content, especially if we’re creating it ourselves. This is the problem with seeing content marketing as something you can do for free. When you think of it in those terms, you aren’t valuing your time so therefore, you’ll do the work that pays first and then your own stuff if you have time.
But, it’s the work that you do on your business that leads to the work that pays.
I know. I sat listening to someone tell me this six or so years ago thinking: “well that’s alright for you to say but you don’t have a child in preschool and a second one at home all day. There is no flipping time and I have to prioritise the client work.”
And if this is you, I get it. I really do. The thing is, you’ve got to work with the capacity you have. Prioritise the work that warms people up or resells to your existing customers. That’s far easier than trying to convince someone who doesn’t know you to buy from you.
Content that you create for your website needs to be consistent.
Whether that’s video, audio or writing. Do what you enjoy and have time for but do it on a regular basis. Much like with your newsletter, people will come to look forward to it.
You can always reuse blogs as newsletters (and vice versa). And you can definitely reuse that big content as your social, which covers the whole cold audience outreach.
You need to make this a consistent part of your routine to make sure you do it consistently.
Put it in your diary, make yourself a meeting and do it first thing before anything else. Don’t prioritise your business last.
Get content systems
Alright, how do we do this so we’re creating the right amount of content according to our capacity? Well, it starts with understanding our content strategy and then having the right content systems in place.
I’m going to gloss over the content strategy part. If you want more info on this, I’ve got some blogs to help here.
But content systems – they don’t sound as sexy do they? Not as fun as a content strategy or putting it all together into a pretty plan. Yet, without the content systems, that strategy and the pretty plan you made will all go to waste.
You’ll be back creating content you don’t need because you’re in a rush.
Content systems keep you on track.
My content system for this newsletter is thus:
- Write a draft on a Tuesday morning
- Edit the draft on Wednesday morning
- Send that and the cover image to my assistant
- She uploads it on Weds afternoon and schedules it
- I have regular posts go out on LinkedIn to remind people to sign up
It’s a simple content system but it works.
There are more complex content systems for other areas of my content and definitely for my clients. For each of them, it all gets put into Click Up, and worked through in a logical order that keeps everything on track.
If I were to do a little diagram of this it might look like this:
Content strategy -> Content system -> Content planning -> content creation
Each part is as important as the other for making sure enough of the right content goes out and that it’s earning its keep.
I also have a content mapping system to keep it all on track and so I don’t get distracted. That helps inform the strategy and when testing things like lead magnets or a new idea, I know that I’m not over-creating content because I feel like I should be doing it rather than I need to do it.
And everything has a purpose.
Because whether you’re struggling to find time to make content or stuck under a mountain of content that you keep creating and have too much, the problem might be different, but the outcome is the same: you’re missing out on sales.
One becomes messy and confusing, the other is stagnating. There is a balance to getting it just right. It simply takes systems and a whole lot of practice.