ORANGE STAR BLOG
Subscribe to Fresh Squeezed, essential ideas on branding, marketing and growing a small business.
Subscribe to Fresh Squeezed, essential ideas on branding, marketing and growing a small business.
No one really needs MORE content from you
No one really needs MORE content from you.
What if I told you that Nobody really wants more information from you. Nobody wants your free plus shipping book. Nobody wants your free checklist. They don’t even really want your paid content.
Whaaaaa?
Really. They don’t really want information. What they want is the TRANSFORMATION it promises. They want to stop their pain, solve their problem, achieve a goal, fulfill an aspiration.
Think about it. How many of these things have you bought or downloaded? How many have you actually completed? And how much of that have you actually implemented?
It’s amazing how we humans seek information and then don’t put in the effort to achieve the transformation we really seek.
I suppose this is why there is such a market for done-for-you services. Ultimately it comes down to time, money, and effort — which are you more willing to spend? And how badly do you really want that transformation?
So what is a business owner/marketer to do?
The solution is almost never MORE content. Rather, it is less, but better.
The problem with the internet
The problem with the internet is that there is simply too much information. Over 4.4 million blog posts are published each day 😮. Some good. Mostly 💩. And we spend our time as information consumers searching, filtering, dredging… for the good. When we find it, hallelujah, the answer we have been looking for to solve our problem, end our pain, fulfill our aspiration.
You want to be the clear signal in all the noise. Not create more noise.
It really is that simple. Be the beacon in fog, not the fog machine.
How do we produce content to share expertise and help others without contributing to the noise?
We must produce better content, and less of it. Focus on quality over quantity.
It is never about more. Never. It is always about strategic. About quality. It’s about the customer and where they are in their journey.
FREE YOURSELF FROM THE NEED TO CREATE MORE AND MORE AND STILL MORE CONTENT
Make a better product. Improve your service. Create seriously great content, improve upon it, and continually promote it.
Create less but better and more strategic content. Create content for each step of the customer journey that speaks to where they are from discovery to repeat purchase to raving fan.
Creating content that supports the customer journey ensures you deliver the right message at the right time.
If you are simply churning out post after post without results or a real strategy, it’s time to stop. Take a step back and focus on your big picture strategy.
Start with what you have
Objectively review your existing content at each stage of the funnel and customer journey and make improvements.
Content is more than just posts. It’s emails, website, landing pages, sales pages, call scripts — all of it. You likely have emails that link to posts or videos you intentionally created to speak to people at that particular stage of the customer journey.
You probably already have some great content and just need to get it in front of more people. You may also discover you have gaps where you need to create content for a specific stage of the customer journey.
Use our Content Quality Checklist and Buying Process Stage template to assist in your review.
Content Quality Checklist
and Buying Process Stage template
Eliminate unnecessary clutter
- How simple yet finely-tuned can you make your funnel(s)?
- How easy can you make the buying process? And your delivery?
- How few posts can you create and, instead, focus on promoting?
- How few products even?
There is a real cost to MORE and it is very often decision fatigue.
I used to design concert T-shirts for some big name rock bands. If there were more than just a few options to choose from in the merchandise booth, people became indecisive, the line would get longer and slower and fewer sales would be made. It was natural to think more would be better but the opposite was true every time. Less but better was the answer.
As a creator, MORE becomes a serious challenge to keep up with.
I remember a similar analogy from the Body for Life author back in the 90s. When you begin working out to get fit, you start light, build up intensity and duration. But the goal isn’t to continually increase the duration to the point you are spending all day in the gym! You want to be fit and strong, not spend all your time working out.
Now think about your marketing in this same way. Strong and fit, not more, more, more.
Know your numbers
It is a very simple numbers game.
The more qualified traffic you get, the more qualified leads you get, and ultimately the more customers.
Let’s say you have a few posts, a lead magnet and a product offer ($100) that are converting and your monthly numbers look like this:
- Traffic: 1000
- Leads: 100 (10% conversion rate)
- Sales: 2 (2% conversion rate)
- Total sales: $200
Before you create more content, fine-tune what you have. Change one variable in your landing page, lead magnet title, or the lead magnet itself and try to boost the lead conversion rate a point or two.
Then optimize your lead nurturing. Make sure you are taking your leads on an intentional journey. Maybe tweak your sales offer. Try to boost that sales conversion rate a point or two.
Assuming we accomplished this and traffic stays the same, now we have:
- Traffic 1000
- Leads 130 (13% conversion rate)
- Sales 4.5 (3.5% conversion rate)
- Total sales $450
Now, instead of creating MORE content, focus on promoting the content that is converting!
Run some paid traffic. Get serious about organic, email, JVs, guest appearances, and start increasing traffic:
- Traffic 10,000
- Leads 1,300 (13% conversion rate)
- Sales 45.5 (3.5% conversion rate)
- Total sales $4,550
Now pour some fuel on it (paid traffic is the fastest way):
- Traffic 50,000
- Leads 6,500 (13% conversion rate)
- Sales 227.5 (3.5% conversion rate)
- Total sales $22,750
With just a little effort to optimize what you have so that it is converting better, you can focus more on promoting to generate traffic and get far better results than simply producing more content.
This sh*t works
This sh*t works has become somewhat of a motto for Kim and I. The more we focus on doing less and doing it better, the more good progress we are making in all areas.
It all boils down to focusing on the essentials — in everything and anything. Even content marketing.
This does not mean do as little as possible. It means focus on what is essential to your success. When we focus on those key essential things that matter most — we make huge progress. When we spread our efforts across too many points of focus, everything is diluted, progress is slow and often ineffective. Or worse, we burn ourselves out.
I am not saying to stop blogging, podcasting, YouTubing or whatever it is you are doing. We need to feed our funnels.
I simply challenge you to make sure your foundation is strong and content is converting. Your funnel needs to be working. It should be consistently converting traffic to leads and leads to sales.
Be intentional and fine-tune these essentials and then focus on promoting the content that is converting before you focus on creating MORE.
With that in place, hell-to-the-yeah, go forth and podcast, blog, video your heart out and build that audience, reach, authority, and traffic.
Organic traffic may seem free, but it’s not. You pay with time, attention, and energy. Spend it wisely, my friends.
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