Why do the vast majority of small business owners see such poor results from their content marketing? Why isn’t it attracting sales or new client enquiries every day?
The answer is that almost every small business is making the same mistake. And this mistake makes it impossible for them to succeed.
Here’s what you need to know, in order to get the best possible results.
Content marketing and leaky buckets
The problem with trying to fill a bucket, which has a big hole in the bottom, is that the water flows out just as fast as it flows in. It’s a never ending task, unless you get a new bucket or fix the hole.
Most content marketing advice, including that written by many so-called experts, is based around the idea of treating your content marketing, like a bucket with a hole.
- It’s about attracting drive-by readers with ‘killer’ headlines.
- It’s about churning stuff out, rather than publishing useful information.
- It’s about using a cookie-cutter approach, like hundreds of thousands of others, which makes you and your content invisible.
- It’s about SEOing your thoughts, rather than expressing your thoughts.
Seth Godin said it extremely well:
“The copywriter/editor who trades in meaning for lists, using calculated SEO keyword loading and sensationalism designed to attract the drive-by audience, earns the privilege of doing it again and again, forever.”
It’s like trying to fill that broken bucket. It’s also the total opposite of growing a tribe.
They drive by
The thing about drive-by readers, is that they drive by. They are attracted to hyped up headlines and quickly go from one, “The growing trend that will scare the crap out of business owners everywhere”, article to the next.
If your content marketing is based around chasing them, you’re making life way too hard for yourself.
Grow a valuable reader community
To grow a great community or tribe around your work, you need to attract the right people, retain their attention and earn their trust.
This means showing up regularly with useful information, rather than sensationalist, predictable content for the drive-by crowd.
It means avoiding so-called content marketing systems or anything, which claims to be a one-size-fits-all “solution“. All that junk will do is make your content marketing invisible. It will leave your content camouflaged, amongst the hundreds of thousands of others using the same cookie-cutter approach.
Instead, focus on building deeper connections with people who will value your work, share your work, call you, email you, hire you or buy from you.
Anything less is a waste of your time and will stop you benefiting from the amazing opportunity, which could be yours if you use content marketing correctly.
The small business owners I work with enjoy far more sales, attract better clients and grow amazing businesses.
If you want the same, here’s exactly how it happens.