While 91 percent of content marketers say that creating brand awareness is one of the goals for their content marketing activities, solopreneurs and aspiring authors don’t have that luxury. (Statista). We want to get eyes on our book/work from the right people.
At first glance, Content Marketing seems to be either expensive — or really time-consuming. Agency fees are high because strategy, creative, copy and analytics are involved in recurring content marketing. A need for Video Reels also adds a bit of complexity to production. Get a lapel mic; film in garden, in office, or get a template and finally, check subtitles?
As Neil Patel said on his blog, “content marketing is not as expensive as you think”. Why?
Well, with use of Claude for Content Calendars, launch marketing can become a once-weekly activity among your other business marketing activities.
Consistency is so important, which is why you should start with the bare minimum of posting/writing, as long as it’s continued. Pick two channels, e.g. Substack and Linkedin, or Blog and Facebook/Insta posts (through Business Suite).
This is how I got leads in business – blogging once a fortnight with the right keywords on the same domain.
Another way to save cash is to get a marketing employee to write the blog, and then you could get an editor to proofread each blog and adjust for SEO. This is an affordable option – our editing would cost about $80 to cover the hour.
Done Beats Perfect
For solopreneurs, most feel they must dive into the deep end of making content and be all perfection minded.
Usually, this small company has a website, so why not use the free facility of a blog? Add to this an overall plan, a content writer who can take a brief with KPIs, and wallah! You have a blog content plan.
Remember, the blog is not there to talk about how great you are; it’s to be a source of vital information: book benefits, service outcomes, and comparisons. A sense of humour helps as well.
Write it Yourself?
Next up is: do you write it yourself? Sure, you can research the right topics and keywords, hit onto something consumers are saying and you can even use AI technology to write a post. However, all up, this will take from 40 minutes to 1.5 hours a week. And when you add in image making and formatting, it’s a little more. Perhaps it’s two hours a week. Would this be doable for you? Or could you earn more elsewhere?
If you spend one to two hours on calls to prospective clients, then that could be more lucrative for you. The great thing about being in business is leverage – and if you hire a content marketer, your firm is generating appealing digital content without doing it yourself. You are leveraging.
If you get a freelance content writer from Upwork, you just get the posts. You don’t get any strategy or continuing Content Audit of which posts are doing well, and which aren’t.
You may get someone who cannot write to save themselves. I was once hired on Upwork to edit a book, meanwhile the writer hired was a liar – everything new she wrote was from an article spinner. It came out as word garbage. Word to the wise – don’t choose based on price.
What is a Content Audit?
A content audit is a thorough review of all the content on your website, looking at various aspects to judge what parts are effective. By doing a content marketing audit, we’re able to determine how to improve your website content and get a greater ROI.
The person auditing the website content needs to have access to Analytics to see visitor drop-off, bounce rates, and low conversion numbers from particular pages.
This analysis can be made easier with a SEO tool, like Ubersuggest or Yoast. Social media post popularity can be measured through BuzzSumo.
Check Your Number of Pages
Another thing to consider is Pages and their optimal names. What extra pages could a writer add that will help your website rank better in search queries?
Would it surprise you to know that my own website (JenniferLancaster.com.au) ranked very well for six years because it has 300 pages and posts. And I did this alone. You can check your own website by Google searching “Site:yoursitename.com.au”.
Look at the number of results – that’s the number of pages indexed, including some less important pages (like gallery or portfolio items).
What if you don’t have any employees who can blog or create guides? If you can secure a flexible content marketing service, that would be best. An agency might want a long-term contract and the minimum price point for Content Marketing services in Australia is from $1,500 a month.
Unfortunately, as many marketing agencies do NOT have writers inhouse, they go back to the same pool of writers working for $5 an hour. The ensuing posts are dead dull and may seem quite familiar.
If you find the unicorn of a service which does have a writer and editor without great expense, and you can talk to them on the phone, then this is a better alternative.
Why do we Not Write Blogs Only?
Writers only think about the blog they are writing. However, the real value-add is in offering the next level or different formats. It could be in combining subject matter into downloadable guides. It could be in talking through the problem/solution matter on video.
This is where an integrated content marketing approach is genius. (Link is to a post about integration & content clusters)
Overall, you want the most lead-attracting content you can get. Me-too articles just won’t cut it. Sabri Subi, Alex Formosi and that fellow who started ClickFunnels would agree. Strong writing for your content marketing is the first step.
This ‘secrets of’ material can be what is offered behind an email opt-in form, and this can lead to more and more people being added to your prospective buyer list. Turning these curious cats into loyal customer lions depends on the quality of emails and promotions you send… Or perhaps free offers of a book if your offering is a high-level one.
Your company or yourself is quite likely the expert on a certain subject matter, with unqiue things to say, so draw up a Brand Voice guideline for any writers or marketers on your team.