Lately I’ve been riding a new wave of motivation. As you know I’ve made a strong effort to take many courses, read a lot of books, and buy equipment that’ll further me in my business ventures and my own self development. Now I’m in a place where I’m excited to build up my brand through writing more content, building up a YouTube and podcast, creating content on Instagram, and making courses.
What I’ve been thinking about lately is that content marketing is super key. I didn’t think about it too much before, but now I believe in this idea one hundred percent!
At one point, however, I really undermined organic marketing, which is why I thought this post was vital.
Paid Marketing vs. Organic Marketing
My Skewed Perspectives
Back when I worked at Google, I was working on social media initiatives for Android. One of my superiors on the team joked about how social media is lame and that he wanted to work on other things. I took my next job at a startup, and a lot of it was focused on paid traffic. It was important to get sales and conversions at a lower cost and optimize that process. Cost per acquisition was everything. That’s when I started thinking marketing was all about CPA and ROI. I didn’t think enough about branding and value.
Why Content Marketing is Underrated
Content marketing can easily feel underrated. I believe that people tend to devalue content because they believe the following:
- It can be hard to measure the direct correlation between content and sales. Organic marketing means you publish awesome content and get inbound traffic. And yes, you can track site and page visits, but it’s a bit harder to tell if the amazing content they’ve seen over a longer period of time is what drives sales. It’s difficult to track brand awareness and attribute certain content to sales unless they somehow bought right away after reading a blog post (because of UTM parameter tracking). On the other hand paid traffic is extremely measurable. You can easily see the return on investment because ads track clicks on ad, visits on site (if you implement a pixel), and more. Even if someone leaves the site and purchases the following day, the pixel on site still allows you to track if they came from the ad and purchased. So much is tracked now through digital marketing. When companies are generally focused on profits it is obvious that attention is going to be placed on ROI-driven campaigns.
- Content (in some cases) may require less technical knowledge. In general, having the knowledge on how to optimize ad campaigns as well as create funnels may seem more technical/advanced than writing blog posts and videos.
- Hiring for content creators seems easier than hiring for paid digital media managers. If you look up the average salaries of content creators versus paid ad managers, the pay gap is quite large. It’s quite easy to find writers on Upwork and other hiring sites even on a contract to contract basis. Because the work can be acquired for cheap, people may devalue content (but they forget to consider that QUALITY content relevant to your brand can be hard to come by).
Why Content Marketing Matters
So let’s address these points. When it comes to marketing and building a business, sales of course are very important, and having that direct correlation between marketing efforts and sales is optimal. You need profits to keep your company going. However, if you want to build a long-lasting business and brand, the main thing to focus on is the customer. You want to deliver value to the customer, provide them with amazing customer experience and support, and fill their needs. Customer satisfaction is key. The reason you create a business is to help people solve a problem, and you need to make sure you always keep the customer in mind.
Now that I’ve been a Marketing Manager for a few companies, I’m getting a better overall picture of what it takes to build a a long-lasting brand. You can’t just keep creating paid ads thinking that will be the the only solution for generating sales. Ultimately it is not as scalable or as longer-lasting than content marketing.
If you’re trying to build a brand you can’t just ask people to constantly “buy, buy, buy”. Customers won’t like that you’re merely getting in front of them with ASKS, and they’re not going to click on your ads unless you’re delivering value to them. Think of it this way. If I’m frequently seeing a brand deliver pieces of valuable blog or video content that I benefit from, I’m going to trust them and see them as a leading resource. If a company generates value for people through entertainment or education, I’m going to turn to this brand as my go-to resource without me even getting pitched for a sale. These companies are really building brands that appeal to the masses.
Your relationship with your customer is like a friendship. And with friends you’re not going to keep asking for stuff because people won’t want to hang out with you anymore! They want to see that it’s a mutual relationship where it’s beneficial both ways. You don’t want to be withdrawing from the relationship bank account more than you are depositing, and instead you should provide value!
The Intersection Between Content and Paid Ads is the Sweet Spot
If you are a brand that is too paid ad focused, you’re not developing trust with people. In some cases a lot of businesses that drive that organic traffic without even doing paid ads still make a ton of money. Take BiggerPockets. I had asked Scott Trench, CEO of BiggerPockets what their breakdown of highest ROI marketing channels looks like and he mentioned they only do organic marketing (no paid ads).
But I believe the intersection between both content/branding and ads is where companies shine. You need a combination of both content marketing and paid ads to really generate tons of sales. Branding and direct response needs to be one entity. We CAN’T think of paid ads as separate from branding and content.
Organic marketing is a long-term play. Building up your brand takes a lot of time as creating hundreds / thousands of pieces of content takes time and effort. You might not get quick results and rewards, which can easily demotivate you. But years of content generation will make a dramatic difference on your brand. That’s why YouTubers like CupofTJ can reach over 300k subscribers in 2-3 years or Graham Stephan can generate over 400k subscribers in the same amount of time. Imagine building such a strong following of true fans. Those people will be dedicated to your creations and are more likely to convert when you actually create products for people to purchase.
Creating Content
So how do you make content?
Creating strong pieces of content is actually more difficult than it sounds. It may seem like something you can merely outsource without putting in any of your own work. However, your content NEEDS to be high quality. It represents your brand, and you don’t want your brand to have a poor reputation. As you may notice I rarely have any guest posts on my blog and I don’t really outsource writing much. If I receive guest written posts I need to vet out the writers to make sure the content they write is relevant to my audience and can benefit people. In the future I may outsource and accept guest posts more to scale up (as long as the posts are top notch), but I currently write all my articles to make sure they are high quality and in line with my brand.
If you want high quality pieces of content for your brand, start with yourself first. Research how others write their content as well as look into SEO tips.
Blogs, videos, and podcasts can really drive traffic to your brand and develop that trust from customers. It’s not only great for organic SEO traffic, but it also gives your visitors a reason to come back. People will know that you are a leader in the niche because you’re constantly developing content that benefits your audience.
Conclusion
Content marketing is extremely crucial to building a longer-lasting, impactful brand. The great thing about creating content is you’re delivering value to the customer, and you’re making yourself an expert in the niche you want to be known in. It’s often overlooked, but those pieces of blog content, podcasting episodes, and videos can really make a dramatic difference.
What do you think about this topic? Let me know in the comments below!
