No Instant Gratification Here: Why Content Marketing Rewards the Stubborn
Forget quick wins and overnight success – content marketing is a long, grueling game that separates the persistent from the posers. Learn why committing to the long haul is the key to dominating your
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
And it ain’t over now."
— John “Bluto” Blutarsky, Animal House
This is the perfect quote (and half-baked history) to keep in mind for successful content marketing. Too many businesses make the same mistake with content marketing: giving up too soon.
They toss out a handful of half-baked blog posts and social updates, don't see an immediate avalanche of hot leads and sales, and automatically assume their content strategy is an epic failure.
I’ve created content that didn’t convert or took a while to gain traction. It’s frustrating and feels a little bit like being bombed — or bombing (whichever way you want to look at it).
So they quit before even getting started.
Huge mistake (vividly illustrated by this scene from Pretty Woman).
Effective content marketing is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash. Building a solid, authoritative content presence that moves the needle for your business takes serious time, consistent effort, and endurance. You can't slap up some half-assed, throwaway content littered with sales-y BS and expect overnight success.
You want to be successful with content marketing? You need a mental shift from always selling to always being useful (and THEN selling).
Too many businesses stupidly treat content like just another “opportunity” to share the same promotional crap they do everywhere. Helpful hint: most folks today can sniff out inauthenticity and a thinly-veiled sales pitch from a mile away. They'll tune you out or hit the back button faster than you can say "let me tell you about our incredible new product!"
Effective content marketing requires a fundamentally different approach:
It prioritizes providing legitimate value first and foremost
Educating and advising your audience, not selling to them
Entertaining and delighting, not hawking your wares
Giving away your very best information/insights for free (though there is a caveat here, more below)
When you commit to consistently producing honestly helpful, customer-centric content over the long haul, that's when the magic happens. Slowly but surely, you'll:
Become the trusted, authoritative, go-to voice in your industry niche
Get on your ideal prospects' radars through organic, non-disruptive means
Build critical mindshare, affinity and goodwill with your audience
Position yourself for the sale before even mentioning your products
Let me digress for a moment . . . Returning to the idea of giving away your best thoughts for free: If your product is content (a book, training courses, a subscriber-supported newsletter, etc.) of course you don’t give that away for free. BUT, you can still share useful content that entices folks to pay for your content (or provide a free sample issue or one course module).
Let’s take content marketing strategy for instance. You can find a basic content marketing strategy for free online. Hell, with a few smart prompts, you can get even the basic version of ChatGPT to create one that will work just fine to get started (if you follow it). I don’t have one online yet, but I intend on creating a content strategy document freely available to anyone on this site for anyone to take and use.
The content marketing plan/strategy isn’t really what I offer (though I will say that having someone familiar with content creation and strategy will improve any plan). My value as a content marketing consultant is from being in the vortex of creating content, implementing a strategy, and then fine-tuning the strategy and content mix over time.
The plan — expressed as a word document or excel sheet — is just the skeleton. With time and patience, most folks can figure out how to flesh it out in time. The value of a content marketing professional is speeding your time to value.
OK, back to the rest of the post.
Every website or social media accounts starts from zero. Success is an up and down journey, but, if you quit too soon – say in the midst of a valley, it WILL be over after the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor, so to speak.
Once a content program is in place and working, it should account for a large chunk of your inbound leads (not to mention the “soft” benefits of thought leadership and providing content for various marketing and sales efforts).
The slow grind to success is 100% worth it.
So the next time the suits in the C-suite start aggressively questioning your content efforts and hinting about pulling the plug because "this clearly isn't working," you need to fight back:
Rally the troops internally who fundamentally get content marketing
Recruit vocal advocates in other departments who have your back
Channel Bluto's defiance: "Nothing is over until WE decide it is!"
If that doesn’t work, it’s time to take your expertise elsewhere.
The patient, stubborn badasses who keep grinding away with quality content despite little-to-no early traction? They're the ones who ultimately win the long game of content marketing warfare.
Need help creating your content marketing strategy and/or content? Drop me a line at bryant@simplyusefulmarketing.co, reply below, or give me a call (or text, text is better, what with all the phone spam) at 301-275-7496.
My inner history nerd insists on pointing out that the “Day of Infamy” was the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, not the Germans, in a tactical and strategic success. Had the American carriers been docked and damaged or sunk, there’s a good chance the Pacific War lasts longer than it did, though it probably wouldn’t have changed the end result.