Struggling with content? Here are 5 fixes you need

I’m sharing a few ideas around content marketing this week because we know how important it is to business growth, yet a lot of agency owners struggle to do it well

….and sometimes at all.

More than 90% of B2B businesses are leveraging content marketing for business growth, so if you don’t have regular content grabbing your market’s attention

….your competitors certainly will.

It can be overwhelming keeping on top of content marketing - so I want to give you 5 principles that will make your content work harder for you.

Before I do, here’s an interesting stat.

A study by Demand Metric found that content marketing generates approximately 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing at 62% lower cost per lead.

If you’re not experiencing an uplift in business from content marketing let’s get you heading in the right direction with these tips.

#1 Structure

→ We all want good quality content that is easy to consume.

→ When you are writing content give it loads of white space.

→ Use short sentences. Less is more!

→ Lists with bullet points, numbers and arrows are good.

→ Avoid long sentences and paragraphs unless it is an in-depth report. Even then space is your friend.

→ Create an enticing hook. One that incites curiosity and relevance (use Chat GPT to help!) You only have a second to convince people to read more with your hook.

→ Write for SEO. What are the words your audience are searching on? Pepper those in.

→ Use simple language that an 8 year old could understand to make your content clear and easy to consume.

→ Include a CTA regularly. Every few posts add a call to action to invite your audience to engage further. (for eg, take a poll, download a guide, book a call or offer a resource to add further value like I am doing today) etc)

#2 Inconsistent posting 

I think this is a tricky one for most people.

Creating content on the fly.  You land in front of your computer and think “Ah I need to post something, but I’m blank!”

Social media algorithms will reward you for consistent posting so avoid random posting.

 Here’s how to fix that.

 → Plan ahead, make a list of 20 pain points your market face and you will be able to find at least 5 talking points for each, (There’s 100 days of content right there!)

 → I have a 1 pager with 100 Content ideas that we use as part of our content training in The Scale Project. Reply with “100 CONTENT IDEAS” and I’ll send you the pdf.

 → Commit to posting 3 times a week. If you have an email list best practise is sending a valuable email at least once a week – seems a lot, I know but if it’s valuable, it’s gold.

#3 Lack of variety

→ I look at a lot or recruitment posts and the ones with variety get most overall attention.

→ Avoid just posting jobs.  Sure, post your top jobs but only pepper them between other posts.

→ Create a mix of entertainment, education and inspiration. “Human” posts get lots of attention, but they need to be supported by commercial posts.

#4 Failure to repurpose

This is a biggie and when done well will save you hours by maximising every piece of content.

→ This email will also go up as a LinkedIn newsletter and will be broken down into posts

→ I will also use it at some point as the basis for a video script and then I’ll create shorter snippets to post.  I don’t have to think about the content – just re-formatting it.

→ I’m not going into it in this post but there are many tools to help you do this – many are free or very low cost.

#5 No clear brand voice

Content that doesn’t align with how people see you can confuse your audience and create missed connection opportunities. 

→ A consistent tone in your messaging will help people feel like they know you faster.

→ If you are really funny in one post and super serious in the next, this sends mixed messages and your audience will find it hard to get a sense of who you are, which will alienate them.

I hope there’s a couple of little nuggets in there for you.

Don’t forget reply with “100 CONTENT IDEAS” if you’d like the 1 pager pdf with 100 content ideas to give you some momentum!

Happy creating

BK