content marketing success - Express Writers

Why Your Content Marketing Must Have Focus

June 11, 2024June 11, 2024 by Adam Oakley

There are approximately 34,000 species of fish, and scientists discover hundreds more each year. Despite the huge variety of aquatic life, commercial fishing typically only focuses on a single fish species at a time. Casting wider nets doesn’t always result in higher profits. Content marketers can be tempted to cast a wide net – to appeal to every demographic, capture every audience, and speak to every niche. However, by focusing on a few topics (or a single topic) content marketers can actually increase their profits. Today, I’m going to dispel 3 content marketing myths: Having content about more topics will attract more followers. Focusing on only one topic will become boring. Limiting your focus will limit your revenue. Myth #1: Having Content About More Topics Will Attract More Followers On it’s face, it sounds like a no-brainer: if you have something for everybody, everybody will have a reason to stay. However, spreading yourself too thin can have real consequences. The Reality: Zooming out Attracts a Wide Audience, but Zooming in Attracts a Dedicated Audience Let’s say your makeup brand’s blog hasn’t gained the traction you’d hoped it would. To appeal to more readers, you start incorporating articles about trendy topics like cryptocurrency and AI. While you may earn a few clicks that way, you’re unlikely to increase your profits. This is for a few reasons: Compromising your focus may earn short-term clicks, but unfocused clicks are less valuable. Focused content marketing attracts a focused audience – people more likely to become customers and advocates. Having content about too many topics attracts a scattered audience who are harder to convert. Writing about vastly different topics makes it harder for audiences to find more of the content they’re looking for. If you attract a new reader with an article about lip liners, but your other posts are about travel destinations and homestyle recipes, they’re unlikely to stick around. Covering multiple topics can undermine your credibility. Credible experts typically stick to their areas of expertise, so creating content about too many different topics gives audiences the impression that you’re a jack of all trades but a master of none. Instead of “zooming out” by expanding your focus to include more topics, “zoom in” by going further in-depth with your content. Your audience seeks out your content because they’re interested in your niche and they want to learn more – so give them what they’re looking for! Ultimately, it’s better to appeal strongly to a focused audience than to appeal weakly to a wide one. A shallow pool gives you more room to cast a wide net, but less depth results in less sales. Myth #2: Focusing on Only One Topic Will Become Boring Depending on how specific your niche is, you may worry about running out of topics to cover – after all, how much can there possibly be to say about faucet diffusers or data management software? However, when you fully explore your topic, you will constantly uncover new things to say – and new ways to say them! The Reality: Fully-Explored Topics Rarely Become Boring Don’t underestimate your audience. No matter how niche your topic is, a quick online search is likely to produce a YouTube channel, web forum, or Facebook group focused on that very topic. When it comes to marketing, it’s good to be unique. In the previous myth, we talked about the benefits of “zooming in” to cover topics more in-depth rather than casting a wide net and piquing a lot of interest but not being able to keep it. But if you find yourself running low on ideas or fear the well will someday run dry, try these tips to reinvigorate your content marketing: Try a new angle. For years, your music equipment company’s YouTube channel has released a “guitar pedal of the week” video every Friday. Over the last few years, your engagement has tapered off, and you just can’t get the traction you used to. Try a new angle, like “battle of the guitar pedals” or “pedal guitar of the week.” In addition to attracting new viewers, a new angle can reinvigorate your creativity and enrich your content. Expand to new channels. Are your blog posts starting to feel stale? Try writing a social media post, drafting an email campaign, or filming a YouTube video. Instead of branching out to a new topic, try exploring your topic through a different format. The unique limitations and opportunities of a new marketing channel will force you to approach the topic in a new way. Conduct new research. One of the ways you can offer value to your audience is through providing credible expertise. In some minds, expertise means not needing to do research, but the opposite is true: experts are the ones who do the most research and are constantly learning new things. If you’re concerned that your topic is getting boring, seek out new knowledge about it – learning something new will not only give you something new to talk about, but it will also enrich your understanding of the entire subject. Myth #3: Limiting Your Focus Will Limit Your Revenue Content marketers have to straddle many different goals: crafting a strong brand image, attracting new leads, speaking to their audience’s needs, increasing engagement, etc. However, one central goal underpins these other endeavors: your business has to be profitable to succeed. At the end of the day, if your content marketing is engaging, targeted, and informative, but it isn’t profitable, it isn’t viable. The Reality: Focus Drives Revenue. In the introduction, we talked about how when it comes to casting literal nets, fishers do better by targeting a specific kind of fish rather than by casting a wide net and catching whatever comes their way. Why is that? Different fish require different strategies. Fishers use different techniques to catch bluefin tuna than they do catfish. It isn’t practical or profitable for fishers to invest in the equipment, tools, or training needed to catch fish they … Read more

Your Content Bullets Aren’t Working: Why the Answer to Content ROI Lies in a Content Ecosystem

June 19, 2024July 9, 2019 by Adam Oakley

I was listening to a live talk from Jay Baer not too long ago, and this quote hit me hard: “Stop doing random acts of content. Stop firing content bullets into the air hoping that a customer bird will fly by and that it’ll WORK.” As this quote permeated my brain, subconsciously stewing while I carried on a typical month interacting with marketers, going through meeting after meeting, leading my team, writing and brainstorming content for all my publications… this thought hit me: The reason why random content acts don’t work, and why so many believe these low-ROI tactics are still worth trying. here’s a concept I teach in my Content Strategy & Marketing Course called the “content net.” It’s the antithesis to random acts of content. But, it’s not the norm. I’m bringing it up today, because, well: content bullets. They need to STOP. Why? Because one-off content tactics result in dismal content marketing. In an industry that’s already ridiculously tough to break into, relying on content bullets makes NO sense. Consider this: According to a Backlinko study, 94% of blog posts earn zero external links. If only 6% of blog posts published get any backlinks, that means it’s a mighty feat to build your link profile and brand authority – especially if your site is brand new. Even worse, when you ARE able to rank in Google, settling for position #2-10 isn’t enough. You need to be #1 to get the best shot at traffic and leads. That’s because click-through rates (CTR) drastically drop as soon as you fall to position 2, according to an Advanced Web Ranking study. In fact, at position 2, CTR is cut in half. Unfortunately, ranking #1 for a keyword requires much more than random acts of content. You need more than one bullet to hit the bullseye – especially when that bullseye is a moving target. So, what exactly does it take? Let’s get into today’s original concept by yours truly, called the “content ecosystem”, developed to help you understand how and why a long-term, consistent approach to content over time works. Your Content Bullets Aren’t Working (Why You’re Still Trying Them) [bctt tweet=”Learn about @JuliaEMcCoy’s original concept called the ‘content ecosystem,’ developed to help you understand how and why a long-term, consistent approach to content over time works. ” username=”ExpWriters”] Marketers and brands are still relying on content to be their magic shot – the golden bullet that will miraculously hit whatever targets or goals they’re aiming for. They regard random content as their “golden egg” that will bring in ALL the traffic, leads, and sales $$$ they’ve ever wanted, much like the mythical golden egg from Jack and the Beanstalk (which ensures Jack and his mother live in comfort the rest of their days). But content doesn’t operate that way. For it to work, content needs work. It needs a basic foundation of strategic fundamentals in place to succeed. Most marketers don’t do this, or they don’t fully understand how to do it. According to a ClearVoice survey of 1,000 marketers, the biggest content challenges are centered around production: time, content quality, creating content, scaling content, and generating ideas. But, instead of getting strategic and putting in more legwork, they expect a one-off content bullet to make the magic happen and the sales fly in. How did this happen? How did so many marketers come to think of content as a miraculous solution? No matter the situation, pretty much nothing in life works like this. One random act rarely to never equals a level 10 success. Does a workout, for instance, lead to an instant buff physique? NO. If you pick up the violin, will you be able to play Bach in a week? AS IF. Look at any major “people” success story. Oprah and her empire. Elon Musk and Tesla. Steve Jobs and Mac. NONE of these mega-brand legacies came about from overnight success or a shot in the dark. These people all worked their butts off to succeed. Does any good thing in life work this way? Typically not. So, why are we trying to apply this line of thinking to marketing, to business? If you could get one-on-one advice from Oprah or Steve Jobs’ ghost or Elon Musk (dreams, am I right?), what do you think they would say? Here’s my guess: Quit wimping out and trying to take shortcuts. Quit copying and pasting what “experts” do or say and hoping instant success will come. Stop trying one little tweak and expecting the world to fall in your lap. Success is about hard work. Not luck, not a shot in the dark, and certainly not a magic bullet. And that absolutely holds true for content. [bctt tweet=”Success is about hard work. Not luck, not a shot in the dark, and not a magic bullet. And that absolutely holds true for content. ” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Today’s Audience Won’t Stand for the Content Bullet Let’s take this one step further. Content bullets won’t work for you, but also, they won’t EVER work for your audience. Look at the state of marketing online – people can smell an inauthentic, fake, or “doing it for the likes, follows, traffic, $$” approach from a mile away. The CTR of Facebook ads is dismal – 0.5 – 1.6% – because people are seeing through the bullsh*t marketers and the Lamborghini lies. Every marketing channel you’ve ever relied on is decaying. Andrew Chen calls this “the law of shitty clickthroughs.” It just means that, even when you find a marketing strategy that works, it will inevitably stop working due to increased competition, fading novelty, and more scale. “First to market” means nothing in an online world where saturation happens FAST. As recently as 2018, Instagram has doubled-down on eradicating fake bot accounts, fake likes, and fake followers. People who used to pay to fake a super-popular, engaged account are up a creek without a paddle. (It’s no wonder users prize authenticity online since so much of what we see is … Read more

How a Freelance Copywriter Can Seriously Boost Your Content Marketing Campaign (And Save You Money)

June 19, 2024June 14, 2017 by Adam Oakley

88% of marketers are now engaging in some form of content marketing. And why wouldn’t they? Businesses across the globe have consistently proven just how beneficial a focus on producing content can be to driving revenue. But while there are plenty of readily available resources and courses on content marketing, 60% of organizations still say that producing engaging content is a major challenge. Another 57% say that they also have difficulty producing content consistently. And if you think about it, this all makes sense. After all, content marketing is hard. You can’t just throw together a couple keyword stuffed articles a month and expect ROI from your efforts. If you’re going to win with content marketing, you need to produce engaging content and you need to do it consistently. But, other than hiring a large and expensive team of in-house marketers, how exactly are you supposed to do that? The answer…personal, brand-fitted freelance copywriters. [bctt tweet=”Learn how to win with your #contentmarketing by teaming up with talented writers ” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Freelance Copywriters for Your Content Marketing? Well, for one, because they’ll save you tens of thousands of dollars. While there are a lot of variables that go into the exact cost of hiring a content specialist, the team at InTouch Marketing estimated that it would come out to about $88,123/year. But what about the cost of a highly skilled freelancer? At EW, the price of blog content from one of our vetted freelance copywriters comes out to right around .10/word (that includes editing and formatting). Since we know that companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month generate almost 3.5x more traffic than those that publish 0-4 monthly posts, let’s assume you want to produce 16 posts per month. And, since long form content generates a higher ranking in search results, let’s also assume that you want your posts to average about 1500 words. Now let’s do some easy math: 16 Blog Posts x 12 Months = 192 Posts Per Year 1500 Words @ .10/word = $150/Post $150 x 192 Posts = $28,800 versus: $88,123 (Cost of In-House Content Marketer) – $28,800 (Cost of Freelancers) = $59,323 So, by hiring a team of freelance writers to handle a year’s worth of content, you’re saving approximately $60,000. That’s a pretty convincing argument in and of itself. And that’s without taking into consideration the time and resources that you would have to spend training an in-house staff. But that’s not the only reason that hiring freelance writers is a good idea. 3 Case Studies Showing How Freelance Copywriters Can Boost Your Content Marketing Efforts The other reason? Because there are plenty of businesses that have proven that freelancers have the ability to seriously boost your content marketing campaign. Let’s take a look at three examples. 1. Case Study: How Express Writers Uses Freelancers to Win Through Content At Express Writers, we know a thing or two about working with freelancers. Since launching the company in May 2011, I’ve worked with dozens of freelancers that I’ve personally vetted to help ensure the delivery of high quality work to our clients. Without them, there’s very little chance that we’d be able to handle anywhere near the type of volume that we do today. In addition to client work, I’ve also employed freelance copywriters to handle some ghostwriting for both the EW blog and a portion of the guest blogs that I do. And why would I do that? Because I know firsthand the type of ROI that can come from one impactful piece of content. For us, the life cycle of a great piece of content looks like this: This cycle played itself out after publishing one of my many guest blogs on SiteProNews. Let’s take a look at what went down. Jan. 21, 2015: My guest blog, How to Create Shareable, Likeable and Organic Content, goes live on SiteProNews. 2:25 PM on Jan. 21, 2015: We receive an email from a potential client who mentions that he is interested in our services after reading my guest blog. Jan. 26, 2015: After several email conversations over a five day period, the client decided to purchase our expert copy and content planning services. The combined price of the projects came out to over $5,000. $5,000! All in just a five day span and from a single piece of great content. That type of ROI, about 100x the investment, in that short amount of time is unheard of with almost any other marketing method. And it’s exactly why I’ll be one of the first to tell you that a freelancer that can deliver great content is worth their weight in gold. 2. Case Study: How Zapier Uses Freelance Writers to Dominate Content Marketing Zapier is another example of a company that uses freelance writers to win with content marketing. The SaaS company earned over 600,000 users in just three years by using a combination of partner co-marketing and content marketing. And while they do have a team of in-house content creators, a sizeable portion of their blog’s content is produced by freelance writers. Jeremey Duvall, a freelance writer who also has a full-time job with Automattic, has written several successful articles for them. His article about 10 Content Strategies to Rapidly Build a Larger Audience, for example, has generated over 1,000 shares to date. Duvall also wrote a chapter for Zapier’s massively successful guide to remote work. Hiring Freelancers to Become In-House Team Members Zapier’s head of marketing, Danny Schreiber, has said that the freelancers they’ve worked with are one of the first places they look when hiring new people. Of the first three employees he hired for his marketing team, “Two started freelancing – one for three months, another for six – before they were encouraged to apply to work at Zapier and then hired.” And, as would be expected, having these existing relationships with the people Schreiber hired helped lower turnover rates while limiting the risk of bringing on new employees. 3. … Read more

How 9 Great Authors Almost Failed & Why You Shouldn’t Throw In The Towel Just Yet

January 10, 2023May 1, 2015 by Adam Oakley

There are times where no matter what we do, it just seems like things aren’t working. You can implement everything you’ve learned from marketing and SEO, yet you don’t seem to get anywhere. This is a frustrating reality. However, here’s the good news—you, my friend, are not alone! Did you know there are several incredibly famous authors and creators that were in the same boat as you at some point in their career? These great authors and creators, at one point or another, were considered “failures” by themselves and others. Once you get through failure, and don’t allow it to drown you but rather make you stronger, you will achieve greater success than you’ve dreamed of! How 9 Incredible Creators & Authors Got Discouraged & Kept Going I am going to take a look at a few incredible authors and creators that we all love today, and look at just how they failed before they succeeded. Let their failures and inevitable success we see now be an awesome inspiration to you, today. Walt Disney Was Told He Lacked Imagination. The man who created many stories, an epic empire, and worldwide theme parks was once considered to not have much imagination. That’s right; the creator of Mickey Mouse was believed, and told, he lacked imagination. Can you conceive of where we all would be if he listened to that and didn’t create the empire we all know and love today? He also had multiple other failures including best friends leaving Walt Disney Studios for competitors and competitors even stealing his original work, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It was after Oswald was stolen that he created Mickey Mouse, who is definitely the most popular mouse in the entire world. Albert Einstein and the Problem of Traditional Learning. While Einstein is not a fiction writer, his works have brought about an amazing advancement to the field of science. We have many of our theories and even proof of various scientific aspects because of him. However, Einstein was terrible with traditional learning and many thought he wouldn’t go very far. This speaks loudly to those who might have a hard time with traditional marketing, understanding how to make their business a success, and even young children who are having a hard time learning in school. If he had let his problems get in the way, we wouldn’t have much of the scientific advancements we have today, nor any of his incredible academic work. J.K. Rowling Wrote Harry Potter Without Much of a Plan for Success. When J.K. Rowling first wrote Harry Potter, she was living as a single mother on welfare. It was a difficult life for her, but she decided to start writing. She created the Wizarding world, but, according to her, she was rejected “loads” of times by different publishers. She kept going, however, even though she didn’t necessarily have the finances she needed to send off so many manuscripts. I am especially glad she kept going because we might have never met the Boy Who Lived, experiencing an incredible fantasy world just a few miles away from normal life. In addition to rejections for Harry Potter, Rowling also faced several rejections as Robert Galbraith, her pen name for The Cuckoo’s Calling. What a great example of “keep on trying.” Now Harry Potter is a goliath in the marketing world, offering writers and businesses alike incredible marketing inspiration. Charles Darwin Was Considered Average at Best. Evolution has had a long, contentious past with many people arguing over its reputability. What many people don’t realize is that the father of evolution, Charles Darwin, was considered an average student at best and dropped out of a degree and career in medicine to become a parson. However, he found a significant interest in nature and began traveling the world to understand it better. As he did so, he came up with his theory and published the now popular and infamous Origin of the Species. Regardless of one’s stance on evolution, it is hard to deny that this “average” student made a huge impact on the world of science and helped bring about a different view of nature. Dr. Seuss Had His First Book Rejected 27 Times. We all love Dr. Seuss, don’t we? We all have that one book that helped us get through difficult times or at least one that was our childhood favorite, but did you know Dr. Seuss’s very first book was rejected 27 times? That’s right. And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected 27 times by different publishers. It took a while for this book to become published, but eventually it was and Dr. Seuss became a tremendous part of the literary world. He even has an entire literary day (his birthday) dedicated to him and his amazing work. Stephen King Threw Away Early Drafts of Carrie and it was Rejected 30 Times. Have you read Carrie? If you’re a horror and novella fan, then chances are you already have. It is a great, scary story that is definitely a classic in the horror world. Before it became the success it is today, Stephen King got very frustrated with it and threw away early drafts of the novella. In addition, when he finally finished it, it was rejected 30 different times. It is unlikely we would have the an epic horror empire King created if it weren’t for his wife. She made sure to help get Carrie published, and we can all thank her for the wonder, and horror of a Stephen King universe. Margaret Atwood Failed Writing a Novel On Holiday. Margaret Atwood is a definite goddess amongst fantasy and science fiction writers, and we might never have received the wonder of The Handmaid’s Tale if she hadn’t failed writing another book. She went on a bird watching, book writing holiday and only one aspect of that holiday was successful – watching birds. She struggled to write her novel and eventually stopped. It was … Read more

A Case Study In Two Pillars of Content Marketing Success

December 31, 2020January 26, 2015 by Adam Oakley

You! Yes, you over there, searching Google for inspiration to create an epic content marketing plan. I know it’s easy to get stumped with all of the information available or you might simply need a few examples of different successful endeavors from some epic companies. Heck, as a content marketer, even I get stumped (once every few million minutes). In this blog, I am going to do an in-depth case study of the most epic of the epic to inspire your content marketing. More specifically, I’ll take a look two content marketing pillars who have created the foundations of what a great content marketing strategy is all about! This should give you some basic inspiration that you will be able to take with you to your next content marketing meeting. Let’s take a look at the company that gives you wings, and the company you use to film when you get those wings. Red Bull’s Stellar Content Marketing: 7 Key Features If you aren’t a big fan of energy drinks, chances are you still know about Red Bull and can recite their slogan from memory, “Red Bull gives you wings!” Regardless of lawsuits stating the drink does not, in fact, give one wings, Red Bull’s slogan is a great example of just how this company wins at content marketing. Let’s look at a few other ways they’re a content marketing juggernaut. 1. World Records Were Broken. Can We Ever Forget the Parachute from Space? I was one of the millions that tuned in for Red Bull’s Stratos jump from the edge of space in October 2012. It was an incredible thing to watch and what a feeling of realizing you’re watching history in the making! If you weren’t one who watched or happen to know nothing about it, Felix Baumgartner did a free fall from the very edge of space and represented Red Bull. While it happened over two years ago, Red Bull is still using this highly successful campaign over at their Stratos Team website. It was a great way to not only advance the energy drink, but to also promote science and space travel. Just how effective was this jump, in sales and marketing results? An Econsultancy report said they had 900,000 Facebook interactions on jump day, and sales of Red Bull rose an entire 7% to a figure in the billions within six months. Now, I understand that not everyone can break a world record in their content marketing, but this company went to the extreme and did that—and it got them somewhere! If you have a crazy, record-breaking idea for your marketing: well, who’s stopping you from doing it? 2. Red Bull Uses Excellent Sports Action YouTube Videos. While most of Red Bull’s customers are not those who participate in extreme sports or high action events, they do know that it is a great marketing scheme. The company utilizes YouTube to provide videos to their over 3 million subscribers using different extreme sports in a video series. They have a series about racing in Seattle, as well as featuring individual sports such as mountain biking, parachute jumps, and extreme truck racing (in snowy conditions!). You can catch all of their videos by heading to their YouTube account. Prepare for some major action-packed adventures! In addition to Red Bull’s extreme sports videos, Red Bull also live-streamed events such as Lollapalooza. Those who couldn’t get to the music festival were able to watch it live on Red Bull TV, which was another great marketing scheme from this awesome company. 3. They Put Their Customers First. One of the major ways Red Bull wins in content marketing is that they always put their customers first. This is a great way to interact with their client base and make people feel welcome. While their customers might not necessarily participate in extreme sports or the other events Red Bull sponsors, their client base still enjoys watching them. The company states that the product is completely secondary. What comes first is what the customer wants and how the company can deliver and meet those wants and needs. 4. Red Bull Uses Multiple Formats for Content. Red Bull understands the need for multiple content formats because they understand people consume it differently. Because of this, the company not only uses their awesome digital marketing skills, but they also utilize a magazine, social media, images, and blogs (depending on the campaign). This is a great way to reach out to their audience in enough ways to keep reaching a significantly wider audience. You can find more about their overarching content at their awesome website, Red Bull Media House. 5. They Make Marketing More Than Just a Department. Their media house states they are not the only ones responsible for coming up with these stellar content ideas. Red Bull believes that they can get some of the best, most effective campaigns by involving their entire company. This is a great way to make sure they are not only engaging their customers, but their employees as well. Happy, engaged employees can mean major success for any business! Consider asking your employees to help come up with some awesome marketing campaign ideas or things they’d like to see from your company. Your employees are housing a wealth of information and if you neglect it, you can miss out on some pretty epic inspiration! 6. Red Bull Has a Strong Slogan. As I mentioned earlier, the incredibly memorable slogan did bring about a lawsuit (people sure can get lawsuit happy, can’t they?). Regardless, you cannot deny that Red Bull has created one of the best slogans. Why is it one of the best? Because whether you consume Red Bull or not, you know the slogan already. How many of us have it memorized? Let’s see; recite the slogan with me now! “Red Bull gives you wings!” This is a great example of creating a memorable slogan that helps people remember your company quickly and easily! 7. Let’s … Read more