Four ways to do “just enough” content marketing

My marketing strategy philosophy is “just enough” – do just enough of what it takes to reach your goals. The first step to figuring out what “enough” is, is knowing what those goals even are – and if you don’t know that, do not pass go until you download the Marketing Clarity Worksheet! Your stage of business, service offerings, pricing and so much more all goes in to determining what marketing is going to be the most effective for your business.

When it comes to content marketing, it’s easy to get sucked into the machine. Afterall, the current model has been designed to keep you making more content, perpetuating the myth that you’ll be successful when your content is good enough. 

But that doesn’t mean that every service-based solopreneuers needs to stop making content immediately. While the model might be broken, it can be an extremely effective way to market a service-based business, especially with a high ticket signature offer in a highly saturated market or niche. Your clients are going to need to get to know, like and trust you in some way before they make a purchase!

I mean, it’s not lost on me that I am content marketing to you right now.

So the goal isn’t to give up content marketing entirely, but instead to find a way to integrate it into our strategy and workflow without making it a full time job or burning out.

Here are four you can bring “just enough” to creating content for your marketing: 

Choose your main platform

You don’t have to be everywhere, all the time, all at once. Choose the platform that makes the most sense for your business, considering where your potential customers are hanging out and what your time commitment and preferences are. 

For example, I’m a talker who doesn’t like to brush my hair, so podcasts are great for me. On the flipside, a recent client does most of her work with her sleeping infant nearby, so quiet work like writing blogs and newsletters is a better fit for her during this season. 

What you like to do and your capacity is probably the most important factor – creating content isn’t going to feel like a slog if you’re into what you’re doing. 

Repurpose

It’s a lot easier to take something longer and make it shorter than to try and go the other way. Which is why I generally recommend longer form content like blogs, podcasts or video as your primary channel. Then you can slice it and dice it in different ways. Blogs can become Instagram carousels; video recordings of podcasts can become clips for video sites; and so on. 

This is where the slope can get really slippery. The possibilities for repurposing and reposting can be endless. So be reasonable about how much ancillary content you are going to create. Simply resizing your images and posting the same thing in multiple places isn’t going to be effective, so don’t even waste your precious time.

Instead, focus on one or maybe two additional channels where you know your audience is active to repurpose your content. 

Recycle

Sometimes it’s not about creating something new, but recycling what we already have. If you’ve been doing this for awhile, you probably already have a nice little stockpile of content that you can pull from to repurpose in new ways or even just use them again. Patty Lee Ryan at The Fiery Well repurposed her newsletter archive into an evergreen, automated year-long email sequence so she doesn’t have to keep writing new stuff every week. I mean, an icon!

Yes, you can recycle your launch materials! You can repost something that did really well last month/quarter/year! Or better yet – recycle what you put a lot of time and energy into that didn’t do as well as you thought it could! Try it again! Post it again! 

Pay yourself for content creation

Content creation is work and you deserve to be compensated for the time and energy that you put into it. Factor marketing time into your rates! Creating content is going to feel a lot easier and enjoyable when you are well resourced. 

Let’s figure it out

If you’re struggling to find that just enough sweet spot in your content marketing, set up a free, no-pressure chat and we can brainstorm how to make it easier.