The Compounding Return on Content Marketing
Fluxe Digital Marketing
We help smart businesses build strong brands and generate leads in a fraction of the time it takes to do on their own.
If you’re like many degree-earners, you went to school to learn a specific skill set. Then, as a business owner, you leveraged that skill set by serving clients one-on-one.
Now that you’ve added more clients, your attention moves between them — but still one at a time.
That would be fine if you only had to worry about client success. But you also have to build awareness, attract new clients, make sales, etc.
It’s easy to forget the reason you started your business in the first place: to help people. How do you carve more time out of your day to do that?
There’s an easy way to move beyond the one-on-one model and make a bigger impact through your business with all the time you don’t have.
What Is Compound Marketing?
When asked what mankind’s greatest invention was, Albert Einstein replied, “Compound interest. He who understands it earns it; he who doesn’t pays it.”
While this story about Einstein may be a myth, the value of compound interest is undeniable.
This same compounding principle applies to more than money.
Meet compound marketing: multiplying your expertise and experience into strategic content assets to use along the client journey.
These content assets include:
Essentially, compound marketing means moving from educating your clients one-on-one to one-on-many while providing as much or more value.
Why Is Compound Marketing Important?
If you want to impact your audience, compound marketing is the only scalable way to do it. Instead of using your expertise one-on-one, you reach many people simultaneously — and not just your existing clients.
When I talk to my clients — all future-focused business owners like you — I often hear that prospects come to them quoting their blog posts and videos. Those business owners may not remember exactly what they wrote or said, but that’s not what matters.
What matters is that it’s much easier to turn prospects into clients when they already understand your value.
As good as that sounds, you might think, “I barely have time to brush my teeth in the morning! How can I find time to write blog posts and record podcasts?”
Creating valuable content doesn’t mean doing anything new. You already answer questions all day, often recycling the same answers you’ve already given clients, staff, and colleagues. Content marketing captures what you already know and uses it along the client journey in six ways:
Six Ways Content Multiplies Your Marketing Efforts
1. Content Is Multiplies Branding
Remember the old conundrum, “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” Maybe so, but only to those two hikers walking by.
If you have a great brand but nobody knows about it, does it make a sound? Not where most prospects can hear it. You need to amplify your sound.
Content marketing helps build your brand and position you as an industry leader. When you’re helpful to people regardless of their ability to pay you, you get positioned as an authority, an advocate, and a premium service.
When done well, your content serves as an incredible resource for the market and makes you a massive attention-grabber for future and prospective clients.
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2. Content Multiplies Engagement
Good, quality content creates touchpoints beyond what you can do physically. Content helps your clients who need more information about a topic they’re struggling with, which engages them further with your business.
Good content is also a tool for your clients to share evangelistically, turning them into brand ambassadors. Email newsletters can be forwarded, and YouTube videos can be shared with the click of a button. That ripple effect is invaluable, especially since it’s done while you sleep!
3. Content Multiplies Recruiting
Giant salaries aren’t swaying today’s job-seekers. What’s most important to them is how a work environment aligns with their values.
Many of my clients have used their content output to dodge the brunt of The Great Resignation. Quite a few of their newest employees started as followers of their podcasts or blogs. Before they applied for the job, they understood the company’s values.
Effective content marketing helps you kiss months-long job listings goodbye.
4. Content Multiplies Opportunity
Content publication isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago. Previously, you’d write a piece, find an editor, and submit it to a handful of industry-specific magazines that charged readers a subscription fee.
Today, you can access countless free platforms that distribute your content worldwide, multiplying your networking opportunities.
Good, free, value-based content is an attention-grabber for like-minded professionals who identify you as a thought leader. Your opportunities for collaboration become limitless.
I’ve seen this firsthand with my clients. One — a medical practice owner — has gotten requests for quotes from major medical industry publications because existing writers frequently reference his content.
Content was also key in helping two clients sell their businesses for higher multiples. We grew one site from 2,000 monthly visitors to over 130,000, making it an invaluable asset for acquisition.
5. Content Multiplies Customer Service
What do administrators have to do the most? Repeat themselves. And, unfortunately, your clients may not take your front office staff’s word.
To train your clients to become better clients, craft your content with oft-repeated questions in mind. That way, your front office staff can refer to a library of answers.
6. Content Multiplies Sales
Great content is an anti-sales pitch. You’re not selling anything. You’re simply offering a service useful to a subset of the population, with an associated fee. This kind of content creates new opportunities for lead generation, partnerships, and more.
Good content helps you go from selling to order-taking.
Compound Marketing: Final Thoughts
The buyer experience doesn’t end with the initial transaction. You’re taking your buyers on a journey as you grow your business.
That journey is a series of questions, and answering those questions through great content has far-reaching benefits for your present and future clients and staff.
If you wait until you know everything, you’ll lose the connection with your audience. They want to go on the journey with you, so stop worrying about being perfect and start including them in your journey. That’s the difference between talking with them and talking at them.
Want to know how compound marketing can help your business? Don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d be happy to help.