Why Sporadic Marketing Content Puts the Brakes on Business Growth
Ever try to drag race through Chicago’s Loop during rush hour? Can’t be done. I mean, not that I’ve tried — because I absolutely have not tried that — it’s just obvious.
For those of you who have never done it (which includes me, btw), the problem with drag racing in rush hour (besides being illegal and irresponsible) is that you have to keep stopping. That’s a problem, because the whole idea of drag racing is to go fast, over a certain distance. And to do that, you have to keep going, continually building on the speed you’ve already achieved.
Marketing is just like drag racing: stopping is bad.
I’ve lost count of the number of small businesses that try drag racing during rush hour. They keep stopping, and so they never build any kind of momentum. They also tend to lose the race against competitors that don’t stop.
Posting an occasional blog article or social media post won’t cut it. Effective marketing content is effective because it builds on itself. Put it in isolation and it just sits idle.
Keep Fueling Your Marketing Content
If you’re DIYing the marketing content of your small business, you’re probably trying to fit it in between other important priorities. You’ve got a company to run, and that means wearing several hats at once. Marketing is one of them, and so it’ll have to find a place among the other demands on your time.
That’s why a lot of small business owners say that they’ve tried marketing and it didn’t work. It wasn’t marketing that failed them — it was the way they did marketing that failed them.
Take a break in the middle of a race and you’ll come in last every time.
Give Your Content a Nitro Boost
Your marketing content must be a priority — not something you fit in between your other responsibilities. It needs to be treated as the engine of your entire business. Without that engine — and the content to fuel it — you won’t go anywhere.
If you’re serious about winning the drag race against the competition, you need to make several commitments.
Let go of marketing’s steering wheel
Your job as a business owner is to run your company, not to run the marketing department. You can’t do both things with excellence, and it’s more important to run your business with excellence.
Find the right person to take the wheel of your marketing — someone who has the capacity and the talent to churn out amazing marketing content. That doesn’t necessarily mean hiring a marketing agency. Agencies can be prohibitively expensive — as much as $10k per month or more. It also doesn’t necessarily mean bringing on another employee, which can also be expensive.
You can outsource your marketing efforts to an independent marketing consultant, who can provide select services at a fraction of an agency’s cost. A good marketing consultant will be able to churn out high-performing content that has your brand voice, while communicating your company’s unique perspective with an industry insider’s expertise.
Create a roadmap
Your company’s marketing has to be intentional. Place expectations on your content creators to churn out marketing content frequently and consistently. There should be a content calendar that’s managed and adhered to — with accountability in place to make sure it gets done.
Don’t settle for meh content
If you (your company, not you personally) are spending that much time and energy creating that much content, it had better be world-class. You’ve just raised the stakes — make sure you cash in on them.
Your content needs to:
- Engage the emotions
- Be customer-centric
- Add value or empower your audience
- Be relevant to your buyers’ biggest questions, pains, and motivations
- Be well written
- Not be the same as everyone else’s content
Put the Pedal to the Metal
When the pandemic hit, a lot of companies cut back on their marketing efforts, or quit altogether. The idea was to cut costs short term to preserve the long term health of the business. Generally speaking, that was a mistake, and it actually hurt those companies long term. Here’s why.
Studies show that companies that keep marketing during economic downturns are the first to recover afterwards. The reason? They stay top-of-mind during the hard times, and customers think of them first when they’re ready to buy. But their competitors have to start from scratch and completely rebuild momentum.
Whether you’ve taken your foot off the pedal during the pandemic or never really got going to begin with, the sooner you commit to consistent marketing content, the sooner you’ll build up your speed and win that drag race.
Take the first step towards seeing real results from your B2B marketing.