Blogging Fatigue: Why Blogging Is Wasting Your Time (do This Instead)
Once upon a time, someone told you to start a blog, because it was good for attracting clients.
So you did.
The idea was simple. You create lots of useful content for your audience in return, you attract more of your ideal clients.
And it worked, for a whilst.
But then everyone else decided to do the same thing, and so it got harder to stand out get noticed.
Why?
Because SEO is hard, and social media can be time consuming, right?
Sure, you could hire an SEO agency (ugh) and intern to schedule your posts for you, which works for a whilst. But even that’ll cost you in time and money. And you start to wonder, how are you supposed to use this stuff to drive real business results?
You’d think it impossible, but it’s not. You just have to stop wasting time and money on things that aren’t working and do this instead…
Most advice about blogging is wrong…here’s why
What ‘everybody’ tells you to do, to grow your business:
- Start a blog
- Blog consistently
- Publish regularly on social media
- Take part in forums and social media groups
All great strategies…once people see your content. Trouble is constantly creating and publishing more content, when no one sees your work. Will leave you feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.
The problem is, a lot of this advice stems from a time when it was easier to gain traction from your blog, than it is today.
Here’s why:
In 2006 there were 35 million blogs on the internet, by the end of 2011 that figure had risen over 400% to 185 million.
Yup!
So, the question is…
What should you do instead?
The phrase ‘content is king’ has been, beaten to death. And whilst there is some truth in it. Content is meaningless, unless it’s ‘measurably’ building your business.
So instead of creating endless content and hoping someone sees it.
Create content to appeal to the right audience. Content that’s designed to educate, build trust and convert leads into opportunities and clients.
You’re following the wrong formula.
The content is king myth states you have to spend your time creating blogs posts and social media posts etc
Because someone once told you content was good for SEO.
But this means hours, and hours of work and nobody sees your content anyway.
The old way to build a blog:
You’re following the wrong formula:
Regular blogs + Facebook posts + Email updates = Growth
WRONG
Why waste time creating new content that nobody is going to see?
Instead of writing new content daily and weekly. You take your existing work and spend more time promoting it to your audience.
Here’s what I mean:
You produce several pieces of quality-content that provides exceptional value to your audience then…
- Host your content in a way that converts prospects into leads.
- Promote your content like crazy, to more of your ideal clients.
- Generate more leads and create more opportunities.
Here’s the formula you should use instead:
Strategic content + high converting landing page + promotion = GROWTH
Let’s go over these steps in more detail:
Strategic content is:
Content designed to educate and build trust. About your audience their problems, challenges and needs.
Strategic content is not:
Self centred content about you or your business. For example, a blog about your latest company party or outing.
There is a place for that, yes, on your blog and on Facebook, but this type of content won’t work towards building your business.
These 3 types of strategic content (there are more types) appeal to your audience by either:
- Helping them solve a problem, save money, time or improve their current situation.
- Confirm their current beliefs (“I knew there was a better way to blog. Ha”)
- Shows how your solution is the best fit (How [your client] transformed their market).
#1 An irresistible lead magnet.
If you create no other piece of content, do this:
A lead magnet is a free give away that offers a specific chunk of value, you offer your audience in exchange for their email address.
Examples include: cheat sheets, checklists, templates, ebooks, videos or other piece of valuable content you offer through a simple landing page (more on this later).
The goal of your lead magnet is to attract high quality leads.
#2 A customer success story.
A case study that describes how your clients achieved amazing-results, after working with you.
Here’s a simple case study outline to follow:
- Describe your client’s current situation (or their brief to you).
- Outline your solution or approach.
- Show the results visually (using screenshots, charts, images etc).
- Include a genuine* testimonial that supports your solution and results.
*Too often I hear excuses when it comes to obtaining testimonials from clients. But as an ex ad-copywriter colleague of mine, once said — testimonials sell, period.
The best time to get testimonials, is when your clients are ecstatic with the work you’ve done for them. Whenever that is, get them on the phone, take them out for lunch, coffee etc and ask for their feedback.
But do not skip it and do not halfass it by making them up yourself.
#3 Disruptive content or controversial myth buster
This is where you take a common myth such as ‘content it king’ or ‘just write more stuff’.
And you tear it to shreds, using results, evidence and data etc.
Why these types of content work:
Perhaps the biggest reasons these types of content work so well are:
- They help solve your audience’s problems, achieve something or improve their current situation.
- Describe why your solution is the best fit.
- Help show your expertise, as opposed to you just telling people you’re an expert.
- Gain your audience’s trust.
How do you get content in front of the right people?
So now Instead of spending most of your time writing new stuff. You’re going to spend more time promoting it..
The new way to blog:
Note: But, that doesn’t mean you should neglect quality.
Now, when someone checks out your new strategic content you don’t want them to leave without giving them your email address.
So your content needs to be published on pages that are optimised to convert readers into leads.
There are two ways to achieve this…
Way 1 high-converting landing page.
The number one way to generate leads is to create a landing page or ‘opt-in page.
A good landing page can convert at between 20–40% and more in some cases.
There is a misconception that any web page is a landing page. You know they’re all pages on which you might ‘land’.
But many marketers (myself included) prefer to differentiate landing pages further. By saying: a landing page is any page which you might land that a) has a form and b) exists solely to capture a visitor’s contact information.
In other words, all landing pages are web pages, but not all web pages are landing pages.
Here’s an example of a landing page:
They work because they’re laser focused on capturing contact information and nothing else.
And therefore shouldn’t include navigation or other (distracting) links to any other pages.
Meaning you can send traffic to them via any channel you can think of and know with some certainty, you’ll generate leads.
Way 2 content upgrade.
A content upgrade is simply, bonus content that your visitors can get in exchange for their email address.
It’s a free resource that you create and give away that is unique to each blog post.
And they work tremendously well.
So well in fact that when Brian Dean of Backlinko implemented them on his website he saw a 785% increase in conversions.
Content upgrades could be a cheat sheet, checklist, list of resources or a worksheet.
For example if your ‘controversial post’ describes a detailed step-by-step process, you could include an editable worksheet or template to help your readers follow along.
Once you’ve identified your bonus piece of content, add it to your site (more on that later)
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Because a landing page is where you send traffic to. You also need to a way to capture leads from other inbound sources, i.e. blog posts.
You’re also much more likely to generate more engagement, likes, shares, comments from blog posts than you will your landing pages.
Which will help you drive even more traffic to your content.
You’re also much more likely to get people to click through to read a blog post than a lead magnet.
Why they work so well:
- You are offering a unique bonus to content your readers have already shown an interest in.
- Because the content is incredibly valuable — not overly promotional.
- You only need a few articles like these on ‘evergreen’ topics that you can continue to promote over again.
How to create landing pages and give away your content upgrades.
If all this is leaving you wondering…”that’s great Steve but how the heck to I create a landing page or give away my content upgrade”.
Simple:
I use LeadPages to create my landing pages and LeadBoxes (a LeadPages feature) to give away my content upgrades.
Hint: I’m using a LeadBox to give away a content upgrade on this post!
With LeadPages I can literally create landing pages within minutes from start to publish.
Generate endless traffic:
Once your strategic content is in place, get ready for the fun part…
Getting your content in front of as many of your ideal clients as possible.
Your ability to generate leads is only limited by your ability to drive traffic to those pages.
And getting traffic is not a problem.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google all want to sell you traffic you’ve just got to cut them a cheque.
Many people waste money on online advertising, don’t get results and conclude it doesn’t work. But pay per click advertising can be effective when done right.
Let me explain:
Instead of trying to sell, use your ads to send people to your landing pages. Drive traffic to sign up for your lead magnet first and then you can sell them over and over again.
Getting started with paid promotion.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn has been the preferred (B2B) marketing channel of any of the social networks.
With LinkedIn ads, you can target by, location, gender, industry, job. And more.
There are 2 types of ads to choose from, sponsored updates and text ads.
Text ads, are recommended for lead generation because people don’t tend to click through as much on sponsored updates, as they do text ads.
However I’ve known companies use sponsored updates and do well. The trick is is to be clear and super specific with your targeting.
Facebook
There is a bit of a misconception that Facebook won’t work for B2B.
But there are many B2B businesses (Intel, Salesforce and Infusionsoft) that do well with Facebook ads
Think about it, the individual you’re trying to target, is just as likely to have a Facebook profile as they are a linkedIn profile. They just have different uses for each.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t put an ad in front of them.
Facebook also knows a lot more about us, than any other platform… Which you can leverage to create and place the most appropriate ads.
It’s also one of the most cost effective platforms with users paying anywhere from 10 cents to $1 per lead compared to $2 -$7 for LinkedIn advertising.
Conclusion
Despite my opening headline (shame on me) and recent articles claiming blogging is dead. Far from it.
Blogging can still be an effective way for you to attract prospects and generate leads.
But it is time consuming and can feel overwhelming to create the sheer volume of content you think you need.
So instead of trying to kill yourself or worse still — not doing it at all.
Focus your efforts on creating a few valuable pieces and then go about putting it in front of more people.
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