Not everyone likes producing content for their marketing.
It can feel like a chore to sit down and produce content, particularly if you know there are other things that need doing.
Sometimes the words don’t flow, or you get it done but when it’s published it doesn’t quite achieve the impact you thought it would.
At times like these, it’s natural to ask…
Can I get someone to do this for me?
The short answer is yes, but it likely won’t be the improvement you think it may be.
Let me unpack why.
If you ask most advice firms where they traditionally get their leads from, the most common answer is two places.
- Referrals from clients or other social connections who are advocates for what you do, and
- Strategic partnerships
Most statistics will back this up, but behind this is a more complicated story about the increasing relevance of digital marketing when it comes to advice.
I was having a conversation just the other day with a journalist who was writing an article about the evolution of practices.
The topic of digital marketing came up, and the question about how important it is for an advice firm to have a digital presence? Or, more specifically, what’s the cost of not having it?
Not having a digital presence is a bit like trying to navigate your way around Sydney with a 1995 street map. You’ll probably be fine, but sooner or later you’ll reach a bridge that’s no longer there or some dead end that used to be a cross street, and your journey ends.
Whenever someone is referred through by an advocate or strategic partnership, in the space between recommendation and meeting, the overwhelming likelihood is that person is going to open a browser and seek to find out something more about your and your practice.
If you do have a website though, they’ll be able to learn a bit about what do you.
If there’s a video, they’ll get to know a bit about you as a person.
Maybe you’ve got a lead magnet for download, in which case they subscribe to your email marketing list. Now you can communicate with them regularly without having to try and reach them through the noise of social media.
Maybe they read some of the blogs you’ve written and get insight into what your advice, your approach and your business is about in clearer detail.
If you don’t have a website, maybe you’ll show up in AdviserRatings…
Lack of a digital presence for many people is a red flag. It can communicate that you’re not established, have fallen behind or are simply not someone who wants to be found.
Not all the time, but generally speaking.
If you do decide to go down the route of having a great digital presence – if you’re producing content for your site we’d assume that’s the case – then there are really two things that matter:
The first is your static content that communicates your value proposition.
Generally, these are your web pages, that tend to be the ones you don’t update that often,
This is where you can definitely look to hand this over to someone else.
This is the stuff that will decide whether someone reads on or clicks away, so it pays to find someone who can write the copy for you or work with you to write it if you don’t feel it’s your strength. It’s a skill set in itself and usually diametrically opposed to what most advice professionals are trained to do best.
The second is more dynamic content.
Usually blogs or video blogs, are published on your site and often shared elsewhere to generate inbound traffic, often topical and always aligned with what it is your ideal clients are searching for.
You can definitely outsource some of this, like logging into your site to create the posts themselves, editing, creating visual assets – the technical stuff.
I outsource a big part of this, but there’s one part of it I don’t and don’t recommend you do either.
The intellectual property itself
It is obvious why I can’t outsource videos, but I also write (or dictate) every written word that gets published.
Why? Because this is what I do.
It’s my expertise.
It’s why businesses work with me.
It’s me putting forward to the world that:
- This is what I love,
- This is what I know,
- This is how I add value,
- This is who I work with
- This is how I help
- This is a small taste of what it feels like to work with me
To be able to outsource that you’d need to find someone who could do this for you.
Someone who not only is good at writing content, but knows what you know and can write like you.
That’s a hard find. Not impossible, but should you find it, most likely expensive.
Even if you do, there’s a good chance it’ll still miss that personal touch that makes it feel like a conversation with you.
There’s so much more I could talk about when it comes to marketing – it’s one of the largest areas of our program with around 20-odd training modules included.
The ones relating to content marketing – and there are a few – focus on ways to get smarter about how you do it.
Use more videos. Dictate rather than type. Write shorter articles about one thing at a time. Use some established blog frameworks that make it easier to produce.
That’s where the biggest improvements lie.
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