How much content should I be putting out?

This is a portion of my interview with Eric Brocksome from Vsquared Creative (S3:E8). We covered a lot of ground in our conversation, but I really wanted to pick his brain on content. It is vital for business owners to get their brand out there and have it be in their voice. Some entrepreneurs, like myself, enjoy creating it on their own. Others see it as a foreign language and something that they would rather outsource.

Also, how do you know if the content being put out, is translating to the actual business? We discuss that as well. My thanks to Eric for coming on and talking about valuable information here!

Matt: It’s gotten so crazy, I mean, ten years ago, 28:29 nobody was creating any of their own content. It was all TV and ad agencies and all of that. Now, if you’ve got creative entrepreneurs that are doing their own stuff and have their own voice and want to put it in there. There are so many different channels to do that in. And it becomes so important to your brand because it has your own voice in it, and I believe it should.

I like creating my own content so people know a little bit more about me instead of someone else doing it for me. It takes me a lot of time and effort but I have no problem doing it.29:02 I think it’s important. But yeah, pushing it out and being found is another thing, so staying in content… I’m sure it’s different in every business, but how much should you be putting out?

Eric: As much as humanly possible. I mean, there’s no such thing as too much content. There’s no such thing as bad content, it’s all just content. And the meaning you assign to it, 29:29 whether it’s good or bad, is just mostly your own perception of it. What you really want is to craft a message and tell a story. And then, what are you gonna create to do that?

So, Matt, you have an amazing story. Most people do. You’ve talked to 49 or 50 different business owners? They all have an interesting story. They have something to share. And most of them sit here in your office thinking ”I don’t know if people would care about that. I don’t know if people would care about my farm or my manufacturing business”. There’s no self-30:01 aggrandizement in most small business owners. They don’t have it. They’re not promoters by nature. They just make what they make and do what they do and they’re good at it. They don’t know how to tell other people without feeling self-conscious.

That’s where we come in. We’re storytellers. We’re creatives. We roll up on somebody like that and we start to immediately craft this message so that it goes on the attack to your specific target audience. How are going to get people that are going to buy from you? Or that are going to engage with you and like what you are and want more? 30:35

Matt: Is it smart for a business owner to have a schedule or a goal of how much content to create? Cause I’ve tried to do that. It’s kind of loose, but I got to put something out. I mean, again, there’s so many different kinds of content. I want to try and get a blog article once a week. But I’ll also try to get a post out on Instagram every day. I try to do a podcast every 31:01 other week. I’ll do a video two or three times a month. I’m trying to do a little bit more of that. It’s loosely structured but it keeps my face and my message in front of people. But that’s been crafted over the last couple of years. I don’t have that scheduled, but maybe I should. Is that important? Cause I could fall off that train and do nothing for a few months and that’s probably not good. I’ve been doing it long enough so I can feel the burn if I don’t 31:30 have something that’s been out in a week. I’m like ”I Have to get something out”. So, how can you get a business owner to get on a schedule to put stuff out? How should a business owner approach releasing their content?

Eric: Two things. 1, The key to content is consistency. If you’re gonna do it, you gotta do it and be consistent. If you’re gonna jump in for months and post a lot and then disappear, you31:59 may as well not do it at all. Because then, people go ”oh, that’s interesting” and then they look for more but you’re gone. Where did they go? Why are they not engaging? So consistency is key. Don’t do too much. Just pick a couple things and be consistent with them. That’s number one. Then, honesty. Most small business owners are not honest with themselves, in that they’re not good at marketing, storytelling, they’re good at being a doctor, they’re good at being a dentist, they’re good at running a living facility. 32:31 They’re not marketers.

The CEO of one of the living facilities that we work with is a CPA or an accountant. He graduated with a degree in accounting. And he freely came to us, and said, ”This is not my area and I don’t know anything about this. I need help”. And it’s gone gangbusters for him, because he was honest with himself, and said that instead of trying to do this and hobbling along, half-assing 32:59 it and not actually getting anywhere, and then giving up because it sucks and it’s hard and he didn’t know what to do, he hired us and went ”I know you guys know how to do this”.

So for a small business owner, being honest at what you’re good at and what your time is worth? I mean how much of this should you actually be doing? And, not only are you capable, but do you have the time to do it? I mean, you’re capable of it, you have the time to do it, and you’re consistent with it, and that’s why it consistently works for you. Because you’ve attacked it from the right angle. If you try to do a lot more 33:30 , you might find yourself overwhelmed or not wanting to do it. And that’s where you start being honest with yourself and asking ”Why am I doing this? What’s the end result? Am I trying to get more business or am I just doing it to compete against another Farmer’s agent? Or am I doing it because I want to be seen as being super active? Why am I doing this?”.

Matt: The second part to that is, when you’re creating all this content, it’s important for linear 33:59 business owners to be able to quantify if it’s working or not. What are some ways you can use to measuring that it’s working? Cause, five years ago, that was hard, but there are so many more metrics now that you can really dial into. What kind of things can business owners look at to see if it’s working or not?

Eric: There’s all kind of analytics available right now. Google Analytics is free. You can track how many visits you’re getting. You can see how many clicks on a particular page .34:30 There are ways of identifying when someone hits your home page. If they click the call now button, you can see that. You can have an actual specific number that tracks the number of calls being made from that click button on the website. You can see how many people have asked for driving directions to your location. So, there’s all of this stuff telling you if you’re getting an increase in traffic, right?

And you need an interpreter for a lot of that stuff. Because it’s like trying to navigate legal systems. You may understand that you’re being 34:58 charged with a crime and you didn’t commit the crime, so you need someone to represent you to get you off the hook for that. You don’t know the forms to file, all the laws around it, all the procedures, how the proceedings are gonna work. You need someone to translate that and help you understand. Same thing with an architect, a doctor, a dentist… You understand the basic concept, but you don’t know how to navigate that territory effectively without having someone to show us how to do that.

So, a content company can come in and say ”Here are the value analytics that you need to look at”. And a business owner will go ”I’m not getting any leads from my website.” But your traffic is up 400%, so it’s 35:34 not a problem of not getting enough people viewing your site. We need to tweak something on that site. Your call to action, or the way your information is laid out, or maybe your phone number is too far down on the page.

So, to further your point, those are the things you can look at, and say ”How do we get this information in the hands of somebody that’s actually gonna buy our product.” But beyond that, this is a crucial point for a lot of 36:02 business owners. Because we get so hung up on ROI. How many new customers I get, how much money did I make, and how much should I spend to get that? Those are all pretty quantifiable, and they point to profit loss. If I’m spending a thousand dollars and am only making 500, I probably shouldn’t spend that thousand dollars on that same thing anymore, because I’m losing money doing that.

The reality is, you got to 10 new customers 36:28 last month, and that hasn’t played out entirely, and each one of those new customers is worth $1,500 a year, a home, two autos and maybe a third ATV. SO let’s say that’s $1,500 a year, and you got ten new customers last month. Well, you’re not gonna see that until maybe the following month, and then maybe matriculate it out over time as well. And then you can go back and go ”well I grew ten new clients from 60 a month to 70 a month”, over a 36:57 year for six straight months in a row, while I was running these ads, or while I was doing this particular marketing activity. So that month that you looked at the metrics, it didn’t correlate. The data didn’t correlate. So you went ”Oh, this is a waste of money”.

So, marketing is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. You don’t go in, throw a whole bunch of money and go ”where is my result?” Marketing is something that you have to be willing to invest in, just like you would just any facet of your business. And stick with it, and then consider ROI from a wide variety of angles. Not just the bottom line, and ”how much money did I make this month?” 37:31 You can’t measure the ROI of spending time with your kids. There are some things in business, where you can’t measure the ROI of making a podcast.

You don’t know what your reach is. You don’t know who’s gonna be impacted by it. You don’t know who’s gonna call and identify with the message or the stories. You don’t know who’s gonna say ”Hey Matt, I’ve been listening to you for a year and I really love what you’re doing, and I’d like to sit down with you. I have a business, cars, and cars for my business…” You don’t know when that’s coming, so to say it’s not working, or asking what your ROI is, 38:02 sort of short-sighted thinking. And there’s a place for it, but it can be everything.