Your daily routine:
- Post 3 Tweets
- Reply to 20-50 different Tweets
- DM 3 people a day
Then you move to LinkedIn.
Then you write your newsletter.
If you’re getting really fancy you might even hop on over to TikTok and YouTube to whip out some videos.
Toss an inspiring quote on Instagram
And to finish it off, record that podcast.
That’s a lot of work, but is it worth it?
You are told to remain consistent and patient, and eventually, things will work out. Slow is steady and steady is fast.
But if we are being honest, you have no clue if your content is doing its job. Or better yet, what is the job that content is supposed to do?
Is it to get you followers and subscribers? Or is it to make money? Aren’t they the same thing?
You could always ask the people that have 100,000 followers and make $500 a month. The truth is that your content should only have one job and that is to create customers.
If your content isn’t creating customers then what is it doing? You need content that takes into account the different phases of a customer journey and can walk them through each.
Oh, you don’t know about the phases?
The Different Customer Phases
It’s important to see every person that fits into your ideal audience as a customer already. This means you serve them as well as you serve anyone else.
Essentially, you need to build your customers, not wait for them to arrive.
The posts that do really well on social media and go viral usually aren’t the posts that will get someone to buy from you.
It’s why your social media feed isn’t the greatest in the world. When you get beyond the surface-level stuff (the first phase of the Customer Journey) you’re ready for something more.
So you continue to refresh the feed hoping that something interesting pops up. That’s exactly what is happening with your audience.
When a Creator creates a piece of content that goes deeper into the topic than usual, they can easily be discouraged by the fact it gets fewer likes than their Tweet about their top 5 favorite comic books.
But that post that went deeper serves a purpose.
It’s the difference between having an audience of 100,000 followers and making $500 a month versus having an audience of 2,000 followers and making $15,000+.
I know this because I’ve spent the last 8 years creating content and seeing what works and what doesn’t. I’ve chased followers, subscribers, and pageviews with very little money to show.
When I realized not all content is the same I switched up my strategy to allow for different forms of content to do different jobs. I started to create content that moved people along the Customer Journey so that when they were ready to buy, they thought of me first.
- Possibilities
- Path
- Problems
- Pre-Work
- Permission
Each piece of content that I create fits into one of these categories or more. Over time, a library of content is built up that helps people no matter which category they are in.
This moves them along the Customer Journey and to the point where they are ready to buy from you.
The Curse of Templates
Buying a content template from someone and treating your content like adlibs is a curse. The templates usually provide headlines and hooks that get people’s attention. And they look like the work on the surface.
The problem is that most of them only hit the first part of the Customer Journey. And this becomes addictive.
Because who doesn’t enjoy likes, retweets, and comments on what they post? It’s a form of validation that makes you feel as though you’re doing some right.
And that’s probably true.
But when this is the only content you post, you wake up wondering how everyone else with big followings is making 7 figures and you’re stuck making $0.05 per follower.
Templates don’t tell you what to post and when or what job is being done by that piece of content. Templates can’t do that level of thinking for you.
And don’t get me wrong. I love templates. They are a great tool to help jumpstart an amazing piece of content. But they are Step 1, not Step Everything.
The reason why you’re told to be patient in growing your business is because at some point you’re bound to make money if you have a big audience. When that happens of course you’re now the success story.
But do you really want to wait that long?
When a person follows or subscribes to you it’s because you’ve caught their interest. Who wrote the rules to say you can’t make money from that person today?
What if they want help today, but all they see from you is 10 Ways to Work at Starbucks in Monk Mode? It’s possible to create content that shows your audience a path to follow and this path eventually leads to your offers.
And because you laid out an amazing path, people are more than happy to give you money.
More People Are Coming…
Every single day 1000s of people are realizing that they want to have their own businesses.
They want the freedom that you’re chasing which means they’ll be online creating content right next to you. Content that is competing with yours for the attention of your audience.
It’s getting harder to stand out so people are resorting to more extreme measures. People whose audience should be one thing are suddenly doing top 20 Pop Culture lists hoping that it brings them the right people.
The Spray and Pray approach to content creation.
But there is an advantage to everyone coming to your place.
Nothing looks the same.
Stand Out By Not Standing In
The strategy is apparent. See what works for others and copy it.
Don’t change it. Copy it.
That can work if you’re getting started, but even then, if you’re sounding like someone else, chances are people already follow that someone else.
You can’t sit there asking why you don’t get followers when you don’t stand out. You can’t wear a red dress in a sea of red dresses and ask why you’re being ignored.
But let’s not pretend making content that stands out is an easy task. It’s challenging. I won’t say hard because once you find a system that helps it’s not hard.
It’s just challenging.
The content that builds an audience of customers doesn’t seem like it’s different than the content that builds an audience, but there is a difference. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
When you can create a Content Map that walks people through the Customer Journey then you’ve created content with intent. You understand each job that a piece of content accomplishes.
It takes away the guesswork of things.
Introducing the Customer Content Blueprint
Instead of using the spray-and-pray approach to content, develop a plan that walks your audience through the Customer Journey ensuring you’re ready for anyone.
Build customers, not an audience of freebie seekers.
More importantly, create content that has meaning to you. Content that you can look back on with pride and that people view as a resource.
The Customer Content Blueprint walks you through my method for developing a content strategy that works no matter where you’re at with your business.
I can’t say it will help you get to 100,000 followers in 6 weeks. It will help you create a more streamlined path to the revenue that you want.