Don’t want to be loud? Be a beacon instead. 🕯️
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Hello Reader, Do you ever feel like your marketing is just you standing on a crowded street jumping around saying, “Hey it's me, I'm over here, do you see me…”? It's not just you. From the hundreds of conversations I've had this year alone, a lot of people feel this way—everything seems noisy and crowded, more so than ever before. Recently, I saw Someone Who Was Wrong on the Internet™ claim that the solution to this is that CEOs and business owners should be spending a whopping 80 percent of their time “creating content.” (Yes, you read that right—80 freaking percent. No, they did not have data to back up this claim.) I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an almost full time job as an influencer, and that’s basically my nightmare. Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I actually enjoy client work, building relationships, and creating solid outcomes for my clients. If I was spending the bulk of my time “creating content,” I would lose the thing that I love about my business. Like I said, nightmare scenario. So if volume isn’t the answer for us mere mortals, what is? It’s having something to say that a machine can’t replicate. I believe there's a way to still "do marketing" while avoiding that crowded street feeling: You can instead become a beacon of fresh ideas and spark conversations. The data indicates that in this rapidly evolving world, the key to bubbling up is "Information Gain"—a fancy way of saying you’re adding something new to the conversation that wasn't there before. (I often just call this concept "insights.") Imagine being known for: Unique perspectives: Sharing your insights and challenging the status quo in your field. Deeper dives: Going beyond the surface level and providing valuable analysis. Fresh research: Bringing new information and perspectives to the table. Here's what I love about this concept: providing information gain or insights isn't just good for building your brand, it's great for getting noticed online. Why? Because Google, and frankly, everyone else, is tired of the "same, same, same" content. Over the last 18 months or so we’ve seen new “content” online become extremely repetitive with low levels of information gain. I attribute this content crisis to marketing agencies in particular shifting from human created, original, research-based content for their clients to cranking out remixed, unoriginal content generated by the Large Language Model software marketed as AI, as well as some of the shady plugins and apps that have been taking advantage of unsuspecting consumers trying to keep up with that volume they believe they need to produce to “keep up.” Humans crave new ideas and voices that make a difference. Google and researchers like Edelman have quite literally told us this. Now, even the models for software like ChatGPT and Gemini are valuing information gain or insights as well. People simply aren’t staying in the search engine, on the website, or in the software if they don’t discover any insights. Instead of screaming louder, and more, we’re going to build a beacon. It makes sense thinking about human behavior: What do you want to eat when you go out? A meal that's just like that bagged salad kit you ate at home yesterday (ahem) or something that delights you because it's fresh and interesting? Your marketing is no different. Onward & upward, Sarah
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