John Bonini’s Post

In the simplest terms, here’s why the content strategy at Databox worked (and continues to work) so well. (I still get asked about this via DM, email, and podcasts all the time.) We focused on sharing perspectives over advice. Both our own as well as the experiences and perspectives of our audience. “Our experience was…” “Here’s the problem we were having…” “Here’s what worked for us…” Instead of telling people what to do. That’s it. Yes, there were the mechanics of running surveys, podcasts interviews, etc., but those were just vehicles for gathering perspectives for us to write about on the blog, social, etc. It was a more honest approach. It was also more scalable (there are only so many keywords with enough volume and relevance to keep you busy, but, there are endless perspectives out in the market that are valuable to your audience.) No one could copy it. We were inherently unique. In some ways, our content had no business being as successful as it was…the blog didn’t really start until 2017 (late by most standards.) We were a small team, essentially $0 budget, with no real SEO expert on staff — and yet we were outplaying much bigger teams for mindshare. Perspectives, not advice. We let the audience draw its own conclusions from there. I’ll be asked about this next week, next month, and probably next year. So, this post is as much a resource for me as anything else 😄 /cc to Peter Caputa for his added perspective. (See what I did there?)

Here's something I've flip/flopped on over the last few years –– content has to be more personal. It needs to start with your/your team's collective experiences, observations, and points of view. But it also needs to be personal to your audience by including their experiences, observations, and points of view, too. The old accepted approach was "The content shouldn't be about you. It should be about your audience." No, it should start with you and also include your audience for context and validation. What we *have* to avoid at all costs is this mundane middle –– content that speaks *at* your audience and shares nothing defensible that others can’t copy or ask AI to write for them. What can you create that the machines cannot? You won't find those answers in a tool. It has to start with you and your team.

One thing I’ve continually observed over dozens of discovery calls over the last few months: The aspirations don’t match the output for most marketing teams. *The aspirations* 💡 Establish more thought leadership, trust, and authority in our space 💡 Publish content that our audience shares and engages with 💡 “Be the favorite” content resource in our space 💡 Stand out from competitors (“everyone copies everyone right now in our space”) *The output* 😴 “Our current strategy is just publish more stuff” 😴 Use a spreadsheet of keywords to prioritize content efforts 😴 Never publishes first-person perspectives, either internal or of the audience 😴 Send a newsletter once a quarter (mostly links to company/product news)  😴 Dump links on social media to blog posts (mostly transactional keyword-driven posts) and product updates We need more marketing leaders, execs, and content marketers to spot the contradictions in their approach. Publishing more undifferentiated content will help no one –– not your audience and certainly not your goals/aspirations. Start marketing like a content brand. Not a content bland. (Sorry, I had to 😄)

Marketers from 9-5… 🚫 Use data from keyword tools everyone else is using… 🚫 Essentially re-write other top ranking posts for said keywords… 🚫 Use AI to help write more content faster… 🚫 Link dump on social media when the articles are live… Marketers after 5pm… 💡 Search Reddit forums for more authentic conversations around questions they have… 💡 Ask friends/coworkers/network for advice and recommendations… 💡 Seek out the perspectives of people they trust via content, interviews, etc. 💡 Join Slack communities to see how others like them are solving problems… In other words, we create undifferentiated content in our day jobs yet seek unique, differentiated perspectives when it’s our turn to seek out help, inspiration, or solutions. It's never been easier to stand out. That latter set of activities centers around first-person perspectives based on experience, observations, and just general points of view. You and your audience have these in spades. Why is that not the central input to your content and marketing strategies?

Content that is transparent, authentic, and written from a first-person perspective has always worked––well before AI. So why does it seem like everyone is talking about it now? For good reason––because going forward, it might be the *only* thing that works. Make the shift from undifferentiated, "here's how you..." content to "here's how I/we/us..." content. Your team's, and audience's, collective perspective is the way forward. Start there. It's never been easier to stand out than right now.

This just happened. Chopped it up for almost an hour with my friend Jimmy Daly for Louder Than Words. We talked a lot about what's working for both of us in terms of content. (My favorite/most important part of the discussion was how both of our philosophies have changed re: first person POV content in the last couple of years. Feeling stuck? Write/record something from your own perspective.) This one was a lot of fun –– the best episodes always feel like catching up with old friends. Look for it in a couple of weeks.

Most of my clients reference my newsletter, podcast, or LinkedIn content during our first discovery call, and, in most cases, I don’t recognize them as having engaged directly with my content before. There are so many people consuming your content (and buying your product/services) who will never like, comment, or hit reply. So, stop using engagement as the be all/end all metric for whether content works. Engagement does not equal resonance. You don't realize how many people you are reaching. Keep going.

You’ve got to condition your audience to expect great content from you. If you publish for a week and get little to no engagement, that’s not necessarily a signal for you to stop. So you published on LinkedIn for a week and got 5-10 engagements per post… Or you published 5 podcast episodes and are seeing 50 downloads per episode… Or you started a newsletter a couple of months ago and have “only” 350 subscribers… Give your audience a chance. Especially if, up until now, you’ve only invested in more transactional, keyword-driven content. You have to condition your audience to expect a different type of approach from you. That takes time. Sometimes, succeeding in content is a test of endurance –– how long can you and your team go on publishing in what seems like anonymity? The longer you can go, the greater your chance of success. Don’t quit before it gets good. 

Community is not a marketing tactic. There was some confusion in my post yesterday where I listed “No community” as one of the biggest problems/points of failure with content right now. “Oh, so we should create a slack community?” No. Community is the result of a message and content that deeply resonates with a particular audience. You can't go and “do” community like any other marketing tactic. It happens. It's when people reply back to your newsletter. It's when they write to you to ask when/where your next episode, email, etc., is coming because they're looking forward to it. It's when they bookmark, favorite, and save your content so they can always come back to it. It's when, unsolicited, they share your stuff with others and help expand and further your message in ways you can't do alone. The only way to "make" this stuff happen is by first investing in the other 2 points in yesterday's post –– original thinking and original research. Content that's uniquely you and your team. Could, at some point, create a Slack community to harness the existing community around your content? Sure. But that's not where it starts.

I want to talk to people who have ignored, or even bucked, keyword/SEO trends and have grown through content anyways. This is for Louder Than Words. Who should I be talking to?