You don’t need MORE content; you need BETTER content

It’s easy to get caught up in the “create more content” race to the bottom.

Mark Schaefer identified what he called “Content Shock” back in 2014.

It’s gotten worse since then.

Now you don’t just have other consultants, coaches, and advisors creating content.

We’re being flooded with content from content mills, cheap freelancers, and AI systems.

“Content” is cheap to create and cheap to publish.

That doesn’t make doing so a good idea.

As a trusted advisor, you have 2 marketing goals: develop trust and show that you offer good advice.

When you create (or worse – promote) low quality content, you’re advertising yourself as a low quality advisor

Every piece of content you create is a sample of your work.

Future clients will poke around your blog – or search for your content online – as a way of assessing the quality of your advice before they ever contact you.

Here’s a simple quality test: put yourself in the shoes of a potential client and review your latest blog post, newsletter or social media post through their eyes.

If this was the first and only piece of communication they ever received from you…are you happy with how it represents you?

Is it a good sample of your expertise, your personality, your perspective, your advice?

Does it help you reach your goals of being trusted and known for your expertise?

Too often, we get caught up in the idea that we need to create MORE content and NEW content

Because we’re personally close to our content (WE read everything we put out!) – we have a tendency to believe that everyone has “already seen” the stuff we’ve posted.

Or that the topic we’ve already written 20 articles about is “old news.”

The truth is that most of your future clients have never seen *anything* that you’ve written. They haven’t heard about you yet!

Even in your established audience, all but your most devoted fans are going to cherry pick your articles/newsletters and only read what is interesting and relevant to them in the moment.

In an environment overflowing with low quality content, the way to stand out is through quality.

Create a collection of high quality pieces that showcase your knowledge and establish your expertise

Instead of writing a new post on a topic you’ve written about before, revise it to make it better.

Make it clearer. More organized. More succinct.

Add examples to illustrate it.

Update it to reflect your evolved thinking.

Instead of straying into territory that is NOT your area of expertise, dive deeper into the areas you want to become known for.

Instead of writing more content – repackage what you’ve already said in a different format: make a video, record an audio file, create an infographic.

Then reuse, re-purpose, refine, and republish.

Achieve consistency and frequency through repetition

Promote your older posts.

Atomize your posts into shareable social media soundbites.

Publish your posts in multiple places: your blog, Medium, LinkedIn or any other social media platforms where you are active.

Get the same work in front of new audiences. Podcast interviews, speaking opportunities (online and in-person), submitting your articles to other publications.

If you look at the successful thought leaders in your industry, you’ll see that they do that.

Successful thought leaders get better and better at communicating their best ideas

This is how they become known and respected as trusted advisors.

Consider the people you follow, the newsletters you read, the podcasts you listen to.

Do you think these people outsourced their content marketing to cheap freelancers, are using auto-generated AI content, or bought a “white label” package of someone else’s content to use as their own?

Are they publishing the same “top ten tips” that everybody else is publishing?

Or are they sharing well-thought-out ideas in their own unique voice?

The choice is yours: do you want to add to the noise?

Or rise above it?