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When it comes to content marketing and blogging, I have found there are basically two types of business owners and leaders:
1. The person that has every excuse as to why there isn’t enough time(and employees, resources, etc.) to produce enough needed content.
2. The person that makes no excuses and simply does what it takes.
In other words, slackers and doers. (Just keeping it real y’all)
At this point in my career as a consultant, I’m happy to say I no longer work for person #1. In fact, it has become my entire goal to find the outliers in each industry that are willing to be digital renegades and quit looking for excuses as to why they “can’t” do certain things and instead embrace the possibilities of what “can” be done if they simply make it a priority.
Kirk Drake of Ongoing Operations is one such renegade. Kirk heard me speak about content marketing at the end of last year and since that day he has tackled this new marketing approach unlike any business owner I’ve ever seen. Although I could literally go on all day about some of the steps he has taken to ensure the success of content marketing within his organization, today I’m simply going to focus on one act he did which indicated just how forward-thinking he is with regards to content.
I’ve talked at length before about why companies should require employees to participate in the company blog and content marketing efforts, but Kirk Drake took this suggestion to a whole new level I’ve not yet seen done by any company ever within the content marketing realm. In 3 simple steps, here’s what he did:
1. Along with his core staff of less than a dozen employees, Drake took the time to brainstorm all the questions they get from clients every single day, and then turned these questions into titles for his blog posts.
2. He then assigned the articles to his fellow employees and told them (again, less than 12 employees total) the company would spend 90 minutes a day, during working hours, over the course of 3 straight days, to write the answers to these questions.
3. Over a 3-day period, the staff spent a total of 4.5 hours answering these questions in their words, with the end result being over 100 blog posts.
Pretty cool, huh?
Yep, that’s called putting your money where your mouth is.
Like I said earlier, some folks make excuses as to why there isn’t enough time to produce content and others simply do what it takes to make it happen.
By leveraging his employees and simply answering client questions, Ongoing Operations is getting huge results.Real Results, Real ROI
Because of his labors, in less than 6 month’s time, Kirk Drake is changing his business and industry as we know it. He has gone from getting a 1-2 leads a month from his website to getting, on average, 1 a day. Furthermore, he has posted over 200 blog articles during this time frame and just produced his first eBook as well.
Even better, he realizes he’s just starting to tap into the potential of his industry.
Oh, and did I tell you that his company specializes in backup cloud-computing services for the credit union industry?
Yep, that’s what he does, and although it may not sound like a “sexy” industry for content, Drake realizes sexiness is in the eye of the beholder, and frankly there is nothing more sexy than answering consumer questions better than they’ve ever been answered before.
At a recent conference where I was brought in to speak to a few hundred credit unions, I interviewed Kirk on stage at the end of my talk and asked him a simple question:
“Based on the leads you’re now getting from your website compared to before, what type of financial impact will this have on your business’ bottom line?”
His answer was telling:
“Somewhere between $500,000 to $1,000,000 in the first year.”
If that ain’t ROI my friends, I don’t know what is.
Our Challenge
Hopefully, you can see why I wanted so badly to share with you this story. The fact is, anything is possible when it comes to marketing if we learn how to leverage the talent around us. Whether you are an army of 1 or have a staff of 1,000—seek to be unique. Imagine the possibilities. And for the love of Pete, clear your own path and make your own rules—just as Kirk Drake has done and just as you could do within your industry.
Your Turn
I’d love to hear about some of the most creative ways you’ve seen companies leverage their existing staff and talent to produce more/better content. If you’re aware of such a story, tell us about it. What were the results? And what is preventing you from being a digital outlier within your niche?
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