Creating Content That Brings in Clients - Episode 2
You are probably creating content already, and to be honest, like most entrepreneurs or business owners, you're probably creating an awful lot of content. You know, the conversations that I have with people are that they feel overwhelmed. They feel like they're producing endless amounts of content, and it's just not bringing any clients in. There are so many social posts that go out with a few likes and maybe a couple of comments, but very little actually produces any kind of revenue for the business. And that's what marketing is all about, isn't it? We should be creating content that actually brings us home the bacon. In this episode I want to talk about all of this. I may be giving you a little bit of an answer that's different to what most people tell you, because the contrarian in me is standing here asking you to simplify. This podcast is called Less Is the Strategy for a reason.
I'm Ant Hodges. This is Less Is the Strategy, the podcast that proves doing less is the most powerful business decision you will ever make. Are you ready to find out what becomes possible when you simplify? Then let's dive in.
Okay, so let me paint a picture for you and see if it sounds familiar to you. You sit down and you want to create some content. You're sat in front of your screen and your laptop, you may be in a coffee shop, you may be sat at your desk, and you're staring at a blinking cursor. And somehow you end up writing a post. You end up creating some kind of content. You may even then use that content and pick up your phone and do a little selfie style video to record a reel or a short. And you may also put some kind of email together so that you can email your list and tell them that you've just created and published this content. So that's good. You have a few people that then like it, some might even comment on it, but fundamentally nothing. No inquiries, no conversations that really go anywhere, and ultimately, no clients.
It's a pattern that I see all the time, and to be honest, a lot of my content used to be like this, exactly the same. And I will tell you that it's tough. But you do it again because you've been told that consistency is everything. Keep showing up and trust the process. Weeks go by, months sometimes. Content keeps going out, and the clients are not coming in thick and fast. You may have had one or two conversations that have led maybe all the way through to a sales call, but maybe you wanted more. Well, I know you wanted more.
Listen, the problem is almost never about volume, ie the amount of content that you're posting. You know, I've watched hundreds of businesses try and grow through content over the 20 years of being in this kind of agency life and in this marketing world. The ones that were struggling were rarely the ones doing little. Let me say that again. The ones who were struggling were rarely the ones doing little. Most of them were posting regularly, if not daily, if not multiple times a day, showing up and doing what they've been told to do.
The content existed and it got published. It took some real time and energy to make it, but it wasn't moving anyone closer to becoming a client. It wasn't fulfilling the ultimate goal of doing any marketing. All it was doing was clogging up your feed, to be honest. All it was doing was just broadcasting. All it was doing was potentially playing to the algorithms. Because everyone says, you know, you post on a regular basis, that's what the algorithms want.
So let me ask you something right now. Think about the last piece of content that you created and published. Did you actually sit down and ask yourself, before you created it, what is this piece of content going to do? What is this piece of content supposed to bring me as a return? I'm not talking about what topic you're covering or what the person is going to do with the helpful and valuable piece of content that you've just put out there. I'm talking about what is going to return to you. Have you? Did you think about that before you created the content?
It's probably a difficult question to answer, because most people don't actually do this. They will often sit there and think, okay, well, I want the person to feel this, and I want the person to comment this, and I want them to be able to do this. But actually, how is it going to move the needle? And how is it going to get you one step closer to winning more business? Because marketing is about, like I said, generating more revenue. It's not just about growing our fan base, growing our number of likes, our subscribers, our followers. It's about putting money in our bank accounts.
Listen, there's no judgment on that question. If you can't articulate that question and you didn't even ask that question before creating that last piece of content, literally, there is no judgment here, my friend. I've been there, and almost every client I've worked with has been there at some point, creating content out of what really seems like a bit of an obligation, rather than actually the right intention. And for you, for me, for everybody else that's doing it, I know it's pretty damn exhausting. Because when you don't start seeing results, you start getting disillusioned by it, but there's something in the back of your brain that is telling you you need to keep doing it.
It's a treadmill. And look, I'm not the fittest person in the world, and I hate the treadmill at the gym. You know, you spend time on it and you're just getting nowhere. I'd rather be out on the road if I was a runner, and that way at least I know I'm going somewhere. But that's a complete digression. But the fundamental thing is that the treadmill of content, posting and hoping for something, is a treadmill you need to get off. Because the feelings that you get from being able to just continually grind things out and get nowhere is what I want to stop you from feeling. Your content is just filling space. Space in your mind, space on your feed. That's just doing nothing.
Let's ask the question about what your content should be doing. What's the job of your content ultimately? So there are a few questions that I would want you to ask of yourself in terms of content creation, and well, it's just three questions really. You can ask them about any piece of content before you create it, or even look back and ask about previous content that you've created. If you can't answer all three, then I would say, in your planning process, the content probably isn't ready yet.
So the first question is, who is this for? And be really specific about it. I mean really specific. A real person at a specific point of time in their journey with a specific problem or a challenge that they're dealing with right now. I'm not talking about giving them a label and a badge like entrepreneurs or mothers or coaches or personal trainers or just anyone. That's the name that everybody gives. I want to serve anyone that has this problem. Listen, we need to be much more specific. The more precise you can be, and how you can really get an insane level of clarity over the picture of this person, the more precisely your content will reach them.
You see, generic content that's just bland doesn't land with anyone. I've seen countless numbers of coaches just repost a quote from Tony Robbins or a quote from someone else, and they don't really give it any kind of context. They don't give it any personality. They're just regurgitating stuff. Is that truly going to help people to move on from the challenge that they're experiencing right now? Even people who are posting tips on a regular basis, this is one bug bearer of mine. It's like you're giving people tips. So why would they even want to think about buying from you? I know it's counterintuitive, because a lot of people say, well, I've got to put value out there, I've got to show my level of expertise. I'm like, great, give them content that helps them take the first step on the journey, but call them on and invite them into your world as well. Don't just give them tips.
I mean, I'm probably jumping ahead of myself here on today's podcast in terms of what we can really be doing, but I really need to help you to understand that being really specific about who your content is for will help you to shape the right kind of message, the right kind of content. I worked with a yoga studio client, and she was a yoga trainer. She was training other yoga teachers to build their businesses, and she wanted to move from just growing her yoga training business. Because really, she was out there with her content and was pretty much saying that she helps people to grow their yoga businesses. It's quite bland, it's quite generic. It's got a little bit of a niche in there, but the moment she started to turn it around. I help yoga practitioners fill their studios with paying clients so they never have to worry about how many people are going to walk through the door, because every class is sold out. It's much more specific. She's got a real defined picture. She's talking about the pain and the challenge and the urgency. It's not just about yoga practitioners who want to grow their business. This one shift changes everything about who reads the content and how people respond to it, and how the content lands in their feed. If you can't articulate the urgent and important challenge that someone has in their life right now in your content, then pause and think about that before you start creating or posting.
The second question is, what do I want this person to believe, feel and understand after seeing what they read from me or watch in my video? That's the job of the content. It's making them go on this journey and shift in some way, shape or form. Because do you know the one reason why people buy above all else? Because they choose to buy. And what's driving that emotion? Emotion is driving most people's buying decisions. And they want to feel something. They want to know how they're going to feel afterwards, and they're going to want to choose to buy because they want to buy, and it's driven by their feelings. That's the one job of your content.
It might be a belief that changes in them in some way, shape or form. You might create a new way of thinking because you're provoking them in some way, shape or form. But fundamentally it's all coming down to the feeling that they have. But there are also other ways that you could evoke the kind of feelings within your audience, and that's helping them to be seen, helping them to be understood. And this is really where you articulate and you use language that they're using. You understand their pain and their challenges, their frustrations, and you empathise with them, and you spell it out. You know, it might ultimately mean that what you're doing is you're just reframing and giving them a different way to look at their situation, but you've got to articulate their situation in such a way that they feel heard, that they feel seen, and it motivates them. That power of that emotion will motivate them into buying something. Content that produces this shift does a couple of things. It doesn't just inform, it doesn't just entertain. It actually produces results. We're not there to inform and entertain. If we've got a product or a service that we want to sell, we're there to make money. And we get lost in this idea of thinking that all of our content just needs to add value. What does this adding value actually mean?
And that leads me on to my third question that you should ask about your content. What is the natural next step for someone to take when they see the content? I'm not talking about a sales pitch or booking a hard sales call or something like that. But what is the natural next step? If the content has done its job and it's reached the right person to produce this kind of shift in their being, in their mindset, what would that person want to do next? What would they be actually ready for? You know, content that answers this clear question transitions somebody from content towards a customer in a completely different way, because you are helping them to link what they've just read, watched, seen or heard, and you're then inviting them into your world so you can have a conversation. And it's that conversation that's going to help them to move forward even more. Content that doesn't provide this link is just ultimately a dead end. You might have produced an absolutely sterling piece of work, but if it gets a couple of likes, it gets a couple of comments, an emoji, thumbs up, but it doesn't actually lead anywhere. What was the point?
I want to talk about Sarah. Sarah was a life coach that I worked with a little while back. She was creating consistent content. I'm talking like social posts, quotes, motivational content, showing up every week because the social media team said she needed to show up every week, batch a load of content, and then her social media team would do the rest. And none of it was really converting. So when we sat down, just the two of us, and I looked at her content, it was so clear what she was doing. Everything was created and aimed at everyone. It was borderline inspirational, and I've had this conversation with Sarah herself, so she knows I'm not digging at her, and she's transformed things, which I'll talk about in a moment. But I want you to picture this because it could well be where you are right now.
The content was designed to be liked. It wasn't really reaching anyone. It was like, agree with me, but if you agree with this, give me a thumbs up emoji. She would post the inspirational quotes. If this resonates, just drop a heart in the comments, or something like that. Her business ultimately wasn't growing. It was growing through local word of mouth and some face to face networking that she was doing, but all of the content she was putting out on social media really didn't help any of that. Because when we looked at her analytics and her audience, her audience really online wasn't necessarily local. So what was she doing locally that she wasn't doing online? And actually, that was the answer staring us in the face.
In person, Sarah was uber specific. She gave me, like, her elevator pitch. Most networking events and networking breakfasts, you have like a 40 second or a 60 second elevator pitch. And she talked about the actual situation that her typical client would be in and where they want to move towards. And that generated word of mouth inquiries, because people understood the pain that she solved and the result that they were getting and who it was that she served. The content online didn't really talk about that in any way, shape or form.
So I actually told her to start posting less. I told her to strip it back. And I told her to start thinking about those elevator pitches that she would be doing in these networking events. I said, do you change it up on a regular basis? And she's like, yeah, yeah, I change it quite often, I don't say the same thing all the time. And I'm like, do you write them down anywhere? Yeah, I've got them in my phone, I've got them on notes. And I'm like, just scroll through, how many have you got? And she counted up, she had like 16 different elevator pitches, but it fundamentally was the same pattern every single time. I help these types of people with this problem achieve this result. And I'm like, we need to start doing this in your content. This is about where it needs to move.
And in stripping back and not necessarily adding more, we actually started to refine it a little bit more. Because most of her clients were actually female executives at companies who were doing a fairly serious level of revenue and were quite exhausted by the kind of golden handcuffs, almost, that they felt in that professional success that they were driving towards. And so her content got narrower to talk to those people about the challenges they were having, and she stopped posting all of the quotes from people that she read books by, and she literally just started posting content around this niche and the challenges. And the conversations changed. The conversations didn't necessarily happen in the comments. The conversations happened in the LinkedIn inbox, in the Instagram DMs. And the clients started coming from the content for the first time in a very, very, very long time.
Listen, Sarah didn't start posting more. She actually posted with a greater level of intention. And that intention aimed at the right person is worth far more than the volume of content that you could start posting. Content that brings clients makes a specific person feel deeply understood. They know who it's for, because when they see it and read it, they are saying, this is me. That's what you need to create. Content that says in their mind, this is me. And it shifts everything from trying to think about what to create, and the whole journey of creation of that content, and you actually start to become known for what you want to be known for, rather than just seen as another coach in the marketplace.
You know, all of your content may well be well written. You may have some great photographs and great images, posts and carousels that have been created on Canva, but without a specific shift and explaining to somebody what the natural next step is, it's just going to add volume to the internet rather than actually cutting through all of the noise that's out there in the first place. The fix is more intention with the content you already make. So take one piece of content that you were planning this week and run it through the questions I've asked here before you create it. Less content, more intention. That's the move.
If this has landed for you today, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go over to anthodges.com/podcast or lessisthestrategy.com. I want you to find the show notes from today or even just listen back. And I want you to take the three questions that I've asked, onto one piece of paper, and I'm talking paper, not your phone or your laptop or whatever, and I want you to ask yourself those three questions about creating the content for the next week. See what happens when you can answer them all, when you don't have AI to prompt you, when you're just working from your heart and you know your ideal target customer. Trust me, that content is probably going to be worth so much more than any kind of AI prompt can help you to create.
And if you've not listened to Episode 1 yet, listen, I'd encourage you to go back and start there. Everything in this show is aiming to build, so I want you to listen every week. Less is the strategy. But what we need to do is we need to unlearn some of the things that we've been told by all of the gurus and all of the people that are out there, to be able to move forward in the best possible way.
My book Simplify the Funnel goes into things in a lot more detail about creating content. I have a framework in there called the SEED Marketing Framework. You can grab your copy over at simplifythefunnel.com. I also run online events and in person events over at simplifysummits.com. And I'm here to help. So if you've got any questions, any comments, any thoughts, do drop them over at Instagram, at Ant Hodges, or go over to my website, anthodges.com/podcast, find the podcast feed, find a way which you can get a hold of me there.
Next week I want to talk about your funnel specifically. I want to talk about what's broken in the funnel marketing world. And I want to give you the simplest possible path to help you take a stranger and help you to make them a client. And literally, it's that journey that we've been talking about today, from your content, from people who see it. What's the journey? Once they make that step and you start having that conversation, how do you move them towards being a client or a customer of yours? Because it's far simpler than you think.
Until next week, I'll be Ant Hodges. I'll be here on this podcast. Please do subscribe wherever you're listening. Share this episode if somebody else needs to hear this. If your social media team need to hear this podcast, send them a link to it. Please transform the way in which you're producing content by asking yourself, how can I really step into this mindset of less is the strategy? I'll speak to you next week. Bye for now.