Stop Scaling Content, Start Scaling Fans

By: Todd Clouser

Have you ever heard someone say, “create content so good people would pay for it?”

I heard it again the other day and it struck a chord. Think about that statement. When was the last time you paid for content?

And I’m not talking about paying for Netflix or AppleTV.

And I’m not talking about paying with your email.

Have you ever paid for content? Like B2B content.

Okay, how about this:

Is there a creator or brand you follow that you’d pony up if they announced tomorrow that their content was going behind a paywall?

If the answer is yes, then you’re a die-hard. And the goal of every content marketer needs to be focused on creating more of YOU.

If you said, “no,” well it’s probably because you’ve never came across someone who truly solved your problems with their content.

Because good content marketing should be no different than consulting, and teams shell out big bucks for consulting.

The difference is, consulting is tailored to an individual brand or team. And most content marketing is broad and generic—trying to speak to everyone.

Don’t confuse this with ABM. I’m not suggesting creating content specifically for accounts that you want to break into (we'll cover that later).

I’m suggesting creating content for individuals, even if you know with 100% certainty they’ll never turn into a customer.

If you want to build a die hard fan base, one that unlocks word-of-mouth, dark social, referrals, or whatever you wanna call it, you gotta think like a creator.

And let me tell you, as a creator that built a YouTube channel that got 9m monthly views, I can tell you we never thought about the 95% that was out of market OR the 5% that was in.

What we did think about every day was “how do we create content that gets people to refer us?” But we used a ver different playbook than what we think of in B2B.

I’m talking about creating content where we never mention referrals, but our audience does it anyway.

How do you do that?

Here’s a hint… It’s the same way you create content so good people would pay for it.

You solve their actual problems. You turn your content into 1:1 consulting that anyone can learn from.

Questions are the new lifeblood of your content engine, not keywords.

Every time someone asks a question, detailed content needs to be queued up to answer it. And quickly.

But don’t just answer the question and throw it on the blog or social.

Involve them in the creation of it.

Dive even deeper into their challenges to uncover more nuanced learnings.

And when you publish and distribute, involve them in that too (if they let you).

Let people know that the content you created solved a real problem for a real person.

That’s how you create content that people would pay for.

That’s how you get your audience to refer you.

And That’s how you build a die hard following.