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When Doubts Creep In

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Doubt.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this word lately.

A “brilliant” idea pops into my head. I believe it has some legs. I do a little bit of research and get excited about the opportunity.

Then I start going deep down the rabbit hole. This includes talking to people in the industry, reading more articles, writing down notes and checking the soundness of the idea.

That’s exactly when I get the doubts. I start thinking things like, “I don’t know enough” and “this idea won’t work” and “someone else can and will execute on this idea better than I could.”

It literally happens every time. I’ve launched three companies (soon to be four – here’s more on that from my Content Inc. podcast last week) and a non-profit organization, and each time, right before I pull the trigger, I get “the doubts.”

Does this happen to you?

I’m assuming it happens to a lot of people or there would be way more people starting businesses, writing novels and experimenting with life.

So what happens when you get “the doubts?” You have to push through. You see, every person on the face of the earth is capable of amazing ideas. But just a small percentage of those people actually take the leap.

I’m about the embark on starting my fourth business (more to come on that in a later newsletter), and I can definitely tell you I have “the doubts.” What comforts me this time is that it’s a familiar feeling. I get this feeling every. single. time. It’s natural. It’s the brain wanting to stay in its comfort zone and push you back toward the couch.

All I’m here to tell you is that it’s normal. Yes, a lot of people have your idea. Yes, your idea is not completely original. Yes, people will think you are crazy.

Are you done being worried now?

Good. Now kick those doubts out the way and take the leap.

Clubhouse Kicks

Clubhouse, the new social media audio app, is on fire. Just months ago the company was worth less than $100 million (nothing to sneeze at). This week, after a new investment round, they are valued at $1 billion.

If you don’t know what it is, it’s like jumping in and out of party lines (remember party lines?). It’s all audio. There are generally a few people talking while everyone else is listening. You can always see who’s on the line.

The latest funding round will focus on building a revenue stream for creators on the platform. All the big platforms now are rolling out new and innovative creator revenue programs. For example, YouTube has paid out over $30 billion to creators in the past three years.

I’ve spent a bit of time on clubhouse. I can see the appeal. RIght now, with about two million members, you can easily find yourself in a room with a celebrity or influencer. I’m sure Clubhouse will go through some major growing pains (they are growing super fast right now and they are still invite only…it’s not open to the public yet).

The following was an excerpt from Joe’s newsletter. Only subscribers receive the full version.

The Biggest Opportunity Marketing Has Ever Seen [Content Inc. Podcast]

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In episode 202 of Content Inc., Joe rambles about a number of marketing and business thoughts. That said, one opportunity is beginning to appear. With the number of media companies on the verge of closing, non-media businesses have a rather large opportunity to purchase these organizations (and audiences) at a discount.

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Subscribe to the Content Inc. podcast on Apple, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or Google Podcasts.

Acquiring Content Marketing: How to Buy Instead of Building

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I recently sat in a marketing meeting with one of the largest producers of consumer goods in the world. The discussion centered on building audiences through content in various markets. In some of the markets, the company already had a solid content platform built. In others, there was nothing on the horizon.

The plan being discussed was an acquisition strategy of multiple properties where the organization would approach and, if terms were worked out, buy blogging sites and media properties that already had a built-in audience and content platform.

Sometimes it makes sense to build. Sometimes it makes sense to buy.

Two Things

Blogging sites and media companies have two things that we want and need.

The first is the capability to tell stories. They have the people and processes to churn out amazing content on a consistent basis.

The second, and maybe more important, is that blogs and media sites come with built-in audiences.

Although merger and acquisition strategies have been happening ever since the first media company was launched, nonmedia companies are starting to get into this game recently. Photography supplies store Adorama put a buying group together when JPG magazine was going out of business. The group got access not only to JPG’s Content Inc. platform and content, but also to JPG’s 300,000 subscribers (which just happen to be Adorama’s prospects and customers).

L’Oreal, the global makeup conglomerate, purchased Makeup.com from Live Current Media for over $1 million back in 2010. Marketing automation company HubSpot wanted to add an agency blog to match its marketing and sales blogs, so it approached Agency Post and acquired the blog  instead of starting fresh. In mid-2015, the SurfStitch Group, a leading online retailer in Australia, purchased two small media companies in the surfing industry, further positioning SurfStitch as the clear content leader in the category.

As you build out your content marketing strategy to grow your industry dominance, acquisition strategies are a natural path to follow.

The Process of Acquiring a Content Platform

Content Marketing Institute purchased multiple properties to add to its platform, including a West Coast conference called Intelligent Content Conference and an awards program dubbed (fittingly) the Content Marketing Awards. We made the decision that purchasing these platforms made more sense than creating them from scratch and then competing with these properties.

To acquire new platforms, follow these seven steps.

Step 1. Determine Your Goal

Like any good business decision, start by determining the reasons it might possibly make sense to purchase an existing content platform. Your business objectives for a purchase might include:

  • To cover a geographic area that your business is currently absent from with an in-person component. The ultimate goal would be to reach more customers for cross-selling, up-selling, and decreasing your customer turnover rate in that region.
  • To insert your brand into the conversation around a topic you are not well known for. Let’s say you manufacture a certain type of steel, and you’ve identified some use in the oil and gas industry. It may then make sense to look at smaller oil and gas blog sites or events and immediately become a credible part of the industry lexicon.
  • To accomplish subscription objectives. Most likely, the platform will come with a built-in audience for you to nurture, grow, or leverage for cross-selling.
  • To purchase the content assets themselves and the associated search engine optimization and sharing benefits with them.

Step 2. Clearly Identify the Audience

For this to work, you need a clear understanding of the audience gap you are trying to fill. For example, CMI targets senior-level marketers at large organizations with their magazine, Chief Content Officer. CMI targets marketing, PR, social media, and SEO managers and directors (the “doers”) at mid-market and larger enterprises for Content Marketing World (CMI’s event).

Step 3. Make Your Short List of Platforms

After you identify your objective and your audience, start making a list of relevant platforms that will help you meet your goals. The key is to avoid setting any limitations at this point. You can list events, blog sites, media sites, association sites, and maybe even some sites directly from your influencer list.

When you are making the list, it’s handy to put it all into a spreadsheet containing relevant subscriber information such as:

  • Origination date.
  • Current number of subscribers.
  • Known revenue sources (list each of them).
  • Ownership structure (for example, independent blogger or media company).

For a conference or trade show, here is a list of assets we look for when purchasing an event:

  • Number of attendees (past two years) with percentage of growth (or loss).
  • Number of exhibitors (past two years) with percentage of growth (or loss).
  • Number of media partners (past two years).
  • General regional location.
  • Registration cost (rate card).
  • Marquee value (this is a subjective rate determining the cache for the event—a five-point scale should work just fine).
  • Possibility for setting up a media platform around the event (again, something on a five-point scale is sufficient). The idea here is that there may be potential to build the event into a fully functional media platform with online content, web events, and more.

Step 4. Approach the Best Opportunity

There are two approaches I recommend, and I’ve seen both of them work. You can reach out to your top pick and see where the conversation goes. The issue is that you are putting all your eggs in one basket. A better option may be to approach your top three picks all at once and convey your intentions (i.e., that you are interested in purchasing their website, event, etc.).

You’ll likely be amazed at the reactions you receive. Some of the operators will never have imagined that they’d be approached on a purchase. Others (probably those with a media background) will already have an exact idea of their exit strategy and what they are looking for.

The key at this point is to get discussions started so you can gauge where potential interest may lie. Worst-case scenario when approaching a possible seller that isn’t interested in selling is that you now have the potential to grow a relationship from this first contact. Simply put, you never know when intentions might change, and now you have an inside track if they do.

Step 5. Determine the Purchase Value

There is a standard measure to smaller web properties and events (we will get to that in a second), but this first part is critical: figure out what the owner wants. Just like you do with your influencers, it’s your job to find out what the platform owner’s goals and aspirations are. Maybe it’s just monetary (though this is unlikely). Perhaps the owner is looking for a new opportunity, or he or she desperately wants out of the business (many blog site owners or event owners never imagine that their project might get larger than what they can manage or might grow in a different direction than what they intended).

As I said, there is a proper valuation process for smaller web properties and events. To do this, you both need to sign a mutual nondisclosure agreement for protection—on both sides. Then you want to request the business’s profit and loss statement for the previous two years, at least. You may also need to see documentation on current sponsorship agreements and other contracts the company holds to confirm that its P&L statement can be verified. (Important note: Legal specifics can vary widely, so please consult your legal representation before you approach any opportunity.)

For website purchases, some deals are done on a “per-subscriber” basis, some on a net profit basis. In one example I personally worked on, a media deal was based on paying $1 per subscriber. In another, it was five times earnings, paid out over a two-year period. Smaller conferences generally go for around five times net profit (for example, if the annual profit of the conference is $100,000, you would pay $500,000 for the property).

Let’s look at a small conference example:

  • Attendees: 250
  • Exhibitors: 20
  • Revenue: $340,000
  • Expenses: $270,000
  • Net profit: $70,000

General value of the business: $70,000 × 5 = $350,000

There is a bit more that goes into it, but the estimated general value of this event would be around $350,000.

Step 6. Make Your Offer

Before you make a formal offer, you want to make sure that your price is in the right ball park and that the owner agrees to the basics of your terms. If you have that agreement, you’ll need the event owner to sign a formal letter of intent (LOI). The LOI basically means that both sides agree to continue the conversation and take the relationship to the next level of the process; it’s the business acquisition equivalent of getting engaged—while it’s not a meaningful or legally binding act in and of itself, it serves as an official statement of your intentions. (Note: Please consult legal representation on creating an LOI.)

Step 7. Final Negotiations

Now, before you sign anything, consider these final questions:

  • What e-mail and print lists are available? What permissions do you have to send to the company?
  • What assets are available? Videos? Blog posts? Podcast episodes? Conducting a full audit of the company’s assets might be necessary.
  • What are the social channels in use?
  • Who are the prime influencers in this space that we should connect with? Request contact details and areas of expertise (if needed).
  • What vendors does the company work with? Whom would it recommend?

Over the following 30 to 60 days, you would be working on a formal asset purchase agreement and reviewing all the documentation to make sure all facts, figures, and discussions are accurate and verifiable. From there, contracts are signed, followed by corks being popped on your celebratory bottles of champagne (optional, but a nice touch).

This article is an edited version of Chapter 20 from Content Inc.

Successful Content Marketers Have These 7 Traits

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One of the most influential authors of my personal and career journey is Napoleon Hill.

Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich was first published in 1937. Now, in the book’s 82nd year, Mr. Hill’s lessons are still extremely relevant and valuable.

I had the opportunity to dust off my copy of Think and Grow Rich (from 1960, with dog-eared and coffee-stained pages) during a holiday break. In its relation to content marketing, I noticed some clear takeaways that most corporate marketers simply do not embrace. In the book, 15 powerful chapters are helpful to all individuals, but seven chapters were spot-on relevant to content marketing. Here are quotes from the seven chapters with my notes for each one.

Caution from Joe: The book is extremely chauvinistic. If you read it, just prepare yourself for that.

1. Desire

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.”

You can talk about all the things good content marketers should do to attract and retain customers – content strategy, content documentation, content integration, etc., but desire is numero uno. Everywhere I travel I hear the objection – most marketers simply do not have the desire to be THE informational resource for their customers and prospects – they don’t want it enough. They talk of content marketing as a chore … as a checklist of things to be done during the day, not as a core service to customers necessary for the company’s survival.

Look, you are competing not only with your competitors, but also with the media, Google, Game of Thrones, and every other distraction in your customers’ lives. To be THE go-to resource for them, you have to want it more than anything or anyone else. This is never easy, but it is much easier for smaller businesses headed by passionate people. Simply put, there are little to no politics to deal with, and a change agent can push through and make change happen.

In larger enterprises, there must be a content marketing champion who has the real desire to be the best and be given enough latitude to experiment and possibly even fail multiple times. Most large companies aren’t willing to do this, which is why smaller businesses have the ultimate opportunity when it comes to content marketing.

2. Faith

“Faith is the ‘eternal elixir’ which gives life, power, and action to the impulse of thought!”

Wanting it is one thing, but actually believing you can be THE informational expert for your industry is another. When we started Content Marketing Institute, we firmly believed that we would be the informational resource for our industry. It was unquestioned. It was only a matter of time, energy, and persistence.

Rarely do you see this kind of faith with non-media companies. Corporate brands should take a page from media companies in this respect. When I worked at Penton Media (a large B2B media company) and would meet with the chief editors for our brands, they believed without question that their brand was the leading provider of information in the space. It was a non-issue … it just was. That is exactly the kind of faith you need to be the expert in your field.

3. Specialized knowledge

“General knowledge, no matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use …”

One of the biggest failures when it comes to content is a lack of specialization. I see HVAC companies blogging about the town festival. I see manufacturing companies creating articles on best HR practices. It hurts to see this.

To be the expert in your industry, you must first define your customers’ pain points and the niche industry you will cover that will make a difference in your business and in your customers’ lives. Get laser-focused. Think of yourself as the trade magazine for your industry. Cover that. Be the expert in that area. If you are a large enterprise, you will need separate content strategies for separate audiences, not one broad initiative that makes no impact on anybody.

Remember, if your content is for everybody, it’s for nobody.

4. Imagination

“It has been said that man can create anything which he can imagine.”

As Mr. Hill says, ideas are the products of the imagination. For content marketing to work, you need to embrace being an idea factory, not a content factory. Just as news organizations cover the news of the day, you need to cover the news as it relates to your industry. Take the content you have and think creatively about storytelling concepts – visual, textual, and audio– in new and compelling ways.

The best way I’ve seen this work for brands is to do something creative and new at least once a quarter. Robert Rose calls this a “pillar” piece of content – something that makes a major impact on the industry and stands the test of time. That could be a book, an infographic, a documentary, etc., that works in conjunction with the regular content you produce (blog, e-newsletter, podcast, etc.).

5. Organized planning

“Align yourself with a group of as many people as you may need for the creation and carrying out of your plan …”

Should you use employees for your content creation efforts? Yes.

Should you use customers for your content creation efforts? Yes.

Should you use outside freelancers and partners for your content creation efforts? Yes.

Folks, there is no one way to be the leading content expert for your industry. That said, if you have the opportunity to apply resources from a number of areas, internal and external, do it. Brands doing it right have a chief content officer (leads the content strategy), a managing editor (oversees the process), content creators (internal and external), content producers, and content listeners.

Right now, we are in the midst of a marketing department revolution, where the marketing department is starting to look and feel more like a publishing operation. As a marketer, you need to not only recognize this trend, but also begin to operationalize your storytelling for the future, including developing a business model that drives direct revenues from the content you create. (Note: Robert and I touch on this in our book Killing Marketing.)

6. Decision

“Procrastination, the opposite of decision, is a common enemy which must be conquered.”

In the book, Mr. Hill profiled hundreds of the most successful people in the world. Every one of them had the habit of reaching decisions promptly, and of changing these decisions slowly, if and when they were changed. Unsuccessful people, the book says, have a habit, without exception, of reaching decisions very slowly, if at all, and of changing these decisions quickly and often.

Reaching decisions promptly and changing them slowly if at all is the type of mentality you need to bring to your content marketing approach.

7. Persistence

“Will-power and desire, when properly combined, make an irresistible pair.”

Without a doubt, the biggest reason why a content program does not succeed is because it stops. I’ve seen brand after brand start a blog or an e-newsletter or a video series or a podcast series and stop after just months. Content marketing is a war of attrition. It’s a process. Success does not happen overnight.

The campaign mentality of content marketing needs to stop.

When we first started our content marketing strategy in 2007, we had less than 1,000 total visits in the first six months. Now, we have over 200,000 subscribers. Persistence is key.

If you want immediate results, put all your money into immediate and direct response. If you want to create an informational annuity that will pay for years, even decades, invest in some kind of content marketing approach.

Print Magazines Dead? Bite Your Tongue (6 Reasons to Rethink Print)

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Are you getting tired of the whole ‘Print Is Dead’ movement? I sure am…and have been for quite some time. Heck, Google alone will give you 484,000 results for the phrase.

No content distribution type ever really dies though. It only changes. Vinyl albums are seeing a resurgence. And almost 700 million printed books were sold last year. That’s 100 million more than in 2012 (according to Statista). Radio? Even with Sirius XM, Spotify and Apple, radio continues to survive.

But are print magazines dead? Not by a long shot. Different? Absolutely.

Computer hardware manufacturer Raspberry Pi recently purchased two computer magazines from Dennis Publishing. That makes five magazines and over 20 print books now published by Raspberry Pi’s Press division. And this is just the start.

Is Raspberry Pi generating more advertising revenues and subscriptions through the magazines? Not really. But are they selling more products and services? Absolutely. Are customers more loyal because of the magazines? No doubt.

That’s the change that no one seems to be noticing. Consumers are still engaging in print magazines, but the business model has completely changed, even though most people don’t realize it. Vibrant print magazines are being created and distributed, but you just aren’t seeing them on newsstands.

6 Reasons to Rethink Print

Here are a few reasons why there might be an amazing opportunity in the print channel:

1. It Grabs Attention

Have you noticed how many fewer magazines and print newsletters you are getting in the mail these days? I don’t know about you, but I definitely pay more attention to my print mail. There’s just less mail, so more attention is paid to each piece.

2. Shrinking Audience Development Costs

Traditional publishers expend huge amounts of time and money qualifying subscribers to send out their magazines. Many times, publishers need to invest multiple dollars per subscriber per year for auditing purposes (They send direct mail, they email, they call… they call again… so that the magazine can say that their subscribers have requested the magazine. This is true for controlled [free] trade magazines).

So, let’s say, a publisher’s cost-per-subscriber per year is $2 and their distribution is 100,000. That’s $200,000 per year for audience development.

That’s a cost that companies like Raspberry Pi don’t necessarily have to worry about. If non-traditional publishers want to distribute a magazine to their customers, they just use their customer mailing list. That’s a big advantage.

3. What’s Old Is New Again

Social media, online content and mobile applications are all part of the marketing mix today. Still, what excites marketers and media buyers is what IS NOT being done (can you say non-traditional?). They want to do something different… something new. It’s hard to believe, but the print channel is new again and is seeing a rebirth. Could we possibly be seeing a golden age in print, like we are seeing in television?

4. Customers Need to Know What Questions to Ask

We love the internet because buyers can find answers to almost anything. But where do we go to think about what questions we should be asking? I talked to a publisher recently who said this:

“The web is where we go to get answers but print is where we go to ask questions.”

The print vehicle is still the best medium on the planet for thinking outside the box and asking yourself tough questions based on what you read — it’s lean back versus lean forward.

5. Print Still Excites People

I talked to a journalist recently who said it’s harder and harder to get people to agree to an interview for an online story. But mention that it will be a printed feature and executives rearrange their schedule. The printed word is still perceived as more credible to many people than anything on the web. It goes to the old adage, “If someone invested enough to print and mail it, it must be important.”

The increased exposure to fake news is only increasing the importance of print.

6. Print Lets People Unplug

More and more, people are actively choosing to unplug, or disconnect themselves from digital media. I’m finding myself turning off my phone and email more to engage with printed material. A few years ago I didn’t see this coming. Today, I relish the opportunities when I can’t be reached for comment. Electronics Free Saturday is a big thing with our family.

All that, and print magazines can be good for business. CMI launched CCO magazine back in 2011. A few years later we discovered that those who read the magazine consistently became our best customers.

Online marketing and social media are definitely here to stay. So say “yes” to social media, apps, and the rest of it. But don’t forget that print can still play an important role in your overall marketing mix.