Some content campaigns just aren’t worth it. Here’s how to identify a project that isn’t likely to provide adequate return on investment:
It’s Too Expensive
How expensive is too expensive? Just because you have a reasonable advertising budget doesn’t mean that you should spend every dime on one big campaign right away. If a campaign is going to cost you a little more than you can comfortably put into it, whether that means money, time, or effort, then you may want to rethink it. Far better to launch a smaller campaign, and then another, as you experiment and determine how to get the most value out of your content rather than sink the entire budget on one big project right away. Picking up one follower here and two there is how marketing works anyway; a slow drip of interest. Commit to that and you’ll be a lot less likely to waste time, money and effort on a big, demanding campaign that just isn’t working. A good rule of thumb when budgeting your content (or any other project): don’t just ask if you can afford it, ask if you can afford to fail.
Extremely Limited Interest
Serving a niche? A concentrated content campaign can do a lot of good. The smaller your niche, however, the less content you need. Be honest with yourself on how big your market is and scale your campaigns accordingly. Some niches are so small and so specific that you’d be better off going to each individual member of that market and speaking to them personally rather than paying someone to write a hundred blog posts for you.
Extremely Unlimited Interest
The opposite of the niche is the market so big that there’s no way you’re going to dominate it. You’d be crazy to take that ten grand in advertising money you have and try to put Apple out of business with your own smartphone. Be realistic about whether or not your market is big enough to justify a major content marketing campaign, and be honest with yourself about whether or not a market is small enough for you to make an impact.
Your End Goal is Vague
Raising interest is not an end goal, it’s a means to an end. Any individual piece of a content campaign is going to end with a call to action. If you don’t know what that action is, if your product isn’t ready to scale, if you haven’t even launched the Kickstarter yet, if you don’t have a plan for how the people you reach can take action, don’t Google “writer for hire” until you have that in place.
The writers are out there. No matter what sort of content you want to produce, there’s somebody who will be able to put it into words that resonate, but it may be wise to take a moment and ask yourself: are my goals clear, is there a market for what I’m doing, and can I afford this?
Writer Bio: Gilbert S is a writer and artist who lives in rural New Mexico with his dog, Sir Kay, and his wife.
