Many marketers, business owners, and content creators believe this.
If this fear is real to you, and you are drowning in the confusion of how to create more content just to keep your business a float.
I’m here to tell you it’s not true, and to tell you how I create content every week that my audience love.
You need to know that you don’t have to create content every single day. That’s what the social media platforms want you to think.
And if you are not an expert content creator, producing content that markets your business online is hard and takes time.
Time as a business owner you don’t have.
Between product, operations, sales, and customer support, there isn’t often time for marketing too.
I know this first hand, as I'm the creative director and owner of UNIQ, a marketing agency.
I see hundreds of business owners and marketing managers struggle with this exact problem.
I’ve even struggled with it myself on and off over the years.
Believe it or not, there have been months on end where my team and I haven't advertised the agency at all. We then felt guilty.
Just like you probably do.
But ongoing, consistent marketing helps attract new people to your business.
You might not like doing it, but maybe I can help.
Let me tell you the process I’m going through in early 2024 to market my personal brand and business.
This process will inevitably change, and I’ll tell you why a little bit later.
First, I'll tell you why I think it’s important to create content.
Then I’ll tell you how I'm doing it whilst being a full-time business owner and busy dad.
If I can do it, then you can too.
Here are 5 things you need to know:
#1 : Consistency wins with online marketing, show up, and show up often.
The biggest challenge with content marketing is that you need to show up often. For most people that's daily.
Now typically this is on social media, but it can also be in blogs, email inboxes and on video platform too.
But I know what you are thinking.
If you don't have time already and you are not creating content for any platform, how are you going to create content for multiple platforms?
The key to tackling this is batch content creation. You will also require an efficient process for creating content.
Which I'm going to tell you how to do in a minute.
Mark Zuckerberg once said "The biggest risk is not taking any risk."
If it were me, I would narrow down what you think you can create.
That you actually would create.
Then, start testing this content first.
If you think you can talk on camera, give it a go.
If you enjoy writing, start writing.
Maybe you could and would write a weekly newsletter.
But before you jump in, I want to tell you why all content marketing is a J curve model.
# 2: Expect J curve growth, it’s not linear.
A J curve is exactly what it looks like, A J plotted on a chart.
So at first the model requires a lot of time/resources/money but then it exponentially grows from there.
Vincent Van Gogh once said "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."
I’ve seen this in my own youtube videos.
I’ve recently started getting 9000+ views on many YouTube Shorts.
By the time you hear this, it could even be more.
That’s what I’m aiming for.
But it started out with most videos getting 20 views or less.
This is the J curve, lot’s of time and effort for little results. Then all a sudden, the results start to come in.
This leads to many marketers feeling frustrated in the beginning.
But let me tell you why I’m never stressed about content creation.
# 3: Why I’m never stressed about creating content
I spend less than 5 hours a week working on content for my personal brand.
This might sound like a lot.
But, for the average marketer who might spend 50 hours a week on marketing, 5 is much more efficient.
This is down to having an efficient process that I can tweak over time.
And understanding that it takes consistency and time for the J curve to come in to effect.
So I built a process that was sustainable for the long run.
When you build a repeatable process, you have a system to fall back on when frustration hits.
It reminds me of the quote “Plan the work, then work the plan,”
That’s exactly what I do.
I spent time building the process, and the step-by-step guide for implementing the work.
It means even when I’m not feeling motivated, I can look at the next step in the process and just move forward.
The work won’t be perfect, but at least It’s moving forward towards publishing another piece of content.
# 4: Investing time now and building a process saves countless hours later.
Most people start too quickly without planning. They think it will be quicker.
This is like that bad idea of you want something doing right, do it yourself.
That’s not true by the way.
Most people can do things a lot better than you, and me.
I’m sorry to say.
But by spending time training someone, delegating or building a process. You save countless hours later on.
Think of it as a return on investment.
If you spend just a couple of hours now building a plan.
You might save an hour every time you work the plan in the future.
2 hours could equal a saving of 1-2 hours every week for the next year if you repeat the plan every week.
That’s why I always take the time to plan something if I know I’m likely to repeat it.
# 5 : My Current Process
When I first started to make content online, not that long ago, I felt overwhelmed and frustrated.
I regularly had writer's block.
If you know the feeling, it usually takes on the form of procrastination.
Stopping you doing anything, not just the thing I wanted to do. It can be incredibly frustrating.
However, I’m a big believe that momentum creates momentum.
So if I ever feel myself procrastinating , I just fall back on my current processes.
So here is my current content creation process.
Which you could do too.
It starts with a daily social post. An Idea I had the night before, or in the morning.
If I'm struggling with an idea, I spend 10 minutes on social networks looking for inspiration.
I then create the post in my Canva template and publish it to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and recently, YouTube.
All in all it takes me about 15 mins in the morning.
It’s on my task list every day in the morning, so I have to check it off. That way it never gets forgotten.
Next, I spend the majority of my content creation time writing my weekly newsletter called Behind the story.
I pitch it as “Five minutes each week that might unlock the way you think about marketing.”
This content was originally written for that newsletter.
You see, I sit down to write a couple of times a week using a google doc template I created specifically for this newsletter.
It outlines my framework for writing.
And I always write about topics I want to talk about, so it’s easy for me to write.
I can usually type about 2000+ words in about an hour, and with a good cup of coffee I can usually do this in 1 sitting.
This is before I start editing and adjusting the content.
My next step is using the Hemingway app to edit the newsletter before uploading it to my website nickeagle.co.uk
When I upload it, it automatically gets sent out to the 1000’s of subscribers already on that mailing list.
But you might be wondering, how does 1 daily post and 1 newsletter a week make a difference?
Well, this is where the magic happens.
Content repurposing
From all of the social posts I create, If one is performing well, I know it’s a topic that my audience are interested in.
So that informs the topic of my newsletter.
The newsletter get’s saved as an article on my website for everyone to find via google.
Which they do, since it’s a topic people are interested in.
Then I record my talking head videos, which you can find on youtube and my website. This takes about 30 mins to set up and shoot.
And by recording the newsletter into a video, it gives my audience another way to consume the content they enjoy.
It also allows me to reach that huge audience on Youtube.
I go on to cut small snippets from the video into youtube shorts, and post them as instagram reels.
If they perform well, they get recycled into newsletter content topics again.
Lastly, I love inspirational quotes so I sprinkle a few of those throughout my newsletter. They make for great YouTube shorts.
And I figure, If I like them, then other people might like them too.
As a bonus tip, I always remember to write my newsletter with the video content in mind. Writing sections that can stand alone and be repurposed.
So to sum up,
It’s really important to create consistent content.
Batch create your content.
Plan the work, then work the plan.
Repurpose your content like I do.
See what works then use it to guide your future content.
You might have noticed that I didn’t tell you how to research or design for your target audience.
That's because that will be a topic of another newsletter.
You can sign up to the behind the story newsletter at www.nickeagle.co.uk if you want to join the mailing list.
The content I create in my newsletter is about what I like to create. Not what an abstract audience would want to see.
If I’m going to consistently create content online and write 2000ish words per week, I need to enjoy writing about it.
As I'm sure you would too.
So I’ll always be covering marketing, business and self improvement.
3 Topics I can’t learn enough about, Know a lot about, and can’t stop talking about.
Someone once said “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
Hey, maybe you should create content you can’t stop talking about too
After all there are probably more people out there just like you; who would love to see your content.
And If you want to let me know about the content you are creating. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Each week there is a chance to send me your story, and let me know what content you are creating.
I’m Nick Eagle
Until next time. Keep working the plan.
How I Create Content In Less Than 5 Hours Per Week.