10 Content Strategies for Content Entrepreneurs (309)

I just got back from the 11^th Annual Content Marketing World event, held again this year in Cleveland, Ohio. My wife and I and an amazing team started Content Marketing World back in 2011. We grew the event to 4,000 in person attendees and in 2016 we sold to the London-based events company, Informa.

Last year, as you can imagine, CMW went virtual only. This year, back to in-person, it was a bit smaller for obvious reasons, but was an amazing experience, nonetheless.

My keynote was about what content marketers can learn from what content entrepreneurs are doing. Frankly, because content entrepreneurs have no politics or red tape, we can make decisions faster, almost immediately, which is a huge advantage over what larger enterprises can do. The next great media models are coming from the small players like us, no doubt.

I covered 10 key findings…here they are in short.

1. Content entrepreneurs are heavily reliant on owned channels. So many times the public thinks of content creators as the Insta stars, YouTubers, TikTokkers (is that a word). Well, according to our findings of 1400 content creators, the content entrepreneurs who are killing it focus their revenue activities in two key places. Number on is their email newsletter and number two is their blog. My advice to content marketers was to have a plan to move their audiences from rented, or social platforms, two more controlled properties.
2. Content entrepreneurs are focused on multiple revenue sources. Looking at the same research, found at com/research, successful ce’s have at minimum four paths to revenues. The more revenue channels, the more resilient the program.
3. Content entrepreneurs prepare for the marathon. Frankly, most content marketer timetables are too short. The research tells us that it takes 9 months to first dollar for CEs and 26 months to a business with at least one employee. This means you need to set up the content business for lean times until you build an audience you can monetize.
4. Content entrepreneurs selectively publish on social. Frankly, we can’t be everywhere our customers/audience are at online and be amazing in every channel. We have limited resources and need to pick our spots. Strategy is about choosing and not saying yes to every channel.
5. Content entrepreneurs are creating world-altering mission statements. You don’t see this with content marketers. For example, we at The Tilt are working to get one million content creators to financial stability. Crypto-media company Bankless is trying to prepare for a world without banks. We need to look at our mission statements and do better.
6. Content entrepreneurs don’t hire with traditional job postings..they observe their community and recruit. Back to Bankless, in their discord they recruited a developer, a designer and a project manager right from within their discord community. They observed who was doing the work, who had the skills, and it was an easy decision for these roles. That’s why building out a community more than just an audience is so critical.
7. Content entrepreneurs are diving into creator coins and social tokens. According to our research from the Spring of 2021, 4% of small content creators were looking at tokens, with another 25% considering. Those are huge numbers. No one on the corporate side are looking at these new content models. CE’s are leading the way. Obviously, since we have our own token, $TILT coin, we agree that there is a place for creator coins in the content entrepreneur’s toolkit.
8. And of course, CE’s are bullish on NFTs. At CMWorld, I shared what Gary Vaynerchuck is doing with VeeFriends and NFTs. Long-term, I see NFTs as being, maybe, the best form of opt-in subscription ever created. But, when I took a survey of the 800 or so in the Content Marketing World audience, only 10 people in the crowd even owned an NFT. We are so early…so there is much opportunity.
9. Content entrepreneurs are buying content brands. At the show I talked with one CE who just purchased a 20-year-old website with thousands of pieces of content and a great domain authority on Google, for less than 30 thousand dollars (US). A complete steal. These deals are out there. We need to have our list ready now so when the opportunity comes, we are ready to purchase these sites and other creator properties.
10. Content Entrepreneurs are building the next great media models. I believe that DAO’s or decentralized autonomous organizations, have a huge role to play in the future. A CE can make a decision to go it alone, or be part of a DAO, a collective that self governs, pays in tokens through investment or work product, and when the project succeeds, everybody wins. It’s possible that Web 3.0 means that content entrepreneurs, as well as their audiences, can benefit financial from within the same content project.

If you’d like to view this presentation, just go to my Joe Pulizzi LinkedIn page and check out my featured content.

I hope at least one of these tips can help you in your journey. Good Luck!