More content for less budget

This is by far the most asked question. We want more for less. How to do it? I’ll be the bearer of the bad news… no matter what you hear in the market, read on the blogs, and are bamboozled by ChatGPT, there’s no such thing as cheap and fast content.

Good content is expensive. Point.

Investing in quality pays off.

That having said, I get that you still need more for less. And you currently have no wiggle room to invest in a proper content strategy or to create ROI mindblowing ‘They ask, you answer’ content.

Why it matters

In times of inflation, recession, and uncertain futures, all budgets are on hold, yet the KPIs stay the same. You have less budget while you need to produce more content with the same understaffed team.

Being creative, agile, and daring to step out of the box is the way forward. In some kind of weird way, reusing existing content is not a thing or common practice. WTF?

Dare to break the status quo. You can immediately do two things.

1. Look for content that you already have

New is not always better or needed. Probably you already have a treasure chest of content on your www and within customer care.

Be smart. Take your head out of your ass, ditch some ego if needed, and look for the content you already have.

• Check your Google Analytics for the most visited pages. That’s what your customers are looking for. 
   
• Tap into the knowledge of customer care or sales. They know the questions asked and use that to your advantage to create content that resonates.
   
• Content about the brand, your mission, vision, values, and your ‘why’ usually is already produced by corporate comms or employer branding. Use that for marketing.

Next, check your campaigns from the last year(s). Can you re-use it?

2. Re-use content

If you had a great campaign, why not re-use it? You can copy-paste-adapt slightly or maybe even a 1:1 re-publish. What worked before can work again. Give it a try.

You don’t always need something new. Use what you already have. There is nothing wrong with publishing twice. Almost all brands, from startups to big corporate, do this. You see the same content popping up over the years.

Don’t have the idea that if you used the content once, it’s worn out. First, not everyone in your audience has seen that content. Second, nothing wrong with repeating some stuff.

Alternative: Focus

Instead of wanting more content, opt for less. Scale down the desired amount of content. Don't do more, do less with more focus.  

I've seen this with a client. They moved away from 12 campaigns a year to 3 or 4. Longer runtime per campaign, smarter usage of the assets. By not dividing the budget over so many campaigns, they got more bang for their buck. 

Then you don't only have more budget for the production; you also have more budget for the media buying to get reach.  Without revealing numbers (NDA), they really saw a significant difference in sales ↑ and a healthier team and manageable workload. 

• Focus on a few content projects. Choose wisely, those who really move the needle and can be used and re-used time over time. 
• Focus on the quality. Produce with excellence. Because now you have more time and budget, you can. 

Good news: LoFi content

The brilliant thing about post-Covid is that we got used to more ‘homemade’ content. In expensive words: low fidelity content. 

This stands for that your content doesn’t always have to be super polished. It can be a bit rougher around the edges, less pixel-perfect, and more authentic. Be real. Great thing is that it taps excellently into the upcoming trend of transparency.

Notice that this doesn’t mean you can send your intern on the way with an iPhone. It means you can have a serious chat with your agency if you really need (or want) that expensive high-end video; there are alternatives.

More good news: AI content

With the rise of AI, it becomes easier and faster to produce multiple assets of one content item. Let AI do the executional work for you; it can create all the variations needed and more. 

Do notice that getting AI running without a rock-solid content strategy, including an objective, razor-sharp brandvoice and quality starting point, equals subpar average intern-level created content. And for sure, that’s not going to move the needle for you.

Final words

That having said, you can get more content for less budget if you’re willing to put in the work and dare to break the status quo. And this all starts with a solid content strategy.

Before you can get more content for less budget, you need to zoom out. Get an independent not-agency-related freelancer to sanity check if your content strategy is not a deviation from your marketing strategy and if you have all your ducks in a row to apply all I mentioned above. 

A freelancer should need about 40 to 60 hours to get you started being more effective. The best under € 10k investment you can make. Drop me a DM to get more details on how to nail this.

The 5 most asked questions about content

You ask me the same questions over and over again. My clients. During workshops, keynotes, and calls. 

So, why not write them down? Here's my ‘They ask, you answer’ series on content and strategy.  The questions are in the most asked order. 

1. I want more content for less budget; what are the tips? (this blog)
2. What do I need to measure? I struggle with accountability.
3. It takes forever; how can I speed up the process and shorten the time to market?
4. I don’t see the results; what can I do?
5. We struggle with ownership; where should content be?

• Bonus: How to prepare for AI; We have no idea what’s its true power; 33% cuts in teams are expected

Click on the links to read more (duh…)