Marathon Marketing Content: 5 Ways to Focus When You Write Copy for the Long Haul

It’s easy to get lost or paralysed when writing marketing copy for your business long term.

There are so many choices about where you should be writing and promoting your content.

Do you just blog? Guest post? Use Twitter? Write posts on Linkedin? Do interviews? How-to posts?

It’s easy to find enthusiasm when you start writing your marketing content, but how do you sustain that energy and focus for the long-term?

Here are some hints to help.

1: Pace yourself

It can seem that the successful people in our field  got there overnight; suddenly they’re the names everyone is talking about – they just came from nowhere! Usually, this isn’t the case: they’ve been plugging away behind the scenes, building momentum until they have earned their followers. As Gary Vaynerchuk (who started Wine Library TV and now has his own media company) says:

“Everyone’s trying to shortcut…[there was an] 18 month period before anyone gave a crap about Wine Library TV”

Chances are the people you see who burst onto the scene ‘overnight’ have been plugging away for years. So if you’re just starting out, don’t’ expect thousands of visitors to your site overnight, but do aim for them. Don’t beat yourself up if your posts don’t get comments, stay focused on publishing content your audience will value.

Trust in a little time.

2: Be passionate about helping

It is easy to get so distracted by how to promote your product or service, that you begin to neglect the very product you are so passionate about. There are lots of tools and techniques to help you write better headlines, or hook people in with your opening line, but you don’t want to forget what you started marketing your business:

You have something that can help your customers

Your marketing content should be driven by the positive change you can make in your customer’s life. One way to do this is to write copy that gets your customer’s attention because it’s specific to their situation.

3: Pick the content channels that suit you

There are a ton of content channels that you could use: webinars, blogging, white papers, email newsletters, social media (which one right?!)

The key is not to force yourself to follow a particular channel just because everyone else is using them. You want to pick something that:

• Appeals to your target market
• Suits your personality
• Is sustainable with the resources you have to hand

Here’s an AmyTV about how to choose your content marketing method

If you just can’t connect with a particular content channel, and you feel it doesn’t fit with your personality or brand, then drop it. There is no “one size” fits all “100% guarantee” marketing method out there, and chances are you will have more success with the methods you enjoy, because if you enjoy them, you will put more time into using them to promote your business.

4: Follow  information that matters to you

I learned this after the early days and having a blog subscription list as long as my arm. It would take me all morning just to read and comment on the latest posts. I felt that because they were blogs in my industry, I should be reading each and every one of them.

This isn’t so.

It was wasting my time, and I was getting multiple versions often of the same message, and just because someone has a blog on the subject you’re interested in – does not mean it’s any good. After whittling them down to the ones I enjoyed reading I got a much more positive response and return on my time invested. Because I was able to engage in the comments of fewer blogs more frequently, I was able to build up reputation and brand in blogs that I honestly respected and was interested in.

5: Trust that you will find information when you need it

With the Internet, the problem isn’t that you won’t find information on a subject, it’s that you’ll find too much. Start searching for “best copywriting resources” 😉  and you might realise you’ve spent half an hour reading without learning anything concrete.

This can be overwhelming if you research as much information as you can about a topic before you actually write, or take action. Sometimes browsing can give you inspiration for your marketing content, but more often than not, if you’re not disciplined with your time or what you want to achieve, you wander around the Internet in a stupefied daze for hours (or days) at a time!

Do you have any other tips for staying focused when writing marketing content for the long term? I’d love to hear them below!