1.2M Followers in 6 Months… My Content Marketing Strategy REVEALED

Summary

The video outlines a 5-phase approach for building an effective content marketing machine to acquire customers. It emphasizes first simply starting to create and post content, then being consistent, expanding reach by posting across platforms, maximizing frequency of posts, and finally actively capturing and repurposing quality content. For small businesses, the goal is lead nurture to establish legitimacy rather than lead generation. For those using content as the primary customer acquisition channel, it requires significant investment of time and money to create high-quality, valuable content that earns people's attention.

Takeaways

• 😀 Most people haven't even started posting content yet (phase 1)
• 👍🏻 Be consistent with posting content on a regular cadence (phase 2)
• 🌎 Post content reliably across all platforms (phase 3)
• 🚀 Max out posting capacity on each platform (phase 4)
• 🎥 Actively create and capture more content (phase 5)
• 💰 Use content to nurture leads if you have other lead sources
• ⏳ It takes time for content marketing to generate leads
• 🤝 Consider hiring specialists to help with content creation
• 🎯 Narrow your focus to become an expert in your niche
• 📈 Start small by establishing legitimacy before going big

Q & A

What are the 5 phases of building a content marketing machine that Autry talks about?

The 5 phases are: 1) Make something and post it, 2) Post something consistently/on a cadence, 3) Post reliably on all platforms, 4) Maximize how much each platform can take, 5) Capture and create (e.g. have a show where people call in)

What are the 2 primary objectives Autry mentions for content marketing?

The 2 objectives are: 1) Lead nurture - providing social proof and content for prospects to review, 2) Lead generation - using content to actively generate new customers

What does Autry mean when he says quality over quantity, but quality quantity wins?

He means that high-quality content is important, but producing a lot of content still beats only having high-quality but little content. Quantity allows you to improve quality over time.

Why does Autry recommend building a master list of your best performing content?

To provide salespeople with content to share with prospects between calls or early in the sales process, as it has proven resonance and ability to convince people to buy.

What does Autry say is the purpose of Phase 3 content marketing?

Learning what content packaging looks like on each platform. Tailoring your content for each platform's style.

How can you convert social media followers into customers?

By having clear call-to-actions in your content and social channels pointing them to ways to do business with you.

What does Autry say is more important than vanity metrics like views and subscribers?

Putting out content true to your values and messages, focused on attracting your ideal type of customer vs chasing whatever performs well.

How does Autry recommend establishing your expertise so people listen to your content?

By narrowly defining the problem you solve extremely well, even if it's niche, to the point no one can question your expertise on that specific issue.

What does Autry say is the biggest cost if people won't even pay attention to your free content?

Their attention - if your content does not provide enough value to earn people's time and interest, that is a larger issue than any pricing.

What options does Autry discuss to develop in-house expertise for larger content programs?

1) Hire specialists/vendors first to rapidly advance then transition to employees, 2) Hire and train employees from the start.

Outlines

00:00

😊 Six phases of content marketing for business owners

The paragraph outlines a six phase process for implementing content marketing. It starts with simply making and posting something. The next phases involve posting consistently, posting reliably across platforms, maximizing volume on each platform, and actively creating capturable content. The purpose evolves from lead nurturing to lead generation as you advance through the phases.

05:01

😃 Optimizing content for different platforms

This paragraph explains phase three where you post content reliably across different platforms. It emphasizes optimizing the packaging and presentation of the same content for each platform. The goal is to learn what works on each platform in terms of engaging that specific audience.

10:02

👷 Specializing content for audience relevance

The paragraph recommends specializing content by solving specific problems for a target audience. It uses the example of becoming the best at fixing toilets in a local area and then expanding the scope of content from there. The key is providing high value content to earn people's attention.

Keywords

💡content marketing

Content marketing refers to creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience. In the video, the speaker talks about 5 phases of building an effective content marketing machine for your business - from simply posting something to maximizing output across platforms.

💡lead nurture

Lead nurture refers to the process of developing relationships with potential customers to turn them into clients. For small businesses focusing on other customer acquisition channels, the speaker recommends using content for lead nurture - keeping your business looking legitimate and reliable for prospects researching you.

💡organic reach

Organic reach refers to unpaid distribution of content across platforms and to new audiences. Good, valuable content can help platforms' growth, so they reward creators with more impressions and followers. The speaker aims to use content to replace paid ads for acquisition.com.

💡patient advantage

The speaker argues that fame or audience-building takes a long time, but patience around this gives competitive advantage. Most people are not willing to create valuable content for long periods without instant gratification.

💡quality over quantity

While arguing for maximizing content volume, the speaker cautions against prioritizing clicks and views over quality that attracts your ideal customer. Data-driven vendors often focus too narrowly on metrics over values and messaging.

💡toilet expertise

Even if you're not a global business expert, the speaker argues you can position yourself as an expert on a narrow niche. By excelling at and evidencing toilet repairs locally, one can later expand to broader business advice.

💡tangible value

Content should make audiences' lives tangibly better, otherwise they will not deem it worthy of their attention. You have to solve real problems for viewers rather than just promote yourself.

💡repurposing content

Repurposing or redistributing the same content across platforms is an efficient way to maximize volume. The core message or hook can be repackaged and tailored for each platform's audience.

💡content recurrence

Recurring or consistent content distribution is important for building authority and expectation. The speaker does weekly marketing tasks and posts on that cadence.

💡content automation

Automating content creation and distribution through vendors, then employees allows greater output. At scale, systems for content production and repurposing can be set up.

Highlights

I told clients to stop making content because they were wasting time. I was partially right and partially wrong.

There are 5 phases in building a content marketing machine: 1) Make and post something, 2) Post consistently, 3) Post reliably on all platforms, 4) Maximize volume on each platform, 5) Capture and create content.

Quality over quantity, but quality quantity wins over just quality. You need volume to determine what quality is.

If you have other customer acquisition channels, content is for lead nurture, not lead generation.

Your best content gives salespeople ammunition and tests hooks for ads.

Phases 1-2 are just posting valuable content to appear legitimate. Phase 3 is learning platform packaging.

Phase 4 is maximizing volume on each platform. Phase 5 is deliberately creating high-quality content.

It takes long-term patience for content marketing to work. Expect at least 18 months.

Resist the temptation to chase metrics over your true audience and message.

Define your niche narrowly to be the expert, then expand topics over time as you build authority.

Provide value first. If people won't even pay attention, your price doesn't matter.

Back claims with evidence. Fix 500 toilets well, then talk business.

For lead gen, invest in content like paid ads: vendors first, then in-house employees.

Small businesses only need phases 1-2 to nurture leads and appear legitimate.

To scale, maximize volume across platforms, then create high-quality captive content.

Transcripts

six years ago i told clients of jim

launch that they should stop making

content because they were wasting their

time i was partially right and partially

wrong and in this video i want to break

down the shift that i've had in terms of

content marketing and its role within a

business the five phases in building a

content marketing machine and how to

focus on one of two primary objectives

with content marketing and so if you

don't know who i am my name is autry

mosey i own acquisition.com we're full

of companies right now does over 150

million dollars a year i make these

videos because i hope that you use the

stuff you make a bunch of money and then

you come and join acquisition.com so we

can invest in your business that's why i

do it let's rock and roll with the

phases of content i'm going to walk

through the five phases and then i'm

going to talk about which of the

objectives you're solving for each of

these and then finally like an out scale

version all right phase one is you make

something

and you post it that's it you just gotta

post something sometime somewhere and

believe it or not a lot of you guys

haven't even done phase one which is why

i have to outline it number two is that

you post something consistently you

create a cadence or a calendar around

when you post you find a platform that

you like ideally one that you're

probably already using and you just post

again after you post it once and you say

you know what this was seven days apart

if i do this every seven days i will now

be consistent for me i just know that

there's one day a week that i do all my

marketing stuff what i do on that day

changes but it's always marketing

related that's what's worked for me

maybe it'll work for you the third phase

you post you post reliably and you do it

on all platforms that's a massive

increase in the amount of volume that

you are posting this is when it

transitions in terms of objectives and

i'll get to the objectives in a second

phase four is that you go from posting

just even once on every platform on a

regular cadence to maximizing how much

every platform can take the short form

platforms can take sometimes five ten

posts a day like twitter or tick tock

facebook reels at this moment rules

change all the time if you have a news

feed style or you have an audience that

it's pushing stuff to they tend to

fatigue faster and they don't want to

get overwhelmed with one person that's

usually where you get capped at it one

or two times a day and so what you have

to do is look at all the platforms

figure out what the max amount is that

you can publish on a platform and then

all you do is you crank the volume on

all of them at the same time that's

phase four most people never even get to

phase four and then phase five you go

from creating for all of those to

capturing and creating for example if i

wanted to have a show where everybody

called in and i could repurpose all that

stuff across content that would be me

deliberately creating content in a way

across all those channels but not only

creating but also capturing so that i

could further enhance my reach and the

amount of volume that i created and the

big rule with volume that i have is that

there's no such thing as too long only

too boring the second rule that i have

is quality over quantity but quality

quantity wins over quality in order to

know what is quality it usually takes

reps to get good and so you will

probably do a lot in the beginning and

it will probably suck comma and that's

okay because it is a requisite for

getting good you start by sucking and

then you get better and then eventually

you suck so little you're actually good

the difference between phase one and two

and phase three four five is the

objective if you're doing phase three

four five the objective is to generate

new customers from content and it's

different than phase one and phase two

where the only reason you can do that is

just to have lead nurture just to give

you guys some sales stuff just to give

you guys some fodder and just test some

hooks those are the five phases if

you're a small business owner that costs

time and that costs money so what do you

do i actually have had this conversation

with probably half of our portfolio

companies in the last three months what

is the role of organic marketing play in

the business from concept of acquiring

customers that's why we do this stuff

right we do this to acquire customers if

you have other ways of getting customers

which for most of you would be manual

outbound affiliates or paid ads besides

referrals and if those are the primary

channels you do not want to take your

eye off the ball on that that's what's

paying the bills that being said the

purpose or the objective of having the

organic content is lead nurture not lead

generation so what happens is someone

comes in through an affiliate someone

comes in through a paid ad someone comes

in through a manual app on because you

had an sdr call them or they got a cold

email what do they do they look at your

social profile they look at your website

and they say is this person legit the

only litmus test you have to pass there

is that you've posted something recently

that's not [ __ ] that's really it they'll

probably consume two three four pieces

of content and say this guy or this gal

knows what they're talking about this is

recent enough that i know that they're

still in business this is a legitimate

business that's all we're trying to

accomplish here and if you do start to

have content that starts performing

better than others that gives you two

things one is it gives the sales guys

content that they can proactively feed

to the prospects and so what you should

build is a master excel sheet of your

best content of all time because there

is some content that you've made

knowingly or unknowingly that convinces

more people to buy from you on that

content sheet you'll have what are the

faqs what are the types of questions

that people ask on sales calls which

gives you great fodder for the types of

content you make in the future and again

you do it for one for the sales team and

two for marketing you do it for the

sales team because as soon as they have

that question they can send that as a

reply between call one and call two to

close a prospect or if they have the

question that they found out before the

call they can send it to them beforehand

increase the likelihood they close but

that's the first tangential benefit

besides nurture that making this content

helps you with the second one is that it

gives you an idea of what you can start

leading with on your paid side they're

disproportionately saving it

disproportionately sharing it when you

run paid ads you can look at your

organic content be like dude i don't

know what it is people went nuts for

this if for some reason this headline or

this hook worked well you weave it into

every one of your cold emails and you

can split test it and say wow this beat

our control and so think of the the

content you're making as just low risk

ways of testing hooks and headlines to

get people to buy from you phase one and

phase two if you're in one of those

camps you don't need to do anything else

that's it that's all you gotta do if you

wanna know what it looks like to

actually use content marketing as a way

to generate leads phase three which is

your posting once a week or on some

cadence on all platforms the purpose of

phase three is learning what packaging

looks like on each of the platforms if

you've ever seen that meme that had like

tinder linkedin facebook and like

instagram platforms are all a little bit

different same person just packaged a

little differently this tweet here then

getting put into a tick tock then also

getting put into a youtube short and

then also getting put into a reel it's

the same concept the same subject matter

but we package it a little bit

differently phase fours you then say

great i feel like we finally get each of

these platforms and this [ __ ] takes

time it takes probably six months and

this is if you have means to pay for the

stuff but i'll get into the cost in a

second maxing out the platforms which is

phase four number five is actively

creating so candidly right now i'm

barely scratching phase five we're

actually just dialing on phase four

which is maximizing across all platforms

we're not really there yet we're maxed

out on probably half the platforms i'm

mostly making that's what we're doing

right with 345 you're actually making

good enough content that the platforms

are serving it to new audiences because

they are able to grow the amount of time

people spend on the platform because

your stuff is good they pay you an

impressions for providing value to their

audience more followers more likes all

that stuff you still have to have a way

to convert those people into customers

and so the way to do that is just having

call to actions for example if you're a

business doing three million dollars or

more and you're an internet business go

to acquisition.com you can fill out the

stuff for a minority investment that's

what we do put that into your content

and then the rest of your time you're

just providing value you don't need to

get fancy with it you don't want to be

one of those guys who just pitching all

the time a lot of people oversell the

small amount of demand they have so they

can never grow the audience the more you

give the more you grow the more you take

the more you shrink and when you do it

that way you never go hungry because you

always have more people knocking on your

door than you have seating in your in

your house from a cost perspective

there's time cost there's long term cost

and there's money cost if you start

doing content as your way of getting

customers expect it to take a long time

i started making content for

acquisition.com about 18 months before

we really started seeing any kind of

deal flow or growth across the platforms

if you think about this as a long-term

play i still believe that fame is the

most efficient business model all right

it's one of the best ways to arbitrage

making money but it takes time and no

one's willing to wait which then gives

you a competitive advantage because

patience is one of the ultimate

advantages is that you're just willing

to do things for an unreasonably long

period of time without thinking you're

smarter than you really are a quote from

neil strauss even at phase three it's

going to be pretty much beyond your

capacity to actually create capture edit

and distribute across all platforms

you're not gonna be able to do it on

your own and so you need some degree of

leverage that leverage is gonna come in

the form of labor you're gonna have to

pay people to help you out in the

beginning the more costly way of doing

it but faster is to have vendors so to

have people who are specialists on each

of these platforms because what they're

going to do is get you up to speed five

times faster they're gonna already know

all the mistakes that people normally

make now one thing they have to look out

for for vendors and this is especially

important you know for me is that most

vendors are data driven and what i mean

by that is they get obsessed with clicks

and views and impressions and

subscribers that's good

to a degree it's okay to be satisfied

with a smaller audience that's just the

type of person that you're actually

looking to attract it's hard to make

this shift and it's really hard to ram

it down their throats because most

clients that pay them only care about

those things because they don't know

what else to measure just because it's

easy to quantify doesn't mean it's

important the values that you have the

messages that you want to get out there

who you're trying to reach will be more

important than the quantitative metrics

are those good litmus tests in terms of

if nothing you ever have hits yeah you

should probably pay attention to that

but if only one specific type of thing

hits and it's not core to who you are

you got to be able to resist that

temptation because otherwise you're

going to build this audience doing stuff

you don't want to do attracting people

you don't want to be with for us to put

out the stuff that we put out right now

across all platforms for layla and i

cost about 70 000 a month that's to put

out roughly 160 pieces of content a week

you're like oh my god like i know it's a

lot that's because we're trying to

promote we're using this instead of

using paid ads so if i were to just pay

for the impressions it would cost me

about 2 million a month to get the

impressions that right now cost me about

70 000 a month i have a lot of cost

savings doing it organically the lever

on that though is how good you are and

that's tough and it probably sounds

weird for me to even say this so take it

the way that you probably or hopefully

know that i mean it most people talk

about stuff that they don't have the

right to talk about just because you

call yourself an expert doesn't make it

true and so the question is how narrowly

can i define the problem that i solve so

that in that tiny world in that pond i

am king you might not be the best

business person in the world i'm not but

the question is of all the sources of

information that are both entertaining

and educational is the stuff that you

put out there good enough that people

are like i will pay attention to this

person because if you've ever struggled

to give away your services for free it's

because the biggest cost isn't your

price if people aren't willing to pay

for it with their attention then it has

other costs which is it's not worth

their attention why should this person

listen to me and why is this worth their

time if you can answer those questions

in the content that you're making in a

tangible way that their life is going to

get better as a result they'll come back

and tell their friends i'm not andy

versailles i'm not gary vee i'm not at

my lead i'm not all closing in on a

billion dollars plus i'm not grant

cardone well don't try and compete with

them but if you're like hey i'm the

fastest toilet fixer in this side of

tuscaloosa you might only be competing

in three guys if you have evidence you

are beyond reproach if someone looks at

you and says like hey man your content's

crap you can be like this is how you fix

toilets i'll try and be more

entertaining next time but this is how

you fix them and you have evidence that

you fix 500 toilets this way first

you're fixing toilets and then you're

talking about how you can expand a

plumbing business and then you're

talking about how you can expand a local

business and then you're talking about

marketing on whatever specific method

you use to grow your thing and then

you're talking about expanding an

enterprise and then lo and behold you're

a business expert but it takes time if

you're a small business owner you can do

the first two phases just post about

stuff make sure it's valuable just to

make sure that you are a legitimate

looking business that looks like it's

doors say open on it that's all we're

trying to accomplish and help the sales

guys out if you want to make content

marketing your actual lead generation

machine then you need to invest in it

the same way you invest in it for paid

marketing you're going to probably have

to have vendors you're probably over

time what you learn from your vendors

you're going to bring employees in-house

and you're going to teach it to them and

then you start scaling the volume up

internally and then phase 5 you go max

out mode right you start cranking out on

everything and then you start creating

stuff specifically but when you're doing

that at that phase you probably don't

need to worry about this video