“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” – Michael Porter
We've all been there: you plan, launch and distribute your content in multiple channels at the same time and eagerly await the results only to be disappointed when it falls flat.
But all is not lost: the Godfather of Content Marketing, Joe Pulizzi has the answer. Watch the video to learn the real secret of content success.
Video transcription
Hi, my name is Joe Pulizzi, I'm the author of, believe it or not, seven different books now. There's The Will to Die, my novel, six other marketing books. What I want to talk about today is about building an audience. Where a lot of companies go wrong is they create all kinds of content to throw out on all different channels trying to build an audience, and they think that's the right way to do it.
I'm a historian of publishing, I've been in publishing for over 20 years now. If you look at the greatest media brands of all times, the New York Times of the world, Huffington Post, TED Talks, or even brands like Red Bull Media House, you'll notice that they started on one platform doing one thing really, really well.
New York Times does a newspaper, Huffington Post started with one blog. TED Talks, of course, their in-person, TED Talk series. If you look at Red Bull Media House, they started as a Formula 1 magazine, and then that evolved into the Red Bulletin magazine, and then they did all the other stuff after that.
Focus on one channel
What I'm trying to tell you is instead of throwing your content all over the place in all different kinds of channels, be great at one platform. Choose a podcast, choose a magazine, choose a blog, choose a YouTube series. Do something amazing and do it better and targeted than anybody else.
I think that's where you'll see success. And then once you build an audience, a minimum viable audience for that channel, then you can look and diversify, then you can do all those crazy things that media companies do.
But first, you have to start out being great at one thing. I hope this has been helpful. My name is Joe Pulizzi.
Good luck.
