14,000 people will read this post as an email.
Not because they’re forced to. Not because they were tricked into it. Not because of that catchy title (if I’d used the word “throbbing,” I could maybe have gotten 500 more readers).
You and 13,999 of my other friends will read this because we trust one another.
You know that I sell mentorship. But you also know that I will keep giving you advice that I’ve learned the hard way—for free. You know that I’m not faking it, and you know that I do it because I care.
Hell, I did it for four years before I made a cent.
Content Marketing: Attention and Audience
Two-Brain Business uses a content marketing strategy to grow. CrossFit uses a content marketing strategy to grow. Alexander Hamilton used a content marketing strategy to create the U.S. banking system.
Content marketing is the foundation of all marketing because it creates the trust required to sell your idea.
Seth Godin (appearing at our online Summit in September) calls this permission marketing. He published his book of the same title just as spam emails were starting to become popular. And he was right: In the long term, it’s not the number of email addresses you gather that count but the trust you build.
Seth says people pay attention before they pay you money. And in 2020, attention is more scarce than money.
In this series, I’m going to give you the exact strategy we teach to gym owners—and it’s the same one we use ourselves.
Marketing is a conversation. It used to be a monologue. Marketing used to mean “advertising.” Now it means “trust building.”
You build trust by sharing your knowledge, your passion and your vision. Together, those make your art. And the most beautiful part is that the more you publish for free, the more expensive your full service can be. Because value is rooted in trust.
Read: “Be Expensive or Be Free”
I’m going to tell you how to start more conversations by publishing more content. Then I’m going to tell you how to continue the conversation with your audience until people sign up.
I’m not going to tell you “the secret script” (because there isn’t one), or the super sales letter (those don’t work anymore) or how to place the perfect call to action at the end of your emails (because I don’t).
But I will share, in full transparency, exactly the plan that took me from a free blog in 2008 to a multimillion-dollar multinational platform that’s the best in the world today.
In the next installment, we’ll start the conversation between you and your audience (and continue our conversation together).
Other Media in This Series
Starting the Conversation
Newletters Are Dead (Here’s the Replacement)
Content Marketing: “This Is Working!”
