The magic number: How much content should you be creating each week?
I’ve had a couple of conversations in the past few weeks with firm owners that all went down similar paths.
Here are some of the things I heard:
“Oh 2 blogs per week sound like a lot of content”
“1 email per week is too much my audience is too busy for that”
“Posting on Linkedin 5x a week will just annoy people”
All of these boil down to one simple question…
What is the best frequency for creating content?
Like most things in marketing, it depends.
There’s no magic number.
Anyone who says there is likely trying to sell you some cookie-cutter nonsense you need to avoid.
But what I’m going to share with you below will help you to get closer to the frequency that will work best for you.
Before we get there though, I’m calling BS on a popular concept…
Quality > Quantity
You’ll have no doubt heard this one before.
It’s better to produce quality content than to churn out mediocre content in high quantities.
That’s not wrong. But here’s the issue with it…
Quality > quantity assumes a binary choice.
One or the other. This way or that way.
The reality is that the choice isn’t binary.
You can choose both.
Why would you choose quality > quantity when you can choose quality AND quantity?
You don’t have to make the trade-off, you just need to discover the quantity you can achieve whilst maintaining your level of quality.
So why is quantity so important?
Increasing the quantity of the content you produce - be it blogs, social media posts, or emails - is helpful for several reasons.
1. You learn what works (and what doesn’t) quicker
Not all topics or formats will land as well as others. The more you produce, the quicker you’ll learn what works for your audience and then you can focus on creating more of that.
2. You outwork your competition
Think of it this way…
If you’re posting high-quality posts on Linkedin 3x a week, and a direct competitor targeting the same clients as you is posting 5x a week, who do you think is going to ‘win’?
We live in noisy times, and focusing on quality AND quantity will help you stand out ahead of other firms.
3. Your results compound faster
This is the biggest benefit for me…
I wrote a previous newsletter about the compounding effect of marketing, but here’s a simplified way to think about it:
If you take a penny and double it every day for 31 days, it will accumulate over £10M.
If you take a penny and double it every week, it will take you 31 weeks to get to the same amount.
Apply that to your marketing, and we’re talking about a difference between weeks and months from when you can expect to see the same results.
Maybe you can wait? Which is fine. Everybody’s running their own race at the end of the day.
Which leads us nicely to the reason why you’re still reading…
How to choose the content frequency that’s right for your firm?
Like I said upfront - there’s no magic number.
But answering these 2 questions will help you to move one step closer to figuring it out.
1. What are your goals?
What are you actually trying to achieve with your content?
I’m sure you’ve got better things to be doing than creating content for the sake of it.
Maybe your goals are:
Build an engaged audience on Linkedin?
In what niche?
How many followers?
Rank for relevant search terms on Google?
What are the search volumes?
How competitive are the keywords?
Keep your email list engaged and nurtured?
Being able to answer these questions comes back to one thing…
Having a marketing strategy
I know, I bang on about strategy in here every week. But with good reason.
I’ve spoken to too many firms that have wasted time and money on marketing that hasn’t worked and 9 times out of 10 it’s down to a lack of strategy.
Marketers and agencies selling cookie-cutter campaigns without any understanding of your firm, your clients, or your goals.
I had a little vent about it on Linkedin this week and it seemed to resonate with a few of you.
Strategy is a broad subject - and one I’d recommend you work with a specialist on.
You wouldn’t suggest a client should figure out the best tax strategy for their business on their own, so don’t try to figure out your marketing strategy alone.
2. What frequency can you be consistent at?
Consistency is crucial in marketing.
Think back to the compounding example earlier. It wouldn’t work if you started missing days, or weeks.
Figuring out what frequency you can be consistent at is key.
Your goals might say you need to be writing 2x blogs per week, but if you start doing this for a month, get burnt out, and then write nothing for another month, you’re no better than you were to begin with.
Based on your goals, choose a frequency that you can be consistent at and master it.
Once you’ve done that, up the tempo and keep pushing until you hit the desired frequency needed.
To increase consistency, consider how else you can resource content creation:
Utilise tech & tools e.g. Taplio for Linkedin, or ChatGPT for blogs (read this first)
Outsourcing to freelancers or agencies - take it off your plate and let consistency be somebody else's challenge
Frequency + Consistency = Results
The best frequency for creating content varies based on your goals and ability to be consistent.
There’s no magic number.
More is better for the reasons I shared above, but it needs to be done in a manageable way.
And to wrap things up by banging a drum I’ve banged a thousand times (and will continue to do a thousand more)...
… it all starts with strategy.
Until next time,
Jordan