If I hear one more person say that it takes tons more time to market a higher-priced article than it does to funnel something through a content mill, this last nerve of mine will snap. Three times this week and once last week, people have actually told me that selling an article that pays, say, $1,500 is exponentially harder to market than an article paying, say, $10. To you who insist this is true: Are you serious?
Here’s how I market – I contact a new company, give them my background, give them a proposed article idea and my approach (including ProfNet experts), and ask for the sale. In total, coming up with the idea, writing the query, and doing a quick ProfNet experts search to show I know whom to interview takes me a whopping 15 minutes. When I secured a lower-paying job (ten cents a word as opposed to $1 a word like I’m used to), I did the same amount of work. Same amount of time in marketing.
It’s a BS excuse to say that marketing is such an incredible time sink that it’s easier to simply camp out at a content mill site because you don’t have to market. But you do have to go through revisions and rejections, don’t you? Some of the content mill supporters here last month indicated that there’s some sort of editorial oversight on one of the sites, including revisions. Considering the amount of money you make versus the time you put into it, how do you figure that making $1,500 an article is harder to market than it is to write (and revise) one that pays $10?
People who make such erroneous statements don’t market. They couldn’t. If they did, they’d realize how ridiculously untrue that is. Marketing is not hard – sticking with it is. For those of you unsure of what marketing is, it’s contacting new and existing clients, introducing yourself (or saying hello), and asking for the job. It’s not hours of torturous phone work and endless rejection. I contact people via email. One person or company a day. About 15 minutes per day. Sometimes less. Seriously.
If you’re unwilling to put a little time into coming up with your own approach (note I said a little time – we’re not talking about hours upon hours to make a plan), many writers, sales people, marketing people have already done the hard work for you and devised tried-and-true marketing methods. My own marketing plan was never written down. It was something that came to me while I was making dinner and doing laundry. And to be honest, the best marketing plan is ANY plan you practice consistently. If you spend an hour a week at it, like I do, you’ll find out just how easy it is.
You can put more time into it, if you like. There are Google Alerts that can help you connect with a client (complete with an “I saw this and thought of you” note). You can send out postcards or brochures. You can send sales letters. Whatever you like. One method is not better than another, but trying nothing nets you nothing.
And to be honest, your business is only as good as the time and effort you put into it. At first you may put a little more energy into it before you see a payoff. But there’s no way that I’ve ever spent so much time marketing that the higher-priced articles aren’t worth my while. That’s just crazy talk.
So no more excuses. No more sitting back in that comfy, low-paying job because marketing scares you or some fool has convinced you it’s too difficult. If you put a few hours a week into your plan, you’re going to see positive results. If you say you’re too busy writing 5 to 10 articles in those few hours to market, you need it more than you think.
Have you heard this? Do you believe it?
11 responses to “The Marketing Myth”
Do I hear it? You bet I do. People are scared about the concept of marketing themselves. I was there too. But, most of them are marketing and they don’t even know it. Their online presence on forums, blogs, Facebook and Twitter is essentially marketing. Of course, there’s more to it, but it’s a great way to start.
The problem is their presence isn’t giving off good vibes to show they could do the job. Who would want to hire someone that shouts to the internet that they make easy money churning out tons of articles a week and they don’t have to do any marketing? That kind of marketing keeps the higher paying clients away, at least in my opinion.
Let's face it – -most people continue to work and defend content mills because they can't land the high paying work. If they were good enough to get a higher price, they'd be getting it.
I don't care what kind of excuses they spin. Whatever amount of time it takes you to write an article, why wouldn't you sell if for a decent wage rather than a pittance? The article is the article. Why not sell it for a fair pirce?
You're not going to change their minds. Let them spin in their pennies, while we build our businesses and careers earnign a living wage for our QUALITY work.
Um, for me, simply getting motivated to write an article for peanuts is much harder than jumping into a project that pays well.
One factor you didn't account for Lori is that the people saying it's harder to target and nab a decent job are not professionals. (I think what they really mean is it's easier to be lazy.)
You said you spent as much time – a whopping 15 minutes, LOL – querying a low-paying article as you did higher-paying markets. That's because you know how to query. I highly doubt people accepting $10 per article even know how to approach real markets. And you know what? I'm happy keeping it that way. If they're too lazy to figure out how to market themselves and their ideas properly, they'll never crack the majors, leaving more work for those of us willing to act professionally and put in the (little) effort required.
Are you saying that content mills paying only $10 want researched, well-written and edited articles of 1500 words? (The length of yours at $1 per word.) If that's the case, the people writing for them are idiots.
I suspect most writers spend a lot more than 15 minutes scrounging up a new client, too. I don't see how you do it! Kudos!
Georganna, I'm saying content mill articles are not just write-and-forget-about-it articles. The folks who visited here last month said they had to go through revisions. I just wonder how intensive the revisions are.
I guess for me, I know what type of client fits. Okay, so it's a bit more work when you're starting out or branching into other areas. But the point I'm trying to make is that NO WAY is it never not a good idea to spend time marketing.
Today I contacted two clients. Total time spent – 4 minutes. The contact doesn't have to be long, detailed queries all the time. Today, I introduced myself via Twitter and asked how I could help. Another client is in PR. Just a quick note to him asking if there's something I can help with. Really. Four minutes.
Paula, you echo Wendy and Devon here. I agree. If you don't know how to market, it's going to seem hard. But what some of these people don't do is put ANY effort into it.
There is a ton of free advice out there. In fact, all the tools needed are here. I have query letter samples, marketing tips, everything. All neatly labeled and easy to find. And I'm not the only writer who does this. Plenty do. It's a matter of overcoming inertia and fear and getting going.
Devon, I'm seeing the sense of what you say. Beating my head against a wall to help people who don't want to be helped is pointless. I will clear up falacies such as this one, but if they're unwilling to want more, it's their careers that will suffer. My goal is to make sure their actions don't affect my career. Beyond that, it's not my problem.
Wendy, I see people on Twitter who are constantly "on" sales-wise. It's annoying, but even these people grow business despite their in-the-face approach!
It's called "culling the herd". Let them fall away. More of the good stuff for the rest of us.
They're falling away. I just don't want to be dragged down with them.
Surely it makes more sense to invest slightly more time anyway in such a higher paying gig? I don't understand some folk. $1,500 v $10? Sheesh, do the maths. If I were lazy, which I am, I wouldn't have to try so hard for the rest of the MONTH on the first one.
There's the whole point, Diane. Excellent post!
Here's what I cannot understand – no matter how you add it, subtract it, multiply it or divide it, if you are making $1,500 per article as opposed to $10 per article, you're making more money. Period. Tacking on extraneous things like marketing and interviewing doesn't change the fact that per article, per hour, you're making more money. And so what if you spend let's say 30 minutes or even an hour marketing? You're still holding much more money at the end of the week, and you've worked nowhere near as hard as you would on a slew of $10 articles.
And if you write 2 of those higher-paying articles a day, you've just earned $3,000. How many $10 articles are you going to have to write in one day to make that? Yea, that many. I don't think it's possible to write 300 articles a day much less two well-researched ones in one hour.
To be honest, I don't trust the arguments of those who beat the $10-article drum so loudly. I suspect there's some payment for the advocacy taking place. At that point, they've sold their opinion and it's now tainted by company speak.
[…] The Marketing Myth – Marketing doesn’t have to be time consuming, just (as they say) do it. […]