Zero-Cost Marketing
What editing Eric's article on content-marketing ROI revealed about marketing that costs nothing but time.
By Caroline Ailanthus — Caroline Ailanthus is QuietLoud Studios' long-time editor.
Some time ago, I was editing an article for Eric on ROI (Return on Investment) in content marketing. He was explaining that attempting to calculate ROI for the kind of marketing he offers doesn’t really make sense—that’s because the whole point of content marketing is relationship-building, and so the path of cause-and-effect between publishing, say, a blog post, and finally landing a paying client is long, twisted, and basically unpredictable.
Content marketing does work, it just defies calculation.
As I said, I was editing the article, but of course I was also reading it, and the article got the wheels of my mind turning.
See, I’m not just an editor for Eric (and other clients), I’m also a writer. And as a writer, I do my own content marketing. So when Eric sends me articles to edit, you can bet I read them carefully to see how it’s done.
Except there are some important differences between what he does and what I do. Eric, and many of his clients, are marketing paid services. A single client might buy thousands of dollars worth of service. There are two important implications to that fact:
- Eric can spend hundreds of dollars on content creation to land a single client and still come out ahead (not that he’s calculating ROI);
- Eric’s clients take a real risk by hiring somebody, so if he has already built a relationship of trust and respect, he has a substantial advantage over a competitor who hasn’t.
Compare this to my situation.
I’m selling objects—books—for less than $20 each. What I actually get to keep (after printing and distribution costs) is a tiny fraction of that, but even if it weren’t, $20 is not a lot of money for either me or my readers. So I can’t spend much per book sold, nor does building relationships earn me much competitive advantage.
Bottom line is I don’t have any wiggle-room. I need to know the ROI is going to be positive, or I’m going to go broke really fast—except there’s no calculating ROI on content-marketing!
So, what do I do?
What I do is to keep my costs at zero. Let me explain.
My primary cost is time. Social media is free, my blogs are all on free platforms, my public talks are all through free venues, and my internet access is tax-deductible as a business expense. I work from home. There is the opportunity cost of taking time off paid work for clients, that’s real, but for the most part I’m not investing dollars and cents, I’m investing minutes and hours.
How many of the limited moments of my life do I really want to spend doing something I otherwise wouldn’t? Is convincing somebody to spend $17 on one of my novels worth it?
No, usually not, not if I can’t be sure I’m going to get a return on my investment at all.
So my new marketing strategy is based on setting my costs at zero. I don’t mean not spending any time on marketing, I mean not spending time on marketing that isn’t fun.
I don’t like Tweeting. Some people do, but I don’t. I’ve never gotten the hang of LinkedIn, and Instagram isn’t very useful if you don’t take pictures, as I don’t. All these services offer tools that I use occasionally and find helpful, but they’re not going to form major pillars of my marketing strategy because I can’t afford to spend hours and hours of my life doing things I basically don’t want to do—not when I can’t be sure I’ll get a positive return.
What do I like?
I like writing. I really like writing. I take breaks from my writing in order to write. Likewise, I like talking—especially about my writing. If you want to sit with me for an hour and listen to me talk about my latest book, I’m happy whether you buy my book or not. I’d rather you do buy my book, of course, but if you don’t, we still had a fun hour together, especially if you asked questions and I got to know you a little bit.
So writing blog posts is good for me. If five or ten people read a post and maybe learn something that way, I consider that time well-spent. Doing author talks is good for me, even if only two people (plus the librarian hosting the talk) show up. I enjoy these things. I’m smiling now just writing about them. Interviews are fun, too, and I bet guest-posting on somebody else’s blog would be a blast—actually, I suppose I’m guest-posting on Eric’s blog now, and it is a blast.
It’s not that I don’t care whether I sell books. I care very much. My goal of selling books shapes the kind of content I put out there, how I put it out there, and where I put it. And I’m always learning how to market better.
Rather, making sure I enjoy what I’m doing—making sure that if a piece of content doesn’t result in a sale I’ll be OK with that—is how I control costs.
If my cost for content marketing is zero, I have to come out ahead.