Think you don’t have a marketing budget? Think again.
Helping business professionals—it’s what we enjoy doing. If we can put some creativity into it, that’s even better, because then it’s unique. And that’s good. So I pay attention, and when I see someone who could use help, I may offer an idea. We like helping business leaders. And we’ve found that when we put some good out there, it will come back our way eventually, in one way or another. That may sound a bit sunshine-and-rainbow-ish, but whatever.
A while back, I noticed a certain individual posting a lot on Instagram—badly. Bad enough where it was a turn-off, at least to me. I asked my team what they thought. They agreed. I felt we could help this individual. So we reached out.
The person said they knew their content wasn’t good, but their business didn’t have a marketing budget, so they couldn’t hire anyone better.
Let’s think about this.
First of all, bad content is bad. Put yourself out there with bad material and you’ll just make yourself look bad, if you get noticed at all. But people don’t think this way. They think posting on social media is what they’re supposed to be doing now, everybody says so, so they do it even if it’s bad. No. If the only choice is between a bad post or none at all, go with none. Save time and money.
And that brings me to my second point. If you are spending time on marketing on the clock, then you do have a marketing budget. You’re paying yourself to post that content when you could be doing something else instead. So if you have the money to pay yourself to write content badly, doesn’t it make more sense to spend the same money to pay someone to do it well?
The person on Instagram I mentioned earlier agreed their content was bad, but “bad” is in the eye of the beholder to some extent. Maybe you’re creating content that you like but someone else says it’s bad. This is where relationships come in. If you have someone whose opinion you can trust, they can give you an outside perspective on your work. You don’t just want to listen to any and every critic. Sometimes even editors are wrong. But if you have someone you know well, then you know when they’re right. They can tell you how to improve even when you can’t see it.
For example, my editor will tell me what is good and what is not without holding back. Tough love, as they say! But where would we be without it?
So if you’re creating content and somebody calls you up and suggests it’s maybe not so good, you have a couple of options:
Stay the course — hey, maybe the content isn’t bad? Maybe the suggestion is bad, maybe the editor is wrong? It happens. So if you truly believe you are on the right track, then, by all means, go ahead.
Truly cut the budget by pulling the plug — you get it, the content is bad, you are spending time and energy and money that you say you don’t have. So just stop.
Hire someone to do the work—because you do have the money. Really.
Do any one of the three. The only bad option would be to refuse to make a decision. Continue, cut, or hire.