Content Blitz Strategy: Pillar Content To Short Form + Blog

Though we don’t normally do this strategy for clients – I thought I’d break down our agency’s internal content strategy for anyone wondering. 

The reason we don’t do this for clients is it would be WAY to involved for the client, and require a ton of their time, planning and energy. It also has some other notable drawbacks listed later in this article.

The reason we do it for us is that the insane amount of effort, planning, time and effort does seem to be worth it and allows us to get an outsized return on investment (19 intro calls this week with very little ad spend)  for a company like ours.

An avg. lead cost for us on Google ads is in the $500-$1000 range vs. for home service businesses we serve it’s usually between $100-$150. So basically it’s generally harder to get leads for a company like ours vs. a home service business. 

If you have internal marketers and want to go hard on content, this might be an option for you

It’s basically built on what Gary Vee calls ‘Pillar Content’ (in our case a podcast) and then boils down into reels/tik-tok’s, and blogs. 

• For each podcast we do there is usually like 6 pieces of content total from it – podcast, YouTube video, 3-5 reels/tik-tok’s and a blog post. 
• There are drawbacks of course to this strategy, so I’ll break those down as well here.
• We also build the whole strategy on the premise that guests on the podcasts are likely either possible referral partners (innovative folks in adjacent businesses to ours) or could be a prospect (contractor in our prime demographic) 

So our marketing strategy is also a referral and sales strategy

We never really push for sales from guests, but at the end of the podcast recording session with referral partners – we do mention we’d love to have a long-term relationship with folks and are committed to our long-term reputation in the industry. 

One main goal of our social media strategy is to remind people we’re good and to refer us 

We are very active on social media – perhaps to the point of excess. 

The end goal is always to increase quality. 

“My point of view is that the more experiments me make, the better we get at marketing. Everything is an experiment from lighting, to time of day you put it out, to tagging different people, to which channel you’re writing for.”

• We generally write and create video for one channel (in our case Facebook) where our prime demographic seems to hang out the most, and then put it on other channels unless it doesn’t make sense based on tone to be on IG or Linkedin, for whatever reason.
• We also are not romantic about the VEHICLE/Format. Sometimes a meme cuts through, sometimes a live. Our systems are built on lots of reels, but I also do a ‘Ideal Customer Tuesday’ where I write a deeper just written content post on Facebook, and a live on Wednesday called ‘What Else Wednesday’ about what else you should be doing besides SEO, PPC, or Website Design.
• We are ready at any time to stop a particular method or add-on another method – if that particular method isn’t working anymore, or there’s another method that leads to more eyeballs, and MORE CLOSED DEALS. 

Notable drawbacks to our ‘Content Blitz’ Strategy

#1 Problem: The reels/tiktoks that are made specifically for the platforms generally do a lot better vs. one’s that are derivative from a longer form piece. (Probably because they are lacking ‘hooks’ or provocative starter sentences that make someone want to watch short form video.

Possible solution: write 3 attention grabbing hooks for utilizing throughout the longer form content. For example for us “3 reasons your website is losing you leads’, or for a home service business ‘3 reasons your home is losing value right now.’

#2 Problem: It involves the owner of the company too much. Relying on a charismatic figure head or subject matter expert who’s time is very valuable to this extent can sometimes seem like a waste of time, particularly when a podcast gets like 100 or less views on Youtube. 

Possible solution: more series’ could be made – for us perhaps a ‘Home Services Hustle’ podcast could involve a marketing manager, who highlights people in home services who are referral partners and CEO’s of HVAC + plumbing companies. Or for a roofing company, for instance, you could have your marketing manager create a ‘Austin Small Business Referral Circle Podcast’ , where by coming on you commit to trying to refer people in the circle and pair that with a Facebook group. (Just an idea!)  But the point is – you could put your marketing manager on a different series that you feel good about and that speaks to your ideal customer and referral partners in a way that you believe would drive up referrals and eyeballs in a meaningful group of people. 

#3 Problem: It doesn’t matter how good the content is, if it’s not PROMOTED vigorously, it will flop.

For instance on Youtube – that video needs to be posted on our owner’s personal Facebook, Linkedin, and on IG stories… 

Possible solution: Ideally it has a key word or topic that’s searched a lot on the internet too (we use Ahrefs to identify topics often.) 

But really – systems for promoting each piece of content need to be in place and carried out every time! Starting with a GREAT TOPIC, and punchy Youtube thumbnails, and choosing really good clips for video. 

Mistakes I’ve made, and Important Notes

1. I may not continue to do this forever, certain things about it suck.
2. For now, a lot of this is not on me – it’s either with someone else on my team, outsourced video editor (one podcast a week, one podcast a week I edit, and Era92 out of Uganda does 60 short form videos a month.) 
3. You have to get it down to a weekly rhythm – and be very involved yourself if you were to do this at a different company. 

A few final enhancements if you really want to do this Content Blitz strategy at your company

At the end of the day – if the Pillar content *isn’t good* (bad topic, boring guest, bad video quality, bad microphone) everything you make from it will suck. So buy a Shure Mic, use Riverside.fm for video call recording, and work on getting the highest quality guests you possibly can.

Just because someone runs a killer business, doesn’t mean they’re interesting on content. You have to find that mix of ‘savvy content people’ and people who rock at business. 

This isn’t a strategy for everyone!

But if your company is a huge believer in content marketing and you’re starting to get sharp marketers internally, it may be one fairly efficent strategy to consider.