The Content Comeback

Hopefully, that headline didn’t cue up LL Cool J’s song “don’t call it a comeback” for you the way it did for me (although if you’re familiar with that song it’s quite possible this intro did 😉 ).

As much as I love playing with new things, there is no denying that the fundamentals, when done well, will always work.

Don’t worry though, this isn’t about preaching mastery of the fundamentals (although I still believe that).

It’s about a type of content that seems to be making a comeback.

I got a little too excited yesterday when I was interviewing Ben Sailer from CoSchedule and he said the exact same thing I’m referring to.

Ready for this?

It’s newsletters.

Yep, good ol’ fashioned, quality newsletters (quality being the key here).

Regardless of what anyone tells you, email still works.

I had done a live stream last year titled “Nothing is dead and everything works” because stating that any one type of marketing is dead is simply false.

All marketing (content and otherwise) is about testing.

And the ONE skill that will help you with all of it?

Writing.

If I could tell anyone starting out what ONE thing they should focus on, it would be writing.

Writing content, emails, social messages, copy, headlines, sales pages, tweets, messenger copy, podcast, and video outlines, etc.

All of it…

You need to be able to write in a way that speaks to your audience so they want to stick around.

This was an epiphany I had recently after investing in a copywriting tool (funnelscripts, but more on that later).

Jodi and I decided to invest in this tool for the Content Creators Planner and holy moly…

We had been running a long-form ad for the planner and decided to try a shorter ad with an animated gif of the planner.

We used the ad script, answered some questions, and it spits out a ridiculous amount of options.

We chose our copy and HOT DAMN that thing is kicking butt.

Mind you… we know our customer, selected a good audience to target and have a good product.

But without the quality of the copy, they wouldn’t click through.

I will tell you that using tools like Funnelscripts is more about having a starting point (as opposed to having a blank page… we all know that angst, right?).

If you don’t know your audience, their pain points, and why they buy, a copywriting tool isn’t going to do you any good.

So…

… back to the content comeback of newsletters.

Now that they hypey marketing isn’t working the way it used to, the quality seems to be rising to the top.

The first newsletter I found was through Medium.

Which then led me to his website and Facebook group (for newsletter creators).

Then I saw Ann Handley had a newsletter.

It’s like when you buy a new car and all of a sudden you see it everywhere… all of a sudden it seemed like more and more newsletters were popping up.

Here’s the thing with newsletters… people who take the time to read them are your ideal customer!

They’re investing their time with you.

I shared two of my favorite newsletters in this recent post… “The Return of the Newsletter”

I highly recommend both (and if you have another you like, hit reply and share it with me so I can add it to the post).