Your Content is Flopping. Now What?

It’s heartbreaking. You’ve poured time and money into your content and your copy, and in return, you’re getting crickets.

Disappointing. Disheartening. Discouraging.

Possibly fixable — but there’s an order of operations to these things.

Because fixing the wrong thing won’t get the right results.

To fix your content, here’s what to evaluate — in order.

1. The List

The first thing to examine: who is on the receiving end of your message?

An interested, motivated audience can be won over by mediocre copy. A disinterested audience won’t want what you’re selling no matter how persuasive you are.

Take a good, hard look at your audience.

🍊Do they want or need what you’re selling?

🍊Do they care about the problems and solutions you talk about?

🍊Can they afford you?

Note that I’m not telling you to analyze your ideal customer profile. I’m asking whether the people in your audience — your email subscribers, your social media followers, etc. — are your ideal customers.

2. The Offer

If you’re sure you’re reaching the right people, the next thing to ask is whether you’re making the right offer.

Inertia is a powerful force. Some problems just aren’t painful enough to be worth the hassle of solving.

🍊Do your message and offer center on a desirable outcome for the buyer?

🍊Is the outcome desirable enough to be worth the asking price?

🍊Have you given your audience compelling enough reasons to trust you?

Do your customer research. Just because you think, based on my demographic, I should want what you’re selling doesn’t mean I do.

3. The Message

The copy or content is usually the first thing people change when they're trying to fix their content. It’s actually at the bottom of the list.

Because great copy can’t convince a disinterested audience to spend on an offer they don’t want. At the end of the day, both copy and content are just a delivery mechanism.

Once you’ve dialed in on your audience and your message, your conversion problem might be resolved. If it’s not, then it’s time to look at the words.

🍊Is it clear what you offer and who it’s for?

🍊Are the benefits easy to understand?

🍊Are you focused on just one key benefit in each piece of copy or content?

🍊Are you using clear calls to action that are easy to say “yes” to?

There is no foolproof marketing template that always works 100% of the time, no matter what the course-hawking gurus say.

Following advice from marketers can’t guarantee your success. But it can reduce your risk and give you the best chance of success.

You try, you tweak, you try again. For the best chance at success, just tweak in the right order.