My relationship with content marketing has been a bit hypocritical.

I know from personal experience how powerful it can be, but when it’s come to using it in my world of B2B health…well…it just wasn’t getting me clients.

I was putting in a lot of time too — writing all kinds of great articles about my freelance services and really trying to establish my site’s blog as a source of thought leadership in the industry — but nothing was coming of it. Eventually I gave up and started focusing my marketing days on cold contacts. Then it hit me…I was trying entirely too hard.

I switched things up, decided to look at why people were hiring me, and moved to writing simple pieces that didn’t take up much of my time. (It’s been working out great so far and I just signed a deal with my first inbound lead in over a year.)

If you’ve ever been intimidated by content creation or just didn’t feel like you have the time to do it, I want to throw out 3 types of easy content activities you can use that will help you build your email lists, make a name for yourself on social, and eventually, get you new clients…

Curate news: A simple news search on Google will bring together the most recent posts on topics your clients care about. These can be packaged into blogs, newsletters…even audio and video content. You can publish daily, weekly, even monthly updates.

Answer FAQs: If you’ve been freelancing for a while, there’s a good chance you’ve started to see patterns in the questions and problems your clients have. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to connect with these earlier in the sales process and start using the answers you’ve found to pull prospects in proactively — you can dedicate a post, or even an entire series to your FAQs…just remember to share them on social, especially LinkedIn, where people’s heads are already in a business place.

Create Lists: As much shade as list posts get, they work. You make a well-thought-out list of the top 5 resources for Black millennials, and you’ll likely see a boost in attention. I’ve turned lists into interviews and some serious learning experiences and you can do the same. Try making lists of the best sites or thought leaders in your specialization, even the top tips or advice for your clients.

Have you made any progress getting new clients this month?

If you haven’t, you may just need a commitment to consistent marketing. Come commit to taking your marketing seriously in the forums with something simple like dedicating 1 hour a week to marketing.

See you around the site!

Megan.