Run time: 52 seconds
Prefer to read this week’s Ideal Marketing Minute?
There’s a view I keep coming back to: marketing has lost its way. Not because it’s broken, but because it got distracted – by tools, tactics, and the pressure to keep up with every new trend. Too often, it gets reduced to putting lipstick on a pig, or slapping a hashtag on a clone of whatever your competitors are doing. Instead of being the place every business should start – rooted in the people you want to buy from you and what they genuinely value – it’s become an afterthought. A polish job. And the cost of that is real. Because the most powerful content you can create doesn’t come from a content calendar or a clever hook. It comes from what you actually know, believe, and have seen with your own eyes.
Here’s the truth: you don’t have nothing to say. You have plenty. It’s just hiding.
When you’re an expert, so much of what you know feels obvious – to you. You’ve explained it a hundred times. But to your customers, that knowledge is exactly what they need to hear. The thing you find yourself clarifying in every enquiry, the point clients always misunderstand, the bit of your process you have to walk people through – that’s not boring. That’s valuable.
This is the heart of authentic authority. You don’t need to invent something new. You need to capture what you already explain so well in person, and put it where more people can find it.
Start with the value gap. There’s almost always a moment where a prospect doesn’t quite grasp why your work matters – until you explain it. Fill that gap with content, and two things happen. Your marketing gets easier, because you’re sharing what you already know. And trust builds faster, because you’re answering the very questions holding people back.
Your practical prompt this week: What do clients always need explaining before they understand the value of what you do? Or if you’re ready to go a bit further: What do people misunderstand about your industry, what frustrates you, and what is the change you want to see? Write it down – that explanation is your next piece of content.
If this has struck a chord, and you want an example or to read my slightly controversial take on my own industry, you might enjoy two pieces I’ve written: Marketing Isn’t Broken – We Just Got Distracted explores how tactics and technology have pulled us away from what has always mattered most in marketing, and Is Your Marketing Just Lipstick on a Pig? looks at what happens when promotion is treated as a polish job rather than the place every business should start.
Join the Ideal Marketing Minute
This video was made for the Ideal Marketing Minute – A weekly email that asks a key question about your marketing and business that you can review in under a minute. Make sure you don’t miss another email by signing up here. You’ll also be able to view previous emails and access the resources for this video.
