âSuccess is never owned. Success is only rented, and the rent is due every day.â
That quote from Rory Vadenâs book Take the Stairs always struck me as a little off. It reminds me of that tired old axiom: âNo pain, no gain.â
Both sayings suggest that success will always be a struggle. And if youâre not feeling the struggle, you should question whether youâre doing enough.
Thatâs a very unpleasant way of looking at life.
But once I read Vadenâs book, I took a different meaning from it. The phrase is part of what Vaden calls the ârent axiom.â Your success â whether in improving your health, creating a thriving business, or achieving financial security â isnât a single destination. Itâs a spectrum.
âNo matter where you are on the spectrum of discipline,â Vaden writes, âyou can improve and grow. Likewise, you also have some parts [already] figured out.â
In other words, heâs not saying permanent success isnât achievable or that you have to struggle every day to attempt to get there. Heâs saying that the rent due every day is the discipline to try to improve your situation â no matter where you are.
I like that worldview much better.
In a previous article, I explained why the shifting sands of modern content and marketing have some industry experts suggesting a âbeyond the websiteâ approach to content strategy.
I argued that the real driver of owned media content is to create differentiated ideas that make people believe.
That belief might persuade them to subscribe, purchase, donate, engage more deeply, or volunteer. But to earn those actions, you have to connect your owned media experiences (your newsletter, websites, blogs, etc.) to create an ecosystem of content that people will want to âlive in,â not just visit when they have a product or service need.
Increasingly, however, methods for attracting those people to that ecosystem are changing. For years, marketers have used content to garner enough attention to earn a click from social or search back to an owned property.
But today, people who find your content on rented channels may not be offered anything to click on. You have to deliver value at that precise moment to be noticed and remembered.
Delivering valuable content experiences beyond your website is now imperative â and thatâs putting increased pressure on marketers to revamp their ârented landâ properties.
Letâs dig into this new model.
Several smart people have helped refine my thinking about the overarching trends.
A recent post from Amanda Natividad at SparkToro compares the worldâs largest traffic referrers (where marketers get traffic from) with the places where people consume content. Amanda makes the point that âmodern content marketing means being present in the places where your audience pays attention, consumes content, and learns about the problems you solve.â
Put simply â itâs about learning where your audience spends time and delivering value to build trust there.
Now, layer that with Andy Crestodinaâs recent LinkedIn post. This point stands out: âWrite for any site where your audience may be spending time (even if the Domain Authority is low). Itâs possible that most of your content should be on other websites.â
Finally, I return to my observations about how social media content consumption and usage have fundamentally changed. Social media use continues to grow, but âfor youâ algorithms mean that your follower (audience) size matters much less. Every post now has to compete â because you simply canât depend on your âfollowersâ to see your content like you used to.
So â what do all these trends indicate? The main implications include:
Offer content that quickly delivers value and optimize it for the platform to give it the best chance of organic reach. For most platforms, this means publishing within the walled garden and not linking to an external site. Look how Amanda Natividad wrote this product announcement on LinkedIn. Â
Get your content (and, more specifically, the valuable ideas it expresses) into as many places as your audience consumes content. Now, achieving reach on third-party platforms has been a mandate since the earliest days of marketing.
But this isnât a 30-second TV spot, a shoutout from social media, or a paid banner. Think long-form content on influencersâ platforms, with non-competitive partners, on social media, and even on retail media networks. For example, this Red Hat Linux educational video content has a significant presence on Amazon Web Servicesâ website. Pet food company Jinx is promoting a content marketing video campaign through paid search promotion on Walmart.com.
One approach commonly used in the content marketing of yesterday was to develop and package a âtentpoleâ piece (e.g., a research report, an e-book, or a white paper). Then, youâd design a promotional campaign around that asset and try to draw people in by using it as a lead magnet.
Now, you need a different approach. Youâll still create that big story. But youâll also develop multiple platform-specific versions of it designed to deliver self-contained value. So, that extensive research report is now also shaped into various LinkedIn post-sized summaries. The e-book gets paired with an explainer video or webinar. The white paper gets a companion mini-course delivered through a partnerâs website.
Leaning heavily into rented land may feel uncomfortable. But thatâs where the market â and the opportunity to get better â lies.
Still, I stand by this mantra: âDonât build your home on rented land.â
Your owned media â where you control the display and targeting and ultimately build a direct relationship with your audience â should still be your programâs primary focus.
But itâs no longer the place to answer questions you pose on external platforms. Instead, itâs the place to provide the best next (and scarce) answer after youâve addressed the original question on the external platform.Â
What do I mean by a âscarceâ answer? Think of it this way: Previously, many marketers put frequently asked questions on their websites to try to rank in search. However, the new model is to give FAQ answers on external media and then link to what I call the rarely given answers on your website.   Â
The rented success discipline remains the same: Engage your audiences and inspire them to want to spend time interacting directly with you. You may need to spruce up and redesign your rented land. But donât forget the ultimate objective: Building an audience that values, trusts, and wants to hear from you consistently.
In content marketing now, the rent thatâs due every day is to offer value thatâs a tad deeper, a bit more differentiated, and â in the case of external media â a lot more distributed than before.Â
And when it comes to your owned media, your focus should always be to try to improve the best next experience that only you can deliver to a customer â no matter where you (or they) are on the success spectrum.
Itâs your story. Tell it well.
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