There has been a fairly sizable shift in both Google and Facebook’s reaction via algorithms to general content. In a book called Content Rules by Ann Handley, it says what’s interesting about today is a one-person shop can go toe-to-toe or head-to-head and compete directly with a Fortune 100 company. She cites the example of golf pro Charlie King needing to bring in golfing students with a very limited marketing budget. King turned to the web to build his clientele by showcasing the academy with quality online content that would attract golfers who wanted to strengthen their games.
He launched his blog, New Rules of Golf Instruction, offering free lessons via blog posts and videos. Golf Magazine website ran an ad-libbed video featuring King teaching a satirical lesson showing angry golfers the proper way to throw a club into the water. The video went viral at 1.8 million viewers and climbing. It’s continuing to generate hits on the Academy’s website, providing great publicity and great fun. If you’re a ten-person company, you should ask yourself this important question, “What three, four, or five completely different ways could we compete with a Fortune 100 company?” so you can compete with no budget with massive companies on a great scale.
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Compete With NO Budget
I’m going to do something that I rarely do. It’s almost to a degree a book review. In prepping for this podcast, I wanted to circle back to something that I might have done ten of 40 episodes on, and it’s regarding content. There has been a fairly sizable shift in both Google and Facebook’s reaction via algorithms to general content, I’m going to call it. In studying I was digging into a book called Content Rules by Ann Handley. She hits on a part of the book where she gets your attention by saying something like, “What’s interesting about today is a one-person shop can go toe-to-toe or head-to-head something but compete directly with a Fortune 100 company.” She tees up the next section. She gets you paying attention. She rips through a story about a golfer.
I think he’s on the East Coast, and how he explodes his golf teaching business using fundamental content online. I took many notes. I’m like, “Guys got limited budget. He’s using humor. He’s getting great results.” Finally, I’m like, “This is stupid. I could literally just read three paragraphs. Everybody will get the point better.” I don’t do this. I don’t think I’ve ever done this in 300 plus episodes but I can’t talk to these three paragraphs better than reading them. This is going to add a lot of value to a lot of people.
The title of this section is Selling Online with Expertise and Humor. As the new Director of Instruction at Reynolds Golf Academy in Greensboro, Georgia, golf pro, Charlie King badly needed to bring in golfing students but he had a limited marketing budget. Informed and inspired by David Meerman Scott’s New Rules Of Marketing And PR, King turned to the web to build his clientele by showcasing the academy with quality online content that would attract golfers who wanted to strengthen their games.
He presented useful golfing tips and explained that golf is not as difficult as it may seem. King believed that his expertise in humor would draw golfers to his online activities and thus eventually to the school. King launched his blog, New Rules Of Golf Instruction, offering free lessons via blog posts and videos. He published an eBook, New Rules Of Golf Instruction as a free download from his blog and Reynolds’ website.
Golf Magazine website ran an ad-libbed video featuring King teaching a satirical lesson showing angry golfers the proper way to throw a club into the water. The video went viral at 1.8 million viewers and climbing. It’s continuing to generate hits on the academy’s website, providing great publicity and great fun. King does not use the internet promotions to hit prospects with overt sales messages. Instead, he creates and delivers educational, entertaining online content.
He wisely uses every possible social media outlet, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Plus, he distributes an email newsletter to help golfers connect with him and the Academy. Has King’s internet outreach worked? In his words, “We’ve had a way bigger spring than we ever anticipated,” he reported. King scores big with internet prospects because he creates content they want. Your prospects also gather daily at their favorite internet watering holes, blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. To contribute or gather information and entertainment and to share with each other.
There were about five major points in those three paragraphs. If only one or two points hit you, I would read them over and over until you can pull out how can a one-person shop or a small company compete with a Fortune 100 company? If you’re a ten-person company, you should read these three paragraphs over and over and ask yourself a much more important question, “What three, four, or five completely different ways could we compete with a Fortune 100 company?”
This guy King, he’s using this to attract the end consumer. He’s using humor, how to throw a club into the water if you’re angry. What about teaching? How can you elevate your stature in your industry by using some form of this method, so it looks like you can teach and instruct as well as the big boys in your industry teach and instruct?
What if you’re a sign company? What if you’re a blue-collar guy, you’re a brick layer? Why would I want to teach? You’re mortal. You might someday injure yourself and you might need to use your intellectual property and knowledge to someday teach others what you know.
Are you not going to have future brick layers in your company come in? In which you can make a video and teach your techniques. My point is this, if you think outside the box, how can you use content rules, these three paragraphs alone, to compete with massive companies on a great scale for limited or no budget? This is episode 321. Hope this helps. Take care.
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