Written By Danielle Fauteaux
Origins of the 80/20 Principle
The 80/20 Principle (or Rule) originated in the field of macroeconomics to paint a picture of the distribution of Italian wealth in the early 1900’s. (Thank you Vilfredo Pareto). Now-a-days, most businesses and industries have found a similar “80/20” rule that also applies to their business, customers, finances, operations, you name it.
Marketers are no exception. 😉 And in fact, we regularly make reference to an example of the Pareto Principle such that 80% of your content will drive 20% of your website traffic and inversely 20% of your content will drive 80% of your website traffic (give or take of course).
This 80/20 Principle is directly tied to results and performance of marketing content. But, there’s an oft forgotten second cousin to this 80/20 principle that relates to allocation of resources (be that time or money) to actually develop and promote the marketing content. So let’s give our cousin here a little bit of attention today.
The 80/20 Principle of Marketing Resources
In essence, you need to spend 20% of your time on content creation and spend 80% of your time promoting that piece of content. This means that if you spend 2 hours writing a blog, you should spend about 8 hours finding ways to promote that piece of content over it’s lifetime!
“Say whaaaat? 8 hours! There’s not even 8 hours worth of places to promote a single blog?” you say.
Challenge accepted. 😏
Take a blog and do the following:
1. Spend 2 hours creating 5-10 unique social media posts/graphics for each platform you’re on.
- Post a preview on the blog as a LinkedIn article with a link to your website for the rest of the blog
- Schedule two posts within the first 60 days of the content being published
- Tip: Allocate $5-10 towards “boosting” each of these posts to increase reach
- Schedule three posts promoting the content over the course of the next 6-9 months
- Don’t forget to cross-post onto your Google My Business profile too!
- Create video shorts to post on YouTube and TikTok if your brand is into that.
2. Spend 1 hour creating intentional emails
- Create a blog spotlight email
- Add the content into your next monthly newsletter
- Add links within relevant lead nurture marketing emails
- Add to relevant sales emails
3. Spend 1-2 hours conducting backlink outreach
- Flex your digital networking muscles. Try to get 1-3 backlinks for your blog. This means researching and personally reaching out to 20-40 site managers and asking for them to link to your new content, assuming between a 3-8% success rate.
4. Spend 1-2 hours leveraging your professional network
- If you’re part of a networking group or professional associations then ask around and see if others have content that you’d be willing to share with your audience via email, social media, or a backlink in one of your own blogs. Then, have them follow the principles of reciprocity with your content. Win-Win (as long as it’s truly helpful to their audience and your audience).
5. Spend 1-2 hours answering questions on Facebook Groups, Quora, Reddit and industry specific forums
- Post your content in response to any relevant questions on Facebook groups, Reddit threads, Quora threads, and similar platforms you are a member of.
- In these, though, be sure you’re being genuinely helpful and complying with online group and forum rules.
At this point, you’ve already invested 8 hours into promoting your content. (Wow that went quick!)
Now – what I will say – is you’re likely to get the greatest ROI out of Items #1 and #2 out of the list, so anytime you create a new piece of online content, at the bare minimum, promote via social media and email marketing and you’ll be building your momentum!
Here’s the catch with digital marketing…it’s easy to think if you “build it, they will come.” The cold, hard truth is, you have to fight for your digital presence. And this 80/20 Principle of Marketing Resources is how you can fight. 💪
Don’t give up.
Building a successful marketing agency takes grit, a focus on your value, and sometimes a *loving* kick in the pants.
Needing an ally as you achieve your long-term goals?
I’d be happy to help.
