Justin Welsh, whom I follow and from whom I purchased his LinkedIn course a couple of years ago, recently wrote in his newsletter, “the traditional content funnel is dying, and most creators haven't noticed yet.”
He went on to say that the posts that used to gain followers/likes/subscribers, which often started with ‘Five Ways to do XYZ’ are now easily generated with AI, and thus we no longer pay any attention to them. Similarly, any posts that generally tell you about a topic, but rarely get into the nitty gritty.
His advice, “Instead of starting wide with basic content and narrowing down, you need to lead with your deepest expertise right from the start. Your "top-of-funnel" content should be as valuable as your former middle-of-funnel material.
What catches attention now is genuine expertise and unique insights.
Share deeper insights — the ones you'd normally save for your paid products, minus the detailed implementation steps.”
Examples could be:
Failed experiments. Perhaps you tried to do something with a very specific outcome in mind, it didn’t work and what you learned.
Go all in with your expertise from the start. So if you’re a coach, for example, working with a specific type of person, pick out a case study and go into detail about their transformation.
If you work on projects - pick an example and share insights from it that demonstrate your expertise.
If you’re a designer-maker, share your process, behind the scenes, the thought and the work that goes into each creation.
If your sector experience is already very niche, do a deep dive on a particular job for which you feel particularly proud, or one where it all fell apart and why.
What other ways can you showcase your skill, bringing to life what makes you unique and, as a result, why your clients should spend money with you?
What do you do that is different from the others and, most importantly, how can you demonstrate your difference in a tangible way that goes beyond ‘most x say to do this, but I prefer to do y.’
Instead of contributing to the pile of AI generated blah that is currently cluttering the internet, how can you provide gems of wisdom, but without giving all your expertise away for free?
Dates for your Diary
I have now added a new tab on website with all the dates for the Power Hour and the Moving Forward Group as a reminder. The Power Hour is this Saturday on 1st March.
March 2025
1st March - Power Hour
15th March - Moving Forward Group
All GWDC events are bookable via Eventbrite and you can book for the months ahead, which means you’ll receive reminders as and when they occur.
There are numerous workshops that GWDC members can access for free. The next one is How to Sell Online on 8th March. You will find the calendar of those upcoming events here.
Until next time,
Suzanne & Mark
Great insights, thanks for sharing. It stuck an immediate chord with me as I really don't want to waste time on content creation that isn't hitting the mark any more...