Image: Dima Davi

Unless you’re one of my newsletter subscribers, you won’t know that Jim’s Marketing Blog is entering its 14th year this week. You also won’t know that I have committed to writing it for at least the next 5 years, God willing.

That’s NOT what this post is about!

However, that newsletter did prompt some subscribers to mention something, which you might find useful. They wanted to know how I’ve managed to very regularly update a blog and newsletter for so long.

More importantly, my answer will shine a light on how you can do something similar. If you want to.

I really don’t do much

Sadly, I don’t have some kind of productivity super power. No. It’s a lot less impressive than that.

You see, my ‘secret’ is all about how LITTLE I do.

• I don’t have a Youtube channel.
• I don’t have a podcast.
• I don’t have a Facebook Page.
• I don’t have a Facebook group, either.
• I don’t have a Linkedin account.
• I don’t have a TikTok account.
• I don’t write books.
• I don’t give many interviews.
• I don’t have a business account on Instagram, Snapchat or Clubhouse either.

Lots of people in my profession do all or most of the things on that list. And I bet they produce at least as much information across those platforms as I produce for my blog / newsletter.

They go wide. I go narrow

Let me flesh that out a little.

Having been involved in social media marketing since its inception, I’ve seen (again and again) how easy it is to lose your account, and audience, on any platform you don’t own. And if a platform ceases to be popular, you can also lose your audience, or most of it, when they move to the next new, shiny thing. Plus, it’s extremely hard to create a significant marketing impact, or foster deep engagement across multiple platforms.

That’s why I choose to go narrow. So, I own my blog. I choose where it’s hosted. And I can use any commercial email provider to mail my subscribers.

The benefits of building your own platform are many and varied. I think perhaps the most overlooked, is the incredible focus and clarity it gives you.

With the multi platform approach, different types of ‘content’ work better on one platform and less well on another. You also need to be very careful how often you publish. With your own platform, you publish when you have something useful or interesting to share. That’s it. It’s extremely liberating.

In short, I probably don’t produce content more often than you or anyone else involved in marketing. I just put it in the same place and let it build steadily over time. Eventually, all those little molehills become a mountain (or at least a fairly big hill).