Getting The Right Attention: Content Marketing Vs. Direct Outreach

When you’re a solopreneur or a team of under five, you’ve got to prioritize and simplify. Getting clients is the most critical piece of the puzzle for most people in this category.

It doesn’t matter how polished your social media or website are; you should be worrying about how much money you’re making and how efficiently you make it.

It doesn’t matter how many people see your work. It matters who sees it.

Now, there are more than two ways to market your business, of course. We made a whole guide to show you which types are right for you.

But that guide didn’t include Direct Outreach. More than 10% of respondents from our community told us that’s how they get the most clients.

While a whopping 50% of you told us you use content marketing – most of you noted that content marketing gave you mixed results.

So, let’s talk about it. Which form of digital marketing is better for small businesses?

But before we dive into the pros and cons of direct outreach and content marketing, you need to know your own goals.

Define your goals

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to which of these two methods is best for everyone. But some factors will help you determine whether it’s right for you and your very small business.

Like any marketing strategy, it’s essential to establish clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) before you start executing a new method. You’ll probably want to know at least the following for direct outreach and content marketing.

• The annual revenue you want to bring in
• How many clients/customers you might need
• How many hours you want to work on marketing, or how big of a budget you have to hire out for this

Set those goals; then you can look at our comparison!

Content Marketing

Crafting and sharing value adds like blogs, videos, infographics, and catchy copy to grab the attention of your ideal customer is content marketing. Instead of straight-up selling, it's about helping your target audience and connecting with them.

When you're on point (and consistent) with your content game, you're not just building trust and authority for your brand; you're also driving organic traffic and, eventually, paying customers.

The community has spoken! In the content marketing category, small businesses in our community rely on:

• SEO and blogging
• Social media like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn
• YouTube videos

Content marketing pros and cons

We asked you what you struggle with the most when it comes to content marketing and how it’s been beneficial. Here’s what you said.

Time and energy

Crafting quality content takes serious dedication. Writing a blog post or creating a social media piece with graphics or videos can easily eat up 2 to 4 hours of your time. It's not just about whipping up a few words or posting a 15-second video; it's about researching, planning, creating, and polishing your content until it shines.

Some forms of content, like LinkedIn posts, can take less time. Many companies opt to cultivate the personal brands of people who work for them (see: Buffer) or focus on just one or two channels like TikTok and SEO to ensure they have the time, energy, and consistency to make reliably successful content.

Conversion

Crafting killer content not only boosts your site's search engine rankings but keeps it there for the long haul, bringing in more organic traffic over time. A great social media strategy has short-term sticking power but can help bolster your authority.

Traffic can turn into conversions, too. Most of the time, you can’t track content conversion precisely, though. With content marketing, you’re working freestyle. Follower counts, and visibility are somewhat unpredictable – how targeted your potential viewer is also unpredictable.

On average, 2.5%-3% of your social media and SEO content audience will convert to a sale.

Long term benefits

Think of content marketing as planting seeds for your business's future growth. When you consistently put out quality content optimized for SEO (on any channel – yes, you can (and should) optimize your TikToks, LinkedIns, and Instagrams for SEO, too), you're setting yourself up for long-term success.

While SEO is a long game (think of SEO blogs like the perennials of your garden), most social media posts have a shorter lifespan (like the annuals in your garden).  When you consistently plant seeds, water them, and give them light, you’ll grow an attractive garden.

What I mean is: if you put out quality content optimized for keywords, repurpose that content multiple times, and find ways to get more reach, you’ll climb the ranks in search engine results and attract more social media followers.

You might even get results like Steven.

“When we first started our business, we primarily focused on SEO content, and within a couple of years, we never had to spend any money on marketing again.” – Steven S., Lenovo Pro Community member.

Consistently creating valuable content establishes your brand as an authority in your niche, fostering trust and credibility. This strengthens relationships with your existing audience and attracts new followers, expanding your brand's reach across various online platforms.

Direct Outreach

Time and energy

Direct outreach means investing time and creative energy into crafting personalized Letters of Introduction (LOIs) or pitches tailored to your ideal clients. With practice and templates, though, this process can be streamlined to around 10 minutes per outreach, including finding the right contacts and sending the pitch or LOI.

My favorite method of direct outreach is sending connection requests on LinkedIn and adding a note. I have a master list of my “Ideal Clients” that includes 200 companies in my niche that I want to connect with (and potentially work with in the future).

But direct outreach can also look like:

• Email cold pitches
• Cold calling
• Attending in-person or virtual networking events
• Direct mail (although our community hasn’t had much luck with this)
• Trade shows
• Setting up a referral program
• Sending samples

Conversion

Your conversion rate will depend on the method of outreach. Here’s what I know about direct outreach.

• LinkedIn 12.5%
• Email Cold Pitching 1-5%
• Cold Calls 3%

I can vouch that LinkedIn typically turns into an average of 12.5% conversion over the span of two years (based on my own results and the results of over 85 people I’ve coached). Many of those conversions happen in under three months!

Long-term benefits

The beauty of direct outreach is the relationships you build along the way. Rose gets it!

"Direct outreach means getting out there and meeting people and companies. I get to know the person or company, and by doing that, I gain not just an understanding of of what a potential client is looking for, who they are, and how they want their product to be portrayed." – Rose V., Lenovo Pro Community member.

While it may seem like a small investment of time and energy upfront (10 minutes?!), the relationships forged through personalized communication can yield enduring returns. These connections develop into loyal clients and advocates; they contribute to the steady growth and sustainability of a small business, paving the way for sustained success and expansion.

Here’s an example

I’ll use myself as an example. I have, after all, spent the past six years growing two businesses – mostly alone.

Instagram, for example

I have 3100 followers on Instagram. Usually, conversion will require at least seven viewings of persuasive, informative, and valuable content to convert. That’s 14+ hours of work for me.

I also need to engage to get my content to trip the algorithm. Then, that content only gets pushed for 24-72 hours (on average).

My conversion rate will be ~93 clients in 14 hours of work. But that’s only if 3%+ of my audience is actually my ideal client, and I spend the time getting them from my social channel to my sign-up page and through checkout.

With seven launches so far, I’ve amassed exactly a 0.004% conversion rate per launch. That would be about 12 clients if I use the real conversion rate I’ve achieved (and that’s usually about right).

Linkedin, as another example

My profile is optimized, I share my work regularly, and I do targeted 1:1 networking efforts. Over the past four months, I also started to do content marketing. Honestly, the direct outreach does more for me than the content marketing (and I secretly enjoy it more!).

I’ve got about a 25% conversion rate on LinkedIn LOIs (sending a connection request and adding a note). Every post I make that sells something (even subtly) converts at least one person, too.

It takes me ~5 minutes to write a post, and less than 20 minutes to send an LOI and follow up three times. This has been my highest and most enjoyable conversion rate so far!

It’s built me a long-term sustainable business. In my first four years, I send over 3,000 connection requests. In the past two years, I haven’t had to pitch or send LOIs at all (although I did keep networking anyway). My business thrived solely on referrals and people coming to me – thanks to my robust network and profile optimized for LinkedIn searches.

Plus, I’ve made some incredible friends.

SEO Blogs

I’m going to take my friend, Polly Clover, as an example for this one since I don’t personally put a concerted effort into my own blog (I do SEO blogging every day for clients instead). She started blogging for SEO consistently in 2023, about a year ago.

A year later, she’s been able to get multiple clients from Google! But when she first started, that wasn’t the case. She was getting almost all of her clients from direct outreach on LinkedIn and using Upwork to supplement. 

It takes more time and is a long game, but it works if you stick with it consistently. Plus, it’s can be easier to hire out for this (and social media content).

What will you do?

So, what’ll it be for you? Will you try direct outreach? Stick to your current content marketing plan? Make a new strategy that incorporates both? Honestly, both are effective in their own ways! But I love seeing solopreneurs able to cut down on their marketing time and build a network that serves them.

Find her on LinkedIn and her website.