I come from a blue-collar family. It’s something I am extremely proud of. I’m proud of the values that it instilled in me. Growing up in the struggling rust belt molds you into something unique. I carry my father’s lunch pail from the coal mines with me to work to remind me of where I come from and how much was sacrificed to get me here.

Growing up, my dad used to talk to me a lot about the dangers of a “poverty mindset”. He always chided me when I made decisions based on short-term gratification. He encouraged me to be strategic in what I did, and there were no worse times around the dinner table than when I showed even the slightest hint of academic laziness.

At the time, I thought he was rigid and unreasonable. As I approach my 40s, I wish I would have listened more closely and been faster to adopt the principles he was trying to instill in me. Time has a way of illuminating the foolishness of our youth and the wisdom of our tribal elders.

Success and legacy come from investing in the things that last. Chasing the short-term “feels” are for teenagers and sport.

Content Marketing is about creating the media instead of underwriting someone else’s empire. It’s not less expensive. It’s different expensive.

Things that last and appreciate in value usually are.

Content marketing is about marketing for long-term success. It’s owning instead of renting. It’s about being the master of your own domain and steering your own ship

Here are three ways that content can save you from marketing with a poverty mindset.

1. Creating Content Saves You From Underwriting Someone Else’s.

To be clear, there are situations when renting and leasing real estate or vehicles make sense. There are opportunities to advertise in traditional markets that are worthwhile.

There are few agencies who place more traditional media buys in the Pittsburgh region than we do, but if you’re sacrificing the creation of your own content marketing in order to maintain a vigorous traditional marketing schedule, your marketing strategy is suffering from a poverty mindset. You’re investing in glitz and glamour at the expense of your goals.

The problem with traditional media is that you buy and then they die.

Traditional media buys are smoke signals on a windy day. When you invest in content marketing, you etch your messages on the cave wall for people to find and experience long after it’s launched, and in some cases, long after you’ve forgotten that they even exist.

There is nothing like getting new business from a piece of content that you forgot about. That’s what ownership does for you.

2. Creating Your Own Content Builds Brand Wealth.

Does anyone remember who the primary advertiser was for Seinfeld or The Big Bang Theory?

Of course you don’t. You were there to watch a piece of programming. The commercials were an interruption.

Brands like Purina understand the new age of marketing that we’re living in. While they still participate in traditional advertising, they also invest a good portion of their budget in creating original content where THEY ARE the programming and the ad for new sitcom or blockbuster movie is the interruption.

The more people interact with your content on a consistent basis, the better they understand what you’re about. The more clearly they understand what you’re about, the more they connect. The more they connect, the more loyalty you build.

That’s brand wealth.

3. Creating Your Own Content Builds a Positive Network of Brand Evangelists.

You don’t just want customers, you want brand evangelists. But brand evangelists don’t just happen overnight, you earn them. You cultivate them. You nurture them. You delight them over and over again with the way you solve their problems and make their life better. And, heck, if you’re able to make it fun along the way, all-the-better.

The best way to build this community of brand evangelists is to create the content that meets at the intersection of your unique expertise and the wants and needs of the market.

There are lots of ways to meet that market. You can entertain or educate them. You can inspire or inform where there is opportunity. Who you are should inform the content you create. No one is you, so no one can do it like you can.

If you want to build financial wealth, you hire a financial advisor. Here at EM, we build brand wealth. We want you to hire us to be your branding advisor. We want to build our success in the Ohio Valley, the Pittsburgh region, and beyond the confines of the tri-state area one successful client at a time. We’d love to sit down and see if your success plan is a good fit for what we do.

Click here to see what we do and how we do it, and then click below to set up a time for us to sit down over coffee or drinks to see if we might be the marketing agency that can take your business to the next level.

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