Careful what you measure 

In a mastermind this week, we tackled a question I hadn’t answered before: How much time should you reasonably spend on a single blog post?

She had spent about 8 hours on her latest, which, despite being really great, felt like a hefty investment of her limited time.

As a staunch advocate of content marketing — the thing that’s fueled my business — I was surprised when I began to agree with the voices saying it didn’t seem like the best use of her time.

I struggled to justify the ROI of such a big investment when our schedules are jam-packed with to-dos that promise quicker, more tangible returns.

Yet, I was conflicted knowing what a huge impact content marketing has made on my business:

Content Builds Brand: By showing up and offering value consistently, you build trust and recognition.

Content Fuels SEO: Each well-crafted piece of content creates a new pathway for people to discover your business.

Content Creates Connection: People are able to feel like they know you without ever having spent a minute with you (this is especially true of video content)

I left the meeting a bit confused as to why I believed content marketing is worth the effort while simultaneously feeling like my friend could make better use of her time.

Thankfully Aristotle answered this question about 2,400 years ago when he said “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Writing one chapter doesn’t complete the story — it’s the collective power of chapters that build a book, and eventually, build a library.

The value of content marketing — at least in my experience — is rarely ever in the ROI of any single piece… It’s in the collection of content as a whole.

And the more I thought about this, I realized it’s universal truth. It’s the same when you reach out to a client “just because”, go the extra mile when you see an opportunity to help someone, or read an extra book to your kid at bedtime… If only measured by their impact in the moment — in isolation — they might not make much of a difference.

But there is a massive ROI in a collection of them.