Creating Content is an Investment, NOT an Expense

May 17, 2013 6:59 pm

When I saw this post on David Meerman Scott’s Facebook stream, I started cheering from my desk.

I’ve been saying this for a long time, just not articulating it as well as David.

…if you spend $5,000 in a given month on Google AdWords, the only thing you are buying are the resulting clicks of your ads appearing against the important phrases people search on to find your business. But as soon as you stop paying, your clicks stop too. This is the classic example of a marketing expense.

However, if you spend $5,000 in a given month to hire a freelance journalist to write a bunch of interesting blog posts relating to important phrases people search on to find your business, you will have assets that live on forever that will drive people to your content from the search engines for years to come. The content will have value many years after it has been paid for.

He goes into more detail, even showing a few ways to value your content. But to me, the HUGE takeaway is that your content belongs on the balance sheet, not the expense ledger.

Of course, I don’t recommend hiring a freelance journalist when you’ve got a resource like Shortcut Blogging at your disposal. We turn your own words into expertly written content…the content you would have written yourself if you had the time! You just talk.