Let the Archiving Begin

by David Andrew Wiebe | Jul 29, 2022 | News

Produce the minimum amount of content for the maximum amount of results. Too many companies bury themselves in content: sales decks, testimonials, thought leadership articles, case studies. Half of it goes unused or unseen. More content does not mean more leads or business. The equation of “the more busy I am, the more successful I am” is just not true. – Robert Rose

Reflection offers an opportunity to identify and integrate necessary life and business lessons.

After taking a near two-month long sabbatical from the content hamster wheel that was rapidly swallowing my life whole, I have begun to see content creation from a whole new perspective.

Rose’s quote tells most of the story. But I picked up another key insight from him, which is that if someone interacts with your content, and they leave with a bad taste in their mouth, they’re unlikely to return.

That got me thinking.

I embraced James Schramko’s own the racecourse methodology around 2016. This involves setting up a blog with categories that relate to your audience’s paint points and rolling out a steady stream of news pieces, updates, reviews, and other articles.

I still believe strongly in the model and it’s viable strategy even today… if done right.

At the time, though, content and SEO were like the Wild West. Everyone was in a mad rush to land grab their chosen keywords, pumping out new articles like it was a Piranha feeding frenzy. Quantity was the name of the game, oftentimes to the determent of quality.

As much as possible, I focused on producing and curating quality content for my business, Music Entrepreneur HQ. Over the years, though, we had many requests for backlinks and guest posts. We said “no” to most, but sensing an opportunity, we acquiesced, and the bloodstream of our ecosystem was suddenly flooded with infographics, essay writing services, and generic nonsense. Eventually, some lesser content slipped through the cracks. In hindsight, it was like injecting the wrong ingredient – let’s say large quantities of pickle juice – into a perfectly good cake mix.

Although we did our best to update, consolidate, and/or eliminate old content, it was a far cry from a thorough content audit.

I was so caught up in working in my business that I had no time or energy left over to work on my business. I couldn’t see the bigger picture. I couldn’t see that being busier simply wasn’t going to lead to desired outcomes.

Finally, I realized it was time for a change.

Realistically, I knew I couldn’t pump out dozens of articles per day like Entrepreneur or Forbes, and even if I could, I would need significantly more traffic to my sites to generate even a few hundred dollars per month from advertising and affiliate sales.

There’s a way to make it as a creator or independent entrepreneur. But publishing more for the sake of publishing more isn’t it.

It takes hard work to get the attention of a reader, listener, or viewer, never mind keeping their attention. So, I can’t afford to keep content that turns people off my brands.

And so, the time has come to archive content, and the archiving has already begun. You can expect many posts from this site, Music Entrepreneur HQ, and even our YouTube channel to start disappearing.

This doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to access this content anymore. We’ve created (or are in the process of creating) multiple options for you.

First and foremost, members of Elite Players: All Access Pass (tiered access to come) will always be able to dive into a ton of archived training, podcast episodes, and blog posts.

Secondly, some of the content is being compiled and put into books.

Finally, if you haven’t already signed up for our free PDF Vault, know that there are over 100 eBooks, blog posts, podcast transcripts, cheat sheets, and other great resources stashed away in there (and we plan to add several hundred more).

You will need to enter your email to sign up for the PDF Vault, and you will automatically be added to our music marketing newsletter, but hey, we want to connect with you in a more meaningful way, and we hope you feel the same way.

It’s time to embrace something I’ve been teaching for years – clearing the clutter. Clutter takes up mind space and doesn’t pay the rent, and it’s high time I let go of things that no longer serve me in the present.

Expect archiving and locking content to be a regular part of our new workflow, because we will lock away what isn’t generating traffic or business. But there will always be a sizable body of free work you can enjoy at your leisure.