$200+ Content. Would you buy it?

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ben10025

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Oct 28, 2013
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I have this idea brewing for a really high quality content marketplace but with equally high price tags.

Real high quality shit, stuff you'd see on Buffer's blog (The Buffer blog: productivity, life hacks, writing, user experience, customer happiness and business. Buffer is an easier way to share on Social Networks - you won't go back!)
, OK Cupid trends (OkTrends) etc.

I'm not talking about the $3/100 words crap. But thoroughly researched, well written, interesting content that actually has a chance of getting linked to, doing well on reddit, hacker news etc.

Would anyone here drop $150-$400 on a blog post? If so would you need to see the whole piece or would a sample and reviews be enough?
 


conjamuk said:
$150-$400 is nothing the big players pay much much more than that.
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Yeah absolutely, in that respect it's serious value for money.

What I'm talking about is pre-written content from vetted writers. No need to hire a content writer, trawl through odesk and spend half your time liasing with them.

Just a one-click purchase and post to your blog, there seems to be a space in the market for such a system at the higher end.
 
i'd pay max $150, also that on rare occasions .. but im sure there're people here who'd pay more
 
There's most definitely a b2b market for this type of high end content, and there are plenty of competitors already in the space. For example:

NewsCred | Content Marketing Software For Brands
https://www.ebyline.com/
https://contently.com/

There are also content libraries that "pre-write" content on various subjects. This content is available in both low-quality and high quality formats. Examples:

Buy & Sell Unique Content - GhostBloggers™ - Beta
https://www.constant-content.com
Buy Articles: Full Previews, Cheap Prices & Instant Downloads

Content marketing services are popping up as quickly as social media marketing "experts" appeared last year. Just like with SEO or CPA Marketing, it's probably a good idea to carve out your own real estate within a specific vertical as opposed to just selling "high end" content for the heck of it. Bigger companies, specifically Contently, have gone through several rounds of financing which could be a serious barrier to entry to new companies trying to sell to a mass audience. Niche down and profit.
 
Yes I would pay $200 for good content on the basis that it takes me more than a couple of hours to write an article usually so it would completely make sense. (plus I have other things & a bigger picture to manage). I've never bothered with the shitty $10 / 1000 words gigs, although I am looking on Elance for a couple of writers, but I'm in no hurry - I'd sooner find a good, solid, reliable & self managing writer for this particular site.
 
Only if there's a chance of the content going viral. You have to expect ROI out of every dollar you put in.
 
ben10025 said:
Would anyone here drop $150-$400 on a blog post? If so would you need to see the whole piece or would a sample and reviews be enough?
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I will add to this.

Blowing a load on the content itself, unless you have an even bigger budget behind promoting the content, misses the point. Authentic content written by someone who knows what they're talking about doesn't cost an arm and a leg, as long as you find the right writer.

Just because someone is doing research to write their article doesn't mean it's going to be good either. For example, a journalist who writes a well researched article about stock investing will never write a better piece of content than a stock enthusiast who writes their articles without much research at all and flies just off of personal experience.

People pay $$ for authenticity, not research.
 
A lot of interesting discussion in here but one thing I haven't seen mentioned is return on investment - something that every client needs to be able to realize.

In my experience, our clients don't spend money on us for "content" - they spend it for things like inbound traffic, a blog presence, lead generation, brand building, etc. The price doesn't matter if the end goal is accomplished to the client's specifications.

So, for your "$150-$400" blog post - what can you guarantee? Will it be a minimum of 2500ish words in order to ensure that it has a chance of a high SERP ranking, social sharing and conversion over the long term? Will there be somebody permanently participating in commentary - both on the website (if there's a comment section) and on social media wherever and whenever the post gets shared?

I could go on. In short: the price has to align with the value. If you can create something that does, it will be sellable.
 
tangy said:
In short: the price has to align with the value. If you can create something that does, it will be sellable.
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Wise words.

Every product in today's age, including content, is in need of buyers. So if you can whack something up that only a few can produce, and given you beat them at price point, I'd like to believe there will be quite a few takers.

First job is to identify your perfect prospects, though. That's where the game begins.
 
Good discussion guys, pleasantly surprised by wf!

Seems to be some strong competition in the market but definitely space for what I'm thinking of.
 
Andrew Scherer said:
Just because someone is doing research to write their article doesn't mean it's going to be good either. For example, a journalist who writes a well researched article about stock investing will never write a better piece of content than a stock enthusiast who writes their articles without much research at all and flies just off of personal experience.

People pay $$ for authenticity, not research.
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I disagree, I know lots of subject matter experts that can't write. At all. I've worked with countless business owners, sales directors, engineers, etc who have lots of great stories, fantastic skills and decades of experience in their industry, but open up Wordpress for them and tell them to write a blog post and watch what happens. It doesn't matter how many times you edit their posts, re-write them, or link them to guides on writing blog posts. With all the will in the world you won't change them. They might get "okay", but they don't have the time to invest to learn the skill.

It's not an either-or situation. You can have both great writing and authentic expert-produced content. You work with the client to determine what their prospects are interested in, what challenges they have, who they are, how many kids they have, how many times a week they wash their hair, whatever. You then spend time using your marketing skills to do appropriate keyword research, analyse trends in their industry (based on their insights), check out their competitors, write compelling titles based on that discovery process, etc..

From there, you can produce a brief for each post, have the client's expert review it (and enter their suggestions), then interview the subject expert on the topics of a handful of posts at once. You then have a journalist (who is great at writing) turn the brief and all of that expert knowledge and anecdotes into a compelling story that'll get read start-to-finish by the target audience.

Most experts can't write, and most people drastically undervalue writing as a skill. Having a native English person with a first class US/UK degree in History doesn't make someone a great writer. Having all the fabricated storage tank knowledge in the world, being a master salesman or running Google doesn't make you a great writer.

Lots of great whitepaper authors earn up to $1/word, and they're not subject experts. They're fucking good writers.

If someone can make a service that better quality controls writers, I'm all ears. I've tried virtually all the major marketplaces (not Contently, mind, will take a look) and face repeated problems with authors not delivering work on time, or just not understanding what makes content great. It's a huge waste of time, and to the extent that I've taken writing completely in-house. There's nothing I'd love more than to have a genuinely expert group of copywriters available on tap that get shit done, and can follow a brief. I'd pay a premium for that, and I'm sure there's a decent market for it.
 
Exactly my thinking. Writing is a skill, and one that few excel at.

Someone mentioned that $3/100 words wasn't crap. Sure, for some cases the content produced at that price is the best fit.

But for a real company blog, a blog where you're trying to build relevance, authority and trust it just isn't going to cut it.



mituozo said:
I disagree, I know lots of subject matter experts that can't write. At all. I've worked with countless business owners, sales directors, engineers, etc who have lots of great stories, fantastic skills and decades of experience in their industry, but open up Wordpress for them and tell them to write a blog post and watch what happens. It doesn't matter how many times you edit their posts, re-write them, or link them to guides on writing blog posts. With all the will in the world you won't change them. They might get "okay", but they don't have the time to invest to learn the skill.

It's not an either-or situation. You can have both great writing and authentic expert-produced content. You work with the client to determine what their prospects are interested in, what challenges they have, who they are, how many kids they have, how many times a week they wash their hair, whatever. You then spend time using your marketing skills to do appropriate keyword research, analyse trends in their industry (based on their insights), check out their competitors, write compelling titles based on that discovery process, etc..

From there, you can produce a brief for each post, have the client's expert review it (and enter their suggestions), then interview the subject expert on the topics of a handful of posts at once. You then have a journalist (who is great at writing) turn the brief and all of that expert knowledge and anecdotes into a compelling story that'll get read start-to-finish by the target audience.

Most experts can't write, and most people drastically undervalue writing as a skill. Having a native English person with a first class US/UK degree in History doesn't make someone a great writer. Having all the fabricated storage tank knowledge in the world, being a master salesman or running Google doesn't make you a great writer.

Lots of great whitepaper authors earn up to $1/word, and they're not subject experts. They're fucking good writers.

If someone can make a service that better quality controls writers, I'm all ears. I've tried virtually all the major marketplaces (not Contently, mind, will take a look) and face repeated problems with authors not delivering work on time, or just not understanding what makes content great. It's a huge waste of time, and to the extent that I've taken writing completely in-house. There's nothing I'd love more than to have a genuinely expert group of copywriters available on tap that get shit done, and can follow a brief. I'd pay a premium for that, and I'm sure there's a decent market for it.
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mituozo said:
If someone can make a service that better quality controls writers, I'm all ears. I've tried virtually all the major marketplaces (not Contently, mind, will take a look) and face repeated problems with authors not delivering work on time, or just not understanding what makes content great. It's a huge waste of time, and to the extent that I've taken writing completely in-house. There's nothing I'd love more than to have a genuinely expert group of copywriters available on tap that get shit done, and can follow a brief. I'd pay a premium for that, and I'm sure there's a decent market for it.
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Have you thought of maybe setting this up yourself? You seem to have identified a market and a price point already. Is it something you can do profitably?
 
mituozo said:
I disagree, I know lots of subject matter experts that can't write. At all. I've worked with countless business owners, sales directors, engineers, etc who have lots of great stories, fantastic skills and decades of experience in their industry, but open up Wordpress for them and tell them to write a blog post and watch what happens. It doesn't matter how many times you edit their posts, re-write them, or link them to guides on writing blog posts. With all the will in the world you won't change them. They might get "okay", but they don't have the time to invest to learn the skill.
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Writers come with all kinds of backgrounds. What you're talking about is taking a non-writer expert and trying to get them to produce good content. I've never tried that.
 
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