Why Your Content Isn't Generating Leads (And Why AI Can’t Fix It)
AI can generate a pile of content exceptionally quickly. But its speed doesn’t help business owners get results from their content marketing if they’re not clear on what’s special about their brand and why customers should choose them rather than a competitor.
Have something worth saying
Business owners often think their content isn’t generating leads because they can’t create it quickly enough. They’re disappointed in themselves because they can’t find the time or the self-discipline to post frequently on social media or their blog.
AI might seem like the perfect solution because it can write at the speed of light. But brands may not get better results simply by generating more content more quickly. There could be any number of reasons content isn’t working that have nothing to do with volume or posting frequency.
To get results from content, business owners need to have something worth saying and to say it in a way that speaks to their customers. They need to position their brand as the solution to their customers’ problems. To answer customers’ questions and address their concerns. To demonstrate their unique perspective, expertise, and experience. To show how their brand’s different from their competitors — what’s special about their business, process, or product.
In this piece, I’ll talk about a recent real example of a business owner I spoke with, who was frustrated with her marketing efforts.
Frustrated by marketing that doesn’t work
She’d tried social media, blogging, and Facebook ads. She’d experimented with getting ChatGPT to create Instagram posts. Her website got some traffic, but it wasn’t translating into people getting in touch. Nothing seemed to be generating leads.
At first glance, it looked like a content problem. She felt that she lacked discipline and wasn’t posting frequently enough on social media and felt bad for abandoning her blog months before. But she also didn’t want to waste time doing stuff that wasn’t going to benefit her business, and creating content hadn’t had a great track record so far.
After talking with her for an hour, I realized the frequency of her content wasn’t the fundamental problem. The problem wasn’t something that AI’s speed could help with.
When I asked her why customers chose her business, she didn't really know. But I gradually discovered that her business has a real competitive advantage, a genuinely valuable unique value proposition that was far more than a neat marketing slogan.
A unique value proposition (UVP) is what makes your brand special and different. It’s why customers choose you rather than your competitors.
But she wasn't talking about her UVP. Not on her website, not on her social media, not in her blog posts.
She's a home builder, and her UVP is radical transparency. She gives potential clients fully itemized spreadsheets showing exactly how much everything costs, and where the prices might change throughout the course of a project. Clients receive regular updates with every supplier invoice attached, and clear visibility into whether they're tracking over or under budget. She adds no markup on supplier invoices — just a clear, stated percentage fee on the overall cost.
In an industry where cost overruns and unpleasant surprises are common, and where potential customers are legitimately scared of getting ripped off and stuck with shoddy or unfinished work, that's an important difference.
Honesty and transparency are non-negotiable values for my client, but she hadn’t recognized their marketing potential. She didn’t think of them as her remarkable Unique Value Proposition that she could make use of in her marketing content. Her UVP was hiding in plain sight because it just felt normal to her. She’s not alone in this. Plenty of business owners having a hard time seeing what makes them special.
What makes your brand special?
If you don't have a handle on:
Why customers should choose you instead of the next business they find on Google
What makes your approach different
What your best customers most value about your business
What makes your brand special
then AI can't help you.
Sure, it can create a month’s worth of generic blog posts and social media captions in a few minutes.
But AI can't tell potential customers what’s special about your brand if you haven't figured that out yourself.
It’s common for business owners to feel frustrated by content marketing. They often feel overwhelmed by the volume of content they think they need to create and the frequency with which they need to post it. They’ve heard they should post daily on social media, send weekly emails, write a blog post every month. They might try using AI to keep up with all that content creation.
But, in many cases, volume and speed isn’t the problem. More likely, their content failed to get results because it lacked a clear message.
If you have a fuzzy message, AI will help you spread it. But if you have a unique, crystal clear message, AI can help you spread that instead.
Other businesses will have different issues that result in fuzzy messaging. (For example, not knowing what problem they solve, who their ideal customers are, what their brand values are, what customer transformation they’re enabling, what their brand voice is, and so on.) In this case, my client didn’t know what her Unique Value Proposition was — even though she had a fantastic one! Every business owner needs to know what makes their brand special and outside help can be useful to uncover that.
So, do you know your brand’s UVP? What makes your business special and different from your competitors? Once you know this, creating effective content becomes easier. You’ll have a better idea what customer problems to address and which questions to answer. Your UVP can give you ideas for which objections you need to overcome and which customer stories to tell.
When you’ve got your Unique Value Proposition figured out (and you have clarity on some other aspects of your business too), AI becomes more useful. It can help you communicate your unique message — rather than pulling something generic out of thin air.
Generic messaging — which AI can quickly produce — doesn’t differentiate you from your competitors, so it can’t help you stand out from them.
But communicating your unique message, what makes your business different and special, can help you get real business results — more followers, more leads, more inquiries.
How to uncover your Unique Value Proposition
So, before you even think about asking AI to help you create more content, it’s essential to get clear on your UVP. You can start by asking yourself:
Why do your best customers choose you?
What do they praise most often in their reviews and comments?
What do you do differently from your competitors?
What would customers lose if they switched to someone else?
What do your competitors do that you think is wrong or mistaken?
Those questions are variations on the same theme and if you can't answer them, that's probably where you need to start work.
If you're struggling to identify what makes your business different, try asking three recent happy customers why they chose you. Their answers may reveal strengths you're overlooking.
Here’s an excellent and inexpensive video-based course that will help you get clear on your UVP: Website Messaging for Freelancers & Small Businesses
If you’d like a custom plan to improve your content marketing so it gets better business results, with less time spent, book a free discovery call to find out how I can help.