5 Common Types of Content That DON’T Convert

What if you could show up in your content like you do in your work: powerfully, and deeply in service of the community of humans you are already building?

And do so WITHOUT “giving everything away”…

WITHOUT spending all day, every day on social media…

WITHOUT having to be all over every platform in an effort to “find” your Right Fit clients…

And WITHOUT treating your audience like a commodity whose only value lies in whether or not they buy from you.

Well my friend, you can. AND — there are some things you need (or rather, GET) to stop doing first. Namely: creating the (8) SUPER common types of content that not only don’t convert, but that feel like a 101-level of your work and/or an inauthentic expression of who you are and the depth of the work you do. In this article, we’re going to cover (5) of them—though you can learn more about all 8 in our free 4-day training series, Conversion Content Breakthrough.

Ready to clear the content clutter so that you can create truly extraordinary and effective content that brings Right Fit leads directly to your digital doorstep? Let’s dive in ⤵️

Ineffective Content Type #1: Inspirational Content

The very first type of ineffective content is one that I’m pretty sure every single business owner has created at some point in their years in business: inspirational content.

Think about those quote graphics or Reels that are so cutesy, that might even get a lot of shares or views or other types of engagement, but that typically, 1) aren’t an expression of the true power of your work, and 2) don’t really lead anywhere, which means that all they really do is fill up your audiences’ feeds with fluff.

I know when I used to share these kinds of inspirational quotes in my Stories or posts, I thought, “Oh, I’m giving value to my audience! It’s a great quote!” But let’s really think about this: if you knew that there were people in your audience who were already actively looking for the exact thing that you sell, what type of content would you create?

That’s a great question to ask yourself any time you’re going to create content, but I ask it here because I’m going to bet the answer would not be “inspirational content,” which tells you a lot about what you already know to be true about how ineffective this type of content is at bringing Right Fit clients directly to your digital doorstep. 

A little bonus invitation for you here: if you are someone who is posting inspirational content like quotes and such, I invite you to consider why you’re doing this. If your answer couldn’t be “to give value,” what would it be? When I ask this question to my clients, we often uncover that sharing these inspirational quotes relates to a desire to hide behind someone else’s words, or, if they are sharing their OWN inspirational quotes or thoughts, it’s often tied to a feeling of “being not enough,” as in, “I have to give all of this free ‘value’ away because I’m not actually good enough or worthy enough or [whatever] enough for people to pay me or even pay attention to me.”

Notice whether that’s landing for you. Bet ya didn’t expect us to go there in a blog that’s “just about content.” 😉

Ineffective Content Type #2: Convincing Content

The second type of ineffective content is convincing content. I used to be offender #1 in creating convincing content early on in my business—so you’re in good company here if you realize you’ve been creating this type of ineffective content, too. Convincing content is any content that, you guessed it, is trying to convince your audience to work with you.

I was talking with a client a few months ago, and when she came to me, her content was all about “why you need to prioritize self-care.” Naturally, she’d find herself in conversations with humans who didn’t already think they needed to prioritize self-care. Why? Because that’s exactly who her content about “why you need to prioritize self-care” was talking to: people who didn’t know they needed to prioritize self-care, and therefore needed to be convinced.

Whenever I ask my clients the question I asked you before—if you knew that there were people in your audience who were already actively looking for the exact thing that you sell, what type of content would you create?—one little hesitation that often pops up in my clients’ brain is, “Yeah, but does that person even exist?” As in, “Are there actually people in the world who are currently, right at this moment, looking to work with someone like me/buy my services?”

If you found yourself asking that question too, then I invite you to consider something: could it be that the reason you’ve never—or, rarely—met someone who is actively looking for the thing that you sell is because you haven’t actually been speaking to them? You haven’t been creating content that attracts that person?

The person who is actively looking for a life coach: would they rather listen to a podcast episode about “why you need a life coach” or even “why I’m a great life coach,” or would they rather hear stories of how you’ve supported your clients’ through something like they’re experiencing right now so that they can get a feel for your style of work as well as inspired by what’s possible for them?

The person who is actively looking for a copywriter: would they rather read a post about “how hiring a copywriter saves you time and money” or do they already know that hiring a copywriter saves them time and money, and now what they REALLY want to hear from you is how you ensure your copy is trauma-informed so as to not cause harm while still attracting Right Fit clients into your work?

Let’s take this all the way though. Let’s say that you did actually bring someone into your work using convincing content. I know that earlier on in my business when I was frequently creating convincing content, I did bring in a couple of clients from my content. But let’s say that I created a blog post or even a TikTok on “8 reasons you need a business coach.” If that content is what drew someone to me—aka they were successfully “convinced” by that convincing content—they’re very likely going to get on the sales call with me and AGAIN want and need to be convinced. If I “successfully” convince them again, and they sign the contract and pay to work with me, I’m very likely going to have to keep convincing them that this investment was and is worth it.

This is exhausting. And not only is it exhausting for you, but it’s exhausting for this new client to constantly need to be convinced and wonder whether this was the right investment. Plus if you do have other clients, having to keep convincing this client one actually can end up draining you to the point where it starts to affect your work with ALL of your clients. (Ask me how I know.)

The energy that people invest from—in this case, the energy of needing to be convinced—often continues to show up throughout that investment. Imagine how freeing and exciting it would feel to work exclusively with clients who came to you already SOLD on the value of your work, and all you then had to do was keep showing up and doing the stuff you actually love doing. No convincing needed.

This is what happens when you craft extraordinary and effective content by the way, but more on that in another conversation.

• Related post: You don’t need to convince prospects to buy from you (here’s what to do instead)

Ineffective Content Type #3: Quick Tip Content

It’s so funny, as I was building out a training that talks about these types of ineffective content inside our marketing incubator, Marketing Magnified a couple years ago, I took a break and was scrolling on Facebook and I literally saw the most perfect example of this ineffective Quick Tip content.

The post read, “Struggling with anxiety? Here’s three things you can do: 1) Take a couple deep breaths. 2) Go on a walk. 3) Repeat to yourself, ‘I am safe.’”

Now, if you’ve never dealt with debilitating anxiety like I have, then let me share how this felt: “Are you F*ing kidding me?!” Like, if only it was that simple. 

Out of curiosity and because I love this kind of thing, I decided to dig around their website and was able to at least surmise that they sold services that were going to help someone like me who did, and sometimes still does, “struggle with anxiety.” I say “surmise” here, because their website copy took the exact same “quick tip,” surface-level tone so I don’t actually know how deep and powerful their work could have potentially been.

But literally, here I was in that moment, someone who very likely could have been their Right Fit client, and this Quick Tip content completely alienated me, because I knew I needed something deeper and much more holistic. If this is how they teach to deal with anxiety in their content, then how am I to know whether or not they actually will go any deeper in their work?

Can you imagine how much more effectively this content would have spoken to me—likely a Right Fit client for this person—if, instead of telling me to simply say, “I am safe,” it gave me a real practice to use to FEEL safety in my body? Or if instead of telling me to breathe, it drew my attention to the fact that anxiety often makes us breathe more in our chest instead of our diaphragm and invited me to experience the relief of a FULL breath? Do you see how moving beyond Quick Tip content not only is way more effective at speaking to your Right Fit client, but it’s also way more extraordinary content that stands out on social feeds and email inboxes alike?

Ineffective Content Type #4: Hide the How Content

A big fear for so many business owners is that they might “give too much away” for free in their content, and so they end up creating the next type of ineffective content: which I call, “hide the how.” If you’ve ever worried about this, I invite you to really think about this: could you ACTUALLY, ever, let’s say in the next year, give away every single part of your work? 

Early on in my business when I was a social media manager, I decided to create a free course on social media. Which is hilarious to me because all these years later, here I still am talking about marketing, which I couldn’t have guessed would be the case back then. At the time, I felt like marketing was way too gatekeeped in our online business world, and so I was determined to put everything that I knew about social media into a free course. It was going to change everything. 

I had over 100 people sign up to take this course. And you know what happened? I kept having more and more and more and more and more to say. The deeper I went with things, the more I discovered that I knew, until eventually I had to stop, because chances were, none of those 100+ people who signed up wanted to watch hundreds or even dozens of hours of content. I had to choose what was going to be most valuable for them to get the intended result of the course—and sharing every single thing I knew about social media not only wasn’t possible, it wasn’t actually even valuable for the Right Fit client for this course.

It’s actually not possible to give away every single part of your work. Because just like I did, in the mere act of trying to do so, you would naturally expand your understanding of your work, your work would then become even more nuanced and even deeper, and you would literally be caught in an endless cycle of trying to give away all of your work but never being able to keep up with yourself because you’d always be expanding your work.

This is a big part of why I’m so in love with the art of crafting extraordinary and effective content. Because doing so allows me to more fully explore my work, expand my work, deepen my work, nuance my work, and understand the unique value of my own work. Crafting extraordinary and effective content not only makes my work better, but it quite literally sells me more and more and more on MY own work. 

Of course, you do not need to follow this example and go out and try to create a free course that shares every single nook and cranny of your work. Because merely by learning to craft—and then consistently crafting—extraordinary and effective content, you’ll have the same effect.

Plus, not only do YOU become more sold on the unique value of your work when you craft extraordinary and effective content, you also end up becoming the only person—who does what you do—that your audience wants to work with, because now they see the true power of your work and they love how YOU do your work. And so they come to you pre-sold on working with YOU. (Fun side effect here: crafting extraordinary and effective content is also a super magical replacement for trying to come up with a “unique value proposition,” which you really don’t need until you’re quite established in business anyway.)

Now, yes, there is value in learning how to distill down what you’re educating on or talking about in your content. But we don’t distill our content down because we’re afraid of “giving too much away,” we distill it down because when you can FULLY answer a question that your Right Fit client is asking, and do so in one piece of content, that’s wayyyyyyy more valuable for your audience than a super broad, leaves loose threads hanging everywhere piece of “value” content.

• Related post: How to Create Value Content Without “Giving Everything Away”

Ineffective Content Type #5: Theme-based Content

This one is super simple. A lot of times, business owners think it’s “easier” to create content based off of a theme—such as, “It’s February and Valentine’s Day is coming up, so I’ll create content this month about relationships and love.” This approach can work, but only if—and this is a big IF—the theme is really obviously connected to your work, and not only to your work as a whole, but to one very specific offer that very likely explicitly focuses on this theme.

If you’re a theme-based content type of person, I invite you to instead explore creating content from the perspective of:

• First, what is the transformation or result of my offer that I’m intending to sell right now?
• Second, what content speaks to the person already actively looking for that transformation or result?
• Third, does this theme fit into and align with that content?

If you’re going to use themes in your content, ensure the theme fits into and aligns with the content, instead of trying to fit your content—and therefore your offers—into the theme.

The final 3 most common types of ineffective content…

There are three more SUPER common types of ineffective content, that end up alienating your Right Fit client rather than attracting them: Pain Point Content + TWO types of Educational Content that educate on the wrong thing. These three final types of ineffective content require a bit more of an in-depth conversation than the format of this blog allows, so I invite you to join me inside our free 4-day training series, Conversion Content Breakthrough, to learn both how to spot these types of content AND how to skip creating them in favor of crafting truly extraordinary and effective content, instead.