How Blogging Made Paleo a Household Name

Is your corporate messaging created with the zeal of an evangelist eager to share your story with the world, or does it drag out with the grim-faced determination of a reluctant laborer? Are you struggling to find readers/consumers for your content, or is your audience growing by orders of magnitude?

After many years as a journalist, sales and marketing exec, and consultant (not to mention husband, father, friend and all-around human being), it’s become pretty clear to me that the folks who find a love of purpose also are the happiest and most successful.

So wouldn’t that passion quite naturally translate into one’s own corporate marketing/storytelling?

Why Passion is Key to Content Marketing

Recently I was able to grab some time with Mark Sisson who, for those unfamiliar, has emerged as a leading advocate for the paleo lifestyle regime (metaphorical shorthand for resynchronizing our diet, rest, play and exercise habits with those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors).

What immediately stands out when you speak with Sisson isn’t just the topic itself, fascinating as it may be, but also the man’s intense passion. And by passion I am speaking not just of enthusiasm but also substance, thoughtfulness, humor, style.

It was much harder than I expected. But it also was ten times more rewarding than I expected.

Indeed, when you chat with Sisson you are struck by the remarkable consistency of his messaging and approach. Written or verbal, video interview or podcast, Sisson is the living, breathing epitome of brand consistency. His marketing content/messaging style isn’t so much a business practice as a natural offshoot of his very being. And, not surprisingly, he thinks all businesspeople and marketers would be wise to follow suit.

To read Sisson’s blog, for example, is really no different than any other form of contact with the man. The content is informative, occasionally humorous, delivered in a conversational style, and is suffused with an earnest intent that at the very least forces the reader to sit up and take notice.

Sisson leaves it up to the reader to accept/reject his thesis, but the approach, quality, style and consistency of his message effectively force those same readers to at least consider it. And ultimately isn’t that what any marketer wants – consideration of the message?

Blogging, Ironman Style

After discovering his passion for paleo, so to speak, Sisson initially gravitated toward television and, specifically, sponsored messages on local cable programs. But as television morphed into the pricey, low-return multiverse that it is today, he transitioned to the Web and, specifically, blogging, reasoning that content publishing has less to do with the medium than the message (with apologies to Marshall McLuhan).

The process, says Sisson, was eye-opening. “It was much harder than I expected” (remember, it’s Mark Sisson’s Daily Apple – that’s a lot of blogging over seven years). “But it also was ten times more rewarding than I expected.”

Initially Sisson figured he’d blog for a year, “run out of things to say,” and simply repurpose all that archival content into different products. But in an awakening shared by many ardent bloggers, he found that “the more I researched and learned, the more doors that opened and the more I had to write and share with others.”

After a year of daily blogging Sisson had roughly 1,000 online visitors per day and wasn’t sure he’d ever reach the tipping point to success. Like the ironman competitor he once was, however, Sisson persevered (fueled, again, by his passion for his message) and today his blog has 350,000 ardent subscribes and generates roughly 150,000 – 200,000 unique visitors per day.

“We have voracious readers of our content,” he said. And producers.

Indeed, customer-generated content has been an enormously important part of Sisson’s success, with countless disciples of his ‘Primal Blueprint’ sending in their success stories about how they shed pounds, overcame illness, and learned to rest, play, and enjoy life.

To date his blogging has led to the publication of 10 books (with at least that many more titles in the works), a series of in-person events around the country, and a growing publishing business that he is careful to infuse with the same brand approach and passion with which he started the business.

In fact, Sisson has become the de facto voice of the paleo movement, the two brands essentially interchangeable. “I must be doing something right because much of the time now when I Google something for research purposes my own stuff ranks first,” he laughs.

Sisson said that while he hasn’t altogether eschewed other modern techniques – e.g. SEO, social media, analytics, etc. – his focus (and success) remains on creating compelling, enjoyable, useful content.

The challenge with many of these techniques, he says, is that companies aren’t focusing on the right things. “It’s not about seeing how many ‘likes’ you can get or how many numbers you can accumulate on a social media site,” he says. “It’s the quality of the relationships you have with the individuals reading your content.”

It’s not about seeing how many ‘likes’ you can get or how many numbers you can accumulate on a social media site.

Sisson believes that many of the existing incarnations of old-line businesses such as public relations and book publishing are dead or dying, and that it will be increasingly incumbent on businesses themselves to take on these tasks via the Web and the content marketing opportunities it portends.

Of his own forays into those waters Sisson says: “It really has been a labor of love,” and it’s in our efforts to translate that passion into our content that real dividends are reaped.

In his opinion the only effective way for businesses today to reach people “is to build an audience organically by giving them something they can trust and believe in. These are the individuals who will become your biggest fans and help you grow your business.”

Sisson’s advice to other businesses using content marketing/blogging?

• Write about what you love because you’re going to do it for a long time.
• Don’t be afraid to distill it all – i.e. don’t hold back the good stuff as some kind of a premium product. Give it away.
• Be willing to work hard.
• Love it.

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