How His First Business Sold a Service No One Asked For and Wouldn't Buy | Joe Pulizzi, The Tilt

The Professional Confessional

"The Godfather of Content Marketing" Joe Pulizzi describes how his first business flopped by selling the wrong service to the wrong audience.

• Joe's big mistake was actually two-fold. First, he fell in love with his product before his customers validated the approach. Second, he sold to the wrong audience altogether! His original target market of agencies generally never spent on their own marketing, even as they sold the service to others.
  
• Joe brought his business back from the brink by switching gears to sell what his audience was actually asking for -- education and events -- and by pitching the new approach to prospects that actually had money: In-house marketing teams.
  
• Today, Joe's Content Marketing Institute and Content Marketing World conference remain cornerstones of the profession. (I'll be attending CMWorld this week! I'm so excited.) Joe himself has since moved on to other projects, most recently the Tilt: A newsletter and community designed for content creators who seek to build their audiences first and monetize second... just as he should have done. You can subscribe to the Tilt newsletter using my affiliate link at PC-Podcast.com/JoeP. Hope to see you there!

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