How To Build A “Content Marketplace” With Arbitrage

How To Build A Content Marketplace

I read an interesting article on Gaps.com.

It was about “disrupting the industry” of content marketing.

First things first; I’m not a fan of the term “disrupting.” It’s imprecise, means little and goes straight on the bonfire with “growth hacking” and “personal branding.”

Anything can “disrupt” an industry according to the vague and daft definitions thrown around.

Anyway, the article said that the content marketing landscape could use an overhaul.

I agree. Getting good content at a good price is tough. You either have to hire your own team and manage them, create the content yourself or drag yourself through the horrid experience that is trying to find freelancers on most freelance websites.

As a freelancer, you either have to market yourself very well, write for peanuts or – gasp, shock and horror – get a real job. Or I suppose you can work twenty hour days for a marketing agency. Slowly but surely you might work your way up and get reasonably well paid for writing content.

Or you can live the pirate’s life, set your own terms and use your skills to create your own projects while writing direct response work.

Your choice.

Anyway, the article correctly pointed out that most freelance websites are terrible and getting good content was a struggle. So far, so good.

But the treatment wasn’t so great.

The Big CONTENT MARKETING INDUSTRY DISRUPTOR

…Is apparently a pre-written content marketplace where you can see the content; or are at the least given branded content ideas before you buy anything.

The above looks like a plan where young millennials could go to Silicon Valley, create a shiny logo and dupe a bunch of should-be-retiring baby boomers to invest a ton of money. You could do that, raise millions in funding and then throw your hands up and say, “Well, what happened there?” when inevitably someone five years on realises that the market place doesn’t need you and you don’t make a profit.

Here’s the problem with the “build a pre-written content marketplace” business: content is effortlessly stolen.

There’s a reason you can get a 1000 word article written for cheap, and there’s a reason people aren’t paying $10k per blog post like they would a sales letter.

That reason is that content is easily copied, pasted and if you’re lucky, rewritten.

Imagine paying for “21 Things You Can Do To Live A Better Life” only to find that you’re $5k out of pocket and  someone who follows you on Twitter releases “22 Things You Can Do To Live A Better Life” the next day…

How I’d Make This Work

…That’s assuming you can even keep the content secret.

If you let everyone sign up to your new marketplace, then people are going to look, take the ideas and probably the content. They aren’t going to pay for that privilege.

Kind of like website auction sites now – you can browse them, take the idea, content and keywords, and build your own.

Do people still sell websites? Yes… but if I were to sell a website, it’d be a very private affair. Do people still buy websites on auction sites? Yes… but when you weed out the e-commerce ventures (not content based: product based) and no-hopers looking for turnkey solutions, that’s a large market share gone.

So here’s what I’d do if I were in the market for creating an online market place that sold pre-written content.

1. I’d abandon the “gig-economy fun for everyone” style thing. Private only. We want a very exclusive client list for this. That ensures we get deep pockets and people who aren’t going to scam us. (Also, exclusivity is a selling point people don’t want to lose.)
2. Content providers would be the same… incredibly vetted, well paid and preferably consisting of small teams or niche experts.
3. Charge a premium for everything, buy real estate in some exotic locale and invite people to exclusive expos
4. Probably target recently funded VC start-ups and charge retainers for all of their content needs
5. Create an old-boy’s network in the digital marketing niche, buy exclusive nightclubs, re-do all the above steps and generally expand that way

Final Thoughts

This is extreme information arbitrage as a business model. It’s the gig economy articles I wrote put to an actual idea.

There is nothing unworkable about that system, and it’s perfectly achievable with a bit of investment and some networking skills.

Best of all, you could run this using the same methods that Gary Halbert would have described way back – probably with no money down.

You send personalised letters to the people who might want exclusive access to content. You could send personalised letters to the best content creators you could find on Upwork, YouTube or wherever… and you simply become the middleman for the two.

You say to the medical content writer “Hey… stop working for $20 an hour, we’ll pay you $200” and you say to the medical tech start up “Hey… stop paying $200 for shitty content, we’ll give you an expert for $2000.”

Your value – if you decide to go the pre-written route – would be to magically understand what the startup needed before you sent them the direct mail.

Ultimately though, if you get this right, then you can get a high quality, exclusive business going with little trouble or competition. Also, no industry disruption or venture funding required.

And the exotic beach location is sure to follow.