Ep. 53 Consistency Isn’t the Problem: The Content Strategy You’re Missing with Dana Herra
If you've been dying to get off the content hamster wheel, this post is for you.
I sat down with content writer and self-proclaimed "writing wingman" Dana Herra to talk about one of the biggest traps that business owners fall into: creating more and more and more content with nothing to show for it.
Because here's the thing: posting five times a week or publishing 24 blog posts in a year isn't going to get you very far if it's not backed by strategy.
Dana's breaking down what actually useful content looks like, why consistency alone won't grow your business, and how to create a simple, sustainable content strategy that moves people toward working with you without burning yourself out.
We're also getting into when it makes sense to bring in outside support for your content and why doing everything yourself is maybe not the badge of honor we've all made it out to be.
If your content has been feeling random, scattered, overwhelming, or just plain ineffective, this conversation is going to be really helpful.
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Meet Dana Herra: Your Writing Wingman
Dana helps people who say "I hate to write" or "I tried and it took me forever and it didn't even sound like me." Those are her people because she's got them.
The way Dana works with her clients is simple: they get on a call (just like we're doing right now) and talk. She records it just for herself. Based on that call, she creates a month's worth of content for them, and it sounds like them. It's in their voice. It's their ideas, not ChatGPT's ideas of what's trending right now.
It could be articles, emails, social media posts, whatever. But it really builds your brand because then when somebody gets on a call with you, you sound like the same person they read on LinkedIn or in their email inbox.
As someone who sometimes doesn't mind writing but is never sure if I'm doing it right, Dana's approach is perfect: I can word-vomit a story to her, and her job is to make it sound good, convert, and do all the things.
Content vs. Copy: What's the Difference?
Before we dive in, let's get clear on something that confuses a lot of people: the difference between content and copy.
Content helps you choose. Copy helps you buy.
Content is how you build a relationship with your audience. They get to know you and think of you as the person who talks about X. Copy is when they've decided "Okay, I do want to buy productivity software," and now they're choosing which one.
Copy is the thing that actually makes the sale. Content is what builds that know, like, and trust that comes before the sale.
My rule of thumb? Copy is the sales page. Content is the thing that drives you to the sales page. It's the email, the LinkedIn post, the blog post or article that gets you to the point where you're ready to buy.
The Consistency Trap: Why More Content Isn't Working
I think for a lot of us, we feel like we're creating a ton of content and it's not really doing anything for us. And it makes us want to quit, right?
Where people are really missing a piece is the goal-setting part of content. Most business owners are either setting the wrong goals or (more likely) not setting goals at all.
The Wrong Goal: Making Content the Endpoint
The mistake that a lot of people make is they make the content itself the goal, and it's not.
Your goal is not to publish 24 blog posts this year. That might sound like a goal. It's got a number in it. It's got a tactic. But that's not going to drive your business forward. That's not going to do anything for your business, just writing 24 blog posts.
The goal is: What are your business goals?
Maybe it's to close six more clients for your consulting. Okay, how are we going to do that? Content is one piece of that. Well, one way is I'm going to drive more traffic to my landing page, and I'm going to do that by writing a blog post about a question that comes up a lot that I solve in my consulting, which will drive to the landing page.
The content itself shouldn't be the goal. It's easy to fall into that trap because we're trying to be consistent, right? It comes from a good place. I'm trying to build my reputation. I'm trying to build my brand. So I need to be consistent. And that's great.
But there needs to be a point behind the content you're making.
"I Tried Content Marketing and It Doesn't Work"
Dana can't tell you how many times she's talked to people who say, "Well, I tried content marketing and it doesn't work."
And when she asks, "Okay, well, what was it supposed to do that it didn't do?" they respond, "I'm not sure. Like, well, it didn't grow my business."
Well, how were you using it?
As Dana puts it: "You don't go to the store and buy a hammer and bring it home and be like, okay, why is this wall not built yet? I bought the hammer. I did the thing. No, you have to use it. And you have to use it correctly. You have to use it in the appropriate way to get the outcome that you want."
Why Consistency Alone Isn't Enough
The consistency trap is tough because we all think that's the answer. I used to (and sometimes still do) approach content thinking: I have to do five Instagram posts a week, one email every week, this many LinkedIn posts, and blah, blah, blah. As long as I check that box, then my business will grow.
And it never does.
I get to the end of my month or three months that I said I'd be consistent for, and I think, "Okay, where are all the clients?"
While I think being consistent is important, here's a fitness analogy that makes this clear:
If you're trying to run a marathon and you're really consistent with your training, but on your training runs you're only running one mile, you're never going to be able to run a marathon. Yes, you're consistent, but you're consistently doing the wrong thing.
It's sort of similar to the "practice makes perfect" trope. Yes, it does, but not if you're practicing the wrong way.
So instead of "my goal is to publish 24 blog posts in a year," maybe it should be "my goal is to get 100 clicks to my website from my content in a year." Or whatever metric actually ties to your business goals.
Building a Content Strategy That Actually Works
So what does a content strategy that actually moves the needle look like? And more importantly, how do you keep it simple and sustainable?
Because the other thing is, we think content means we need to be in 85 different places at once, writing new content for everything all the time. Then it becomes a full-time job and we're over here like, "Hi, actually, I wanted to be a designer. What's happening?"
Start with Your Audience
When you're thinking about your content strategy (and this goes for all marketing strategies, by the way), you start with the audience because they're the people you're trying to convert.
What do you want them to do, and what do they need to know, feel, and believe in order to do that? Those are the big questions.
From there, you can figure out:
They need to know that we offer X, Y, and Z
Okay, how do we tell them that?
Is a large portion of our audience on Instagram? Are they on LinkedIn?
Where are they hanging out getting information?
The Sweet Spot: Where You Don't Hate Being
People are everywhere. Everybody's everywhere. You don't need to be like, "I hate LinkedIn but that's where my audience is."
If you hate it, don't do it. That's a big thing for Dana when it comes to sustainability.
Don't do things you hate. Find an alternative because there are always alternatives. There are so many ways to reach people these days.
That sweet spot is:
This is where your audience is
This is where your message makes sense
This is where you don't mind being and hanging out
Dana doesn't do Instagram. There are people who do what she does who have great success on Instagram, but she doesn't like it. It stresses her out. It doesn't bring her any joy. So she opts not to do that. She hangs out on LinkedIn. That's her sweet spot.
Conversely, she's worked with people who say, "As long as I don't have to post to LinkedIn." Okay, fine. If you really feel that way about it, then don't.
Because if you hate it, you're not going to do it well. It's not going to work for you. And you're probably not going to be consistent.
You Don't Need to Be Everywhere
It used to be really exhausting. In the heights of social media marketing, it was "Well, you need to be on four different social media channels, and if you're doing Twitter, you need to post 12 times a day."
Those things really don't apply any longer because of algorithms. That was back when you would show up in the feed just when you post. Now, thanks to algorithms, they're showing people what the user wants to see or what the user has indicated they want to see.
You don't need to be posting a billion times a day, and you certainly don't need to be everywhere.
Especially if you're doing this on your own, if you're a solopreneur trying to run the business, do your thing, and also wear a bookkeeper hat and a marketer hat and all the other things too:
Start with one channel that you really want to go all out on. Maybe two.
Maybe it's one social media and one email or Substack or something like that. And that's it. Limit yourself to those.
When you get to where you're comfortable, you're seeing some traction, and you feel like you're doing pretty well at them, then maybe you can add one more.
And if you want to add two more? You need to hire somebody.
Building Up Gradually
My piece of advice (that was given to me about platforms, particularly social media): Choose two. Choose one that you really love and probably one that you can tolerate but that you know is going to do well for your business.
That has worked well for me. Then as I've gotten more comfortable and better at repurposing my content, I've been able to layer in a few more.
Back to that health goal example: It's going to feel impossible to say "Okay, I'm going to walk two miles every day and drink 100 ounces of water and eat all this protein and do yoga and this and that and blah, blah, blah" if you try to start all of it at once.
But if you do one and you master that, then you add one more, then you add one more, all of a sudden you're going to say, "I'm actually on four different platforms and I'm crushing it on all of them."
Baby steps are important. One at a time.
When (And How) to Hire Content Support
Let's talk about hiring somebody, because there are a few scenarios where it makes sense:
Scenario 1: There's a platform you hate but you know your clients are on and you want to take advantage of it. (For me, that would be LinkedIn.) Maybe that's a situation where you hire somebody to do that for you.
Scenario 2: You just don't have the time. You're up to adding in three, four, five different platforms and it's just not sustainable for you to do it all yourself.
Scenario 3: You just hate writing. Period. You don't like doing any of it.
Obviously, hiring support is a big leap. For me, there was a lot of mindset stuff around that. "This is a thing I have to keep up now. I have to bring in enough income on a consistent basis that I can sustain having this person supporting me."
The other thing is that most of us weren't taught how to work with contractors, work with team members, or how to collaborate and be a leader.
The Mindset Piece
First, Dana wants to address the mindset piece because it's as much about that as anything else.
People don't have as much of an issue recognizing "I don't have time to do this anymore." That bandwidth is easily measured. You can say, "I just don't have time."
It's a little harder to get your mind into the place of "I don't like to do this."
Because then you feel like it's just a personal feeling. "Well, I should just suck it up, right?"
But it's not just that. It's about the best use of your time.
"If you're like, well, I don't like to write but I've got the time to do it," Dana says. "Okay great, but what else could you be doing with that time?"
It's a skill. I could change my own oil, but I don't. I would rather hire somebody to do that and spend my time doing something else.
Tomorrow Dana's taking her dog to the groomer. She could groom her own dog, but that is not the best use of two hours of her time. She would rather be on a sales call during that time while somebody else is doing it probably better and much easier.
There really is a switch into putting in that CEO mindset. You have a business. You need to make the best, most efficient, and most effective use of your time. That is a limited resource.
The "Suffering = Success" Trap
If I could interject: I'm inclined to say this is a me thing, but I think people listening are going to hear this and say "me too."
I think we, as women in particular, have conditioned ourselves to think that if we're not killing ourselves for it, if we're not suffering, if we're not working so, so, so hard, then we haven't earned our success.
To Dana's point: I have the time, or I could do it, or whatever... it's in our heads that we don't deserve support like that because we're capable of doing it ourselves or we do have the time.
Instead of giving myself this gift of hiring somebody who can do the thing better for me and free up my time so I can do something I'm good at and enjoy (and ultimately probably move my business forward and make me more money), I should just suffer through and do it myself because I can.
Wherever you're at, you deserve to be happy in your work. You are already worthy. You already deserve it. Full stop.
Also, you didn't start your business to be miserable. You probably started your business because you were miserable doing something else. If you want to hate your life while you're at your desk every day, just go back to a corporate job. That's easier than this.
There are way easier ways to kill yourself at work than trying to run a business.
Start with Contractors
Before hiring a full-time team member, especially if you're in that scared mindset about the pressure of bringing in enough to support somebody else who's counting on you, start with contractors.
They are not counting on you for their full paycheck, and you're not supporting their family. Start with a contractor, and that pressure is immediately out the window.
That's one of the reasons people are contractors: because we don't want to rely on one person to support our whole family.
Start with a contractor, and then when they're doing more and more work and their scope has grown, you can start thinking, "Okay, maybe I need to bring somebody onto my team."
How to Choose the Right Content Contractor
Focus on Outcomes, Not Process
Start by getting clear on the outcome you want, but don't get too hung up on the process because what you think you need might not be what you need.
Dana had a sales call about two months ago with someone who was excited about hiring marketing help. The more they talked, the more Dana realized, "I'm not the person to help you because you don't need marketing help. You need sales help. Your marketing is going great. You're bringing in leads and you're not closing any of them."
Don't get so hung up on the position you think you're hiring for. Instead, focus on the outcome you want.
As you're interviewing and talking to contractors, make that clear: "This is what I want." Then a good and ethical person will be the one to tell you, "Okay, well then you don't need me. Here's what you do need."
Hopefully, if they've been around for a while, they have people in their network they can refer you to.
They Should Have a Process
Ask about their process. They should have one. It should not be "Well, it's whatever you need."
That sounds great. It sounds very custom and very tailored. It's actually a big red flag.
If they don't have a process, they may not be that experienced, they may not be that organized, and it becomes like the blind leading the blind. They cannot get you to where you want to go if they don't have a process, if they haven't mapped the route already.
Every guest I've had on my podcast touches on this: Ask what results they've gotten for their clients.
If they're like "I can't share that" or they get weird about it, that's also a big red flag. Even if they've signed NDAs, they can still share, "This client who I can't tell you the name of grew their business by this much or got this much more traffic to their website."
If they can't give you any answer to that question, run the other way.
Experience Can Come from Different Places
Dana's not saying only 100% veteran people should get work. It should be commensurate, right? If somebody's asking veteran rates, they should have veteran experience to back it up.
Some of that experience might be corporate. Maybe it wasn't clients, it was corporate, and they haven't been freelancing that long. That's fine. They should still have a process and know what they're doing. They've already learned on somebody else's dime what they're doing and how to do it.
Maybe they say "I've been doing this for a year," but let them finish: "I spent 18 years in-house at corporations." The experience is there.
Having a Process Doesn't Mean Rigid
Some of us are like, "Well, I like to be loosey-goosey, and I don't like to have a process, and I want it to be custom to me."
Yes, that's great, but there should still be some sort of framework.
In my business, my process is: we do a strategy session, then a mood board, then your logo, then on and on. It doesn't matter what business you are, what your goals are, who your client is, we're still going to follow that process. But we might tailor how we do each of those things to you.
They need to say, "Here's step one, two, three, and here's what your deliverables are going to be." They don't need to tell you every single nitty-gritty detail, but they should have some sort of proven process.
Back to Dana's point: You're going to them because they're the expert. If they're expecting you to say "How should I write my LinkedIn posts? How would you like me to do my Instagram? How many times should we post to LinkedIn every month?" then you're thinking, "I thought that's what I was paying you for."
Exactly like Dana said, it's the blind leading the blind. You're probably going to have wasted a bunch of money. And even worse, you're probably going to have turned yourself off from hiring support again in the future.
What Working with a Content Writer Actually Looks Like
So what does working with someone on content look like tangibly? Here's Dana's process:
The Foundation
Start with outlining your goals:
Who are you?
Who is your audience?
What are we trying to do?
That's what's going to determine what kind of content you need and should want.
There's brand discovery:
Who are you?
What does your voice sound like?
What makes you unique?
How are you different?
What's your "one thing" (what you want to be known for)?
All of that groundwork is laid first.
The Monthly Process
Once you know what kind of content you need and you've established the scope of the engagement (how many pieces), here's how it usually works:
You get on a Zoom call about once a month and talk for about an hour. It's an interview. It feels like a conversation, but Dana goes into it like a journalist. She's researched what's trending in your industry, what people are searching for, what's trending among your audience, what they're thinking about.
From that transcript, Dana will write the content pieces you need: the articles, the emails, the social posts.
The Voice Work
When Dana first starts with somebody, she spends a lot of time on voice because she knows how frustrating it is when you've paid for content and you're like, "Yeah, but it doesn't sound right, so I need to rewrite it now. I may as well have just done it myself."
Dana has several tools she uses to numerically break down your voice:
Do you use metaphors or analogies?
How often do you use questions?
Other voice patterns and tendencies
She'll go back and read things you've written that you're happy with or proud of. She'll write them out by hand so she really absorbs your voice.
She'll study the transcript because one problem people have is that the way they write is not the way they talk. Dana studies the transcript of your call to figure out how you actually sound (your talking voice, not just your writing voice).
All of that is going on behind the scenes. You don't have to be involved in any of it.
The goal: when she delivers the content to you, you read it and think, "Yeah, that feels like me. That sounds like me."
Minimal Revisions
Dana works in Google Docs because they're easy to revise. You can make comments and you'll make revisions together.
Usually there aren't many revisions because you do that groundwork upfront. You've already established what this is supposed to do, who it's supposed to appeal to, and how it's supposed to sound like you.
That feels like a lot upfront if you're feeling overwhelmed. If the reason you hired someone like Dana is because you're overwhelmed, you're thinking, "Oh my god, I don't want to do all these calls."
But you do the groundwork upfront and it saves you the rewrites and revisions later.
Why Talking Works Better Than Questionnaires
When Dana and I first connected, she told me about her process: "We get on a call and we just chat for an hour." And I thought, "Man, that sounds amazing."
I can't tell you how many copywriters or content people I've worked with who send me a questionnaire that's going to take me two hours of writing to fill out. And I'm thinking, "Okay, well, the whole point is that I feel like I don't know how to accurately convey my thoughts in writing."
Dana's approach is extremely effective and really low-effort. You just tell her all the stuff she wants to know. Her journalism background really comes in handy because she knows exactly what questions to ask and where to dig a little deeper.
As one of Dana's clients said to her VA: "This is the part where Dana asks me questions and I just word-vomit. And then she turns it into something."
Yeah, that's pretty much what happens.
Things You Don't Realize Are in Your Head
People are more accurate and forthcoming when they're speaking than when they're writing, especially if they're not a super comfortable writer.
One of Dana's favorite things is when she gives somebody their content and they're like, "Oh, I love that line. I love that phrase. That is stated so well."
And Dana's like, "Yeah, those are your words. That is verbatim from our conversation. You said that."
If they were writing, they never would have come up with it because their head was just in a different space.
The Impact of Having Brand Strategy First
One thing Dana mentioned: what difference does it make both in speed and effectiveness when a client comes to her having done brand strategy work already versus when they haven't?
Things go a lot faster. You can absolutely hit the ground running faster because some of those foundational things are already done.
Dana's still going to do the voice work so she can get it into her head. But when you already know what your "special thing" is (your differentiator, your unique value), that's a whole exercise you can skip.
Even when you've done audience research first and you've really thought through who you're talking to and what's important to them, you can skip ahead in that initial engagement.
The effectiveness isn't necessarily better, but it's faster. You can get effective content out faster because you know what you're doing. You know what you're aiming for.
There's nothing wrong with testing the waters and figuring it out as you go. But if you do that brand work upfront, you're going to get where you're going a lot faster.
When we're talking about investing several thousand dollars a month in services like this, you want results as quickly as possible.
If Dana can come to you and in month one, the content she's creating is checking off those goals you set, that's going to make you much more inclined to continue investing. Versus if you come without clear strategy and she's having to do the job of a brand strategist for the first two months, doing testing and tweaking...
Let's say you've signed a three-month engagement. You get to month three and think, "I just don't feel like this is working for me." And Dana's thinking, "Well, that's because we only just actually started doing the thing in earnest two weeks ago."
The Long Game: Why You Can't Quit Too Soon
On that topic, another mistake a lot of people make with content is quitting too soon.
It's unfortunate, but it does take a couple months to get good traction from any kind of organic marketing.
If you need results fast, if you need that cash infusion, buy ads. Go the paid route.
Because as we said at the beginning of this conversation, content is where you're building that relationship with your audience, building that know, like, and trust. And people don't get to know, like, and trust you after reading one thing.
I have an episode about playing the long game in business and why instant gratification is great but also kind of useless. It makes us feel good for a second, and then what?
Content is the ultimate long game for two reasons:
Depending on what content you're writing, if it's a blog post, it lives for a long time. I'm still getting traffic to my website from a blog post I wrote in 2018.
It takes longer to gain traction. You're probably going to work with Dana or someone like Dana for three to six months before you really start seeing that snowball effect.
However, it's going to continue doing that for you for a long time into the future. Versus something like ads where you do get those quick wins, but as soon as you turn off the ads, it's over.
The Snowball Effect
Once that snowball starts rolling, it gets big fast. But you do have that buildup time.
You're absolutely right: you can stop paying for content. You can put your content on pause once you've got really good traction going. And it takes a while before it starts to peter out.
Content that Dana wrote for a client in 2018 are still ranking in first place. They're ranking in the AI overviews, which didn't even exist at the time she wrote those pieces.
That's a huge testament to investing in quality content from somebody who understands that yes, SEO and AI and all these things are constantly evolving, but the basic principles are not.
If you can find somebody who really gets that, your content will continue to work for you, even if you have to take a break or it becomes not a priority.
Versus those quick wins (like ads) where yeah, it'll get you some traffic and sales today, but what about next week or two years from now?
The Real Content Strategy
Hopefully, you’re feeling a little less nervous about hiring for content support and also starting to create content in a way that is more effective for them.
Not the hamster wheel of more, more, more that's still not doing anything, but content that actually moves people toward working with you without burning you out in the process.
Remember:
Content helps you choose, copy helps you buy
The content itself isn't the goal—your business outcomes are
Consistency without strategy is just busy work
You don't need to be everywhere—find your sweet spot
It's okay to hire help (you deserve support)
Content is a long game, but it pays off
If you're looking for somebody to support you in your content, someone you can just word-vomit at and have them make sense of it and create content that sells for you, connect with Dana using the links below.
🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned In The Episode:
➡️ Connect with Dana on Linkedin
➡️ Visit Dana's Website
➡️ Follow Morgan on Instagram @spechtand.co
🎧 Listen to episode 53 of The Six Figure Brand Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube
