Is There Value In Playing The Long Game?

As marketers, we primarily focus on implementing strategies to achieve short-term goals, and there is nothing wrong with that. We've all got goals to meet.

But there is added value in playing the long game and making it part of a holistic marketing strategy.

What Is The Long Game?

The long game here refers to content marketing strategies implemented to educate and provide solutions to help the audience overcome specific problems.

It can be in a tweet, a blog, a newsletter, or videos; often, it's a mix of a few mediums to create a complete customer journey, from discovery to building trust to closing the sale.

The long game strategy is not new, yet digital creators seem to do it exceptionally well, and I want to dive in a little on what I've learned so far from two individuals.

The Value Of Playing The Long Game

I recently completed courses from two digital creators, Ali Abdaal and Justin Welsh.

Both shared learnings on building a content-based business on their chosen platforms.

Both stressed the fact that content creation is a long game.

What have they done to scale up their business to the success level it's at today?

1. They consistently create valuable content that addresses the audience's specific pain points.
2. They deepen the relationship through newsletters and audience engagement.
3. They build trust because they provide value first before $$$.

Both these creators excel at creating content that resonates, engages and grows their audience, a skill set that I think is rare in marketers and worth observing and implementing. More impressively is the fact that they grew their business purely through content with minimal to zero marketing budgets.

Here's how it's impacted their business:

• Ali Abdaal has over 2M subscribers on YouTube, and Justin Welsh has over 220k followers on LinkedIn. Their newsletter subscription numbers are equally impressive.
• In 2021, Abdaal made $3.5M, and Welsh made $1.3M.

It took time to reap the rewards, but if the numbers are anything to go by, it only proves that there is value in pursuing the long game.