Welcome to Content Creator Corner, a monthly feature by content creators, for content creators (or those aspiring to be)!
These short interviews are a great way to meet other content creators that are actively trying to expand their reach. By following the series (and hopefully participating!), you may discover new potential partnerships. You’ll absolutely be able to empathize with the struggles, celebrate the wins, and learn new tidbits from others who get what you do!
Without further ado, it’s time to introduce this month’s guest: Jeff Root!
Content Creator Corner Interview with Jeff Root
What is your niche(s)?
Insurance
What types of content do you create?
I wrote a book called “The Digital Life Insurance Agent” (available on Amazon) and also blog on rootfin.com.
Why do you create content?
To be an advocate for insurance consumers and help them make the best possible insurance decisions.
What is your greatest strength as a content creator?
My ability to research hard to understand topics and explain them in a way consumers would understand.
What is your greatest opportunity for improvement?
Longer hours of focus to research, develop and write content.
Tell us about a time when your content really hit it out of the park. Please be detailed. What was the content? What was the intended result? What was the actual outcome? Why did it perform so well?
I in a sense exposed a financial celebrity for his blanket advice on a life insurance topic. The intended result was to rank in the search engines for a review of the topic. The actual outcome was this financial celebrity threatened everyone who posted a review of his advice with cease and desists resulting in all the bloggers deleting their articles…except for me and 1 other who banded together and fought for our 1st amendment right and won. It performed so well because we’re the only ones who have content on the topic and it cleared out all the competition.
Conversely, tell us about a time when your content really missed the mark. Please be detailed. What was the content? What was the intended result? What was the actual outcome? Why didn’t it perform well?
In my early blogging days, I’d write 300-400 word articles in an attempt for quantity, not quality. The intended result was to rank in the search engines for a lot of different keywords…the actual outcome was 5 years later none of it had any traffic so I deleted or redirected all of that content I wrote for over a year.
Have you ever had any accidental wins with your content? If so, please tell us about it.
A life insurance company got acquired and stopped selling insurance, so I wrote an article about what to do if you are a policy holder (really nothing you need to do at all – it was an article saying why you have nothing to worry about). It was cited by a bunch of news stations and I still get consistent traffic for policy holders trying to figure out what happened to the company they bought their insurance from.
Tell us about a time when someone else’s content made a lasting impression on you. What was the content? What impression did it make? Why?
Any time someone develops a free software tool embedded in an article as part of their content, it makes a lasting impression. So when I saw websites back in 2008 providing instant life insurance quotes, I knew I had to have that as well and I’ve been providing instant quotes since that day and building other on-page interactive tools as well.
What are your top tips or best practices for other content creators?
Don’t burn out, when you feel it coming, learn to outsource. Do the research yourself. Screenshare your outline and dictate the main points to make and send to a freelance writer. Then edit when you get something back.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I find writers on problogger job boards.
Every Day by the Lake Takeaways
Wow– thanks, Jeff, for sharing your insight and personal stories!
My top gleanings from your responses are:
• There aren’t enough hours in a day to create all of the desired content.
• It’s important to know your rights – and fight for them.
• Quality content is critical and staying on top of trends helps you to stand out.
• Burnout is bad. Hiring a freelance writer is good. (I’m a little biased here!)
I wholeheartedly agree with all of these – this is great advice for anyone’s content creation journey!
Thanks again for taking the time to participate in the series!
Reaching Jeff Root
If you’d like to learn more about Jeff or get in touch with him, please use the information below:
Email: jeff@rootfin.com
Website: https://www.rootfin.com