You’re not attracting the wrong clients. You’re publishing the wrong content.
👋 Welcome back to Content to Commas, your weekly playbook to monetize, grow, and build authority in your niche.
I’m big on a concept I call “position over pitch”.
Cold calling, pitches, and outbound emails are tedious. I’d rather create content that pulls in qualified leads, offers, and opportunities.
But we’ve all gotten emails or DMs from the totally wrong clientele.
This week, I was chatting with an aspiring creatorpreneur who told me that 80% of their inbox are low level leads …. that’s not a fluke or a red flag. It’s a signal in my book.
Today, you’ll turn your content into a filter that attracts the right buyers or clients and quietly repels the rest.
In this issue:
Define “best-fit” so your content can reflect it
How to price signal in your content
Understand a “Platform Plan”
Weigh in on where you draw the line with AI → Take the survey
Let’s get to work
— Brandon Smithwrick
Some say AI makes us smarter. Others say it makes us lazy.
Truth? Both can be true.
👆 Take the survey
That’s why I joined Typeform’s Get Real campaign. They’re asking bold questions about how marketers are really using AI:
What do you automate?
What do you refuse to automate?
And should clients know when AI played a role?
Your answers fuel a public report the entire marketing industry will see.
🧲 How to Turn Content Into Clients
Content is a magnet. Or at least it should be.
The signals (“content”) you publish decide who feels invited to reach out.
If your posts are broad, you’ll attract anyone. When you get specific about problems, price, and process, you pull in aligned clients and deflect mismatched ones.
Your goal isn’t a fuller inbox (that’s actually a nightmare).
It’s a pipeline of inquiries that already fit your needs, budget, and working style before they ever hit your calendar.
These four ideas will help you reshape your content to attract who you actually want to reach.
1. Fit Check
Clarity beats busyness without direction.
When you define who you serve and who you do not, your content stops reading like a general ad and starts working like a filter.
Naming deal breakers is not negative. It saves everyone time and pulls in people who recognize themselves.
Your clarity becomes the reference for every post, page, and pitch you write.
Try this:
List 5 traits for “We’re best for…” and 5 traits for “Not a fit if…”.
Note the top 3 pains and the real job behind each.
Set a minimum project value and a typical timeline window.
2. Win Vault
Clients hire outcomes, not opinions.
You want to package proof so it sells in under a minute, then build a repeatable archive you can link to often.
Screenshot those wins and metrics to create a win vault.
Testimonials work, so I personally use Typeform to gather client testimonials after each project.
3. Money Talk
Hidden prices invite mismatched expectations and haggling.
The right buyers aren’t scared by clarity; they’re relieved.
So whenever you can, be upfront about your rates and state inclusions and exclusions to prevent scope drift before it starts.
Publish “What $X–$Y gets you” with line items and boundaries. (I save all my rates in Notion)
Share “3 budget killers we eliminate” to teach how you work.
Reference your range casually in posts and on your site to anchor. (subtle example)
Share your packages: “What a $7.5k LinkedIn revamp includes (and excludes).”
Struggling with rates? Here’s my Content Rate Formula
4. Platform Plan
Every platform has different discovery and intent signals.
I recommend that you map buyer types to the channels they actually use so you stop putting the same post everywhere.
Match formats to stage:
Deep dives for email (👋)
Teardowns for LinkedIn
Quick wins for IG
Allocate your time where buying happens, not where vanity metrics spike & prune channels that don’t move the pipeline for you.
For each buyer type, pick one primary channel and one secondary.
Buyer A = LinkedIn primary, email secondary.
Buyer B = email primary, IG secondary.
Assign a weekly format per channel that serves the buyer’s next step.
Spend 70% of effort on primary, 30% on secondary.
Figure out: “Where our best clients hang out (and what we post there).”
👇 keep reading for more…
📖 Steal my playbook plan (publish in 60 minutes)
I weekly turn posts into pipeline for new business.
This system is to make your feed a filter and your inbox a lineup of the right clients.
Fit Check: Write two lists (we’re best for / not for), name three real pains with the job behind each, set a minimum project value and a typical timeline.
Win Vault: Turn one recent result into Problem → Plan → Process → Payoff, include a single headline number and a clean screenshot, then keep adding to it weekly.
Money Talk: Share your range and what it includes, name two exclusions to prevent being priced out, and state how communication and timelines work.
Platform Plan: Give each buyer a primary and secondary channel, match formats to intent (email deep dives, LinkedIn teardowns, IG quick wins), spend 70/30 on primary vs. secondary and cut the rest.
Run this for a month and watch who reaches out shift.
Quality rises, calls get shorter, and yes comes faster because the sorting happened before the first message.
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Catch up in minutes:
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🤖 Where do you draw the line with AI? — Share your take
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Brandon Smithwrick
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