There are over 150 million content marketing blogs on the Internet (that’s a conservative estimate). Millions of books are filled with digital marketing strategy and content marketing advice. Several thousand of those books are considered essential reading, while a few hundred have reached immortality in professional marketing circles and college curriculums.
Collectively, the CopyDash staff has read thousands of hours of valuable content about copywriting and marketing strategy. The more we consume, the more we’re sure of one thing:
The Rule of One is the single best piece of content marketing advice we’ve ever read.
What is the Rule of One? What is its one simple, monstrously powerful message? And who is the person responsible for its creation?
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What is The Rule of One in Marketing?
The Rule of One is a writing and marketing strategy that couldn’t be simpler:
“Write about only one thing at a time. Because one good idea, clearly and convincingly presented, is better than a dozen so-so ideas strung together.” (Ford)
The Rule of One emphasizes focus as the core principle behind valuable content. Every piece of copy should focus on one clear, simple message. Every sales piece must center on one simple offering.
It’s a simple principle — but how much of your content marketing strategy actually follows the Rule of One?
If you’re competing on price and delivery and features, you’re not following The Rule of One.
If your blog post offers solutions to 2 or 3 different problems, it fails the Rule of One.
Streamline your content marketing efforts around one central idea, and your content becomes easier to digest for readers — and easier to sell to inbound leads.
So who’s responsible with introducing The Rule of One to marketing pros? Michael Mastersen (sort of!).
Who Created The Rule of One?
The Rule of One is credited to Michael Mastersen, an American author and wealth-building expert.
Besides the Rule of One, Mastersen is the mind behind AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting and several other best-selling content marketing tip guides.
For decades, the name Michael Mastersen was synonymous with quality content about entrepreneurship and developing a successful content marketing strategy. The irony? “Michael Mastersen” was just the pen name of another marketing genius.
The Entreprenurial Genius Behind “Michael Mastersen”
“Michael Mastersen” is the pen name of Mark M. Ford, a brilliant American marketer and sales strategist. So when his work grew in popularity, why didn’t Ford start taking credit under his real name?
It’s probably because he believes in his own Rule of One. Why confuse his simple messaging by attaching more than one name to the work?
Ford is the author of several New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers about entrepreneurship, wealth-building and marketing strategy. He’s also chief growth strategist for The Agora, and a founder of the American Writers & Artists Institute (AWAI).
Lucky for us, he still posts insightful essays on his personal website.
Why The Rule of One Is Our Favorite Content Marketing Advice
The Rule of One is the best content marketing tip for increasing engagement and conversions. Focus on one service offering or one product offer in content promotion — a simplified message is an amplified message.
Deliver the concept of “one” in 5 key areas:
- One idea. Identify the core idea or concept behind your brand. Drive that core concept home in every part of your content marketing strategy. Are you selling value? Quality? Service? Customization?
- One emotion. Dig deep into the one core emotion you seek to draw out of your audience. What is the one feeling you want them to experience through your brand?
- One pain point. What one problem does your product or service solve above all others? If your brand offers 24/7 emergency plumbing services, define the core pain point most of your customers experience. (For example: the stress of a burst pipe at 3 a.m. with no one to call.)
- One benefit. Define the most beneficial aspect of your service — and be clear about it. “Peace of mind” is a great start, but why and how does that peace of mind happen?
- One conversion. Offer one conversion at a time. Don’t ask people to buy your product, sign up for your newsletter, and upgrade their service package. Pick one as your first offer, and upsell the others later.
The Power of a Focused Content Idea
Walk down the aisle of your local supermarket or grocery. Why are their sales so appealing?
“Pints of Ice Cream – Now 40% Off”
It’s The Rule of One in full effect.
- One product (pints of ice cream)
- One competitive offering (40% off)
There’s no confusing the message. There isn’t a paragraph of text underneath highlighting nutritional info, product quality, or brand history.
One focused content idea instills one emotion, defines one pain point, provides one key benefit, and offers one conversion option.
Great Content Must Be Easily Consumed
Easy-to-read blog content performed nearly twice as well as difficult content in 2023 (Semrush). Keep your message simple and focused, and center each piece of content around one core theme or message.
There’s a reason the best taglines and slogans are extremely simple.
- “Think different.” (Apple)
- “Have it your way.” (Burger King)
- “Belong anywhere.” (Airbnb)
- “The best or nothing.” (Mercedes Benz)
These slogans convey the core brand identity and offering in as few words as possible. Their brilliance lies in the ability to deliver a complicated idea in a simple phrase.
What if Burger King told consumers, “Hey! At Burger King, you can customize any menu option to your specifications. You can add lettuce to a Whopper, ask for no onions in a chicken sandwich — whatever you want!”
Fast food consumers want fast messages. They’d be halfway to Wendy’s five words into that explanation.
Simplified Call to Action = Increased Conversion Rate
A simplified call to action (CTA) with one definable action dramatically increases conversion rates for businesses.
PartnerStack increased its conversion rate by over 111% by switching their call to action text from “Book a Demo” to “Get Started” (Hubspot).
Open Mile reduced clutter and increased white space around its landing page CTA. Their conversion rate jumped over 230% as a result (VWO).
Take the guesswork out of your CTAs. Simplify the conversion copy, streamline your ask, and remove confusion and doubt in your readers.
TLDR: Ask people to do one thing, and give them a crystal clear way to do it. More people will say yes.
Apply The Rule of One to Your Content Marketing Strategy
Apply the Rule of One to your content strategy and watch your engagement and search engine results page (SERP) rankings flourish. Let’s dive into how Mastersen’s Rule of One factors into content creation, brand awareness, and conducting an audit of existing content.
The Rule of One in Content Creation
Common-Sense Marketing advises writers and marketers: “[T]he more points you try to cover in your sales copy, the less effective each point, and therefore your ad or promotion, will be.”
Let’s learn how to adopt the Rule of One across 4 unique types of content format:
- Blog content: Focus each blog article on one core idea. Instead of offering one solution to 5 different problems, offer 5 solutions to one problem. Simplify your concept, diversify your suggestions — not the other way around.
- Email marketing: Email marketing and newsletters must cover one topic at a time. Feature one article, one press clipping, or one service offering in each email blast.
- Social media marketing: Once upon a time, people loved Twitter because of the word count limit. Tweeters got to the point, kept it simple, and got out. Apply that concept to your social media posts today — one message apiece.
- Inbound marketing: Inbound marketing offers conversion rates 4-5x higher than outbound traditional marketing (Perk Copywriting). Don’t ruin that extra website traffic with a muddy presentation. Link inbound leads to defined blog articles, sales offers and landing pages that focus on one core topic each.
The Rule of One in Brand Awareness
Define the one core benefit and one core product or service your brand provides. Drive them home in your content strategy over and over. It may seem repetitive to you, but remember — you’re reading every article, webpage and CTA you write. Most readers will only ever see one, so make it clear and make it count.
Simple brand identity doesn’t mean simple strategy. High quality content requires a bit of stress over the small things. Can you deliver that message in half the words? Can you explain your brand identity in ten words or less?
Look for the simplest path for leads to digest your brand voice and identity — make relevant content for your core demographic. Aim video marketing to millennials. Write concise, compelling blog posts for avid readers. Utilize focused case studies and white papers for B2B content marketing.
The Rule of One: Conduct An Existing Content Audit
When time permits, assign an SEO copywriter with working knowledge of your brand to conduct a content audit of your existing copy and brand assets. The goal is simple: align current content with The Rule of One.
Ask the following 4 questions during your “Rule of One” content audit:
- Can I simplify my landing page to focus our message and optimize for SERPs?
- Which blog articles are prime candidates for QA and simplification?
- Are our existing email marketing and social media templates defined enough?
- Do our CTAs direct a potential customer to complete one clear, actionable step?
Address each question critically and thoroughly. You’ll optimize your existing content to meet your new standards.
Ask Us for Content Marketing Advice
At CopyDash, we’re grateful for Mark M. Ford (aka Michael Mastersen) and his brilliant Rule of One. It informs our content marketing strategy — not just in how we talk to clients, but the way we deliver valuable content to them at scale.
We like to think our message is simple — fast, optimized copy at scale. One hundred optimized articles in 60 business days, designed for growing businesses who want immediate engagement and conversion impact.
Schedule a strategy session with our founder and CEO — start your fast, scalable content campaign in 90 seconds or less!
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