Riddle: What’s the Type of Content You Create Once and Get Paid for Again and Again?
Content marketing is usually about creating a piece of free content whose purpose is to directly or indirectly play a part in bringing in future sales for a product or service of some kind.
Well, how would you like to create a single piece of content just once, but get paid for it year after year after? Does that sound like some kind of internet scam? It’s not.
In fact, there is a certain category of songwriters who actually achieve this amazing feat. They create one song and then make money off of it year after year after year.
Who are these songwriters? They are the writers behind Christmas songs. Want proof?
How the Song “Feliz Navidad” Suddenly Came to Be
It was the summer of 1970 and Jose Felciano was recording a Christmas album made up of classic Christmas songs. That’s when his producer and friend, Rick Jarrard, made a surprising suggestion.
He told Jose that he should create an original Christmas song, one that had lyrics in both English and Spanish. Jose then went into the other room to see what he could come up with.
He started messing around by singing the words “Feliz Navidad” and “Merry Christmas.” Suddenly out of nowhere the melody just came to him.
He didn’t know it at the time, but the song would go on to become one of the most popular Christmas songs. It would become as popular – or even more popular – than some of the classic songs he had already recorded that day.
Just how popular is that song?
- According to Billboard, this song has been heard on the radio by an estimated 3.8 billion people. Yes, that’s billion with a “B.”
- It is one of the top 10 best-performing songs on Billboard’s Holiday 100 chart.
- According to ASCAP, it is one of the 25 most-played Christmas songs in the world.
- In 2010, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
How’s that for a song that “just came to him” in the summer of 1970?
50 Years Later and That One Song is Still Going Strong
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Feliz Navidad. You heard that right. Jose Feliciano created one piece of content 50 years ago and he has been paid every year for it for 50 years.
So the story I started with, that you thought sounded like a scam, is actually the story Jose Feliciano has been living out since 1970.
There are some valuable content marketing lessons that you can learn from Jose and other Christmas songwriters that will help you to create content with a lasting impact in 2021.
I’ll share these important lessons with you in just a minute.
But first, you might be interested to learn this…
To honor the 50th anniversary of this still very popular song, Jose recorded a special version of the song with 30 top artists.
These artists include CNCO, Isabela Merced, Shaggy, Jon Secada, Jason Mraz, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Rachael Ray, Gloria Gaynor, Big & Rich, Michael Bolton, Los Temerarios, Sam Moore, and Styx. (If you’re interested in hearing it, you can find it exclusively here on Amazon.com. )
The Surprising Content Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from Christmas Songs
As I said, there are some valuable content marketing lessons that you can learn from Jose and other Christmas songwriters. I’ve packed all of these lessons in the video below.
In my video, you’ll discover:
- How to capture your audience’s attention
- How to create content that appeals to your audience
- How to create content that can appeal to your audience for years to come
- Two important content marketing lessons we can learn from Christmas songs
- Two takeaways that you can apply to your content marketing
- And three methods you can use to produce your content based on the way popular artists create and record Christmas songs
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Does it sound to you like I say, “Christmas sogs” at the beginning of the video? It does to me!
I’m not sure what happened, but let’s pretend it didn’t happen! Haha.
Sources for Article: Deseret.com, Billboard.com, and Chicago Sun-Times
In Case You Missed My Other Christmas Content Marketing Lessons
Today’s article is the fifth in a series of articles focused on content marketing lessons we can learn from Christmas.
If you missed the previous articles, you can read them here:
- A Charlie Brown Christmas: Content Marketing for Coca-Cola?
- The Secret Content Marketing History Behind Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Video)
- Did You Know the Santa Claus Story Came from Content Marketing Promoting the Union Army?
- Hallmark Movies: How to Exploit Patterns to Effortlessly Produce Powerful Content in 2021
By the way, if you’ve enjoyed these, why not just subscribe below? If you haven’t subscribed yet, what are you waiting for? 🙂
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