I was in sunny San Diego this past week for some vacation.

As I was relaxing, I thought I could check Twitter for a second.

Bad idea.

I saw the stock market going down FAST.

Luckily I put my phone away and kept soaking up that sun.

As I was flying back home to Seattle, I couldn't help but think about the future of DTC and content creation for brands.

A few weeks ago I wrote about content creation in a bear market, but I need to make a few extra points since I last talked about this subject.

You are probably becoming budget conscious with marketing, so here is how I suggest you invest your money in content creation.

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1. Great photos and videos can be repurposed in many channels

You still need to invest in content and marketing, but you need to focus on where you allocate your resources.

"UGC" (not actually user-generated) is being pushed by lots of "gurus" and you can see a flood of new creators offering their services to brands to create UGC.

This seems cheaper than a professional shoot, but let's take a step back.

These UGC videos can only be used for ads and then maybe TikTok Organic.

That's it.

On the other hand, one image can be used in many different places:

WebsiteProduct PageLanding PageEmailSMSAdWithin VideosBox InsertsMailersBillboards / OOH

TEN PLACES!

You can't reuse UGC videos that much and the creative dies in a week or two on TikTok or Facebook.

Also, many UGC creators are new, so even though they are cheap, they might not be at a level yet to help your brand.

I am not saying that these UGC videos are worthless, but if you are thinking about getting the most value out of your dollar, getting nice photos and videos created is better for you in the long run.

Find a creative partner that can do quarterly shoots so you can break the payments up into three months and get a lot of content for the three months.

You can use the images and videos even beyond the three months which makes it more valuable than constantly dealing with a lot of UGC creators to then get content that can't be used in most places.

2. Invest in organic moments

Organic is not free marketing.

Let me say that again.

Organic is not free marketing.

If you send some product to an influencer, you have to pay for the cost of goods and shipping.

If you create videos on your TikTok, you either are paying someone to do this or you are paying with your time.

But if I was a brand, I would be investing in organic!

I would take some of the ad spend budget and get products to influencers/creators.

I would also spend money building one organic channel - for most DTC brands, that should be TikTok.

If money is an issue, then you need to set the TIME aside to start creating those videos on TikTok.

The cost of acquisition is rising and with attribution issues, scaling ad spend is not easy.

Most brands jump right to paid without building a strong story or exposure to their brand first.

Focus on organic and then slowly scale your paid side using the data and insights you have gained from organic.

If you have a good organic channel, you will have an easier time with ads, as well as understand what your customer loves to see and not see, which takes the guesswork out of ad creation.

3. Focus on editing

Going back to point #1, this is a time to be resourceful with your content creation.

Learning how to repurpose content will be imperative since production can get expensive.

Here are four ways to transform one type of asset into another.

Your photos can be stitched together to make videos.Videos can be cut and rearranged to make new videos.Add text on your photos and you can have graphics.Take your graphics and animate them to make new videos.

You can start to see how powerful one image can become which makes the upfront cost worth it!

You don't want to get a lot of cheap content to save money.

You want to be EXTRACT as much value from your content to save money.

Editing allows you to supercharge one video into many different assets that can be used not just on ads but for SMS, email, organic, and more.

Finding good editors will be imperative to saving you money in the long run.

4. Cheap can be expensive

You can't meet a more frugal guy than me.

But being cheap has hurt me, and my business has grown when I stopped being cheap.

It might feel like a no-brainer to go with the cheaper option but be careful.

There are a lot of new "creators" flooding the market because they see an opportunity to make money, but that also means there are a lot of inexperienced creators out there.

We all had to start from somewhere, myself included (thank you to the first people who trusted me because I am not here without those people), but you need to really look at portfolios before you invest in the creators.

Cheap might sound good, because you save money, but cheap content that doesn't work is expensive.Cheap can mean that you spend time managing the creative partner which is also a resource cost.

Having a partner that can execute content creation for all of your needs, not just UGC can be powerful for you as a brand.