Marketing + Margaritas Episode 9 - Content Marketing Strategy
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We’re back and we’re serving up another fresh episode full of insights. This week, we’re talking about content marketing strategies. Sounds complicated, but no need to panic as we break it down and show you how simple it can be. Stay tuned, take advantage of our free content calendar download and master your very own content strategy for your business or brand.
EPISODE 9 SHOW NOTES
Topics covered in this session >>
What is a content marketing strategy?
Distribution channels for your content.
Mapping out your content.
Repurposing your content.
Hello and welcome to Marketing + Margaritas with Jade and Alanna. Today for episode 9, we are talking about content marketing strategies. Jade, what is it? Why should we be doing it? How do we do it?
Right. Excellent. Okay, good lead in.
Just throw it all at ya!
I'll just answer everything straight upfront, shall I?
All right. What is it?
Well, a content marketing strategy - it sounds complicated - but it's actually the easiest way to consistently and effectively market your business online. All it means is that you're going to be creating original, interesting, thought-provoking, relevant content for the people that you want to attract and all your current clients as well. You're going to be creating it consistently, and you're going to be making sure that you just leverage the absolute truck out of it.
Yeah. Okay, so you're creating awesome stuff that's going to be your marketing for your business.
And there is a strategy behind it.
Oh, my God!
Pretty much, it just boils down to that. If you're going to go through the effort of creating a really good piece of content - just think like a video or blog, or whatever it might be - if you create one really good piece of content, just making sure that you get as much out of that content as you can.
Right.
So, one example of this is, like I said, video. Say I create a video - well, I wouldn't because I hate video - but for normal people, they create a video.
Normal people.
Well, I feel like everyone else in the world is pretty cool with video. It's just me sitting over here being Scrooge. But if you take a video about your top three tips for doing “blah blah.” I'd be giving an example, but I'm sure it would probably be around gardening or snails or something.
Let's go “top three tips for making a cake”.
“Top three tips on something I know even less about”. Right, so top three tips for making a cake. From that video, you can either create a blog or transcribe it and give it a bit of a tweak. There's lots of free apps online that you can upload your video to and they will give you a transcription of the actual words, and then you just give them a little bit of a finesse to turn it into a blog on your "top three tips for baking a cake".
Nice and easy.
Then from that, from the actual wording, you can go through and pull out quote graphics or a strong statement, that sort of thing. So it could be something like, "the best cakes are always..."
Light and fluffy.
Yeah, exactly. Then that's a graphic that you would use on your socials with the post then pointing to your blog or the video or whatever on your website. Then from that, from those three main tips, you can create a three-part live video series. You could be like, "Each day for the next three days, we're going to be going live on Instagram with our top three tips for baking a cake. Make sure you tune in at 8am each morning and we'll give you the lowdown that's more than just your mother's recipe" or whatever it might be. It just keeps snowballing from there. So, you've got your video, you turn it into a blog, you pull out graphics from it, you can turn it into tips - you could post each of those tips separately. You could dive deep on one of those tips. There's just so much that you could do. We're going to go into it more later but if you just think, creating a video is time and effort or it's time and money. Well, it's still effort, really. If you're going to put that time and effort and your money into it as well, you just want to make sure that you're pulling all of those other really good, unique, useful pieces of content out of as well. I think that's something that we forget sometimes. We create something and then we're like, "oh, phew! That's done. Yeah, I'll put it on my blog. I've put it on my website. I've chucked it on a few socials and stuff. Onto the next one." And it's like, "Well, no, keep repurposing that, keep reusing it, keep just extracting every bit of goodness you can get from it." That sounds weird.
It's so true though. Don't let that one good thing that you've done go to waste. Look, it doesn't have to be video, either. I know Jade started with that and she's the most 'anti-video' a person will get. But another good one is if your business is doing a case study blog. Say you've just done a project, it's gone really well, your client was really happy with it. You've written up a case study blog to go on your website or go in your capability statement, anything like that. That's something else you can use to leverage. So, you can pass it across your different platforms in different ways to really get the best bang for your buck with that. An example of this is if you're on Insta, you're going to focus on a really visual aspect of it - so, if you've got a "before and after" - that's going to be really cool to put up.
Yes, everyone loves "before and after", man. Especially on Insta, you see a lot of it where it's like, Here's the after shot. Swipe across to see what it looked like beforehand." Or vice versa. That's an excellent example for Insta.
On Facebook, you're probably going to talk a little bit more about what the project included. You're not going to go through the full case study, but it's going to be a little bit more detailed. And you can even do a photo album of how the project progressed or any highlights that you've mentioned. When you're posting about it on your LinkedIn page, you'll take more of a professional tone and say, "We're really happy to have partnered with Client A to achieve this."
Tagging them in that, of course.
Absolutely. "To achieve this project and deliver it within budget and in the timeframe." That kind of thing.
"Well done team."
Exactly. It's a slightly different message and a slightly different visual there as well. Posting it as a testimonial on your website as well as in the case study area of your site, is really good. You can use them by grabbing quotes and put them at the bottom of your website, on your home page and stuff like that.
Which can then obviously be translated into quote graphics to use for your socials as well. If you're that way inclined.
Absolutely.
I'm not always the biggest fan - I know we've got clients that do it, I'm not totally against it - but I'm not the biggest fan of testimonial graphics about you on your socials. I don't know what your opinion is, but I just see it and I guess I don't mind when other people do it. I just think that I would never do that.
Yeah, fair enough. I think it depends on your business and if it aligns with your brand. Also, on a platform like LinkedIn, I think it's definitely a good one to pop it onto. And you can do it exactly like I said a little bit earlier, "We really enjoyed working with this client, so glad that they were happy with it." And then have your visual as the quote from them or just a pullout sentence. It doesn't have to be the whole thing if it's long, just something that stands out.
I guess it's like anything. When it's done well, it's fine. And I think I've just seen so many people kind of just like...
You can do it a lot.
Yeah, and they do like a little cheesy sort of "Oh my God, we love you guys so much." And you're like, "Uh, you don't really mean that." And then it's a really long quote about themselves and it just seems... Yeah, I don't know. It's... Yeah...
I hear what you're saying, but you're sounding a little cynical right now.
Me? Never.
And then another way you can pop it onto your website is by doing a project gallery, so a photo album of the work that you guys did and how it came to fruition. So, there's five different ways you can post one piece of content without it being a video. It can just be a project that you do. It's a part of your business. It's a part of something you're doing every day. Add a little bit of work onto the end and you have a heap of content you can leverage.
And it's original, it's relevant and hopefully it's interesting. And if it's the work that you're actually doing as well and you're proud of it, I think that gives a good vibe to people, too. Because then it's like, "oh, they must really love what they do."
Absolutely.
People like working with people who enjoy doing what they do.
And people really like to see behind the scenes.
Oh, hells yeah.
Something like this where you're actually doing a case study about the work is gold.
Because to you it's like, "oh, I do this every day. It's so humdrum. Whatever." To the rest of us, it's like, "oh, so that's how you lay a concrete slab." You know what I mean? I don't know about you, but I've been caught up watching video where it's the most seemingly mundane things like concrete pouring out. And I'm like, "oh, I never knew that that's how that works." Because it's so far removed from my own life, you know?
Exactly. Not everyone lives in your shoes. And another thing I want to point out right now is that this content isn't likely to expire - so you can reuse it.
Yeah, that's good too.
If you have a look at your theme days for when you're doing social media, if you do a throwback once a month to something like a project that was six months ago. And even if it's a physical project, like you've built a building or something, and all the gardens are lush and tenants have moved in, you could do a throwback from how it is now, to how it was when you first did it. That kind of stuff, you can keep repurposing. So this won't expire, necessarily.
Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's just that whole concept of how can you be continually leveraging that content that you've created.
Definitely. Alright, so, distribution channels? What are we looking at there, Jade?
Basically when we think about getting our content out there, we think of Facebook and LinkedIn and stuff, but it's not just thinking about Facebook or LinkedIn. There's a lot of opportunities within social platforms to get your content out there. And there's also potentially some other different channels that you might not think of ordinarily as well. Also, just remember, not every piece of content is going to work on every channel, either. Lani and I want to give you - not a full list - but a big list of different distribution channels. But that doesn't mean that you would need to post something to every single one of those...
On the same day when you launched one of them. Don't do that.
Think about where would that content work? What audience is it best suited to?
Right off the bat, you think of Facebook, that's our predominant social media platform that everyone's using. So posting on Facebook, you can just do it as a straight up post - "Hey, I'm wrapped up at work today. This is what we're doing." Just nice, quick, and easy. You can do an album of "before and after", like I was saying. You can use your stories for a little bit of behind the scenes, little bit of finished product, that kind of stuff. Videos, if you're that way inclined, whether you guys do videos in-house or you get someone in at the end of a project to do something really professional that you're going to use for tenders or on your website.
Remember your videos are not always just footage. You can do videos that are maybe a little bit of footage or even just stills. Photos that are strung together to make a slideshow. Something cool with some music and stuff or what's the other thing?
Boomerang.
Yes, Boomerang. That's a really easy, entry-level video maker for people to get started with. Boomerang's an app, if you haven't heard of it before, it's free to download. I think it takes a snapshot every three seconds and there's like six of them or something, and then it just loops them over and over again.
I think it's less than three seconds. But yeah, it kind of looks like a GIF almost, when it's finished.
Yeah! That's a really good way of explaining it.
A live GIF. So, whether it's a live post or a live story on your Facebook, that again is another way of utilising video.
Second off the bat is Instagram. Again, your stories, your posts, your videos, your lives, your reels - they can all be collated material, like we were saying, a slideshow video, a boomerang or just a straight snap.
I don't think we've done a reel for Rebel yet?
No.
We need to get onto that. That could be fun.
Yes.
We should do one on our scavenger hunt... sorry!
Spoiler alert.
Okay, so moving on, LinkedIn. So with LinkedIn, again, you have your normal posts which you can post as an individual or you can post from your company page. If you want to know more about LinkedIn posting, the difference between company LinkedIn and personal, then go to that episode where we talked about LinkedIn. Number eight?
Number seven.
Number seven, I was so close. It also has stories. So, this has been relatively new. I think it's only come about in the last six to 12 months that LinkedIn's got stories, but they were pretty much just the same as Facebook and Insta, except that the designs and the stickers - there's not as many of them and they're a bit shitty. But other than that, the actual functionality and stuff works the same.
Sorry, LinkedIn!
Yeah, not sponsored by LinkedIn. Some people have lives as well. So, Facebook lives is something that you have to - well, last time I looked into it - you've got to apply to actually have the capability to do a live from your page.
Do you mean LinkedIn lives?
Yeah. What did I say?
Facebook.
Oh sorry, I meant LinkedIn lives. I'm talking about LinkedIn. Yes, so you go to apply to have that functionality on your profile. But then there is also articles, as well. So it used to be called... Something that's gone straight out of my head, but LinkedIn used to have a blogging section.
That's a really long name.
Something. Shut up. Oh, my God, that's so annoying. Anyway, I'll think of it later.
It doesn't matter, they don't have it anymore.
Because now it is called "Write an article". You know when you go to do a post on LinkedIn, there's actually a link there that says "Write an article" or something instead. That's the blogging part of LinkedIn. And there's some really cool - I won't get into it - but there's some really cool stuff that you can do in there as well. I can see Lani going to me, "move on, woman!" Okay, so they're kind of like the three bigger social platforms that we like to use. But there's other socials, obviously, that you can post to if you do have them. So things like Twitter, Snapchat, if you are that way inclined, YouTube, TikTok.
I made the mistake of downloading that the other day, to have a look for a client.
Made a mistake? It's so much fun!
I lost two hours.
That's what I mean.
It's not good, it's been deleted.
Oh, man, you are harsh.
I don't have the time in my life.
Disciplinarian. So yes, so there's all those other social platforms and stuff that, depending on what you use for your business. There's Houzz for those that are in property. Ok, and then there is your website. When you think about adding content to your website, if you've got a blog or a 'latest news' kind of page, then yes, that's obviously where you want to be posting new content consistently. Whether you start off monthly, work up to fortnightly and try and make it to weekly, because that's generally - I mean, not that there's a golden rule - but that's kind of like a sweet spot to have new content is weekly. But apart from your blog, think about your website as a whole. And I know we bang on about this a little bit, but your website is a living, breathing, marketing force.
Tool?
I don't know. I am not
Moving on.
If you have content that - like Lani was saying before about the case study - then it's updating your portfolio page. Or for example, you might go on your home page - if you've got a section-y kind of home page, then you might add a breakout section that is, "Here's a snapshot of a recent project that we completed." I'm doing hand gestures and everything that you can't see on podcasts.
Yeah, like right here.
Can you can see that? If you can't see this, you really probably don't know what I'm talking about. So it's not just like, "Oh okay, we've got a blog or a video. We'll upload it to the blog or the news page", it's going, "Okay looking at our website, how can we use this content to keep the website fresh?". Just remembering that it's good for SEO, it's good for user experience. All of that helps the two main things that you want for your website, and that is obviously ranking on Google for relevant keywords and then attracting and converting people to actually work with you and your business.
Absolutely.
Look at it in its entirety and not just that blog section.
And so two areas not to forget - and I feel like that they kind of relate to your website - is your enewsletter. So if you're doing a newsletter, make sure you include that content in there. And again, you can break out those little tips.
So if you did the three-tip video, pop your little video in there. Whenever is good spacing for your newsletter, do a link to your 'Three Tips' blog. "Hey, have you read our blog about how to do this?" Pop in a little quote graphic from your pull-out and keep repurposing that content. Obviously, unless you’re doing a campaign, I probably wouldn't run them all consecutively, I'd split them up a little bit so that content is not repeating itself and the audience isn't going to switch off. But that's definitely a good way to keep leveraging.
And your email signature. So, at the bottom of every one of your emails, you've got your name, your business, hopefully your phone number and contact details. But that's also really good real estate for pushing what you're doing at the moment.
Prime real estate.
Absolutely. Get your key messages into there and update it regularly.
And remembering, too, that your email signature can be used as a pointer, you know what I mean? It's not just the thing that sits at the bottom of your emails with your contact details. You can actually use your email signature to point people in the direction that you want them to go to. So a lot of people will just hyperlink it to their website. Nothing wrong with that. We always want website traffic, but if you've just uploaded a new case study, then you might have an email signature that is a snippet of one of the photos with just some text over the top...
With a call to action!
Saying, "Check out our latest case study." Well, you'd probably want something slightly more exciting than that and more relevant to the actual case study - and then link it through to that actual page. An email signature I think can be so underutilised by people. I think when people do campaigns they remember to use it. But for example, ours at the moment, it actually points to this podcast. The podcast is not a campaign, it's not a once-off, it's just something that we're having a crack at. And so we're promoting the episodes through our email signature rather than just being a generic "Rebel's amazing. Go to our website," type deal.
Yeah, it's one of your marketing tools. Don't forget about it.
And we always send so many emails and stuff a day, man. I think this is something that can be very underutilised.
And you can do it really well, but it definitely stands out when you're not utilising it or if you've had the same thing for twenty million years.
It's just an opportunity missed, I reckon.
Definitely.
But that doesn't mean that you want to have the most gigantic email signature, either. Still keep in mind how big it is, and how the viewer is going to be seeing it, too.
And if you do send a lot of emails off your phone, make sure you update your email signature there as well.
Oh yes, true.
Sometimes it doesn't always come across. So don't forget that one as well.
I don't actually know if mine is.
Right, continuing.
Ok, so more distribution channels. Something that we don't always remember are our strategic partners. That's just a wanky marketing term for the people that you are kind of in cahoots with when it comes to business.
We're in cahoots, for sure.
For example, it could be organisations that you're a member of. Here in Mackay - well lots of places have a Chamber - we've got Mackay Region Chamber of Commerce and we've also got Mackay Tourism. We're a member of both. So if we had a piece of content that was like, "what you need to do to make sure that your website stands out," then we might go, "Okay, Chamber and Tourism audiences would actually probably really benefit from this. This is not just generic promotion about us. This is something really educational and useful." We'll send it along to them so they can put it on their socials, so they can pop it into their newsletter or whatever it might be. Strategic partners can also be, like I said, people that you're in cahoots with - your business friends. So, for example, we've got an IT company that we work with really closely. I'm going to name drop - TranTech!
TranTech Computers.
Ah, whatever. Same diff. So, Tranter and I've been friends since high school - not friends since high school - we've known each other since high school.
You weren't friends back then.
We weren't. We really weren't. But I've approached him before about writing articles to put into Wild Oats - which is our weekly newsletter. And he does a little bit of email marketing and stuff himself, So we've talked before, if I was going to be launching - like we're hopefully launching something quite big later this year. If we do that, then he's going to be one of our promotional sources as well. Strategic partners are just those people who are there, who are wanting to support you and who have their own communication networks that you can tap into, if they are a relevant audience. Tranter has got an IT company. We do marketing. So there's a massive crossover for our audience. Whereas if Tranter was a baker, I wouldn't be like, "here's my website content for you to put into a newsletter to all your baking customers".
No, that's not going to work.
Exactly. Obviously, you've also just got whatever regular marketing you do for your business. So, for example, with us, we do a podcast once a fortnight. So that's obviously where we do put content. But some people will sign up to media packages. So you might have a three month radio branding campaign or you might have a 12 month press ad package, any of those kind of things. Instead of just having your generic branding ad, you can actually be reusing that content. You want to get your name out there and what you can do and all that type of stuff. But if you've got your three tips for creating the perfect cake, if you were to use something around that concept for the ad instead, you're just giving people value straight out the gate. If you're offering something up like that for people to capture their attention, but also just show that you're in business to help people.
Exactly. You could give me three tips to make the perfect cake, but I'm not going to be a world-winning baker tomorrow.
But obviously, I would be. That's all I'm waiting for, is just those three perfect tips and then I'll be little Miss Sally Homemaker in the kitchen everyday.
Goodbye, Rebel Nation. At the end of the day, they might not be able to do that service themselves. They'll still need a professional. So if you're giving them something for nothing, you're creating credibility, your creating a relationship. You're telling them, you know what you're doing. If they can get started but can't finish whatever the project is...
Guess who they're going to turn to?
Exactly.
And you're front of mind and they'd be like, "Oh, someone told me how to do this, who was it?"
Hundred percent. You might also have a regular networking group that you attend. We've got speaker spots, you could have a billboard rotation going around, you know, the digital ones, etc, or it could be a digital ad. Say you're consistently running Facebook or Google or YouTube or LinkedIn or whatever digital ads, then that's again where you can be repurposing and leveraging that original, unique, relevant content that you've created.
Absolutely. So, to wrap up this episode, make a list of your own distribution channels. So things that you are currently doing - I know we've given you a lot there, but make a list of what you're doing, where you're already working. So if you're only on Facebook and have a website, then they are going to be on your list. Don't even worry about LinkedIn if you're not there.
And just remember, though, too, if you go, Facebook - I've got a Facebook post. Facebook story…
List them out.
Yeah, exactly. What are the things that you actually do rather than just the main channel, what are the actual activities there that you can utilise? Because sometimes we forget.
Definitely. And this is going to be your tick and flick. So, when you're like, "Hey, we've made this awesome piece of content."
Where's it going?
Yeah. If you've got your staff doing it or if you're doing it yourself, if you've got to tick and flick, "Right. I'm going to put it here. I'm going to schedule it there, it's going here." You're going to get the best out of that content. So, it's just making it easier for yourself rather than thinking about it every single time.
And where would you keep that tick and flick list, Lani?
I don't know. Maybe on something like a content calendar template?
What an exemplary idea.
Goodness, I just love that idea.
I don’t think that's the right context for that word. Anyway, what a genius idea.
Thank you. I'll take it. Yes. So use your content calendar template. Now, what I've done for ours since we're putting more of our own advice into action these days…
And by "we" she means her. She's the one putting our advice into action. Thank you, Alanna.
Yeah. So I've got my content calendar. It's got a tab for every single month, so I know where I'm scheduling our content. But I've also made a couple of tabs - we've got a blog that goes up and I've got a list of all of those. And then next to it I've got a dates so I can go, "Yep, we put it on the website here. We've been chucking it over on social media here, here, and here." And so I know that I've leveraged that to the best of my ability. Definitely a really great tool to use to make sure you get your content covered everywhere.
Actually, we could actually put in the show notes the free download link to that content calendar template, as well.
Oh, you're so generous today.
I'm always generous. What do you mean?
All right. That sounds like a good idea. We'll share that with you. Okay, so that is our content marketing strategy episode for you guys today. Thank you so much for joining us. And I hope you got lots of bits of gold in there.
Cheers.