[00:00:00] Mia Fileman INTRO
Are you tired of empty promises and stolen ideas? Me too! Got Marketing? is a podcast for marketers and small brands who want real talk and clever strategies without the BS. Running an online business is hard, but everything gets easier when your marketing starts performing. I'm Mia Fileman, your straight shooting campaign loving friend, here to talk marketing, running a business, pop culture, and everything in between. Let's dive in.
[00:00:39]
Hello, friend. Today, we're talking all about content. What works, what doesn't, a system you can stick to and how to avoid sounding like everybody else online. I actually really enjoy creating content when I can take my time with it. When I have something to say or when I'm able to make it without having to think about algorithms and hashtags.
But for most of us, content is a daily grind that zaps our creativity. I'd love to know if you are the same. So, I want you to leave this episode re-energized about creating content for your brand. Marketing channels will be covered in a future episode as this one is already jam-packed. Let's get into it.
[00:01:40]
There is more to a content strategy than educational content. The internet, AI, Instagram is already brimming with answers and free tips. Audiences come to you because they like your style, your views, and the way that you do things. So give the people what they want. Instead of free tips all day long, share your opinions.
Share stories that bridge the gap between life and business and give them your take on industry lessons and practices rather than just here's another free tip. Also, can we be honest for a minute? People know what to do, they just don't do it. And I'm really curious to understand why. So instead of just preaching to people about what they should be doing, perhaps we could lead by example.
We walk the walk. And talk the talk. I want to give you an example. In November last year at my business retreat, I had two glasses of wine and then I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. And it was then and there that I decided that I was going to have a little break with alcohol. And I was sharing a room with Penny Lacasso, who's an incredible behavioural scientist and business coach.
And we decided that we would be accountability buddies for this no-alcohol challenge. And we were going to make it to first Christmas. And now it's ongoing. So, I've essentially given up alcohol. I had a drink on Christmas day, but since then, I haven't, um, really partaken. And it has been so interesting to both Penny and I, how curious people are about our journey.
They see us at an event or at a birthday, and we're not drinking. And they ask so many questions about it. And then later, Many people have come to us and said, Hey, you inspired me to also give up alcohol. People are looking for positive examples of people who are doing really hard things. Giving up alcohol is hard.
It really is, but we can do hard things and then we can be an example for others. Rather than just telling them all the reasons why they should give up alcohol and what happens to your brain and your body when you give up alcohol. Maybe one of the ways that we can help people the most is by leading by example.
[00:04:05]
All right. I want to help you stick to a content strategy in 2025 because consistency beats cleverness every single time. So there are two modes of marketing. Always on and campaigns. And I think, you know, which one I love the most. Let's go through them. Always on content is like a consistent drip of rain. This is a steady stream of content. Your regular programming designed to keep your audience engaged and informed. Think of it like the background music to your brand soundtrack. Always on marketing includes social media updates. Blogs, EDMs, podcast episodes. The pros of always on marketing is that it keeps your brand top of mind. It builds trust through consistency. And it's relatively cheap and easy to put up a social media post today. The downside of always on marketing is that it is slow burn. You don't write a blog and publish it today and see results tomorrow or even next week. You are playing the long game and always on marketing requires you to be always on, which is exhausting and is the reason why so many small business owners can't stick to a content strategy. Because they are burning out from having to constantly feed social media needs and keep up with a content schedule that is very impractical for a solo based business or with a very small team. So campaigns. Think of campaigns as the monsoon, as opposed to the consistent drip of rain. Campaigns are focused, high-impact bursts of content designed around a specific goal, like launching a product, promoting an event, or building hype around a seasonal offer.
The pros of campaigns is that they are configured to hit clear measurable goals like conversions or signups. They give you a lot more creative freedom. You are not locked into using your style guide and your tone of voice guide. You can create a campaign that is intended to capture attention and campaigns build excitement and urgency.
All right. The cons of campaigns, they require a lot more planning and resources than always on. And if you run too frequent sales campaigns, you can fatigue your audience. So what is the sweet spot? Plan your campaigns first, look at your whole year and decide when you are going to run your focused efforts or your campaigns and then use always on marketing around those key focus periods, not the other way around. Go hard during the campaigns, which is where you're going to get the biggest uplift in your business with daily content. And then allow yourself to pull back during your always on periods, permitting yourself to reuse content or post less frequently. If you feel like you are constantly pushing out content with no real traction, it's probably time to introduce strategic campaign into your content strategy instead of drowning in daily content creation.
[00:07:35]
Now, I mentioned reusing content, which you can only do if you can easily find it again. We use Asana to organise and label all of our content. After almost four years in business, at least once every week, we reuse high performing content. I make a few tweaks and then I lock and I load it again and no one knows. So this is a content strategy you can stick to.
[00:08:04] Marketing Circle Ad
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[00:08:47]
I want to throw out a challenge. The interesting challenge. The only content that is performing now on social media. Is interesting content, unusual, exciting, surprising. And yet a lot of the content that I consume online is not interesting. Look, can I just be real for a minute? We all follow Adam Museri on Instagram.
We don't need his updates. Restated by every social media manager worldwide. We get it straight from the source. This is what I mean. This is not interesting content. This is regurgitated content. So we need to find a way to make all of our content more interesting, including promotional content. Yes. My doors are open with confetti popping is not at all interesting to anyone, but the brand who is opening their doors. Each year, the Meat and Livestock Association releases the annual Aussie Lamb Campaign. And each year, they make a film that entertains us long enough for us to say, I could go for a lamb chop. This year's campaign, called The Comments Section, is the best yet. It's a three minute film that is thoroughly entertaining, thoroughly interesting, deeply resonates, but by the end, I want to eat lamb.
That's exactly what the goal is.
[00:10:16]
So, content is about capturing attention long enough for people to spend time with our brands. How do we do this? The first step to being interesting is to be interested. I need you to be so interested in your target audience to the point of fanaticism. What do they care about? I want you to study them like scientists. Because that is how you are going to create interesting content for them. Here's an example. I snapped a photo to Instagram stories of a bougainvillea cutting that sprouted in Darwin within three weeks and I was blown away by the response to this picture of a bougainvillea.
Turns out millennial women of a certain age are interested in gardening. Now, I have yet another connection point with my target audience. The other way to be interesting is to do interesting things. Sitting at your desk agonizing over your content is only going to lead to more boring content. Go out and live your life.
Go to a stand up comedy show. Do a margarita and watercolor painting class. Start sewing your own clothes. Honestly, leave the office and good content will flow from there. Just so we're clear, the interesting challenge is not about absurdity. Jaguar's latest campaign made this abundantly clear. The brand abandoned all that it stood for and jumped headfirst onto the crazy train.
[00:11:57]
So this is about making content that people want to spend time with. I did a post on Instagram that really resonated. It was called how to sound like every other female online business owner. And I offered up words like elevate, unlock, unleash, potential, authentic as words that. Need to go in the bin.
They have been used ad nauseam in the online business space.
[00:12:22]
Yes, it's worth avoiding these specific words, but how do you avoid running into this problem in the future? And I want to explain why these words are wrong for your marketing. They fall into two categories. The first one is superlative. These words are intended to make something sound amazing, incredible, better than it is, potentially, if we're being honest.
If you're selling an online course, And people are going to learn from it and improve their skills. And as a result, it's going to improve their business results. If we say supercharge and turbocharge, skyrocket, it sounds like we're going to double, triple our sales. We're going to be overnight successes.
We're going to be wildly successful. Suddenly going to start making 20, 000 a month. And it's just not true. That's a massive exaggeration. Anyone that's spent five minutes in small business knows that that's not how business works. You spend five years to become an overnight success. Results build traction slowly over time.
So using words that are so superlative makes them not believable. And the second category that these words fall into is subjective. What does it mean to supercharge, to skyrocket? What does unlocking your potential mean? What does potential mean to me versus you? And so they're very wishy washy. It's not very concrete.
These terms can mean different things to different people. So in order to avoid sounding like every other female online business online, I want to offer a different approach. We make our claims believable. And the way that we do that is that we can reference real results, or we can be honest and say, you are not going to earn tons of passive income, but you will see a measurable increase in sales after doing.
this course, or on average, 65 percent of our customers see an 80 percent increase in X. Do you see how we are much more believable by taking out the exaggeration. And then instead of using terms that can mean different things to other people, let's use concrete language. Let's use pineapple words. Words where I say, that's a pineapple, the fruit, it looks like a pineapple.
It smells like a pineapple. It tastes like a pineapple. It's a pineapple. Yeah. So give that a go instead of unlock and transform and create a freedom lifestyle.
[00:15:14]
Strong opinions are sexy. You do not need to post about every crisis. I'm not saying that you should be an eternal fence sitter. Customers today want to support brands that share their value.
But there is a crisis around the world every day, and some will matter more to you than others. Jumping on every crisis and every social and political issue can come off as virtue signaling, posting just for the clout. So decide what really matters to you and make that part of your brand's content rather than swinging at every ball.
Here's something interesting that I read, Bastion commissioned a study on behalf of B& T and they found that 47 percent of Australians believe that brands should avoid publicly sharing their views on Australia Day, which is quite a controversial thought. topic in Australia, because these people see it as irrelevant to a brand's core purpose, which is really interesting, right?
Also nearly half of Australians, 48 percent say that a brand's position on Australia Day would not influence their purchasing decisions. If you want to post about Australia Day, go for it. But if you also don't, If you just want to make that a regular day of content for you or not post anything at all, then I think that that's okay as well.
So should you proceed with your scheduled content? If a crisis occurs, this is a question only you can answer. And I think it's really sad that we default this question to experts when it is a human question. It is no one else's place to judge your values, your feelings, or override your intuition. So please.
Use your own critical thinking and judgment and make a decision about whether you should proceed with scheduled content.
[00:17:05]
Low hanging fruit. You may have noticed that LinkedIn is now also leaning into short form videos. Given the question marks over TikTok's future, I had a little bit of a theory, hypothesis, that LinkedIn would be pushing short form videos in a big way.
So I decided to test that theory and share some of my Instagram reels to LinkedIn. And oh my goodness, was I right. I shared three videos and they all popped off. So go and try this for yourself, make sure that you have captions and also that you pick videos that are going to work best for LinkedIn as not every reel will work.
[00:17:48]
Making waves. I'm so excited about this. Do you remember the influencer who built an empire on a fake cancer diagnosis? Belle Gibson was her name. Well, Netflix is revisiting her story. They have made a series called apple cider vinegar, and it is being released on February 6th. I cannot wait.
[00:18:16]
All right. That's it for us today. Hopefully you've got some content ideas. You can go away and try right away. If you've got a question, campaigndelmar. com forward slash got dash marketing and submit your question. We will have a dedicated audience. Questions that I will answer live. Thank you so much for tuning in.
See you next week.
[00:18:42] OUTRO
Thank you. You listened right up until the end. So why not hit that subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling. Podcast reviews are like warm hugs and they're also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me, Mia Fileman on Instagram or LinkedIn, and feel free to send me a message.
I'm super friendly.
