Brand Newsroom

Brand Newsroom 148: Should I start a podcast?

The Brand Newsroom team gets a bit introspective today. They’re talking about podcasting and whether it’s a worthwhile part of the marketing mix for your small business. This is episode 148 of Brand Newsroom and the team has learnt a thing or two along the way. So let’s take a look at the challenges, highlights, pitfalls and benefits of putting a podcast together.

Here are some key take-outs:

  • Podcasting is still very new, but it’s becoming incredibly popular. In the US, podcast listening grew 23 per cent between 2015 and 2016 and 21 per cent of Americans ages 12 and up will have listened to a podcast in the past month. The podcast audience is 57 million Americans in total. In Australia 15 per cent of Australian marketers are using podcasts as part of their content marketing mix.
  • Podcasting is the only sort of content you can consume while you’re doing something else, so it’s a great opportunity to reach an audience at a time when there’s no other form of content they could consume — like when they’re walking the dog.
  • Podcasting has opened a lot of doors for the BNR team. Nic now has mainstream media commitments, particularly in radio — which demonstrates the value in it for business owners like him.
  • Podcasts create evergreen content. In the case of Brand Newsroom we know that about half our listens each week are old episodes — people will go right back and listen to it from the beginning.
  • The secret is consistency. Most podcasts fail because they’re not disciplined enough. People get to six or seven episodes and give up. You have to keep going!
  • Accessibility for podcasts is getting easier. You can listen to podcasts in many new cars now, for example — that’s opening podcasts up to a potential audience the size of radio.
  • Your audience could well be niche. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small audience if your listeners find the content hyper-relevant.
  • Audiences grow. It takes time.
  • You don’t need lots of audio production. The important thing is to have a great and engaging conversation. It has to sound authentic, too — not manufactured.

Here are the links you might need:

On My Desk

Have you heard the one about…

Recently James, Sarah and Nic took a close look at leadership.

And here’s a discussion about how to assemble the best possible communications team.

Like what you’ve heard?

Give us a follow on SoundCloud to get the latest episodes.

 Or, you can subscribe or leave a review on iTunes.

By | 2017-07-11T14:09:39+00:00 July 12th, 2017|Categories: Brand Newsroom, Marketing|Tags: , |Comments Off on Brand Newsroom 148: Should I start a podcast?
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Brand Newsroom 147: How to assemble the best possible communications team

Today, the BNR team is talking about team building. How do you pull together the right communications team for your business? What do you do in-house? When should you bring in outside expertise? How do you know a PR consultant or writer is the right fit for your team?

Here are some key take-outs:

  • The media and PR landscape has changed completely, so you need to think carefully about what communications skills you need to bring into your team. It’s not a “one size fits all” and you don’t necessarily need “all”.
  • Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve. If you still have an old-fashioned structure, there might well be a smarter way of doing it now.
  • To be cost-effective, it’s quite often better to bring in external skills by hiring a consultant or a freelancer than it is to bring on a person who won’t be as busy as you want them to be.
  • Set goals and targets for what you need to achieve, no matter who you’re bringing in — whether it’s a staff member or a consultant.
  • Ask a lot of questions before bringing someone on board. Make sure they have the skills you need. Ask them how they could do the job better than anyone else.
  • Sarah believes having people on your team who are excellent writers is the key to success here. If your team can’t write, send them on a writing course. If you have writing skills, you’ll be a valuable member of any team.
  • Nic said the ability to pick up the phone and actually talk to someone, and build relationships, is also vital.
  • James said to look for someone who is prepared to be experimental because you can never be sure what is going to work, and sometimes the unexpected ideas are the ones that come off.
  • Most businesses have internal and external service providers. They have to be able to work well together. Deadlines are an important way to ensure that happens.
  • Outsiders — consultants you bring in — are often able to see things clearly in a way those too close to a business can’t. So it can be very worthwhile.

 

On My Desk

 

Have you heard the one about…

Recently James, Sarah and Nic were joined by Sandra Brewer for a discussion about managing messaging for multiple brands.

 

And here’s a discussion about media intelligence — what is it, and why is it important?

 

Like what you’ve heard?

Give us a follow on SoundCloud to get the latest episodes.

 Or, you can subscribe or leave a review on iTunes.

 

By | 2017-07-04T14:49:27+00:00 July 5th, 2017|Categories: Brand Newsroom|Tags: , , , , , |Comments Off on Brand Newsroom 147: How to assemble the best possible communications team
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Brand Newsroom 146: Leadership, management and building a team

The BNR team has a discussion about leadership — taking a close look at management and building a successful team, and asking what works and what doesn’t.

 

Here are some key take-outs:

  • Teams like leaders who lead by example.
  • Leaders need to show courage.
  • There’s a crisis of trust at the moment and much of it is because we’re being led by bad leaders.
  • You’re doing something right if your team will willingly do anything for you. (Nic used the expression “willing to take a bullet”. We don’t really encourage that in a literal sense.)
  • Sarah says a sign of a great leader is someone who pulls people within the organisation up, makes them feel good about themselves, praises them for their good work, and recognises success.
  • Leadership and culture are completely interlinked.
  • James asked why we need leaders at all. Don’t leaders sometimes stand in the way by saying “we don’t do this; we don’t do that”?
  • Learn how to coach your staff and help them get to the next level in both their personal and professional development. Foster their skills. Help them feel confident and give them a safety net.
  • The best managers and leaders are the ones who recognise their own strengths and weaknesses and those of the people in their team.
  • A good leader removes obstacles for their team.

 

Here are the links you might need

 

On My Desk

  • Sarah recommended a podcast called Conversations with Richard Fidler.
  • Nic recommended a podcasting microphone, the Zoom.
  • James was excited about something called the UAE Wallet — which he thinks is the future of passports!

 

Have you heard the one about…

Recently James, Sarah and Nic took a close look at the effect of design on the success of your content.

 

And here’s a discussion about drip email marketing techniques.

 

Like what you’ve heard?

Give us a follow on SoundCloud to get the latest episodes.

Or, you can subscribe or leave a review on iTunes.

 

By | 2017-06-27T13:43:29+00:00 June 28th, 2017|Categories: Brand Newsroom|Tags: , , |Comments Off on Brand Newsroom 146: Leadership, management and building a team
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Brand Newsroom 145: Customer centricity: The most obvious marketing trend ever?

Customer centricity. It’s the latest marketing buzzword. What is it? Well, it’s all about prioritising your customer’s specific needs, observing them objectively in order to understand these needs, and developing products and service offerings to deliver on these needs.

Today the BNR marketing podcast team asks, shouldn’t that be obvious?

Here are some key take-outs:

  • If you’re not there for the audience, what are you there for? Brands that service their audience well are the ones that succeed. So it’s odd that “customer centricity” is suddenly getting attention.
  • The customer isn’t always right. If you really want to service the customer well, you have to give them the best advice — and sometimes that’s to tell them that they’re wrong. Sometimes that might even lead to ending the relationship with the client.
  • An open and honest relationship between a client and an agency is absolutely vital to success.
  • Go back to your business goals and appraise where you’re at. Ask yourself if your relationships are adding value to your business, and to the business you’re working with.
  • Don’t take your best customers for granted.

Here are the links you might need

On My Desk

  • Nic recommended Media Stable’s new podcast, The Experts. It’ll be out soon.
  • Sarah recommended this blog post by Carla Johnson called 34 of the Best Non-Marketing Books for Marketers.
  • James mentioned former US Federal Bureau of Investigations chief, James Comey, and the way he held himself during his recent US Senate committee appearance. He was, James says, a lesson in communicating with authenticity.

Have you heard the one about…

Recently James, Sarah and Nic looked at how good design can help sell your content.

 

And here’s a discussion about drip email marketing and whether it works.

Like what you’ve heard?

Give us a follow on SoundCloud to get the latest episodes.

Or, you can subscribe or leave a review on iTunes.

 

By | 2017-06-20T13:47:50+00:00 June 21st, 2017|Categories: Brand Newsroom, Content Marketing, Marketing, Podcast|Tags: , , |Comments Off on Brand Newsroom 145: Customer centricity: The most obvious marketing trend ever?
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Brand Newsroom 144: How good design can really sell your content

Ninety per cent of the information our brain processes is visual and 40 per cent of people respond better to something visual than they do to text.

Jeremy Stewart is a digital marketing consultant at Launchpad Creative and really understands graphics and design — so he’s the perfect person to help us understand how good design can help us sell our message.

Here are some key take-outs:

  • Visual content creates an emotional connection with your audience you can’t get through text alone — our brains compute images so much faster, too.
  • Design encompasses everything from font choice to pictures. Jeremy says the more simple, the better.
  • People really do judge a book by its cover. Design helps people make decisions.
  • If you’re a really small business, there are some great tools to help you do good design yourself. But as you grow, definitely get the professionals in.
  • Choosing the right image can make all the difference between success and failure.
  • Instagram is a great medium, even for business to business, because the images spread so far and wide and it helps you connect with your audience.
  • Infographics have moved a long way from just being a visual representation of statistics; you can do them on anything now. Just make them pretty and have a message to share. Convert your blogs into infographics and animated videos so you get more value from the same content.

On My Desk

Have you heard the one about…

Recently Sarah got particularly passionate about drip email marketing campaigns.

And here’s a podcast where the team were joined by Mark Masters to look at some great examples of content marketing.

 Give us a follow on SoundCloud to get the latest episodes.

Or, you can subscribe or leave a review on iTunes.

 

By | 2017-06-13T22:08:01+00:00 June 14th, 2017|Categories: Brand Newsroom, Marketing|Tags: , |Comments Off on Brand Newsroom 144: How good design can really sell your content
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Are you making demands with your content marketing?

Have you ever met a person who improves the energy in a room just by walking through the door? They’re the people you want to be near – the folks you lean a little closer to so you don’t miss a word. Invariably, they pull from a deep well of charisma to make everyone around them feel included. They command your attention and you willingly give it.

 Content marketing should be like this. Too often, the opposite is true.

Making demands on your audience

As content marketing enters the mainstream in a flood of cheap content, good tools and no barrier to publishing, marketers and business owners are adopting an old-fashioned approach. They’re stealing techniques from the bad old days of advertising and carnival barkers, pushing unwanted messages to an audience that isn’t particularly interested. Not only uninterested, the audience is no longer captive to your demands. In an effort to push out your message, you end up offending the people you’re trying to influence. And it’s incredibly difficult to get them back.

 On episode 143 of Brand Newsroom, I had a good rant about the abuse of drip email marketing. I won’t repeat myself but encourage you to listen to it here because it’s a technique used to demand attention:

 

 

Here is a great example of a drip email I received this week with a big wallop of demands. The subject line was ‘Seeking your response’:

 Hi Sarah, 

I hope you are doing great. It is just a follow-up to draw your attention towards my previous email. I understand you might be busy with your priority tasks.

I would appreciate if you can go through an email that I have sent previously and share your thoughts.

Looking forward to a collaboration.

 Why on earth would I respond? Would you? There’s nothing in this for me except a request to do the bidding of a total stranger. The writer is asking me for one of the most valuable things I have – my time. In return, I get a big fat nothing. It’s a demand for my attention without a single benefit to me, the audience.

Industry-specific demands towards customers

Certain industries lend themselves to demanding communication. I recently wrote in the Lush newsletter about a run-in with my son’s private school. Airlines are another industry where we get an awful lot of direction and not much love. United Airlines is on a red-hot run of PR disasters. Telephone and internet companies provide a rich vein of customer exasperation and vitriol. You only have to hang out on Twitter for an hour or two to know it’s a global problem.  The level of frustration and anger associated with being a customer in education, telecommunications and air travel is amazing. You don’t want to invoke emotion like that for your business.

How to command attention with content marketing

If content marketing is about driving profitable customer action, there’s a mistaken belief that badgering people is an effective approach to meeting your goals. Here are better ways to command attention: 

  • Develop content that serves a purpose for your audience. This can be a buying guide, an infographic with compiled statistics around a specific topic, a white paper explaining a complex issue, a case study showing how another person benefitted from engagement with you or a blog post providing links to valuable research and websites. This is the sort of content your audience might not even realise they need – but you do.
  • Segment your audience and databases to ensure you’re providing content that’s both topical and relevant. I may well be interested in how to stake out a tent in record time but not in the middle of winter. Don’t send me a childhood survival guide if I’m not a parent or my children are grown.
  • Make me the centre of your universe. I don’t care about you, your business goals or what your company has accomplished. I truly don’t. I only care about how you and your products or services can help me. Put your marketing through the filter of my eyes.
  • Do not nag. If you don’t get a response from an unsolicited email, don’t harass me with more requests. Pick up the phone or deliver something useful but don’t, for the love of all that’s holy, chastise me for not doing what you want me to do.
  • Invest in quality. Pay attention to your spelling, grammar, word usage and punctuation. Get someone to proofread your copy or hire an editor. You’d be surprised how many people consider poor writing a deal breaker for business.
  • Put on a charm offensive. Content marketing should be a courtship, not a one-night stand. How you approach your audience is as important as what you deliver. To quote Mary Chapin Carpenter in her song The Hard Way, “Show a little inspiration; show a little spark”. Make your audience feel like you really care about them.
  • Deliver something different. Quoting Mary Chapin Carpenter again, “Tell me something I don’t know instead of everything I do”. There’s a plethora of same old, same old, same old content on the internet. Commit to making something different to fill a void.

How can you tell if it’s working?

What you want to achieve – what we all covet – is the undivided attention of your audience when your content arrives. Think of the moment a conductor raises his baton. The room goes silent and most people lean forward in their seat. The same is true of the best public speakers. The crowd quiets itself in anticipation. Performers are fortunate because they get immediate feedback. Applause, standing ovations, ticket sales and even booing are all helpful in determining success of their content.

For content marketers, keeping an eye on your subscriber lists is a great way to determine if your efforts are being appreciated – if you’re commanding attention. What is your open rate? How many click-throughs do you get? How many conversions do you get? These are all great ways, especially when analysed in combination, to determine whether you have the attention of your audience.

Another good way is to stop. When you don’t publish or schedule or show up at the expected time, does anyone notice? Does anyone complain? Do you get emails, phone calls or text messages trying to find out why? If you don’t, it could be because your audience isn’t finding enough value in what you’re doing.

Where to get help

I’m not for a moment suggesting any of this is easy. It’s not. But it’s something we do every day at Lush Digital Media and we can help you develop a content marketing strategy to charm the pants off your target audience. Get in touch and we’ll get you out of the demanding camp and into the good habits of commanding attention.

By | 2017-06-08T00:39:53+00:00 June 8th, 2017|Categories: Brand Newsroom, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Marketing, Media, Social Media, Video Production|Tags: , |Comments Off on Are you making demands with your content marketing?
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