PP 635: Content, Conversations and Conversions with Deb Coman
“When we, as business owners, are in touch with our own values — what’s important to us in our business and in our lives – and we convey that to people and are very upfront about it, it allows us to make better business decisions and align with people who share similar values.” – Deb Coman
Connecting with your audience — and knowing who your ideal audience is — is key to converting content views into revenue. Join Deb Coman and Kim Sutton as they discuss how to create and share content, the value of authenticity and much more!
Highlights:
06:15 Taking the next, right, step
08:55 Right steps vs. left steps
10:50 Foreclosure
13:23 What our business doesn’t have to be
14:54 Comprehensive content marketing strategies
17:29 Kim’s challenge with over-committing
21:42 What success means
25:08 Good Better Best
29:36 Seeing the opportunities to scale
31:55 The first client Kim left voluntarily
33:23 Alignment
33:57 Defining your values
35:24 Segmentation
35:35 How Kim is using Pinterest
36:58 What to set up before hitting “Publish”
40:20 Repurposing
45:03 Knowing our audience
Resources:
Inspirational Quotes:
“If cows can jump over moons, then what can I do?” – Kim Sutton
“I do believe there are no “right” or “wrong” decisions. There are just different outcomes and different consequences. And, as entrepreneurs, if we’re not willing to take the step, we’re never going to step into what’s possible for ourselves.” – Deb Coman
“I’m realizing more and more every day that unfortunate circumstances in that very moment can sometimes, and very often do, turn into huge opportunities. Huge huge huge opportunities.” – Kim Sutton
“Our content is a conversation. And the more we step into that and feel comfortable being real, the more they get to see what it would be like to work with us.” – Deb Coman
“I also found that I was creating content that I thought other people wanted or that my audience needed but number 1: I wasn’t passionate about it and number 2: I never asked what they wanted.” – Kim Sutton
“I thought that I needed to portray a higher level of success and that success was purely based on income. Now, seven years after I initially started the business, success does not at all have anything to do with the amount of money that I’m making… With the exception of we’re paying our bills.” – Kim Sutton
“When we, as business owners, are in touch with our own values — what’s important to us in our business and in our lives – and we convey that to people and are very upfront about it, it allows us to make better business decisions and align with people who share similar values.” – Deb Coman
“What’s so amazing is that we can weed people out while still providing value to them. They just don’t reach the level where they’re working with us personally. We can send them to a course that they go through on their own. We can send them to a bunch of free content.” – Kim Sutton
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION – DEB COMAN:
Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host Kim Sutton, and I am thrilled to be having the conversation that you are about to be listening to today.
And you know that every single one of our episodes is a conversation here on the positive Positive Productivity. Today’s guest is Deb Coman, who is a content conversion strategist, copywriter, speaker and author. And the reason why that is so relevant to me is because what I’ve seen in my own business is that my content has become more of a conversation with people, not just the podcasts where it’s plainly obvious, but also my blog articles and my Facebook Lives and all the content that I’m putting out. I want it to be a conversation with you.
Kim Sutton: I want you to feel like you are involved in that conversation opens the door to conversion. So with all that said, Deb, I’m so happy to have you here.
Deb Coman: I’m thrilled to be here to Kim. Thank you.
Kim Sutton: Oh, you are so welcome. Now I know just based on our appreciate you have a couple of teenagers. Well older teenagers who are in college. And I don’t mean to just start with that, but one of the questions that I love to ask people is when you were younger when you were teenager, or single digit, or what did you want to be when you grew up?
Deb Coman: I’d have to say, teacher. And that’s what I did with my younger sisters made them be the students. And we would play school, of course, and I love to be in that role. And oddly enough, in many ways, that’s kind of what I do in my business, in terms of working with business owners in teaching them and helping them to work with their content and their messaging. And I’ve had other steps along the way.
Deb Coman: In the same vein, I worked with adults with mental illness for a long time. And I was in the capacity of also teaching and helping them around, managing their lives and learning skills or relearning skills. And then I actually was a teacher for a short, short time in an inclusive preschool. So it’s been a common thread throughout my journey that kind of brought me to what I do today.
Kim Sutton: Okay, this is so not a politically correct joke. But there are so many times that I feel like the journey of entrepreneurship can’t be that much different from being just insane. Because, I mean, we’re being pulled into so many different directions, we have to retrain ourselves from our bad habits that so many of us pick up when we are trying to grow as fast as possible to setting up the systems and the strategies and the habits and the daily practices and let’s just talk about focus for a second.
That’s my biggest problem. It’s “Kim, just focus.” Like, are you able to just focus actually
Deb Coman: Yes, I am. Sometimes I just like a little bit of randomness which is not always productive.
Kim Sutton: But you know… I can see how everything that you’ve done in your past can be very relevant to working with your clients today. I don’t think I’ve ever shared this on the podcast before. When I was a child, I actually wanted to be an architect in outer space, I wanted to build…. I wanted to work on the space station, and make it into something more or build the first colony on Mars. And then I realized all the science that would have to go into that. So yeah, that didn’t happen.
Deb Coman: I love it though, because it is those those roots of ours are those dreams that we had when we were children. If nothing else are things that inspired us to think bigger to imagine more than what was in front of us and if we can carry that into what we do as business owners and in our lives as adults. Then I think we’re really rich.
Kim Sutton: Absolutely. Well ,that that childhood dream turned into a fascination with the Hey, Diddle Diddle. Is that how it goes? “Hey diddle diddle, cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.” That is probably my favorite nursery rhyme of all time.
Kim Sutton: And here’s one of those things that I know I have definitely not shared on the podcast before. I have…. I have three tattoos. I can’t believe I’m sharing this, but I can’t start and then not share it all.
On my 18th birthday. I went and got my first tattoo and it is actually a cow jumping over my moon. And it that also carries into entrepreneurship.
Kim Sutton: I mean, the opportunities are endless. They are if cows can jump over moons and what can I do?
Deb Coman: Exactly.
Kim Sutton: Yeah.
Deb Coman: That’s a great inspiration.
Kim Sutton: So how do you? How did you make the leap — that was a nice segue, yea? — into what you do today. How did that journey come to be?
Deb Coman: Well, I… It’s funny because I was just talking about this with people in my group program as far as like when we take a leap or when we just take the next right step. And for me, it’s been about that next step.
Deb Coman: If you asked me way back, when are you know, what are you going to be when you grow up? It certainly would not have been a content conversion strategist. I would not have envisioned where I am today, in any way, shape, or form.
Deb Coman: And that’s the beauty of is it I think we just start where we see an opportunity. And if we’re willing to take that step and see what happens and what the possibilities are, then we can figure out what we enjoy about what we’re doing the parts we don’t like, and make decisions that ultimately shape our business.
Deb Coman: So for me, after I left the real world of working, if you want to call it that, for an agency was when I, we were moving and starting a family. So I had to leave my position because geographically we left the area. And I didn’t want to just jump into another agency where I had built my experience for so long at the other one. So I was fortunate to be able to stay home with my kids.
Deb Coman: And when it was time to go back, or I was beginning to get back into the working world, I had an opportunity to teach at the preschool. Not on my radar. I really was not a teacher, although that was a childhood dream, but I did it and it was a great opportunity.
Deb Coman: Ultimately, I started doing some editing and copywriting work for someone who owned their own business. And when she decided to go back to corporate, I made the decision that hey, I really enjoy what I’m doing here and I need to figure it out. I’ve had to do this for myself. So I essentially… that’s how my business got started.
Deb Coman: And I reached out to people online, I offered things that I knew that I could help with. And little by little, the journey began. I mean, it didn’t look anything like it looks today, when I was proofreading and editing and doing really kind of minor type of copy work for people, to where I’m at now where I filled out like full on content strategies and help people learn how to use social media more effectively and create relationships with the audiences they’re supposed to serve.
Deb Coman: So I think like any journey, it just begins with a step and being willing to, to figure out what we want it to be as a business owner and then create it, which is really what I did along the way.
Kim Sutton: I have so much I want to say about everything that you just said. Starting with. It’s a whole bunch of right steps. I took so many left steps and my… It was really important to me.
I think God wanted me to take those wrong steps. Because without that, I wouldn’t have as much as the content as I do today. I mean, listeners, you know, I share a good bit of the bad and ugly along with the good, a good bet. And had those Series of Unfortunate Events times 30,000 not happened, then a lot of that content wouldn’t be here to teach about. And I would actually think that entrepreneurship is easy.
Deb Coman: Yeah, you know, and I like that you call it left steps versus like a bad step or something, because I do truly I agree with that fully, that it brought you to where you are today. And I do believe that there are no right or wrong decisions. They’re just different outcomes and different consequences, if you will. And as you know, when we’re entrepreneurs, if we’re not willing to take the step, we’re never going to step into what is possible for us?
Deb Coman: I mean, this is there’s no manual on becoming the entrepreneur that you want to be that you’re meant to be.
Kim Sutton: Absolutely. Well, but I, and this is, like, valid so much in this very moment, but I’m hoping that it will help somebody no matter when you’re listening. And the reason why I’m shifting from saying wrong to left is that I’m realizing more and more every day that unfortunate circumstances in that very moment can sometimes and very often do turn into huge opportunities. Huge, huge, huge opportunities.
Kim Sutton: I mean, and I’m, I’m gonna be talking more about this in upcoming episodes, but we actually found ourselves in a state of foreclosure this year. And I… You know, because you’ve listened to the podcast, I’ve been…
Listeners if this is not your first episode, if this is your first episode, go back and listen to some others. But the the reason that we wound up here is just an unfortunate circumstance with a couple of clients, one that I white labelled through and the client that I white labeled for –who lied about me. And it just really impacted our family financially to the point that we fell a couple months behind in our mortgage.
Kim Sutton: I don’t want anybody who’s listening who has not been through foreclosure to think that people who are going through foreclosure didn’t want to get their way out of it, because we certainly did. But we reached that point where the mortgage company wouldn’t accept partial payments they wanted all past due. And when they keep on stacking up over and over again, that’s just hard.
Kim Sutton: Where I’m going to with that is that we had to apply for assistance and out of the assistance, we got a mortgage renegotiation and our interest rate went down two points, and we’re going to be saving money every month on our mortgage. Had that left step not have happened, we would have never had to apply for the mortgage assistance/renegotiation. And for the life of our mortgage, we probably would have been paying two points higher.
Yes, please. I’ll take it.
Deb Coman: That’s a great outcome.
Kim Sutton: Yeah.
And, and out of that outcome, also, like, there was increased confidence and increased understanding of the value that I offer a greater awareness of the people that I want to work with. There were so many wins that came out of this unfortunate situation, that this unfortunate situation ended up being a gift.
Deb Coman: Yeah, that’s beautiful.
Kim Sutton: So the other thing I was going to say was preschool teachers…. You have my big thanks for taking care of my kids. Keep your job because I never want it.
Deb Coman: Yeah, it can be challenging. And it’s also really such an honor. And, you know, one of the things we’ve learned from being around kids, especially that age, in, in the environment where I was where the children were learning through play, it really reminds me, you know, as an adult that we can learn, and have fun doing it and, and having our own business doesn’t have to be a grind.
Deb Coman: You know, it is how we look at things. It is how we choose to, you know, set our minds to what we want to do and create our own intentions around where we want to take our business and it doesn’t have to be 24/7, unless we’re choosing that and I enjoy the work that I do.
(Transcription still being cleaned up. Thanks for checking it out!)
Deb Coman: I want to help my clients feel good about their marketing ,feel good about creating content, not look at it, as just dreadful task on their to do list but it’s something like you shared that it’s a conversation or content is a conversation. And the more we step into that and feel comfortable being real as you are with the listeners, the more they get to see what it would be like to work with us, you know, and what they can expect. If they choose to buy services from us, that they get us as people, you know, yes, they get our skill set and what we can produce and what the outcomes are. But they also get it delivered in a way that is unique to us. And if you’re someone who likes humor, who likes play, who likes to keep things upbeat, that’s relevant, and we need to share that in our content and our messaging.
Absolutely. So what are the
some of the biggest challenges that your clients face when it comes to creating content?
These the biggest one is that many people don’t have a family Full on comprehensive strategy and when I say that, I don’t mean that it has to have 20 different steps to it, but just that some business owners tend to just do things in, like separate tracks, you know, one is their blogging track and they just kind of crank out content and they can do it every week even. But it’s, it’s not really directing people where they want to direct them or it doesn’t match up with what they’re sharing on social media, in a creative, you know, all inclusive way. Or they they bombard their list with emails or they don’t email at all and, and that’s all because they don’t take a step back and get a big IV view, a bird’s eye view of what is the plan. And that’s the content that we choose to create. That’s the messaging that we put on not only our website, but in our emails in our all the blogs We create in the podcast interviews we do when it’s all aligned, and consistent and clear and intentional. It helps convert, it helps people become attracted to us want to learn more want to connect and get in the conversation with us? And then ultimately, it helps to bring them to a decision, you know, yes or no do they want our support and they want to work with us. Here’s how we do that. If they don’t, that’s fine too. But we need to move people to that decision, invite them into the conversation. And many business owners do parts of that and they do parts of it really well. But without all the components working together in unison, they leave a lot of money on the table. They leave a lot of content, not repurposed and just kind of one and done out there. And they don’t show up consistently so people kind of have to experiencing them. experience them one way on social media one way, in a blog one way in an email and we really want that to, to come across as it’s the same us you know that we speak the same. We’re talking about the same topics we’re sharing in the same way. So it’s really that comprehensive approach and strategy behind what they’re creating that many don’t spend enough time on.
One of my biggest challenges was over committing
because I thought,
Okay, well, you already I mean, you know, when I started the podcast, it
was daily.
Well, that was way too much for me way too much with my listeners. Right. The moment I stepped back to two episodes a week, my my downloads quadrupled. I never saw that happening. And shortly after this episode, So it goes live, we’ll be cutting back to one day a week. And that is because I want to make room for other content.
Right? I want to make room for videos. And I don’t.
I want to do quality over quantity.
I also found that I was creating content that I thought
other people wanted or that
my audience needed. But number one, I wasn’t passionate about it. And number two, I never asked what they want in. I mean, some of my first podcasts or some of my first blog articles, which I’m sure you can find in the vault of the internet somewhere. I had a blog article about why every entrepreneur needs life insurance. Deb I’ve never had life insurance except for when I was working for other people.
Is that good? No,
no, but why am I writing articles like I should be walking my talk talking my walk whatever way that goes.
Yeah,
yeah, right.
It’s very common that what you’re sharing is that so so we have to start somewhere. And sometimes people just write about what they feel they know or they write about what’s come up. And when they can look at that in the context of their overall content strategy plan, they can make decisions about it. Like that might be a good topic. But here’s a much more relevant one. Or here’s one that I know my ideal clients want to hear about, because they’re asking me about it. And like you said, starting outcome when content is a conversation, we don’t have to guess what people want next. We know, we know by what they’re saying back to us. We know when we send an email, and people email us back, that they were somehow moved to do that. They made an emotional connection with the information that we shared. Enough to write an email back enough to share something on social media enough to recommend your podcast to someone else that lets us know we’re on the right track. And then we as business owners, we need to take that in and kind of complete the loop like, Oh, I’m on the right track. Let me either do more of that. Or let me take it a step further. Or let me ask a question, as you said,
ask people what they what they are challenged by.
And if that matches up with the service that we provide them, we talk about that. And I know you and I talked about in the pre chat people sometimes tend to hold back and they don’t want to give away their best content because well, what are we going to sell if we give it all away? But that’s so not true, that people need us to customize it to their business and brand to get the support to actually put the content out there the right way. So we don’t really have to worry that everyone’s going to take our stuff and run away with it and never need us. Because it’s just not how it works.
I love that you brought that up. In.
Listeners if you rewind about a minute ago, you may or may not hear my kindergartner walk in the door and yell something about poops. But I mean, that’s the stuff that I hear from listeners because they love that, you know, I’m not shy about sharing that I’ve got kids. That was not proper grammar.
Three, let me think when I was writing those
blog articles about life brings life insurance and such. I thought that I needed to portray a higher level of success and that success was purely based on income. Now, seven years after I initially started the business success Does not at all have anything to do with the amount of money that I’m making?
With the exception of we’re paying our bills? That’s it. It has to do with,
am I healthy? Am I happy? Is my is my family healthy and happy? Is my family seeing me? Because in 2018, I can tell you that I had dinner with my family, probably five to seven times throughout the whole year. The rest of the year, I was sitting at my desk working through dinner. And I was, I’ve been committed to not doing that in 2019. And that’s Success to me the fact that I’ve had dinner with my family.
Right? And that’s, I mean, what’s really beautiful about what you’re sharing is that that’s how it should be in business that we define what success is for us. And for many of us, there is some level of financial freedom or prosperity that goes along with it. And the bigger question is often, to what end prosperity so we can do things where their family so we can live comfortably so that we can have more vacations. What is the real underlying core purpose behind what we do? And when we share that with people like your family or your lifestyle, whatever that thing is, many people will relate to us because it’s similar perhaps to what their experiences. So when we try to shield people from that or think it’s not relevant, we can really be missing out on making some great connections with people who first come to us because we’re a parent or because we use humor in our content or, or because we show up real and they know warts and all this is what we’re like, that’s very refreshing these days in the marketing world, when it’s genuine, when it’s real when it’s not, you know, I guess what I’d like to call the fake being real when everyone says I want to be real with you. They’re not always real with you. You know, but we we No, we can see through that when someone’s truly sharing their story or truly sharing what it’s like, in their business. What it’s like there were challenges, you know, and and if I can relate to the challenges of an entrepreneur, creating content, then I’ll do a better job helping them sift through that and get to the other side. Absolutely.
I just need to be real on one thing right now, Jeb, I fear the day that zoom or Skype
can smell along with see.
Because there are days that I get up, you know, I get the kids ready, I work out and I get right to work. There’s so
many entrepreneurs who I know wouldn’t even share that. Like, I fear the day that Skype or zoom can smell.
Well, maybe that’s a little ways off. We can hope.
Yeah, yeah, I definitely hope but I would To answer this question myself, but then I would love to know what your answer would be in the The question is, what is your good, better, best measurement for success in your life and again, I’ll share first because I feel like I’m being selfish but my good as I already shared is that the bills are getting paid. So we’re good. We’re there. My better is that we’re driving
is that I drive a van from this decade.
My van is 20 something years old, but it works. I don’t need to upgrade that would just be more money right now and the bills are getting paid. So let’s just keep it there. My best is that I have my own bathroom and a dishwasher.
But that will take a little bit of a House
Renovation. So when when we get there, I mean here in Ohio.
I know where you live. I’m not going to share that.
But we have a very different cost of living here then my friends do who live in LA or San Diego and I know that the type of renovation that it will take to get my own bathroom and the The master suite that I want and the extended kitchen and all that is pretty much going to double the value or double the cost of our house but that’s because our house is not you know price San Diego or LA wise but that’s going to be a huge day that will just come after sorry in advance yeah so what is what is and I know that’s all monetary but again that’s not that’s not me saying I need to make seven figures eight figures a year.
Right. What are your good better best? Oh, I love this. So um,
you know, I will i don’t know i don’t mind people knowing that I’m in Syracuse, New York. So that’s fine. Thank you for not sharing but I’m okay with that. And I’m You know and Northeast person I grew up on Long Island and then just made my way to Central New York. And I guess my good better and best I’m going to share about my work really with clients that and yes, there are certainly financial goals I mean, there’s always part of it. But good for me is knowing that I can solve a problem that one of my clients has
related to the content and them getting more clients and better business
better is
impacting more people
with that. And and having a making a bigger difference having a bigger impact more than just one person and one project at a time. And fortunately, I am able to do that right now.
And then my best and actually expected And this is helping
many people do that with their content in their business, make more money, serve more people,
and do it with ease.
And for me, that’s as good as it gets.
Because I don’t really want to work harder. And I want to help my clients to not have to work harder to achieve what they want to achieve in their business. They really don’t have to, they can actually simplify, they can actually streamline they can repurpose, and save themselves time and money and effort. So they’re doing whatever is important to them. Like you said, having more dinner meals with your family, or taking different vacations or more vacations, or doing a renovation. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to work ourselves to the bone to make that happen or that we have to crank out content 24 seven
to make that happen.
Hey there, my friend. I hope you’re enjoying this episode of the positive productivity podcast. I wanted to take a quick moment to invite you to join the work smarter, not harder challenge over the course of 30 days these free Yes, free short videos will teach you a few of the systems and strategies I set up in my business so I can get away from my computer and back to the people I love.
I invite you to sign up now at
work smarter, not harder. challenge.com again, you can sign up at work smarter, not harder. challenge.com So, I am absolutely loving the work smarter not harder because I have faced that myself. And I also love that you’re talking about impacting more people because for the longest time I saw Well, no, I can’t even say I saw. I thought that I could serve one person at a time. But I didn’t see it. The opportunities to scale and I also didn’t see how the work that I was doing with one person could impact an infinite number of people on the back end.
I mean, you’re
a lot of what the two of us
do, I would have to say overlaps if not works together. I mean, we might do some of the same stuff. But the potential that we have to help our clients reach millions, outside of our own products, reaching millions, is just mind blowing. And it’s heartwarming to me and that’s why I’ve become a right food. That’s why I become a lot more selective about who I work with. Because I want to make sure that the right messages and
the products that I really
feel good about and yes it is important to me are the ones that are reaching
more people.
Absolutely.
And I think that’s an important decision for a lot of us like who we work with if we can have an understanding of what their services and like a true understanding a true belief that it’s, it’s the right thing for people, we’re going to do a better job supporting them. And in fact, I don’t know that I could support someone who I couldn’t really get in their shoes as a business owner in knowing what it means to serve their people. Like Like you with helping people with funnels and, and with their content, we kind of need to know what it is they’re wanting to convey
and communicate
out there and and it certainly helps if we feel strongly and passionately about the thing that they’re doing and the service that they’re providing.
Now, I won’t
share anything about what industry this client was in, but one of the first clients who I ever left
My own decision
was working in a way that was so out of integrity with me like they had a monthly data, an annual coaching program, and they had monthly payments go through. And when the monthly payment goes, one go through, they were asking the team to try different amounts to see what they could get to go through.
Like, just keep on dropping the amount until you can get something.
Number one that’s illegal, because that’s not what the person agreed to. I understand the payment didn’t go through. But that just felt so dirty to me. I mean, number one, this person’s like the the payment that they were supposed to make didn’t come to go through but are you seriously going to take all the money they have in a unethical way like that? Well, again, listeners I understand that their clients committed to a purchase. I totally agree. Get that. But it is never my intention to leave my clients with nothing in their bank
just so I can get paid.
Right. Like when I had to leave.
Yeah, and that brings that, like you say the value of integrity. I mean, that’s the thing is when we are as business owners, in touch with our own values, what’s important to us in our business in our lives, and we convey that to people and we’re very upfront about it. It also allows us to make better business decisions and align with people who share similar values. Because if it’s something along those lines that’s in
direct opposition, you know, we start
to feel out of integrity, you know, we start to feel misaligned there. And, and that you’re right, that’s when we make decisions like this isn’t really working and many people don’t really spend the time defining their own values for one. And we’re looking for that in the clients that they serve.
And this person,
yeah, yeah, I mean, we all that’s how we learn right in the beginning. We want to get clients will say, Sure, okay, I can do that or you sound great, let’s do this thing. And sometimes things get revealed along the way. And then we can be more clear about defining who we want to work with and qualifying them. Or we get to that point, you know, as you know, that, you know, our funnels or content can help weed people out because if we keep staying consistent with what our values and our own messaging is, that’s probably not going to, you know, hit home with the people who don’t share that vision.
Not so easy is that
we can weed people out while still providing value to them. They just have reached the level When they’re working with us personally, we can send them to a course that they go through on their own, we can send them to a whole bunch of free content. But by asking them questions that, that, and I don’t mean this in a dirty way, but make them feel like we want to know about them, because we really do.
There’s
using so many of the tools that we’re already using, we can simply just be segmenting them out into the proper channels. And it’s so amazing. I want to share really fast that and the end of 2018, early 2019 was a lot of that period was spent taking a lot of my content, podcast and blog articles and putting it up on Pinterest, which has been working amazingly for me as a way of continuously getting my content in front of people. And Pinterest is actually behind Google. It’s Top traffic driver to my site more than Facebook and Instagram combined. But the coincidentally I put out an article, I think January 1 of 2019. It was called my 19 in 2019 list and it took off right away.
It still gets traffic.
And when I went
to go look at the article, I realized and this is like the cobblers kids shoes, I realized, oh my gosh, Kim, you did not offer them anything. There was no like,
there was no opt in presented
in the article. When you’re working with your clients. Oh, and by the way, I had like thousands
of people go to that article in the first day. Without any ads or anything. I was like, Oh my gosh,
when you’re working with your clients, and if you don’t mind me just using the example of a podcast or a blog. What do you want to see? Set up before they hit Publish.
Oh, happy to and I love this and I read your blog. So I did see that one with the 19 for 2019. And, and you’re right, this is why content strategy helps because we can think of these things. What do we want to do to maximize this message before we put it out there? So a few things that I mean, there are some of the obvious ones where we want to have keywords in there. And we want it to be somewhat SEO optimized and, and all of that, but also we want to be sure it’s aligned with what we’re all about and where we’d like people to go. So you’re right, a call to action. That’s, that’s related to the content that we just shared. And that makes the most sense based on what we’re shared. So maybe it’s to a conversation or to an opt in. So if we think new eyes are getting on our blog, we want to maybe invite them to become subscribers and then That’s a nice lead in. If you’re someone who runs Facebook ads, which I also do, I tend to set up my custom audiences before I send my blog out so that I capture that traffic that comes from the beginning.
policy on that for a second.
If, and I don’t do a lot
with Facebook ads, I have to totally admit that. At one point, I thought, I think I remember there being a limit on the number of custom audiences
that you could have. Is there a limit?
Not that I know of, but I’m not I do write Facebook ad copy. I’m not a Facebook ad strategist. So I can’t speak to that, in particular, but let’s just say I haven’t hit my limit so far. Okay. I do set them up for my blogs and my other content that I create. So live streams and things like that as well.
Well, so how would you if you I’m just going to take or ask one more question on this and then we’ll move on. How many would you say that you’ve set up? Because that will answer the question?
Gee, you know what? I don’t know. But would you say more than 20? Oh, yes, yes.
Okay. Because that’s what I remember is 20. So, okay, if there was a limit,
then it’s gone.
Yeah, I’m sure we can check that too, if
you, but I don’t know that answer for sure. But these are the things that go into, first of all, creating the content. So what do I want to share? How do I want to share it? Am I going to do it in the form of an article like a on my blog? Am I going to do a live stream and then put that link in the blog and write a little bit more to expand it? All of this sets not only the steps for how we’re going to share it and the order, but also what makes the most sense. You know, as we talked about, where do we want to lead people from this? What’s the, what’s the action, even if it’s just try this out? Let me know how it works. That’s still a call. to action. And then after creating it on the blog, I like to send it to my list and email it out. share it on social media platforms unique to each platform, not just here’s my latest blog, because you know, that’s not inviting at all. And then I want to repurpose it. And and that’s the biggest piece beyond that initial piece of content is saying, How else can I present this to people? Can I do a live stream that follows up and goes deeper than what I did in the written blog? Can I create? Well, I know the answer is yes, you can create you know, hundreds of social media posts from a single piece of content or a podcast as you’re saying podcast is a great example. You know, we write more about more than what’s shared on the podcast can go on the blog along with the link to the podcast. sharing it on social media dropping it into an repurpose or where it gets recycled over time. Because we put a lot of time and effort into this content, there’s no reason for it to show up the week we create it and then go away forever.
Like Amanda, that.
I mean, that’s what you said with your one that got so many hits on day one. If that gets circulated with some kind of frequency, you know, you can expect that will probably continue to bring you what essentially are new opportunities for leads.
I have a blog article right now that I did not promote at all.
I won’t even share what the
what the content is. But it’s the number one traffic driver to my site right now. Like I and I honestly, don’t want it to be the number one traffic driver to my site. But it’s driving traffic to my site, so I’ll take it. But yeah, and I absolutely love that. I’m actually doing video Facebook Lives, where I’m asking where I’m offering a gift.
And I don’t, at this point, I only have one
option that I’m offering during these, there might be more, but I’m trying to pare down. And what they do is they just leave a comment down below while I’m talking or when they watch it later. And I have Facebook Messenger bots set up or through mini chat to start a whole sequence. And then it’s a 30 day challenge. So they’re getting emails. And they’re getting a Facebook Messenger bot reminder every day because those who have my Facebook messages have 80 to 90% open rate versus emails, which is definitely not a 90%. And I’m also repurposing the Facebook Live for YouTube.
Right. But
I would love to know what you would think I was also thinking about taking a bit of it and turning it into a blog as well.
Absolutely. So and I think one of the Like we talked about the podcast or another piece of content, the reason to repurpose it in multiple formats is people learn differently. People like to consume content differently. Some enjoy watching videos, some enjoy the podcast, and they’re not going to watch a video. Some like to read, you know, there’s a whole host of ways that we can basically get the same message out to, in here two ways like one to more people and to to the same person in different versions. Right, so now becomes several different touches. When they see the listen to the podcast, see a video about the same message. read something you wrote or shared on social media, saw little snippets on Twitter. It allows us to engage and nurture that relationship more and be a value
I want you to think about and I’m when I say you, I mean, my listener who’s listening right now want you to think about when you have a
tech challenge,
I would have to imagine that we all have tech challenges. I’ll go to Google and I’ll do a search. And more times than not all lined up on a support page that has a video, but I gotta tell you that the support pages that I love the most have both the video and written out instructions with screenshots
because my littles
I am they misplaced my favorite pair of earbuds and if they are in bed, and I am working in bed with my laptop, which I do not recommend at all, but I do it all the time. I’m not going to play the video to listen because Heaven forbid I wake them up. You know what, those screenshot instructions? Oh my gosh, and that keeps me on the page longer. Or maybe it doesn’t but I still get what I’m looking for. Exactly what you just said. I love it.
Yeah. And you’re right that as business owners, we need to put ourselves in our ideal audience’s shoes and think about how do they like to consume content? What is their lifestyle, what is their business day like, we can’t write, you know, 2000 word blogs for the person who doesn’t have that kind of time to read. If we want to reach them, we need to tailor our content to the way they want to receive it, and they best
can receive it. And
I’m going back to your article that you wish was not maybe traveling so much traffic. The other thing that you can do is when we take a step back and look at our overall content plan, and our strategy is you could choose to link that blog to another blog. Right, if there’s a natural I mean it there needs to be some kind of a natural connection or make one that allows people to learn more in a message that’s maybe more current for you or, or more in line with how you want to show up today. And, and that’s another way to kind of keep people in our world when they go to our website versus seeing something on Facebook. Yeah, 20 other things on Facebook that divert attention, we really want to drive people back to this space that we own, so that they can experience our business more fully, and stay there. If they like what they see they’ll stick around.
Deb, you are not helping
chronic idea disorder right now.
I know exactly what I’m going to write in. Oh, yeah.
Thank you.
You’re so welcome. You I just love everything that we have chatted about in in this episode. So I would love to give you the opportunity to share with Where listeners can find you online connect to get to know more and just,
yeah, get more of your awesome.
Oh, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it too. And I’d love to connect further with anyone who is wanting their content to not only attract more of the right people, but convert them and bring them in so that they can make a decision about working with us. I have a free gift you can find on my website, you can go to Deb komen, it’s db comn.com slash gift.
And you’ll immediately get a download of my three costly content mistakes, so that you can stop making them if you’re making them and learn what you need to do to carry out some of the things we’ve talked about on the podcast here today how to create more aligned content that’s consistent, that attracts the right people and that helps them to enroll in your services.
Amazing.
While you were just sharing all that even thought of perfect name for the episode, which you’ve made it so easy. So thank you. And that’s what I feel like our content needs to do. It should make the conversations and the conversions easy. So thank you.
Thank you so much, Kim. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time together.
Do you have a parting piece of advice or a golden nugget that you can share with listeners
is to take a step back.
And before you sit down to create that next piece of content.
Think about
be very clear
about what you want it to do and what your intention is. Be sure that you activate an emotional connection with the person on the other end.
Think about how you’re going to repurpose it
and include how to bring around a bout transformation
for your clients. And that’s my cart system ca RT. And if we bring that to all the content that we create will do a much better job attracting and enrolling ideal people.
