Welcome back, I know it's been a while. But to keep creating a podcast while running a small business is tough and sometimes even with all of the best intentions things slip, however, this is Behind the Madness where we talk about business growth, ways to work smarter and the fundamentals of business all geared to unlocking your brand's peak performance. I'm your host James Roberts owner and founder of Method and today I'm joined by my co-host, Jamie.
Co-host, so he will keep coming back to the pod. Before we jump in, I wanted to let you know about a few ways that you can contact the show. We have a dedicated email address, which is podcast@hellomethod.co.uk, where you can give any feedback or ask any questions and we will try and answer them on future episodes. Or catch us across all your favorite social platforms where we publish content, helping you, our listeners grow your business.
So Jamie, great to have you back on the pod though, in my notes, I've had Jamie great to have you bad on the pod.
Either, back and bad, back with a vengence.
Either way Jamie is now sailing across the world in his high flying jobs and we've managed to bring him back in because to be honest, it's a lot easier when Jamie's here co-hosting hence why I have now called him co-host so we can get more of these podcasts out as I've mentioned, how are you Jamie?
Yeah, good James, Thanks for inviting me back, it's good to be back as you very kindly said, it's been an interesting about six months since I was at Method. And now enjoying, enjoying the business world more so. Uh, I'm very, very grateful for obviously everything I learned while with you guys which has put me in good stead. I'm going to throw it back and throw it back to when I used to throw you under the bus in the old days and kind of think about today's topic.
I want to know what you find most valuable on social media, in terms of what content do you enjoy consuming? What's high value to you?
I consume a lot of content. I have, as Laura will probably tell you what she calls Robbie Hobbies, which are things that I pick up and I enjoy. I am an average guitar player, I like doing DIY, we go camping. There is a lot of things that I enjoy in my life, fitness, all of that type of stuff. So because of that, I consume a vast amount of content for all of these little Robbie Hobbies that I have. I also love a lot of brands that are putting out good content with that as well.
So things that I've bought in the past products. I could throw a few in like Yeti, like Whoop love all of Whoops content.
He's been trying to get sponsors for at least 18 months guys. So.
I know why won't they put an advert on the pod? Or at least invite me on theirs. So I consume a lot of content in a lot of different ways. There's um, in fact, recently I've tried to cut it down a bit so I could get better quality content, rather than Having a lot of content thrown at me and not really consuming anything just content for content's sake. So I'm quite active on Instagram.
Not putting stuff out, but I'm more kind of consuming a lot over Instagram because like, I quite enjoy the visual element of a lot of stuff. But also podcasts they are primarily where I will grab a lot of my content from. What do I enjoy? Again, it comes down to, I have a lot of marketing stuff on there. Um, I have a lot of, uh, small business people I'll following as well.
There's some great podcasts around that as well, because obviously with things like that, it's much easier to dive into a topic and listen to a topic about it, which I can do while I'm out running or walking the kids to school. Something like that, again it's easy to consume them so, I consume a lot.
But The question here, because I know what you're like. I've asked him one question here guys, why do you consume that? What value is it bringing to you? Is it educational?
Yeah, I think, I think there's a massive element of addictiveness in social media and we're all very conscious of it. And I'm trying to be more aware when I am waiting for something. I will, everybody picks up the phone out of their back pocket. Um, And I'm more aware of that now, a hundred percent.
Yeah, absolutely, and it's not a good thing, and I'm, I'm certainly more aware of that, but that's when I will pick it up and then you go, Ooh, what can I go to, and it will generally be a social media thing because there'll be new stuff in there as my phone pings off and lets me know about a new notification. But In terms of, uh, where I get the most out of content. It's probably what I save.
I use up next, which is brilliant, it's like pocket, it's like any of these where I can save that good article or that good bit of information into a pocket. I almost audit that. So it is only the best of the best. And that will be my time when I can actually sit down and some of these little snippets that you get, which is of course what generally social media is snippets, snippets, snippets I will then be interested in something and I will save that.
Every one that I save will be problem related a really nice example I've recently just kitted out our utility room. And there was a few problems that I had in there that I wanted to fix or to solve. So I was saving a lot of content around tips and tricks of what I could do in terms of this cabinet.
Do you save and forget. Because a lot of people do. Yeah So that's interesting, isn't it? Because it's what you want to consume in the moment. Yeah. Versus what you think you want to consume in the future?
Exactly. Yeah yeah yeah and then coming back to that, that audit process that I go through because my time then of when I've saved all this data is now specific. I'll only have about an hour where I'll go right, I'm going to now, I've got a bit of time. And I can whizz through it. I'll delete a lot. So you're right, but it is genuinely where I have that problem I will save it perfect, and then I will go back and visit it and then I will audit that out.
But each piece of content is helpful in some way or solving a problem.
So now we've now we've got that answer out of him guys.
So today's topic is high value content. As we kind of been over what is high value content? How you can produce and create high value content for your business. We're just going to talk around some tips and things that we use here, what we would call high value content, and obviously how it can help you guys. So, when we're talking about high value content, have you ever thought. Obviously we kind of discussed what I consume. But what is high value content?
Is it one thing is it many things, and obviously I mentioned podcasts, I mentioned social media.
Sure.
But what would you categorize high value contact as.
So the reason I asked you the question in the beginning is because to identify what your high value content, is you've got to deal with your audience. It doesn't matter if you're creating high value content that you think is valuable because they may not. They're the key they're the people you're trying to engage. They're the people you're trying to interact with and the people you are trying to kind of convert into sales and customers at the end of the day.
So the most important thing you start with, as a tool wise as your persona. Your buyer persona, finding out exactly where do they spend their time. You hear people say, I need to be on social media and they go, okay, well where on social media? Why why do you need to be on social media? Because I sell Zimmer frames that 89 year olds, I want to be on TikTok. Do you? Is that where your audience is, is that what they care about.
So starting there allows you to really find out what they find valuable. Because there we uncovered with you, educational, some informational stuff, some kind of those tips and those tricks and there's little hacks and stuff like that.
But I also love cats falling over.
Exactly. So there's the entertainment piece and this is where it's then up to our users the audiences to kind of almost curate and inform the algorithms of what they like by, what they search, what they spend the most time on, all of this which then funny enough, magically appears on their feed. One thing I really want to pick up with you there though, is, as you said, phones or laptops, iPads have become an extension of the human.
People are becoming very conscious of this and they're becoming very conscious that, their time is slipping away, either just scrolling, screen times way too much, it started kind of with parents looking at their kids' screen time. So what they're doing therefore is now starting to curate their attention. Attention is a currency in this world. Because, Yeah, you can throw hundreds and thousands at Facebook ads or Google ads or whatever, but if you don't have people's attention.
You're not going to sit with them because they're going to see it. Then they're going to get bored, not informative, don't care off I go, because there's so much supply. So when you're going okay, if they're curating this anything that's not valuable is in the bin. Because they're conscious of this, and this is only going to grow as people will start to realize how much time they are losing. We've all done it.
We've been on a TikTok, Instagram Reels and you go, oh, I'll have a look, and you go half an hour later.
Easy.
Who's been there. Yeah.
yeah.
Put a hands up emoji. If you'd been there in the comments.
When we, start with new clients, we'll obviously go and assess their, their blogs and what they've been putting out previously and understanding what they've been putting out into the world, what their marketing is looking like and again, obviously revisiting that that buyer persona. It's so much comes back to the buyer persona, that it is your foundation for any marketing, you have to have it.
Now that content is putting out a lot of companies fall into the trap of finding content to put out difficult. So all of a sudden they veer away from the buyer persona and they'll start to put out things about them, um, Which they think is a, is a good place now. Sometimes it can be. If you're kind of solving a solution for somebody which is generally what every business is doing, and you're talking about yourself.
If not, then we need another podcast on that.
Yeah, exactly. If you are talking about the awards you've won, or the, you know, new member of staff or we've just been on this away day. That content sometimes has its place on LinkedIn, social media, little snippets. Where it is building up that personalization of, of you. But in terms of a blog piece that should be helpful and solving a solution. You're certainly not going to save that for later.
And if you did, you're certainly not going to read it when you find the time to, So that's as again, has its place within the whole marketing strategy, but that content is not going to engage your, your buyer persona, no matter what business it is.
Well, this comes back to the kind of the original question of looking to define high value content. And this is something that each business should be doing, especially as part of their marketing strategy nowadays. We've got who through that persona. When you're looking to define, you got to think, okay so what do we want out of this? And this will ebb and flow and there'll be different pieces of content. So whether you're looking to attract.
Whether you're looking to engage, whether you're looking to convert. Okay. So when you are looking to kind of convert, it's all about sales. When you're looking to attract it's about raising that brand awareness. When you're looking to engage, you're trying to build that community around the brand. And you look at brands who have done this really well on social media who have a presence and and we'll probably label it digital media because social media now, one, it's not that social.
I'm going to say something a bit controversial and go, actually how many people you follow, engage with you back?
Very few now. Yeah. Yup. Yup.
So where are you on that stage? And this will be different for different people. Are you in, are you in the attract stage? Are you engaging them? What are you trying to get out of them? Because if you're trying to grab attention, then meeting Johnny in sales, isn't really that attractive. Potentially hearing about 50% off is because it's right in your face. It's kind of going like that or big tips to help you create high value content may grab someone's attention.
But further down, you can build, like when you're building community, you want to build trust. You want to build credibility. So introducing Johnny at that point may be helpful.
Yeah. And That'd be ready for it. Exactly. As you said, so. And high-value content you know, can not only are you trying to fit it into those areas of what you're trying to achieve, but also part of that content may not necessarily be what you're selling. So you might be talking about how to know let's pick something, uh, It
Should be an 80 20.
Yeah,
You should have 80% value you're helping 80% of the time and 20% should be about what your product is, and that's not a case of buy now that's a case of did you know we do this?
So recently I bought an ice bath.
Go along with all your other gadgets.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, it's amazing how many people now want to come over and try out the ice.
You know, you could just stand outside in winter in the in the UK
Yeah, you could really just have a cold shower as well, but how did I get to that buying stage was a lot of education before that, that which was. Exactly put out by all of these and there's a, there's a number of them. Put out by these companies that basically say, oh, did you know the benefits.
Sure. So It's almost, they weren't necessarily talking about their product and what product could do, what the product could achieve, what it looked like, how long it lasts for, how cold it keeps the water. There was none of that, they were not talking about the product, they were talking about the benefits for me for having an ice bath and that then gave me the education, I saved a lot of those articles as well. I was going back. I was reading them because it was high value content.
Then when I was into that next point, I would kind of, I was now almost comparing ice baths. Then I wanted to know something slightly different. So my content as a shift through one of them wanted to consume and now it's around well, what are the benefits of each one? And obviously there's price points that come into it and now I'm choosing between the companies, which one did I go for? Interestingly, the one that was putting out the most content around educating me to the benefits.
Yeah, because you then also in a post-purchase you also knew what to do. So you didn't think, okay, I've still got education to do, this is where a lot of businesses can get ahead by often before digital media and before a lot of the kind of internet age, you would buy a product and then educate yourself on it. Whereas now you can educate yourself before you have the product to inform whether you want the product. Which is a massive, like a massive thing.
So we've all been there where you've been shopping on a Gymshark an Amazon, wherever it may be and then you go onto a social platform and then all of a sudden there's an advert, an offer, whatever it may be a banner. That is because you've already shown shopping intent in those places. So you're already, almost in that conversion cycle. But like you said, with these companies, for the ice bath you were a zero customer.
You were completely new They had no idea, so they knew they had to prime you and they went, okay, we're going to educate because that's in line with our brand values. And that's where businesses you don't always need to just give customers exactly what they want, which is surprising because you need to stay true to your brand because you need to be authentic in what you're building. Then you develop a community that is in line with what you understand and then you give them what they want.
Yeah, completely, and I think with content, obviously we're talking primarily what we've been going over is social media and blogs. Because it's, it's an easy, anybody can pick that up and run with it.
And it's, still trending yeah yeah, oh, social media yeah it's been around 20 years.
And again if you're writing a piece on something bear in mind, when you put it out on social media, it's a snippet of that and it would, can be a number of snippets. So you can write one good blog piece and put out six tweets.
That's the repurposing job, and this is where a lot of businesses struggle because they think. I don't have time. Yeah, how do I have time? If you create a macro piece of content, like a podcast, like a YouTube video. Then you can take those snippets that James is talking about and pop them on a TikTok, pop them on Instagram Reel, tweet a little bit of a word, have an Instagram story or carousel community posts. Anyone who doesn't listen to or watch Steven Bartlett, what he does is phenomenal.
Gary Vaynerchuk as well has done brilliant stuff with this in terms of utilizing content, I appreciate some people go oh, these people have big teams and stuff, yes, but the vision and for that will have come from them in terms of how they purpose that content, yeah. exactly.
Yeah and I think with that the content is, uh, is, is key, but getting out all of those bits, it doesn't have to also be a time-specific a lot of the time, if your problem, it can change. I know but as a whole, if you're solving that problem with a product that in six months, time is probably depending on your business could still be the same problem.
So you can still go back and re target the same amount of content and repurpose that content again and again and again, because it's still going to be valid. So People have the same problems. Yeah, exactly, I get that's a massive blanket and some problems may change. We have a really good ebook around, uh, getting started with inbound marketing. Inbound marketing that philosophy hasn't changed since I think inception of inbound marketing, it's the same idea.
Most like outbound probably hasn't changed.
He hasn't changed. And that PDF still converts really highly for us, and we have, we haven't changed the content within that PDF for about three years, because it's the same thing. So we can still keep that going.
And then if you take that in terms of exactly, as Jamie says, that people who say we haven't got time to do it, you're adding into it, you're adding the next one, you're adding, adding, adding, and all of this time you are adding more content, that is again, coming back to high value content and you're adding the more layers. Um, And it's a rinse and repeat, you can then see which ones are working, which topics are working, which topics aren't.
And over time you can be, you can turn into this engine that is producing the right content for your buyer persona.
Sure. Um, I mean, it doesn't happen overnight and you have to learn about much like dating. You have to learn about the person and it takes time.
It's good. I was interesting to see where you're going with that.
It takes time like yeah, you don't get married on the first date.
Nope. You got to build up that relationship.
Yeah. You've got to build up the understanding. You've got to understand each other's pains, each other's gaps, each other's strengths so you can see if you compliment each other. How they work, is there alignment? It's very, very much like that
One really quick win for that if you want to understand somebody quickly from a marketing point of view, speak to sales. They are frontline, they are talking to these people who are going all I've got this question, I've got this pain point, I don't know why this is working. They're going to have to answer all of those to get that sale complete. So if you speak to them and say, well, what problems are you having this week?
What questions are people asking this week, you can then go back and you've almost shortcutted a lot of the troubles that you're having in terms of what content to produce, answer those questions. Put a pod together, put a blog together, put a snippet out that is, that is helping answer that questions. Then you can almost go back to sales and go we've helped you out here. Here's Here's a link to his blog that we've put out, which is actually answering these questions that you're getting.
So when then next on the phone and they get combated with that question, you can go well actually we've written something to help you through this the content I'll follow up with an email.
Yeah. And then You become your own ecosystem.
Yeah
Completely yeah.
Yeah.
Is it quantity or quality because that happens all the time.
Oh, Which
one is it?
Both all the time both, it's it is good quality content, consistently produced.
Yeah, and this is the thing is there'll be loads of Instagram posts, loads of YouTube videos all about this from kind of social media marketers and or marketeers, depending on how you want to say it.
That could be another pod.
Um, The thing is with these platforms there are algorithms beat the algorithm, yeah I go against the algorithm, yeah, yeah, exactly. What's my best time? what day, and this, this stuff is important, but the algorithms do play a part, and if you're there more in showing up more for your audience, these things take notice. Yeah. Again, attention of your audience. If you're not there, when they're expecting you to show up, they've got other options, they will go to someone else.
I know James, for example has a, and this is an offline addition has recently been to, uh, kind of, one of these trade shows. There was one company here, and it was doing something for his attention and a company he knew well wasn't doing something for his attention. Guess who he went with. Um, that's offline. So the power and the speed of our online is even more.
Yeah and with that you know, if you're going to put out shit content, you could put it out at two o'clock in the afternoon or five to five and your engagement will be exactly the same.
Yeah. And the beautiful thing is now is when you are starting, your content is meant to be shit and this is the problem that people people get. People look at stuff they aspire to be, and they look at people's level 20, and at their level one they think they should be there. And this is, this is where people start because progress happens by that quantity element, when you do more quantity, your quality then becomes it because you've perfected your craft.
Well, not even perfected you've progressed. Even the guys who are the Stephen Bartletts the Gary Vaynerchuks as I spoken about, they will look at that content and go we can do this better because they aren't perfect, they are progress and they're quite willing of that journey.
You take our podcast, is a prime example I'm still not saying it's level 20 by any means, and we are still on a massive learning journey with it. But if you go back and listen to our first episode that we just got out. Um, we have learned so much from that first episode to where we are now. That said.
To get co-hosts was the main.
I mean, as soon as we as soon as the co-host landed. So we're still learning, we're still on that journey, but we're improving. And the more feedback we're getting from you guys, the better we are, the more information you're giving us, and we do get some amazing feedback. Um, and people are listening to it, people are enjoying the content that we're putting out. But with every time we're learning that we go and improve it we go and revisit it, we think that we can include.
Um, And that's what it is it is a journey, don't expect to be absolutely nailing it on day one. But if you're coming back to what people want, what people are wanting to achieve, what your buyer persona is looking for, what problems you're trying to solve for them. You're not going to be far off, you're just going to be able to improve and optimize that content and get better at it.
But don't worry about falling over that the first hurdle, if you've gone to your buyer persona and understood what they want, then it's better to get something out that you think is right. Sure. And that content is you think helpful because you're going to learn from that and then it might be perfect, and then you can build on that. It might be wrong, or It might be slightly hitting the mark you can learn from that and that's what it's about. It's understanding the needs.
That you can learn from success and you learn more from failure. Yeah, but you learn at every stage along the way, and the beautiful thing is now you don't need a 4,000 pound microphone or a 15,000 pound camera. Pick up your phone, we've already spoken about them, go behind the scenes, talk to them, we've seen some of these hilarious TikToks, just in random office buildings. I know one of James his funniest ones, is whether it's like, shit, shit, shit, shit. The TikTok person's here.
Um, but you can have fun with it. Enjoy it. It doesn't have to be a huge production value. You don't need Leonardo di Caprio to be in your new dog food commercial. You need a dog, like. Yeah. Not always.
But, um, that that's the really important thing, one element we really want to make sure though to ensure everyone's walking away with as much value is some recommended resources that People are walking away from our podcasts where, because it's not all about us, and there are so many people we've quoted them today. One thing I would say is definitely go and check out Steven Bartlett's podcast.
Uh, What he does in terms of interviewing his various guests There's something for everyone, whether it's health, whether it's business, whether it's relationships, whether it's personal progress, it's really really cool. Um, I'm a big fan of it. So the diary of the CEO, Steven Bartlett is a really good one. Um, I'd also go and get the book for all the business slash marketing managers, the visual MBA. Um, Jason Barron.
Great book guy did an MBA realized taking notes wasn't for him, so sketch noted everything. So for any of the entrepreneurs, the creatives out there, definitely one for you. I think it's about 10 quid
I have a few books that live on my desk that is one of them, and it has so many post-it notes tucked in within it so I can just open it up and go straight to it. But yeah, I, uh, it was actually your recommendation and it is a fantastic book that you can, it's an enjoyable book as well. Like really super enjoyable but really informative.
Sure. And then the last one is an app called artifacts. Which allows you to tailor news and updates and stuff just for you. So whether it's the stock market, you're interested in sports, the auto industry, whatever it may be, it means that you get put in front of you the news you want to see. So you're staying up to date, you're staying in the loop, but you're not seeing the stupid, latest about Donald Trump when you really just couldn't care but you're seeing about the biggest.
Aubegine that was grown in Ipswich the other day, whatever matters to you, because that is making sure you are consuming high value content. If we can make you a creator rather than a consumer but what you consume high value, then that's going to be a massive win.
We will drop all of that in the show notes. Uh, But to finish off I wanted to give you an actionable step. So go away and define what high value content looks like for your business. Well, this new strategy that you're going for. So that's it be sure to subscribe for more tips and insights on growing your business? Uh, Thanks for tuning in and until next time, happy marketing. Now, remember that you can always drop us any comments directly to our email address podcast@hellomethod.co.uk.