Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Pamela Miller. Pamela is a Marketing expert & content creating fairy godmother. She teaches service-based female entrepreneurs, how to cut the content overwhelm and show them how to turn blogs, social media posts, emails, videos…into web traffic creating, lead generating sales army. So, you can save your time, automate the process more & scale your business with ease. In this interview, we talk all about creating content specifically for your audience, how to come up with content that coverts, and repurposing your content to save you time!KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Content creation is creating a piece of valuable information that you can put out there through various channels including social media, blogs, YouTube videos, podcasts.
- Content is designed to navigate people from being aware to actually buying from you.
- Content creation is not just ticking a box – you need to think about what you are actually putting out there and the journey your audience will go on.
- Doing nothing is not an option anymore.
- Instead of just box-ticking and posting on social media, you could be using this time to do other things on different platforms.
- You will not stay consistent if you are not doing something you enjoy – find the things that you enjoy!
- If you want to focus solely on one platform – do that! Don’t try and juggle them all.
- Once you have been putting content out for a while, you will have a lot of content you can then repurpose!
- You don’t always have to create from scratch and constantly come up with new ideas.
- Content distractions – We have to understand what our objective is and what our audience wants to see and post this type of content. Don’t get bogged down on things that are not of value for your audience.
- Use content wisely that is in tune with you!
- Think about what you are trying to achieve – what is your objective? Sales, audience building? Make this your priority.
- Think about how you can stop the scroll – what will make your content stand out?
- Be consistent – otherwise you will never achieve success with it.
- Think about your end goal – reverse engineer it to find out where you should start.
- What can you help people achieve? What problems do they have?
- Time and money is always the end goal for your audience – get really specific and speak directly to people.
- Once you have identified your content and your objective, now you can start to create content.
- Think about how your content looks in terms of when people are scrolling – don’t use tiny text!
- Templates are helpful – Canva has 100s you can use. Make sure you tweak them to your brand kit.
- You will always find the time for things that work. Create habits, momentum and consistency.
- Decide on the content types and the frequency that you can stick to.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
There is no point collecting people and doing nothing with them!
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS
- An introduction to Pamela 04:29
- What is content creation 08:04
- Repurposing your content 16:44
- What do I post? 19:36
- How to come up with content 29:13
- How to create content 39:20
- Content top tips 45:23
Creative MarketTranscript
Teresa: Hello and happy new year. So if you're listening to the time it comes out, we have just had the new year and I hope you had a good one. I hope you really enjoyed it. So in our household, we got locked down because one of our family members has COVID.
Teresa: Um, my stepson, and potentially obviously we may or may not get it, but I'm sure we will be absolutely fine. We've actually been in contact with quite a few people who have had it and didn't get it from them. So fingers crossed that these vaccines that I've had to help me not get ill are working or they seem to be anyway.
Teresa: So anyway, uh, so that's why we had no new year plans. Uh, we we'll probably just hang out at home, which is what we do tend to anyway, to be honest, we're not big new year's people. And we're not big Christmas people. I am, my husband's not, he hates it. Like literally hates it. So it's been a very quiet time for us at this break, which is probably exactly what we needed.
Teresa: Anyway on today's episode. So. I have done another interview. I mentioned to you just before Christmas that I was going to be putting interviews out because we've done so many good ones and so far ahead and in all honesty, it's much easier for me to put an interview out. And obviously as it's been a busy time of year and I was wanting a rest, then interviews are the way to go. And also as a way, right before Christmas, I went to Nashville and hung out with my beautiful, amazing friend, Mary Hyatt. Who's been on the podcast twice. You can go and listen to her. Also got to go and have dinner with Amy Porterfield. So Anne Hoby and Mary and Bentley. So that was awesome too.
Teresa: So, so good. So it was so lovely to see people in person again. I think this is something that I have really missed. And strangely enough, when I got back from Nashville, knowing that we've got a quiet Christmas, I'd actually arranged to have some kind of open house, get together at my home and we've got to cancel it.
Teresa: So that's a real shame because I think going to Nashville and seeing people in person really kind of reminded me how much I love doing it. But fingers crossed we can get back to that soon. So anyway, today we are talking to the lovely Pamela and Pamela is a content creator expert. So she has an agency where she will do content for you.
Teresa: But she also has an online business where she teaches you how to do content. And in this episode, we're talking about how you can't just go through the motions. And I think this is really good, especially if you're looking to plan what your content is going to be looking like this year. She talks a lot about that you can't just necessarily pick, you know, national cheese toasty day and post about that. If it's not right for your audience. So. It's a really, really good one. It really good reminder of the types of content we're putting out there and the fact that we're doing it anyway, we're spending the time. So if we're going to spend that time, let's make sure we're really spending it well and putting the right things out for our audience.
Teresa: So I will leave up to Pamela to tell you the rest, enjoy this episode, and I will see you on the other side.
Teresa: So I am very honored today to welcome to the podcast, the lovely Pamela Miller. Pamela how are you doing?
Pamela: Hi I am very, very well. I hope I hope you're well too. And thank you so much for having me.
Teresa: My pleasure. So there's a few reasons why I wanted to Pamela on the podcast, the main one being her voice, uh, and people often say nice things about my voice as well. So maybe this one, we should just talk gently for an hour and you look and have a little snooze and just lie there.
Pamela: Like I kick on the cam up, right.
Teresa: I love it. I love it. Yeah. Pam has got lovely voice. I really like it. Um, so anyway, that's not just the reason I got you on here. So let's start as I always do by asking you to introduce yourself and tell us how you got to do what you do today.
Pamela: Yes. So I'm Pamela and I obviously live in Scotland tense voice.
Pamela: And so how did I get started? Well, I worked in marketing for gosh, over 15 years now. Um, agency side, client side, and it was starting my own company where I really started to kind of open my eyes into how I could help other people. Um, I think when you sort of step into a 9 to 5 you just kind of, you know, you're in that different zone of focus, aren't you. It's all about the career ladder. But starting my own company was when I really sort of ignited my passion for helping other business owners. And actually it's getting to see their way happy smiley faces when you teach them something. And it makes them money or lets them be happy as well. You know, if they want to work plus hours a week or something and you show them how to see that and you get to see their happy face at the end of it.
Pamela: It's you know, so yeah. Yeah. It's so rewarding. Absolutely. So, yeah, I have literally, I feel like I've gotten like, three circle through the whole sort of like, um, corporate side, if you will, 9 to 5 then into, I originally started up setting up an agency business, um, and doing people's content and their marketing for them.
Pamela: Um, and then I tipped into this where, you know, content clarity where, you know, I'm, I'm coaching people, how to devise a content strategy, how to up-skill content creation, because I think people tend to be quite overwhelmed, scared. Video tends to be a massive source of panic for people. Um, so just kind of like lifting the curtain a bit on all of these different things, because it doesn't have to be that steady really. Um, if you kind of just learn it bit by bit.
Teresa: It's funny though. Cause you've been in marketing a long time. Like I have, same amount of time actually. Um, the word content creator didn't exist. Like probably even like six, seven years, maybe, maybe a bit more than that.
Teresa: 8 years ago, like it didn't exist. And now the fact that business owners have to become content creators is kind of mind-blowing. Isn't it?
Pamela: It really is. And I mean, when I say I am a content geek, like I, at one point was a mommy blogger when I first had kids. Right. So I've done that whole mommy blogger, YouTube channel, lifestyle, blogger, homestay, and tidier.
Pamela: It's like I've done the whole kitten caboodle, um, and really worked my way through the ranks of creating content and working with massive brands on their content strategies as well. And it is it's, it's, it's funny to see how it's gone from, you know, only people like influencers would create content.
Pamela: Like you see right down now to just every single business, even like the one man band type businesses have to have a degree of understanding of it in order to be successful online.
Teresa: So when you're talking content creation, how would you, because sometimes I think, especially when it comes to business owners, sometimes they'll like, say, ‘What are you talking about?'
Teresa: Like, even when I say the word content often I will swap out the word content for posts, if I'm talking social media content. So if you had to explain to me what content creation is, how would you do that?
Pamela: Yeah, people get really confused when it comes to the word content or they just think it's social media. Right. And they don't think of other things like blogs and videos and email sequences and all that sort of thing. But I mean, essentially content creation is creating a piece of uh, valuable information that you can put out there through so many different channels, right? There's like I say, more than just social media, you know, blogs, YouTube, podcasts.
Pamela: So for example, email sequences, but essentially it's designed to help navigate people from, you know, just becoming a way of your products and services and all things. Through to sales and, you know, the beauty of creating this it's, it's almost like you're, you're creating your own sort of Hansel and Gretel story.
Pamela: Right. You're putting your own little breadcrumbs out for people, um, to act as a sort of re to, to sale. Um, and it's, I just love it. I think more people need to think of content creation is not just ticking a box, right. Or some somebody says I have to post like five times a week, so I post five times a week, or I have to post every day so I post every day and actually start to think a bit more clever about it and think, well, less about frequency, more about how do people get from point A to point B and put those little bits and pieces in place.
Teresa: And do you think that like at this a great analogy, the kind of putting the breadcrumbs down and leading them to the sale, but do you, do you often come against the it's a lot of effort for not the very quick reward. Like my experience is that content marketing is a slower burn thing. It's a consistency thing.
Teresa: It's a showing up when no one's paying attention thing. It's a creating stuff that your customers want to engage with and see, but it's not a, someone's going to buy, you do a blog post, someone's going to buy tomorrow. That's not what's going to happen. So do you find just up against that in terms of trying to convince people that this is a worthwhile exercise?
Pamela: Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, same can be said for Pinterest for SEO for, you know, for all of these other things, but people understand it or they kind of know, they maybe don't know why, but they know that they need to be doing it because doing nothing, isn't an option anymore. If you do nothing, you're just going to stagnate.
Pamela: So you have to start doing something. Otherwise your competitors are doing it. And they're laying those breadcrumbs out and six months down the line they're benefiting from it. So unless you actually ever start, you're never going to get the reward from it. But the beauty of these things as well is that they are semiautomatic or automatic.
Pamela: And as much as once they are in place, They're in place, right? They're working hard for you. Um, and people are already on that bandwagon, right? Or that hamster wheel cycle of putting social media out. They don't know why. Right. They're just posting every day cause I have to, tick your box, tick the box, tick the box.
Pamela: So they're already spending the time, but it's like actually for that time, you posted less on social media and actually were a bit more savvy and use some of these other different methods and started to put that breadcrumb Trello. It might be a longer burn or a slower burn, but you're actually starting to do something that's going to work.
Pamela: How long are you going to keep going on that hamster wheel for when it's not even getting your results? So it is, it is, you know, a slower burn, but I think people do realize now that they need to be doing something.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I think, like I said, sometimes I, that was a really hard conversation to have with someone.
Teresa: And I give the story all the time, my podcast, that basically, and the people listening to this right now and like, all right Teresa, I've heard it 300 times. You can stop that already. But like, it's the fact of it took 9 months before suddenly I had that hockey stick of bet that like, it was little bit, little bit, little bit, little bit.
Teresa: And then 9 months later, my husband and my assistant at the time were like, ‘What did you do?' And I was like, ‘Nothing. Nothing different.' And it was just, I think the consistency, you know, so it, it almost to try and convince people to say, you've got to wait 9 months, at least to, to say something goes, can feel very hard work.
Teresa: I guess from my point of view, what I say, when I talk about content, it's finding something that people love to do. I love to talk, I talk a lot, so this is perfect for me. So is that something that you, you kind of encourage when you help people come up with what content they should do.
Pamela: Oh a 100%. I mean, when it comes to like, you see it's, it's that consistency nobody's going to stay consistent if they're being forced to do something that they don't enjoy. Right. If you take an introvert and say, ‘Well, the only way you're going to be successful is if you do a live video every day.' they're going to be like, uh, ‘Hell no.'
Teresa: I'll be fine. Thank you.
Pamela: Yeah. Yeah. So it's all about finding something that you enjoy. That because ultimately in this day and age, your audience are pretty much everywhere, they're spread out. Right. You know, you're gonna, you're not gonna miss anybody out if you do a YouTube channel instead of a podcast or vice versa.
Pamela: So pick the one that you're going to be able to do consistently. Right. So for me, I'm I like to talk, but I love video. So for me, YouTube channel, right. Rather than a podcast, um, I realized that my audience would love a podcast, but I'm going to go down the YouTube channel and that's okay. Right. I'm not going to miss, you know, audience or anything like that because there's, as many people watching YouTube videos, as there are listened to podcasts. And so it's again, just sort of thinking, you know, well, what do you like doing, do you like, do you like writing? Do you hate writing? Do you like, yeah. Do .You like talking like for me, obviously blogger, blogger background, not can blog site, not a problem, right.
Pamela: Can do all day, every day. But, you know, again, it's, it's staying away from the stuff that you aren't enjoying or you can't do. And ironically, social media is probably one of the ones where people start to get some kind of disdain because they start to compare themselves to other people. And that's when the imposter syndrome creeps in and, or don't let go on the platform.
Pamela: I see my competitors or nobody liked my pool story. And funnily enough, that's when all the horrible emotions come up, it's from social media. Right? So it's is bizarre that people seem so fixated on it when there's other options completely. Some of the options completely behind the scenes, right? Email sequences, no one sees that.
Pamela: Um, but again, people think that everything has to be publicly seen all the time. Right.
Teresa: And, um, I guess the other thing is that when you get to a point where I am in my business now, and I have a team to help me, I can run different types of content in different types of places. And also I can repurpose my content.
Teresa: So, you know, we're sat here and I'm recording this and we're on video. I don't have a YouTube channel, but when I do my episodes, I say, I want us on video. Cause I might use the video at some point. And at some point I might, you know, I might just put like a, you know, if I also want a specific question and you answer it, then that could make great YouTube content.
Teresa: But I'm only thinking about that now because I have a team because I wouldn't be doing it. Like I would be saying to them, there's a great question at X time, can you pull that out, edit it, put it on YouTube. Like. So I think as well, sometimes we see people's content creation and we feel like we must be doing that.
Teresa: And it's like, uh, like you didn't see me right at the beginning because I wasn't as well-known as I am now. And at the beginning, I wasn't doing that because I couldn't, cause I was just doing what I was doing, you know? So I think the comparison thing is a nightmare. Isn't it?
Pamela: It is it's, it's just absolutely dire.
Pamela: And again, people force themselves, especially at the start to do everything, right. To put it all on their plate. Social media channels or just take them all right. I'll do every single one of them. But as I said, you knew your audience you should fairly evenly spread now. And most people are in more than one place or two places, three places.
Pamela: So if you want to just focus on Twitter, just focus on Instagram, you can do that in fact it will stand you embarrassed a head for doing that. Then if you try and juggle them all because you juggle them all, you're just diluting yourself. You're not going to be spending the time on the platform and engaging and getting the best from it.
Pamela: It says, yeah, it's crazy. And repurposing, I am glad you brought up because that is the one thing that people don't stick at content long enough to benefit from, because once you've been putting content out for as long as you and I have, but even like, if, if people have been doing it for say three months, six months, they find that point yet.
Pamela: If you've been consistent enough to post a podcast every week for three months or post on social media, three times a week for three months, The ability to then repurpose that content, you can straight up just repost and social media, like to even change the caption or the image, just fight it back home again, but you can tweak it or, you know, let you say, take that blog post and take that really important point out and make it into real or make it into a TikTok or, you know, it's just repurposing. Amounts too, at some point amounts to like 60, 70, 80% of the content that you put out don't align. People never get to that point. And I think that they have to always create from scratch all the time and look for new ideas all the time.
Teresa: Yeah. I see that all the time, actually. And the truth is they get nervous about, ‘Oh well, someone's going to see that I've already posted that.' If only, if only that was the case that when we post something, everyone sees it.
Pamela: Everyone sees it and everyone consumes it in the order that we posted it.
Teresa: And they're like, oh, so if I send that one thing again, which I've tweaked so they're definitely, definitely going to know I've done that. Not in a million years. And I think I was going to ask you a question about like, because obviously you work with people to help them create content.
Pamela: Yeah.
Teresa: Years ago. I always find that the hard thing that everyone struggled with was what do I post?
Teresa: And I'm not entirely sure that that's the case anymore. Like I'm doing a, as we speak, I'm currently doing a content challenge within my Academy, we do a challenge every other month, but it just happens to be about content this month. Oh this week, we only did it for a week. And the first thing I got them to do is a decide what platform they were going to focus on.
Teresa: Because like you said, we're not doing all of them. So are you creating content for a blog, creating content for social media, for emails. So they have to decide that on Monday on Tuesday, I got them to brainstorm. Anything and everything to do with their business. And they got them to literally take photos.
Teresa: And funnily enough, as we're doing the challenge, my emails this week, but it sounds like I'm so, so not, but ever since. So it was a pure fluke that this happened by the way, my emails this week, we're also talking about content creation and I literally have screenshotted a really scribbling mess that I had written my, my brainstorm.
Teresa: People are now realizing there is a lot that they can talk about. So what, what, what are they struggling with? Like, obviously I've got some ideas, but what do you find that when you're working with your membership, what are they struggling with the most when it comes to creating content?
Pamela: I think it's just to, I mean, obviously there's the technical, when it comes to things like, you know, video or whatever people live here trying to avoid it, or they don't understand it, but when it comes to the actual creation of the content is brainstorming and things like that. I think it's almost like they're so overwhelmed by let you see the ideas or the possibilities. I think we came to know now that content opportunities that are in abundance in our business.
Pamela: We've kind of gotten to that point now. It's trying to establish what is a genuine, decent content idea. What's actually going to do something for our business and what's just a pure and utter destruction. And so there's a lot of content distractions, um, in our businesses. So content distractions, you know, obviously we kind of had it drummed into us from every man and their dog that we should be posting like 8 times a day, every day, whatever.
Pamela: And you know, like, you know, this cup. So, you know, I like how honey styles, content opportunity, right? Like, brilliant. I'll just start posting honey style stuff, but it's like we need to actually understand what's that going to do for my business. Right. What's my objective right now in my business. I may trying to audience built.
Pamela: Am I trying to nurture, am I trying to promote and sell something? Where's my focus. And what type of content should I be leaning into? Because if I'm trying to like get people to see me as like fun and funky, maybe you're talking about how selves to be hilarious. But, you know, what I do see is people thinking well, you know, and it kind of makes me cry a little bit inside when I see people giving, you know, a list of October, right.
Pamela: We're in October now. A list of all the awareness days for the month. And it's like, oh, it's National Cheese Toastie Day. And it's national, you know, bring your pet rock to work day. And it's like, You know, I'm seeing business owners almost take that as gospel and be like, well, that's great. I can overlay that onto my calendar.
Pamela: There's my daily posting done because it's National Cheese Toastie Day. But what it’s like have to do with your business or what you're trying to achieve right now, or the goal that you're working towards? How does National Cheese Toastie Day going to help you work for weeks?
Teresa: And you're right. I think. Like you said, we've, we've gone past the, I don't know. What's supposed to, there are a million things you can post, but it's getting bogged down with the stuff that is of no use to you whatsoever. And don't get me wrong. We have this argument all the time of we've got to post the interesting and quirky and funny and engaging stuff because we're on social media.
Teresa: When we're talking specifically about social media. Because on social media and it's a social thing, and you're not competing against another business, you're competing against people's social life. So we get that. But if it's only that, or if it's majority that then it's pointless or if it doesn't align with, so I, I'm going to probably do a podcast on this.
Teresa: In fact, by the time yours comes out. Cause I batch, I don't know when the other one might come out. I'm going to do a podcast on reels because I like to say, I kind of like tried to stay away from them as long as possible. There's an understatement. I did not want to do reels like that. I'd rather have a hole in my head because I felt like I look like an idiot.
Teresa: I don't want to point at things. I don't want to necessarily some lip sync. I could imagine that I may be one day might do, but other lip-sync listen by the time this comes out I probably done loads of pointy reels.
Pamela: My dig is up, right?
Teresa: Like, so I was really against doing that. And then I had a call with a reels expert and we had a power hour type thing, and I was like, I need it to be me. I need it to be authentically me and sit in with me and who I am. So the couple of reels I've done so far is I did one that was like a getting ready one because I'm always on camera.
Teresa: So I did this one and I thought I was real. Did you see it? How brave was I? Like no makeup face. In my pajama which was slightly boobie and I shoved get the wrong audience there. I got a whole nother business coming over there. Like I shut my, I opened my cabinet door and I shut it. And when I shut it, I'm fully done.
Teresa: And I even wrote on it. If only it was that quick. You know, cause again, I'm really realistic. And then the next one I did was like what you see compared to what I see. Cause obviously have a nice setup and I have a nice camera and everything. And then like the mess that is in front of me and my daughter stood by the door normally going, ‘Can I have a snack? Can I have a snack?' So like they felt really authentic to me and to my audience.
Teresa: You know, my audience, lots of them have children and they know what it's like to be working from home and have the children interrupt them. So I think that for me is more key than anything. Like if it doesn't represent me and my audience and what they care about and what I care about then I don't care that there's a trend in tune or that everyone loves that type of reel. I'm not gonna do it. Like I just can't authentically do it.
Pamela: Yeah. And again, this is, I think the misconception or the distraction with content again is the trends, right? It must the latest trend must do that. Must do that. Must do that. I mean, I've got people in my membership and you know, they've been wildly successful in reels in terms of reach.
Pamela: Um, I think one of them, they go, you know, when she has maybe like 2000 followers and she got like 400,000 on one of her reels, right. Which was like, whoa, But it doesn't actually do anything.
Teresa: Anything to do with what she did.
Pamela: Well, it was, it was, it actually genuinely was, but she's actually said top is great.
Pamela: And I was excited that I got in that reach, but I did not actually gain any audience or like followers that if I did, it was like the wrong type of people. Um, and I didn't actually sell anymore or, you know, like what was the point. And we get this 400,000, um, cause it didn't do anything. And so what is that, that big destruction like reels and TikTok.
Pamela: I am an absolute addict, right. But it is very, you know, like for reach, for discovery for time to sort of grow audience, I think is absolutely. It's fantastic. It's, it's, it's knowing where it slots in because again, not every content type or execution is going to work at strongest for each part of the buying journey as well.
Pamela: You know, when you can, you can kind of split it out. You know, it's like, if you don't like sailing publicly, right. Which I do. And as an introvert, I'm like, you know, just don't like it. If I can get people to subscribe and get onto my email list, and I'm far more comfortable behind the scenes sending out email sequences that sell to them, or an automated masterclass or webinars or something like that. So it's kind of using content wisely and that's in tune with, with you and that's going to actually work for you because if it does nothing then.
Teresa: Then what's the point. These things take effort. So it's not like, you know, it's a two second job. It's like it takes effort.
Teresa: And one thing I want to be really realistic about, and we were chatting about this before we got on, is that when you see those massive account. When you see that people have built up big profiles and whatever, I was talking to my, some, someone I coach and they've done really well and their audience is growing and they're doing really well on Instagram and they've been doing a lot reels.
Teresa: And I said to her, I said to them, so what's your reel strategy? And they said, ‘We post four a day.' Who on earth has got time to do that? Now awesome that it's happening and they're doing it and they can manage it. That's great. I'm really pleased for them, but the problem is other people will look at that success and be like, ‘Well, why aren't I getting that?'
Teresa: Well, you do four reels a day. Do you want to do four reels a day? And have you got the time to do it? No. No. And no. I just think being realistic about what people achieve. Yeah. Like, look, you know, again, like someone that I often used to do the joke of like Jasmine Star. And they'd go, you know, do you want as many followers as Jasmine Star?
Teresa: Yeah, that's fine. You can just show up consistently every single day for seven years, because that's how long it took you to get to that level. Like, there you go. You can be as successful as Jasmine Star. Because that's the thing they see her now when they see the hundreds of thousands followers she's got.
Teresa: But look at how many posts she's done and divide it by one post a day, which roughly is what she's done. She's been posting for a flipping long time. So yeah, I think people miss that. Anyway. Yeah. We've had a reel, like just general chat there, which is lovely, but what I want to do, um, for those listening is, I really want to get into the process of how you come up with content.
Teresa: Because one thing that we as business owners. In fact, I think it should be all our middle names is overwhelm Heath Wareing because it's like, just basically I was going to say it's the buzzword, but it's not even like a fake buzzword. It's genuinely real, uh, that we are all overwhelmed in life, as well as business and home and children and all the stuff.
Teresa: So how do we come up with content or process using that saves us time and gets us away from some of that process?
Pamela: Definitely. So in terms of just thinking about what it is that you're doing in the next 30, 60, 90 days is a 100% the starting point. So it's like, what are you trying to achieve?
Pamela: What's your goal? What's your objective? Are you in a promotional sales phase right now? Are you audience building for something that you're launching in the new year? Like what is it with your soul focuses right now and focus on that and make that your priority because distractions, distractions. But if you're trying to audience through right, think about what content is going to help you do that, is it, you know, is your focus going to be reels?
Pamela: And let's, let's be realistic about that as well as, you know, thought was successful for that person. But that's not the only strategy. It's not the only way that you can grow your audience. Right? You can grow your audience in a number of different ways. It's finding the right one for you. So of course the four reels a day is like your idea of how.
Pamela: Strive for something else, but workout how you're going to, how you're going to grow that audience. Maybe you're going to do paid ads, right? Whatever it is, you don't even have an email, download. Could be anything. Right. But stick to that and make that your focus and then think about how you can get people's attention, how you can like stop the scroll and how you can be consistent as well.
Pamela: Cause that is a 100%, 100%. The one thing that's, that's gonna make any content strategy successful, because if it becomes like going to the gym in January, where you go for like, you know, three weeks and I didn't like that, so fallen off the bandwagon, you're never gonna, you're never gonna achieve something at all.
Pamela: You know, you're never going to achieve it. But definitely look at your audience and look at the end goal of what your oh, like going to sell them eventually down the lane. And it's almost like reverse engineered it. Cause if you're not stage of audience growth, what's going through their heads at that particular point right? There, maybe only just becoming a weight if their problem.
Pamela: So what would grab their attention right now? Right. So it's like, you know, maybe you're the one that comes up my heads, and literally just hoovered the carpet in here. I it's like if your Hoover's on its last legs and you're going to be at a place in your Hoover, it's you know what, some people's heads right now, you know, is it like, you know, thinking about pet here is that, you know, thinking about how to replace my carpet, is it beyond it?
Pamela: Is it, you know, could I replace my Hoover? Should I buy a new one? Is it the energy efficiency of new first? Think of all the things that are floating around in people's heads right now? And put that into your content. Service-based then again, think about the transformation, think about the sort of end goal of what you can help people achieve.
Pamela: So, you know, for me, for example, it's helping people with their content. So again, that sort of audience building stage of what problems are going through their head, it's that blank page feeling a certain day, not knowing what to put in a, in a blog post. It's not knowing what platforms to be on or trying to juggle too many platforms, you know, even like you said about trying to fit it all in with being a mom and having the kids in the house. And so think about all these things and pull all that into your content and use that for, for audience discovery, forget trying to sell to them yet. Right. Just, you know, almost kind of blocked that out.
Pamela: Cause again, I think if everyone gravitates towards sell, sell, buy my thing, buy my thing. And sometimes people were, were so keen to say, but you want to know, you know, it's like, you're, you might be playing like a four week game. It's just desperate to see buy it now. Buy it now.
Teresa: Yeah. I think you're right. I think for me, how I've got better with my content is having a longer term strategy is knowing what am I going to do?
Teresa: So, and actually, I don't know about you, but I, I really enjoy the periods of I don't have to sell, like if I never had to sell, oh, it'd be so nice. Unfortunately, I have expensive tastes, which is annoying.
Teresa: But more important I have a mortgage and school's paying for. But, you know, Like, I actually really just like creating that content. And it's really nice when I don't have to think about, oh, and this is leading to a sale. Oh. And this is leading to a sale. So the audience building like bit the kind of awareness bit, the engagement bit.
Teresa: That's really nice. I really liked that bit of creating content.
Pamela: And that's right. That's, that's my zone of genius as well. Like that's where I gravitate towards. And I've had business coaches tell me that in the past, you know, it's like, you don't actually, I never see you sell. And it's like, because I just don't like doing that.
Pamela: You know, I just don't. I try and avoid it as well. Like the plague and I've kind of learned to accept that, that's not me. And she forced me to do for four months, forced me to cry there and sell on stories and stuff like that. And it was like, oh, let's get it crawl all time. Um, but I learned to accept. It's like, okay, does it work?
Pamela: Does it work for me? Right. Wasn't wildly successful. But I worked my way around it. Right. And if it's not for you, that's fine, there's other ways. Right. So there's behind the scenes selling. And like I said, email sequences, that's when I'll get salesy. Cause I don't, I don't eyeball it. I don't see it once I set it and forget it.
Pamela: I don't see it. Right. So it's not like stories, but I'm aware that I'm seeing it right.
Teresa: There are some different content is good for different things like that because you're right. When I write an email sequence. So when I write some emails, I can write them. And almost disjoined myself from sending them like, cause I write them and my team scheduled them.
Teresa: So it's like I can write them and not even think about the fact that they're going somewhere and someone's going to have them and you know, and that's really nice. And I also, I'm really glad as well that you talk about emails because I think often people don't think about emails as a content, um, and it, and it totally is. Isn't it?
Pamela: Yeah. And, you know, we just don't use, um, all, all of the, you know, arms of content to their best of their abilities. You know, it's, you know, we, we immediately think of social media, but you know, it's like things like webinars, master classes, challenges, right. What you're putting in a free Facebook group or using that.
Pamela: Email sequences, you know, email newsletters, many courses, you know, given that weighs like a free downloadable or something, or the first module of a course, if you're selling into a course, it's just being very, very clever about it. We have to remember ultimately the main aim of content is that we intend to do something with these people at the end of it.
Pamela: We're not just, we're not just making friends here. You know, it's not about, I want to grow my email list to be the biggest, or I want to hit 10,000 on Instagram so I can get the swipe up. There's the sole purpose here, right. Is to make is to make money. Why are we making money? Well, so that I can only work 40 hours a week, or my husband can give up his job or whatever it might be.
Pamela: So we tend to do something with these people. There's no point in collecting people. And do nothing with them.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, okay. So let's say we've, we've thought about the next 30, 60, 90 days ahead. We've decided we want to audience filled. And we've thought about the end goal. So let's take my business for instance, my end goal is very wide for my audience, like, because they all have their own end goal and I help them get to their individual end goals because they're business owners. So, and one thing I, I liked to talk about is the fact that whatever your idea of your dream businesses is what we work on.
Teresa: Because like me saying to you, you've got to get to six figures is just absolutely against everything I would have to say. So. If it's not a common end goal like that. I mean, there are common things, obviously that they want to feel under control that they want their business to matter that they want their income to matter, that they want to have a balance of actually I can run a business and still be a mom and, you know, don't have to like do every million things or whatever.
Teresa: So how would you approach that as it's not a specific, I'm going to buy a one product or I'm going to buy a particular service.
Pamela: Yeah. Yeah. So if everyone, if everyone in your audience and goal slightly different, you'll find that there's probably commonalities in that as well, you know, it's like always like a 100% of the time like you say 6 figures, because you'll see that floating around everywhere.
Pamela: Right? People talk about 5k months, 10K months, you know, 6 figure years and, and it's not always the case. Right? You will always have that person, you know, like me, who's maybe not as focused on the figures, but more focused on that time I spend with the kids or can my husband give up his corporate job?
Pamela: And I'm still more focused on that. And I don't see anybody necessarily talking specifically about those things, but even I knew that the thing that's going to get me, those things, ironically, although it's not my main priority, my main focus is the numbers. It's the financial freedom that's going to give me, you know, it's time and money is always the two things weaved in there somehow.
Pamela: And it's pulling that out. And there's no reason you can't get specific to stop the scroll, get really specific about the sort of common ones. You'll always have the unique ones, right? The person that wants to like, you know, live off grid in a, in a van or something like that. Drive route 66, it might be one person in your audience.
Pamela: So, but, um, you know, I think we were, we all realize that it's time and it's money that gives us the things that we want, whether that be super sparkly or whether it just be really normal and ordinary things.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. So then, so let's have come up with some ideas. What, what do you do next? Like, is it that you write at the post, you create things in Canva? What's your. Like the actual physically creating it. What do you do then?
Pamela: Yeah, so, I mean, obviously you're going to want to identify the content that you're gonna be focusing on for that particular stage that's, you know, focus for the next 90 days. So if that is audience building, are you gonna be using blogs? Are you gonna be using an email freebie?
Pamela: And absolutely it's like, okay, how am I going to do this? Then I think pretty much everybody's aware of Canva these days, whether they use that, whether they use Adobe. Um, so again, it's like growing and creating the content, but again, try and think about things like if it's so common mistakes, I see when people create content for social media.
Pamela: Maybe the creative type, whole graffiti life post, where it's just like text on a plain background, tiny, tiny phone. Bear in mind, people are scrolling, right? Yeah. They're on their phone. So again, it was actually one of the clients of mine. She was like, I minimize all of my Canva viewing zoom. I think she seems at times like 30% or something like that.
Pamela: So she could see what it would be like as if it was on her phone. And again, people again, they'll be like, oh, Aesthetically does that fit my feed? Aesthetically should I be using this color background, that color background, these things aren't really relevant. What you should be thinking is stopping the scroll.
Pamela: So again, templates are helpful here, right? So, even if you can just go, I mean, Canva's great, right? It has great templates on there, on there. Just make sure you customize them to your colors, your fonts, you took them a little bit, so they don't look the same as everyone else. And they actually look like yours or going to creative market is great.
Pamela: You can buy some great templates on creative market for like buttons, you know? Hmm.
Teresa: I saw the other day just quickly. I saw someone doing a story or something about like how awful it is that small businesses would buy templates. And I thought, well, how's that awful? Like, and there were basically saying no, cause if you're a dentist, you don't want to post the same thing as a nutritionist or whatever, or, you know, someone who makes homemade products and it's like, yeah, but you're assuming everyone's got a good eye for design and not everyone has, I would much rather someone use a template and it looked okay than spend ages, trying to make something look all right. And it's just not your bag and neither should it be your bag?
Teresa: Like I think sometimes we try and think as business owners, we have to be copywriters. We have to be designers, we have to be content creators and it's like, no, no, you came into business. Cause you're really good at the thing you do. So don't beat yourself up. It actually, you're not was just really not great at designing stuff.
Teresa: So I'd much rather people use templates. And I use templates for me, um, from a kind of, cause I don't think I've got a bad eye for design stuff. Uh, she says very someone else looks at it ‘No, that's awful.' I use templates to give me ideas and I use other people's social media. So I'll look at someone's Instagram and I'm about, oh, that's cool.
Teresa: I like the look of that post. So then I will recreate something similar, but with my brand, my fonts, my colors, my look, you know, and I think that's all right. I think that's fine.
Pamela: It is, and Pinterest is great as well for, for layouts and templates and ideas. Like you say, um, I, as, as someone that's very visual and somewhat creative, maybe not the best at it, I could literally spend weeks doing that.
Pamela: But I could honestly, and it's a source. I know it's a source of distraction for me. So yeah. Again, having templates and having set templates that I kind of use, it stops me from falling down that rabbit hole every time I'm looking to create a, you know, create a couple of posts because it's like, okay, There's my style, you know, that's the ones I'm going for.
Pamela: And when it comes to social media, sometimes having CDs based content is great as well. You know? So if you regularly Choco a quarter or something like that, or, you know, maybe you have like a carousel template, maybe have a tutorial based template. Again, having it's like cable every Tuesday at put a topos, you know, it's like, Yeah.
Pamela: Yeah. And it just, it kind of helps you kind of stop falling off into that sort of Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole.
Teresa: I spend hours in Canva. I flip in, love it. Like I did a content bundle. Um, I have it. Not on sale as we speak, it might be a time this is out. But I had so much fun doing the templates.
Teresa: Like I loved it. Social media, I did, uh, like square templates and landscape ones. And then I did story ones. And then I did like, uh, some that other can't remember what else ones, but honestly I just loved doing template. Cause I just love Canva.
Pamela: Great fun.
Teresa: But it is a biggest waste of time.
Pamela: Yeah, a 100%. Yeah. And you know, again, it's just arming yourself with things like that and, you know, realizing that you're not going to miss out as well. Like people can sometimes feel like, well, I'll just refresh my templates every two months, but it's like, people become used to, if they're scrolling used to your style, used to your brand used to how you, you know look visually on reels and things like that. And so things like that are like gold and people don't realize that. And they, they see what other people are doing that I'll have to do that and change it out. And it's like, no stick with it. People always recognize my wallpaper. Right? It's like, it's stuff that people recognize that one of my members, she has like different pairs of glasses and stuff like that all the time.
Pamela: It becomes synonymous with you. It's like, don't stick yourself of your identity every 30 days.
Teresa: Just because you've seen something new that you like and you think, oh, I want to do that. Um, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, uh, just I'm super conscious of your time and we've been chatting. Um, is there anything else that you would say if you are going to try and get like on top of doing regular content, that like what's your top tips or your advice for that?
Pamela: It's definitely like people always tell me, like, I just don't want have a time. I don't have a time. You will always find the time for things that work. So I'm all about habit and momentum and consistency. And, you know, always we've talked all the way through the podcast is about finding the content tapes, the executions and the frequency that you know, that you can stick to.
Pamela: Because if you stick to things for even just a month, you're going to notice a difference. When you start to notice a difference, you're going to find more time for it, or you're going to want to outsource it because you understand the value behind it. And it is about that. And let's not forget get to like 1, 3, then you can really start to like benefit from that repurpose and thing that we talked about when all your content you can just, you know, put it back out into the world again, very, very quickly.
Pamela: Creation timeline cuts drastically. So again, it is about consistency manageable and you know, you will reap the rewards definitely.
Teresa: And you know, so right. Like it has to be about the consistency, you know, and I've just introduced again, by the time this goes out. You know, many months on, but, um, I've just introduced a new pathway to the academy and it has different stages and, and, um, there's three different stages and then lots of different categories.
Teresa: And one of the categories is social and one of them is content and it's like, As social stage one, I talk about just post four times a week, but make sure you're consistent. Like, and we, we do it in a really quick and easy way to come up with lots of ideas. Cause it's like, you just need to be consistent.
Teresa: And then it's like, you can't come to stage two until you've done that for months, like a few months, at least. So once you've got consistent, then we'll look at doing reels and other cool things and doing it on maybe more than a couple of platforms or, or scheduling like really far in advance or whatever, but until you've done that.
Teresa: And I think what happens with content creation as with so many other things, is people see, oh, I need to do a blog. Oh I need to do a podcast. Oh I need to do YouTube. We cannot even show it up on social media yet. So let's get sorted with that. And then let's move to the next thing. And I think this is the problem.
Teresa: There's too many amazing options open to us that then completely overwhelms us.
Pamela: Yeah. A 100% distractions. Yeah. Procrastination.
Teresa: A favorite thing.
Pamela: Well, it's a rabbit holes going on there. Yeah, definitely.
Teresa: Like constant just rabbit holes. This morning I got up, I get up fairly early. I was up at five this morning and I didn't look at my phone for hours and I was, in fact, I still didn't be able to my phone.
Teresa: It's like 11:39. Because obviously when I get onto my computer, then all the main stuff is there and I can get everything, but I just, I can't because I've keep going down some rabbit holes. And when people send me TikToks and they're like, oh, look at this. This is brilliant. I just think I'm not even on it.
Teresa: I'm not even on TikTok. I don't I absolutely don't. Because I don't want to give myself other distraction. It's like, I haven't got time for this. I need to focus. And therefore I've got to be really hard on myself.
Pamela: Yeah, no tikTokstick.. My guilty pleasure is like, you know, when it gets to the end of the day, I can literally and I will waste two to three hours. To scroll on Tiktok, back to back, because y'all get to them, knows what I'm going to watch. And it's cats, it's Harry Styles and it's people getting their teeth been eared is the three things.
Teresa: Excellent. Very specific. And it is the algorithm.
Pamela: Is it's like, you know, it's got me huge drivers. I'm like, oh, they're Harry Styles. Go. Well.
Teresa: That is funny. So yesterday I had a call with my next level members and I was talking to them about watching Grey's anatomy. Cause I, uh, I'd say I've only just got into it, but like I'm on season 13 and like we've been watching it. So that's all I watch probably for the last three months. And then, and I love it. I absolutely love it. It's amazing. And this girl who was in my membership, she's like, oh my God, I love it so much because I've watched all of it. And I'm all the way through now and done. So I now on TikTok and watch all scenes from Greys Anatomy.
Teresa: Like people who've done TikTok about Greys Anatomy that's all I watch. So that is just brilliant. It's so very specific. Isn't it?
Pamela: It is. I seriously listening to what you're saying. And then it delivers every time. It's so different from reels because reels, I literally see other marketing people doing reels and things.
Pamela: But on TikToks it's pure personal on a dentistry to Harry Styles.
Teresa: I can't believe it. Right. So what you're going to have to let me know is obviously we're recording this and I'm assuming your phone is near you. So if you go on later and suddenly there's a Grey's anatomy TikTok that is proof okay.
Teresa: You've heard it here on the podcast. I will, uh, if Pamela comes back to me later and says we've got proof.
Pamela: Definitely, but I've probably, I'm probably carry out today and mention them.
Teresa: Yeah, Grey's Anatomy so that's brilliant. That is so funny. I love that. I love that. Pamela it's been so much fun. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast as always, I will link everything into the show notes, uh, but where's best for people to come and find you if they want to come and find out about you.
Pamela: Yeah. I hung out over on Instagram at Contentclarity. Come and find me in TikTok that usually I'm just a consumer of it. Consumer. of Harry Styles Um, but again, your contentclarity.com and the contentacademy.co.uk.
Teresa: Perfect. Thank you so much Pamela. It's been lovely to have you on.
Pamela: Thank you for having me.
Teresa: There you go, that was lovely Pamela, as always, I will hook up to everything in the show notes, so you can go and check it out and see what she does.
Teresa: And next week I will be back with a solo episode and in fact, some really exciting updates to tell you about. It really makes me laugh when people say that really exciting. It's exciting for me, may not be exciting for you. Do you not think that's funny, but I see that like, someone's like, I've got some really exciting news coming up and then they're like, I've just put on a masterclass.
Teresa: Like it's not that exciting. I mean compared to some really exciting things. Um, so anyway, uh, some big changes are happening with me and my world. And I'm going to tell you about the next week. And also we've got coming up some interviews that will help you explain or help me explain to you how we went through the process of the changes that are happening.
Teresa: So hopefully we should give you a bit of behind the scenes. Like I said, I hope you had a wonderful new year. Hope you are ready for an awesome year, no matter what happens, because we don't have control over that stuff. And I will see you next week.
