Episode 399: 5 super quick content ideas for product-based businesses
In this episode, Fiona shares quick content ideas tailored for product-based businesses. She also shares practical tips for engaging with audiences effectively. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Importance of creating diverse content for product-based businesses
Utilizing simple techniques for showcasing product usage through visuals
Demonstrating the process of creating products
Engaging audiences with interactive content
Leveraging customer testimonials to build social proof and trust
Providing behind-the-scenes glimpses
Exploring seasonal uses for products to maintain relevance throughout the year
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Welcome to episode 399 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is a quick tip episode, and this is going to be one that you want to save or come back to, especially if you are a product-based business. You can always find all the show notes, including full transcripts for every episode at mydailybusiness.com/podcast. Or if you do have the capability to go and get a notebook or grab your phone and make some notes, then please do. Before we get started, I want to of course acknowledge where I'm coming from and the traditional owners and custodians on this land, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
I should preface this by saying I have worked in content now for 24 years. That is huge. One thing that I often get asked is how you come up with all these content ideas all the time and how you seem to create a bit of content. Especially with this podcast, we also have a Sunday email that goes out every single week and has been done for years. It goes to thousands of small business owners. If you are interested in that, you can just head on over to mydailybusiness.com/subscribe. We have this podcast that's twice a week, every single week. We have other content that goes out across Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok and I've helped people with their content plans and content strategy forever. I also used to work as a magazine editor, and that was huge because there was so much content that needed to be done.
I've written for so many publications and online places. I would say I'm pretty quick at coming up with content, but I also know that so many people, struggle with the ideas of content and not just the ideas, but how to execute that content quickly. Today I thought I would cover five quick content ideas for a product-based business. These are also evergreen content ideas. One of them isn't, but the rest of them are. These are sorts of things that you could take the same content idea, take the same template, whether you're using a video or email or blog and repurpose it or just take that same template and use that each time. You want to create a similar type of content. Also, these are all for people with product-based businesses. However, I'm sure you could do something similar in service space and in next week's quick tip episode, I'm going to be talking about five ideas for service-based businesses.
If you are a service-based business, make sure you've hit subscribe so you do not miss that episode. Let's get into these five ideas, quick content ideas for small business owners who have product-based businesses. Also, I should say, that you don't need somebody else to create these. You can easily do these on your phone with just you. If you're a solo based business, this is not something that you need to go and outsource necessarily. In no particular order, the first is simple, how to use it, how to use this product. This could be just a series of photographs you could have a carousel post with five different ways you can use this. It could be a quick video, you don't need to be in this. It could just be a quick video of this product, and the product could be in three different types of lifestyle shots.
When I say lifestyle shots, people are like, I need a proper photographer. No, you can just use your phone if you have an iPhone before the iPhone 13, you can just use the portrait mode. It works well if you have the iPhone after or iPhone 13 onwards, I think it is. It has a cinematic mode, and I swear cinematic mode makes everything look so professional. This is not saying that you shouldn't go out and get a photographer at some point but for these quick things that people think, I don't know how to execute that, you could easily just use a cinematic mode or portrait mode, take some shots. Let's say, for example, you have a bag that you sell that has all these different pockets and things that people don't necessarily notice or realise.
You could have it in an everyday situation at a cafe. You're showing that it holds people's sunglasses, phones, and all these different things. You could also have another shot where it looks like you're travelling or it's around somebody's body. It doesn't have to show a face again, and it has like the passport and your cords for travelling or different adapters or something. Something else that's like, that is also a really good travel bag. The third way that you could have it is potential if this is your audience, like with snacks for kids, or even if it holds like a set of like nappy wipes or nappy bags or some other stuff that is like, I can see it in action and I can see how you use this. Likewise, I'm looking at a vessel that I have on my desk, and that could be used to hold pens, which is what it's used for right now.
It could also be used to hold flowers. It could also be used to hold makeup brushes. What else? It could be candles. Candles that could be put in there. It could be turned upside down and have a little tea light on top of it and used as mood lighting at some point. You could take an evening shot. There are so many things many uses that a lot of products can be used for, but we don't show that. We don't show that. Even just a mug. In so many instances, you never see the mug being used as a pen holder, toothbrush holder or something else. It's like, I haven't thought about it like that, and we need that for our bathroom. That's the thing that you want going on with your product.
That's the first one. How can I use it? The second one and this sounds like it would take a long time, but it hasn't, and I've taken so many clients through this same process, which is the process for making the product. Even if you get your stuff made offshore or you're not necessarily involved with it, you can show a series of, it could be photos, it could be videos, it could put together like screen grabs and things, and then put them in a tiny video, whether you're putting that on TikTok or YouTube shorts or Pinterest shorts or on Instagram, using it as a reel. What you would do is just be like, what is the very first part of the process? Or if you could take that process and cut it up into eight steps. The first might be gathering a mood board on Pinterest.
It could also be looking through a colour book or something else. You just take one shot of that or a screengrab. The second one might be sketching something up. Again, it's just your hand or even just a sketch or a pencil on top of a finished sketch, whatever that looks like. The third one might be inputting that into InDesign or any digital product. You can send that spec off or if you're making it, then the third step might be setting up your ceramics section, your clay, and cutting out the clay. And then you just go through all the steps. And the steps could be like I said, it could be a screen grab of an email that you send to your supplier. You would take out anything private, but it's showing people what is the process, and there might just be something that sparks in them.
It goes, I didn't realize the detail that goes into this, or how many steps are involved in this, and therefore that's why I recognize that the value of the price point that you've got it at. That is the second one. Just the process, how is it made? These don't have to be these beautiful films. It could just be like I said, a series of photographs with some text overlay, put those photographs together, put a nice song behind it, and suddenly it's a reel or it's a TikTok or it's something else. Or you could put this onto the actual product page on your website as to where people buy that stuff from. The product detail page, the third, which is so easy, and I've seen it all the time, it's been done for years, but I also love being active in it myself as somebody participating as an audience member. And that is this or that.
For example, let's say you had the photograph before of this vessel that I'm looking like it's a ceramic vessel that holds my pencils. You could have it on a desk holding the pencils, and then you could have it in a bathroom holding makeup brushes and it's like this or that. How would you use it? You are getting customer data in that it is like a photo or two photos put together or a quick video of two photos interlaced this or that, and you're getting interaction. That can also happen in an email. It doesn't have to just happen on social media. You can repurpose these videos or these pictures all over. That is the third one, this or that, and the fourth one is testimonials. And you react to those testimonials, not just testimonials flat, but you reading those testimonials.
It could be just a picture of you, you're super happy or your team is all like yay or whatever, and then you're like, why are we feeling like this? And then you show the testimonial. Again, it can be static, it could be a carousel post, or it could be beautifully designed on Canva. It doesn't have to take long like that is the point. The point of that is that you're showing social proof with those testimonials. The fifth one is behind the scenes. Who else is there? Behind the scenes is one of the easiest ways to do this, and if you've watched YouTube any time in the last eight years, you would've seen this, which came with me on my day before we had social media before we had YouTube, one of the most popular regular columns in magazines was the morning to lights out thing.
It was called lots of different things across so many different magazines, Sunday lift outs, all of that follow a similar pattern where they follow somebody from the start of the day to the end of the day, a day in the life of. You could take that and think about, I'm starting my day. I start my day by, what do you do first? Maybe you use a particular skincare regime. You take a quick photo of that 6:00 AM getting my skincare self-care on. You might then have a coffee or something else. You take a photo of the mug in front of whatever your background is. I often take photos of my mug with the beautiful bush behind it. Then it's like, what's the next step? It could be you drive your kids to school, and that is a picture of the steering wheel in your car at 8:00 AM. You could just put these different timestamps on it and suddenly you've got interesting content.
It's showing a humanity side to you, like, she has kids, or she has the same brand of matcha tea or whatever it is. And then you would just timestamp it throughout the day and you could take these photos on different days. You don't have to be taking it in one full day if you feel like, I'd forget to take things and that wouldn't work. But you can take different photos, especially if you are not in the photos, so you don't have to be wearing the same thing or have your hair a certain way, but you would then be like, drop the kids off, then what happens? Get into the office or get back to your home or whatever that is. And then the following, what's the next step and the next step until it's the end of the day.
You might be reading a really good book that you've just started reading. Take a photo of the book on your Duna cover or duvet cover and suddenly it's like, lights out, see you all tomorrow. People love that stuff. People love the day in the life we always have. We love that voyeuristic element. That is number five, the behind the scenes you could do a day in life. You could also do behind the scenes come with us as we set up our warehouse sale, and come with us as we create the biggest cake that we have had to create for a wedding. Again, you can just take quick photos. It doesn't need to be this hugely thought overproduced thing because that is what stops people from creating content.
The final thing, which is the only one that is not evergreen in what I've just talked about is seasonal uses for your product. Let's say this vessel that I'm looking at in my office is holding pencils, I could look at that and go, Diwali is coming up. Let's say we're in November or towards the end of the year when Diwali happens. I'm going to put some candles in it and I'm going to light them, take a photo, and put “Happy Diwali”, here's another use for a ceramic cup. I could also look at it and be like, it's coming up to Easter. Let's fill the ceramic cup with Easter eggs and be like, this would make a cool centrepiece for your lunch or dinner that you're having on Easter or these cute centrepieces for your work kitchen to have some Easter eggs in there because it's coming up to Easter.
You could take one product and showcase how people could use it for different seasonal events. Likewise, I could take this same ceramic vessel and put some flowers in it and be like Happy Mother's Day. There are so many things that you can do when you look at one product and think about all the different seasonal activities that are happening and think about how could take that one photo or that one product and showcase it for different seasons so that we also are showing people the versatility, but we're also keeping a consistency with our products throughout the whole year. Just to recap those five quick ways of creating content around a product is one, how to use it. Number two is the process to make it. Number three, this or that. Number four, testimonials and you reacting to those testimonials.
Number five, behind the scenes such as a day in the life of and number six, seasonal uses for single products. That is it for today's quick tip episode. As I said, I'm going to be going through five quick ways to talk about your service offerings in content in next week's tip episode. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss that one. But if you found this useful, I would love to know which of these five you are going to test your in, your marketing and getting yourself out there as a brand. You can always send us a DM @mydailybusiness on TikTok or at @mydailybusiness_ on Instagram. Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you next time. Bye.
