Episode 401: 5 super quick content ideas for service-based businesses
In this episode, Fiona shares five quick content ideas for service-based businesses, offering practical tips and examples to engage your audience effectively. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Creating behind-the-scenes or day-in-the-life content
Highlighting business milestones and markers
Addressing key frustrations experienced by clients
Leveraging social proof through testimonials and reviews
Demonstrating values alignment to engage with your audience
Get in touch with My Daily Business
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Welcome to episode 401 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is a quick tip episode, and if you missed last Tuesday's quick tip episode, then you might want to listen to that after this one because there's lots of great ideas in today's and last week's episode, and they go hand in hand. Before I get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I record this podcast. 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.
Last week in episode 399, I shared five super quick content ideas that you can execute quickly. easily and relatively affordably, even for free for a product-based business. Today I'm going to go through the same thing, but for a service-based business. If you are a service provider, you might be a graphic designer, interior designer photographer, and all sorts of people in this service-based, including my own business, which is largely service-based as well. Sometimes it can be something that comes up in conversation where people think, it's easy to create content for a product-based business. What do you do if you run a service-based business and potentially if you are the only person in your business how do you do this without being a 24/7 selfie or feeling like you have to give away all your privacy?
Today I'm going to go through five ideas that can help you if that is you. The first is behind the scenes or a day in the life. I touched on this last week, if you haven't listened to that, you can listen to that afterwards. But a day in life. What does that look like for you as a service provider? Let's say you are a photographer. If you're a photographer, you're probably making great content all of the time. But if you are a photographer, graphic designer, or web designer, you might just go, what are five things that I do during the day or even eight? I'm going to take a photo of each of those. I'm going to timestamp it and or just put a fake timestamp or whatever on top of it.
And then I'm going to pull those together and make it into a quick video that can be used on TikTok or reel or Instagram stories, YouTube shorts, Pinterest shorts, and LinkedIn. I mean, you could use video everywhere, including even on your badass page or a blog or anything else that you have on your website as well. That could look like, I get up in the morning, I have a photo of my first cup of tea, or I have a photo of my sleeping mask because it's super fun and cute and I think my audience would like it. And then I have a photo of how I start the day, a bowl of cereal. And I have a photo of maybe you could look at some of your analytics overnight. You look at that or maybe a request has come in overnight you are reading that.
That could be a photo taken of you sideways with you in front of your laptop, reading about a new client inquiry, or it could be just a photo of the client inquiry. Take away any confidential information and block that out. Or it could just be anything that you're doing. You might be a wedding photographer and you start by looking through the Pinterest board that your client has pulled together. Then what do you do around lunchtime? What do you do in the afternoon? What do you do in the evening? Again, you're just taking like eight photos. They don't have to be perfect. They don't have to all be in the same light or anything else. And pulling them together. There are so many templates that you can use for things like reels, TikTok videos or YouTube shorts that it does not need to be these huge thought-out things.
That's the first behind-the-scenes or a day in the life and just taking a bunch of photos, putting timestamps, putting what you're doing and creating a voyeuristic video journey that people can go on when they come across your content. The second thing would be looking at the milestones or markers in your business. I love seeing this stuff. I remember a while ago, who was it Nest Legal actually, I'm going to call out Laura from Nest Legal because she did a great video like this and I think that they were turning 10. And they are a great service provider. They are lawyers. We have used them for all sorts of things in my life, and my father's life, they're amazing. There's a little plug for Nest Legal. I don't get any kickback for that by the way, they did a great show, or Laura did a great show of the markers in her business from the time she started to now.
I think she was celebrating eight years or nine years. I don't know exactly all of the pictures, but it was like, here I'm at the kitchen table coming up with this. Here I am pregnant and doing this work and it showed the whole journey onto here's our first office, here's our second office, here's how we are expanding, here's the team and showing that was amazing to see and amazing for people to be like, I remember when you just had that idea. And now look at how you've grown this business. That is showing social proof, it's showing expansion, it's also showing, I've been in the same boat as you for some of your audience as well. Nest Legal does work with a lot of families and people in that space where they're buying their first home or selling their first home or buying a first investment property or getting their wills sorted because they've had children or lost a parent or whatever it is.
Very much I'm sure that there were a lot of people like myself that were looking at that going, we've had a similar life journey as the same that you've had in your business. That business marker could be in the space of a blog. It could also be video content, just like I've talked about before where you think about let's say you've been in business for seven years, what are seven markers that you can show visually or within a blog or in a podcast or something else like that? What are the peak markers in your business? The milestones in your business as a service provider. For another person, it might be getting into Vogue for the first time as a photographer. What did that feel like?
Or for me, I might be like, this was the first time I looked at statistics and saw that we had a hundred downloads of the podcast. Isn't that amazing? And then look at how it's grown. What you're trying to do in there is show your experience and also show your humanity in that peak markers in your business. That's the second one. The third one, showing a key frustration that your clients have. And that again, could just be a photo of yourself head in hands with text overlay that's like, I was just talking actually to a lovely client about this. One of the frustrations that her clients have is having too many tabs open, having like a hundred tabs open when they could just have her product open. That is an incredible productivity platform.
She may have a photo of herself head in hands, just a still photo with text over the top, having 500 tabs open. I hear you. This is why I developed her product. Another plug, I'm going to give more time to design, which is an incredible platform if you're an interior designer for getting more productive and having more time literally to design. It's in the name. Look at a key frustration that your clients have. Another one could be if you're a graphic designer, a key frustration is that social media graphics don't measure up to the website that they've just spent thousands on. Again, you might still like hating your social media graphics. That's when you need a retainer from us or that's why we work with people, not just to build an incredible website and branding, but to carry them through and hold their hand for the next few years as a retainer client or however you phrase it.
A key frustration that your clients have and your response to that. The fourth one is social proof. We all want to see social proof, but particularly I think for service-based businesses where potentially you're spending more money than say an impulse buy of nail polish or something. That social proof could look like testimonials. It could look like a percentage of your clients who come back to work for you. It could look like a video scrolling all your Google reviews and how they're all five-star. It could look like a whole bunch of things. It could look like testimonials, a testimonials page on your website, whatever it looks like. It could be a screen grab, it could be a video, it could be a carousel post with a whole bunch of social proof. It could be other people like speaking to the camera on your behalf and saying how great it was working with you.
It could be, let's say you are a wedding cake designer. It could be the moment that the bride sees the cake. It looks so good. And just showing so many of those in a row where there's no way that people can't feel joy and excitement and feel how great that bride must have felt or the partner or whoever looking at that cake for the first time. You're letting that tell the story of how great you are. That is social proof number four. And number five in terms of quick content that you can execute instantly almost is showing some values alignment. For example, one of the values in our business is freedom. That is a value that is shared with a lot of the people that we work with. How do I show up for that?
I might post a single picture of me on my walk, it doesn't have to be me, it could just be the walk. I posted one this morning like this nature. I might have some caption that either alludes to that values alignment of freedom or says, I'm able to get out and walk most mornings because I have this and this and this sorted, or I'm able to, if you're going to say sports days or you're going to other things for your children, it might be, I'm here in the middle of a work day on a Tuesday because I have my system set up, this is exactly what I help clients with. Or maybe you're an accountant and you have some value that you want to show in another way. Maybe you have a value of nature and getting out into nature.
You might be, here I am on a Monday morning on a hike because we have our services set up so that our clients always feel completely taken care of even when we are outside of the office. You're showing that value and you're showing your alignment to it. And by way, the person receiving that is considering how that value impacts them. I had a friend in particular send me somebody's post that they had put on Instagram that was this. It was a values alignment, it was them. They were sharing what they've been able to achieve this week outside of work. This person had sent it saying, I think they're the perfect fit for me. It had nothing to do with what they offered. It was all about how they'd made time in their life for all these other things that they were interested in.
That is it values alignment, how do you show that as a service-based provider? To recap those five quick content ideas and quick not just to make, but to execute and and post are things like behind the scenes or a day in the life. Number two, peak markers or milestones in your business. Number three, showing a key frustration that your clients have. Number four, showing social proof. And number five, showing values alignment. These are just simple, easy content ideas. If you want to work on your full content strategy and work through your marketing and brand, you can always book a one-on-one coaching session with me. I offer them to people all over the world. We have people from all over who do those, and we can work with people in different time zones as well. You can find all that information at mydailybusiness.com/shop. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you next time. Bye.
