Episode 79: Why Small Business Owners Need To Develop A Content-First Mindset, Rather Than A Distribution-First Mindset
In this quick tip episode, learn the two kinds of mindsets when it comes to preparing content for your platforms. With almost 20 years of preparing content as a published writer, Fiona shares why it’s important to develop a content first mindset instead of having the distribution first mindset.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Preparing Content
Distribution First Mindset vs Content First Mindset
Conclusion
Resources mentioned in this episode
Episode transcript:
Hello and welcome to Episode 79 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast Before I get stuck into today's quick episode.
I just wanted to say a massive thank you to every single person who sends a DM. I'm just at @mydailybusinesscoach on Instagram. Every person who sends us an email, every person who puts a review up, who shares this podcast with their friends. I am just so like… I don't even know what the word is. I'm speechless and it just makes my day. It genuinely makes my day to get these messages to. I had somebody the other day who sent a beautiful message saying, I don't have a business, but I listened to this and it helps my life and I've made changes from that. I had another person reach out and say, you know, I listen to your episode on Health and I started walking more.
It just genuinely, I don't want to say warms my heart because it sounds a bit cliche, but it just makes it all worthwhile. And, you know, I'm like everyone else. I have crappy days. I have days when I doubt myself. I have days when, you know, things just seem really hard. I get those messages or I read a review and I just it just is awesome. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
And if you are someone who listens to this, who's not connected with me yet, please come over and say hi. I always want to hear from people, listen to what their business journey has been like and think about how I might help you in a future episode with something that maybe you're struggling with that other people are struggling with as well. All right.
So today is a quick tip episode, so I'll try not to take up too much time. But yeah, let's get stuck into it and find out what tip I'm going to share with you (or tool or tactic). It's always a tip or tool or tactic. All right, let's go.
All right, so if you have listened to this, if you've read my book, if you've come to any workshop or you're a client of mine, thank you so much. You may know that I have a strong background in content. I have been a published writer for 20 years. Obviously, I've written a book which is Passion, Purpose, Profit. That was my first proper book by a publisher that I wasn't ghostwriting. But I've also been a journalist. So I've had my work published all over the world in the Sunday paper in the United Arab Emirates through to fashion magazines in Japan, through two beautiful magazines out of New Zealand, travel magazines in France, all over the world. And I've got a really strong content background. And I think that's really helped me in marketing because I've also worked in marketing for 17 plus years. And more and more, content is such a huge part of marketing. And it used to not be used to very much be a really jazzy, jazzy, really snazzy, jazzy ad that used to come out. And that's really how people marketed. And now it's just so much more considered. And the content has to be valuable. It has to be entertaining or educational or inspirational for people to give you their attention. And attention is the greatest currency that we have for small business. That's what we need. We need people's attention in order to make them aware that a business exists and then keep their attention the whole way through the business cycle.
So in the stages of researching and getting them to come to your website, getting them to find out more through to the stages of evaluation, “Do I want to buy this product?” or somebody else's through to the purchase page or the contact form or whoever it is that they get in touch or they decide to transact with your business and then right through to the post purchase and advocacy stage? I mean, that's the most important part.
If we can keep someone's attention because we've given such a great customer experience that they want to come back for more. I mean, that's what we all want. We want brand loyalty. But with that change in kind of the way things have been marketing and the importance of content, what I've seen and unfortunately seen so many small businesses spend a lot of money on is creating a plan that is distribution first instead of content first. And what I mean by that is I've got people that come to me and say, oh, I've worked with an Instagram strategist or I've worked with a YouTube strategist or I've worked with TikTok or Clubhouse or whatever other platform they decide to choose or I've worked with an email marketing specialist. That's awesome.
One, those people should also be asking you, what's the rest of your marketing look like? But that is a distribution first mindset. And what you want to cultivate is a content first mindset.
So you want to be thinking about what is it that my audience needs? So what is it? What's the message? What am I trying to get across? What am I trying to communicate? What content do I need? So it might be you know, I really want to communicate creative women in the law sector, for instance. And so that's the content. I want to send stories out there. I want to tell the story of these creative women law isn't the dry area that people think it is. So that's the content. You're not thinking, oh, I'm going to create five posts for Instagram or I'm going to create this video, us thinking about content first, the next level down from that. If you think of it almost like boxes on top of each other, you've got content, then you're going to think about, OK, what's the best medium for my audience? So for people who are on the go busy, podcasting is great. They can listen to it live while multitask. It's not the same as necessarily sitting down to watch a video course, which, of course, you can still have in the background while you're cooking or other things. But podcasting is an awesome medium for people who are on the go. That's why there's so many business podcasts. There are so many podcasts for mums and and parents. There are so many podcasts for fitness, you know, people that are really into their fitness and health because people want that information on a medium. They want that content in a medium that suits them. So you've got your content then you’re thinking medium.
So you might think, OK, it's a blog or it's a blog or it's a podcast or it's something else. And then you think about, OK, how am I going to distribute that and connect with people through that content?
So then that might look like, OK, I've taken this story of creative women in law and I'm creating a podcast and I'm going to film that podcast. So it's also a video. I'm going to take the transcript of that podcast and put that as a blog article. And I'm going to then promote those things across social media.
So can you see how a content first mindset is going to be much more beneficial for your whole marketing plan and your business and make it much more cohesive message out there across different platforms? Then if you come at it from a distribution first, which is what am I doing for Instagram? So always think content first mindset, happy face distribution first mindset, sad face. And it seems very simple, but I literally I use a slide with that all the time in my workshops and I just feel like it gets it across the content. Think what's the best medium for that content is that video is a blog, is it blog, is it something else. And then how am I going to distribute that for the best chance of connection and building genuine relationships with my audience? So that is it.
I know it's a little bit longer. It's not too long. I'm really trying to get these to five minutes so they can be quick tips. So that is it for today. If you want to go over that again, you can find the full transcript over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/79. If you found this useful, please share it with a business friend so that they can get in on the journey. They can find things that are going to help them in their business. And of course, if you found it useful, I would absolutely love it if you could spare twenty seconds and leave us a review. It just helps other small business owners find this podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Say next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
