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Emily Hirsh:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are doing amazing. I am going to dive today into the type of free content you should be putting out in your marketing. I recently did our monthly Roundup, which is where I kind of summarize. What’s hot, what’s not, what’s working in marketing, what’s not working where you need to keep your eye on and some strategies and tips around that. And then at the end, I open it up for Q and A people can jump on live and ask me questions in a hot seat, or they can put their questions in the chat. And one of the questions I got I thought was really good because I talk a lot about how important valuable content is and how you need to have really great messaging and content that stands out to grow your audiences to be successful with your marketing, but I haven’t spent a lot of time talking about what that content should be and the strategy behind that content.

So that’s what we’re going to dive into today because one of the questions I got was this was a business owner who she teaches watercolor painting classes, which is very how to write. She said, I don’t really know how to teach the what, and then give them the how in my offer, because I don’t know what to, to make the what in my content, because my offer is such a how to offer, which I thought was a great question. So we’re going to walk through that and then I’m going to obviously go deeper on an overall content strategy. In general, and generally speaking, when you go to create free content in the form of podcasts, blogs, videos, whatever that is, you should be trying to teach the what and not the how the, how is your offer? The how is where you go really deep and you actually get somebody to implement it in a long game strategy, or it’s more work for them.

It’s usually very detailed. The, what is usually getting your audience to either have an epiphany, to realize they’re doing something wrong, to talk through maybe mistakes that they were making to show them a new way. It’s really to open your audience’s eyes to a strategy. I’m an actually use this podcast as an example. So I’m giving you the what in this podcast of here is what your content strategy should be. Now, I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty details and be like, this is exactly how long your videos should be. This is how often you should post them. This is exactly how you script them. There’s this part in this part and this part, because it would be way too overwhelming. So it’s actually not even just about that would be a bad strategy for my own business, in my content strategy. But for you as a listener, you would be very overwhelmed by that. It wouldn’t serve you. But if I give you the what, and I give you an overview of, of what the content strategy should be, and then you can take that and implement it in your business. And if you need deeper, help, you get support with that from my company or another one that’s going to serve you better. Okay? 

So you then start to think of people that you maybe follow and their content, and you’ll see that people do this, especially ones that you probably pay attention to because if people gave you the how in super overwhelming content, you wouldn’t pay attention. Like if I got on my podcast and I was like, step-by-step, here’s how you set up an ad. Here’s how you load an audience. And here’s a script for how you record a video. You’d be not paying attention because you’re not invested in it. You didn’t pay for that advice. You may not even need it. And it’s just way too deep for you to actually get value from. So that’s the important piece of this, because what I want to mention is that I think a lot of people are like, well, I’m afraid of giving away too much in my content because they get kind of wrapped up in this.

Well, it should be the what, it shouldn’t be the how, I don’t want to give away too much. It’s not really about that. It’s not really about like, you need to hold back. It’s just how you position it. I never set up for a podcast or a video or whatever content I’m creating and go. I gotta be careful that I don’t say these five things because that’s in my offer and I’m going to stick to these other five things. Like I never do that. But instead, the way I position content is about the, what you guys can get actionable. Things that you can go and implement, but it’s not going deep into the how. And the reason is not because I’m afraid if I gave you that you would never come and work with us. I don’t do that because you’d be extremely overwhelmed and it wouldn’t serve you.

So shifting your mindset around not being afraid to give away too much with your free content, because that’s not the issue, but instead as a content creator and somebody who’s teaching in whatever form that is, your goal should be to deliver it in the most actionable, digestible way, which is usually the what. And then if somebody wants to go deeper because they need more, that is where your offer comes into also serve that person. So I think that’s an important distinction because I think people do get wrapped up in the idea that they’re going to give away too much for free and they overthink it. And it’s not about that. It’s about serving your audience at every step. Okay. So this question that I got specifically was that her business was a lot of the, how, like that’s what people were coming to her business for.

She was struggling with what to come up with the what. And so I have a way that you can shift this thinking about content that might help you too. So your goal with any content that you put out for people is that they can have a quick win. That it’s super digestible. That it’s something that they’re like, oh, I could go implement that tomorrow and I can improve my results, or I could do this thing better, or I could, you know, grow and, or I could get healthier, whatever the goal is. So your goal with content is that it is that quick win. And that is why it usually has to stay in the, what people want easy. That is what they will always want. And so I, you know, even me, I could talk all day long about how business is hard and marketing requires effort.

But I also have to create quick in my content, in my offer in everything, because at the end of the day, we’re human. And we want to know that our, our time and our effort is going to be low. And then we’ll go and we’ll go and implement something. That’s just the way we’re wired. So your contents goal should be to provide somebody with a quick win. And so for her in this specific business, that’s a very how to business. I said, what if you talked about either top mistakes people make, when they’re doing watercolor paintings. I mean, I don’t know her audience, but these are the ideas that came to me, taught mistakes. Or you could give like a very quick how to tip, but it’s not gonna be enough to satisfy their entire desire to learn how to watercolor paint. Like they’ll still buy from you if they want to go deeper, but a very quick tip or like three quick tips in a video or three different videos with quick tips is absolutely fine.

Even though that would maybe classify as the, how, as long as it’s very micro, very digestible, and somebody could go have a quick win with it. That’s okay. And even better, if you can focus those tips and those tricks and that, you know, mistakes or whatever it is around your own unique process, that is also the key with content is you’re trying to distinguish yourself from other businesses. So anytime you have something that it’s like, I do it this way, everybody else does it this way, but we do it better type of language because you’re an expert and you’ve tried a bunch of different ways and you have a different process, a different method that works, and you’ve proven it. Anytime you can show that in your content, you’re doing what it should, which is building trust with your audience. So a very quick tip could feel like a how, but it’s so micro that it’s not that they could take that.

Then they have all their problems solved or they’re, they’ll know how to do, you know what it is they’re trying to do. You’re just building trust in that way. And especially if it’s wrapped around your process and stands out from other companies. Okay. So focus on those quick wins, focus on quick results from your content. When you go to create content, think about like, how do I get my audience to achieve that? If they were to consume this content. And at the end of the day, the point in valuable content is to build trust with your audience and how, you know, think about other brands that you interact with. When do you feel like you’ve built trust with them? It’s probably when you had some aha moment or you were like, oh, that is such a good idea. I should implement that in my business.

Or like, man, I’ve been doing this wrong for three years. I’m going to try their method. Those aha moments when something just clicks and you’re like, oh, that is so great. You have just built trust with that brand. And so if you can get your audience to experience that when they interact with your content, then they are building that trust with you and button buying and selling, selling your offer becomes much easier for them. And then again, I want to touch on, you know, it’s not about creating content is not about looking at it and saying, okay, I’m going to share this half, but I’m going to keep this other half secret and hold this back. It’s about serving your audience in the best way possible, which comes from that bite sized advice and making it so that they can have a quick win because you don’t have a lot of their attention.

You really don’t. So you have a short podcast, short video, short blog, like they might not even consume the whole thing. You’ve got to make it so that they can have a quick win in that small amount of time. The other piece is that you’re serving your audience better if you don’t overwhelm them. So like I was saying, like if I came on here and I was like, okay, so you log in to ads manager and you do this. Like you guys would be, you’d be so overwhelmed and confused that you’d stop listening to the podcast, but it wouldn’t serve you. Now. Some people might be like, oh, well, that’d be great. If Emily taught, you know how to do XYZ on the podcast, but it’s really not serving people. And so it’s actually harder as a content creator to break content down into micro bite sized pieces that you can go and implement than it is.

Just give somebody everything and completely overwhelm them. So your job as a content creator is to create an experience where somebody is able to go get a result with that small piece of content that you created. And I think what will help all of you the most is not overthinking that, like, it should be the what not the how piece and like worrying about what if I’m giving them the how, and I’m worried about that. But instead, ask yourself if somebody just consumed this podcast or this video, would they be able to go and execute something in their business or their life or their health or whatever your niche is, or would they have a realization or an aha moment about what they were doing that they should change or what they should be doing that they’re not doing or something with that, because that is where the value lies both for you as the content creator and for the business owner who are for the, for your audience, who wants to get that result.

It’s not in the, in the deep details. Okay. So I thought that would be helpful because I talk a lot about how important content is, but I haven’t gone into a deep strategy around it. And I think, again, way too many people overthink this and then really struggle with creating that valuable content. I’ll also say, you know, on the note of micro content, we are moving in the direction across all industries where short micro content is king. People want short podcast episodes, 10 minute or less videos of content. They want short blog posts. Give me the bullet points. Human’s attention spans are decreasing sadly, but it’s true. And so you, as a content creator also have to adapt to that. And I’ve talked a lot about like, what does your audience have time or not? But the reality kind of is that nobody really has time for an hour long video unless you’re Joe Rogan.

You’re going to do this long interview that his audience loves. I don’t get it. I cannot not listen to his podcast. So my husband loves it. So there are some audiences that will few and far between that will consume long content like that. For the most part, an audience who has no idea who you are, and you’re trying to capture them, it needs to come from very powerful, strong bite sized content, like 10 minutes or less. If it’s a podcast 20, 25 minutes or less, I’ll, you know, you guys, uh, throughout the interviews that we did, one of the biggest things you guys loved bout my content was how short it is, how actionable and short it is. And it’s not always easy to create content, not short. Like I’ve definitely been on podcasts interviews where I’m like, man, we’re just like rambling. Like this is a waste of time for people. And it’s harder to do that. You have to be more prepared. I have bullets every time I create a podcast episode because I don’t want to waste any of your guys’s time. And so bringing that into your content strategy is probably also beneficial because you just don’t have a lot of people’s attention span. And so your, your content number one has to be killer has to be very actionable. Great. And again, those quick wins because if somebody consumes your content and they see like this path that they can go do what you’re saying tomorrow or today, they’re going to come back for more because that is a quick win for them.

So you need to create that, especially in your free content, really across the board, in your business, even in your paid offers, you want a great that, but especially in your free content, because people just don’t have that following and that loyalty to you yet, and the trust. And so that will create the trust. All right, everybody. Well, on the theme of short content podcasts episodes, this is one is on the shorter side, but I hope you got a lot out of this. Send me a message. If you got any great ideas from it, or if you’re going to change anything into your content strategy. Overall, I just want everybody to be consistent and powerful in their content because it makes a massive difference in your overall marketing success. Thanks everybody. Talk to you next time.

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