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Crisis Communication Resources

The 10/90 creation <> distribution rule in your marketing

November 14, 2022 by cpdigital

There is a deep sex!ness that comes with creating content! Take a look around you at the Creator Economy. It feels to the average marketer like there are ALL these people who are magically making millions out of the sheer power of their creative brains!
How are they doing it?
Perhaps if I keep creating a LOT MORE, I’ll find out?!

No.
No you will not!

If you take a look deep within your marketing department you will see pattern in how you or your team spend a lot more time focussed on the “content” part of content marketing and far less time in the “marketing” part of content marketing 🤷‍♀️
It’s true! 

A majority of folks over index on how much we create and go under on content distribution because of one deceptively simple truth. We have been exposed to our own messaging a lot more times than other folks have. This brings fatigue and poor decision making.

Counter the instinct to constantly create new material with focussed consciousness around your process for content marketing. (It helps to remember that not everyone has seen what you have seen.)

The first rule of content marketing to the minds of the pros is this: 10% creation and 90% distribution. This is a well practiced content marketing framework. Perhaps most famously associated with the thinking is superstar Nova Scotia marketer 🇨🇦 – Ross Simmonds. He preaches: Creates once; distribute forever.

I’d love to take you into the origins of this thinking. In a recessionary market, to cut through the noise and make viable decisions, you’ll need to get in tune with your business foundations. 

Enter Stephen!

The 10/90 Stephen Covey rule

The 10/90 rule in business was popularized by Stephen Covey, the author of “The 7 habits of highly effective people” It says that 10% of life is made up of what happens to you, and 90% of life is decided by how you react. He spotlights in his book the fact that we don’t have control over what happens to us at all. And that’s why it’s important to control what we can. This is particularly true for the times when bad things happen to us (like pandemics and recessions) 💀

Many of us have been seeing headlines in the news cycles about how prices are insanely increasing on all fronts in the recession. 

We can’t control that. 

What we can do is  modify our habits. We can create more intentionality around the way we show up in the world and use those insights to save our money meaningfully. This may include watching the way we eat; how much we order in and eat out; what we waste or throw away; and what we find ourselves wanting more of.

Want to learn how to build podcast infrastructure that pays?

Slide
Yes please!

Let’s switch up 90/10 to marketing

The concept it not that different when applied to marketing 💁‍♀️

10/90 in your marketing is one of the best ways to hunker down in the face of many things you can’t control during a recession. Spend 90% of your marketing efforts on things that have done exceptionally well for you. (This you can control.) Get the message out further by distributing the heck out of it. And the rest of the 10% can go into creating and experimenting with new content. You’ll advance far more quickly by concentrating the majority of your efforts in one area (ie: thorough distribution of your superstars) and mastering it. 

The history of our dependence on creation

In the years before digital marketing became ubiquitous, distributing content was expensive. You  had to pay for massive runs of newspapers and magazines, or TV, or large printing budgets. The beautiful thing about social media right now is that you can use it for free (and relatively low cost in the case of paid social).

Somewhere along the way, brands seem to have taken that to mean “We can now use 100% of our money for social content to create the content.” Don’t do it. Stop making new stuff over and over again, and reach into what you have. 

Develop an editorial process focussed on giving your content more exposure, rather than one that produces a stream of disposable and undesirable brand(land)fill.

So how can distribution be exponential?

Start with an anchor piece of longform content whether it’s a podcast, a written newsletter, a video series or webinar. This is something you’re probably creating on an ongoing basis, maybe even twice a week. There is deep content of value in each of those pieces. Most people distribute it once, on the day of the drop. Maybe repeat it once or twice more; and then it’s done! 

Here’s what needs to happen instead.
The minimum amount that you want to distribute EACH of those pieces, in their entirety, is 12 times.

Post it every day for four days.
Then twice a week for a few weeks.
Then every week for two months.
Then every month till you get to the end of a year.
(That’s a lot more than 12, so chop chop!)

During that time, based on qualitative intel into how those pieces performed for you, modify the top one into smaller nuggets.

If you modified 12 smaller nuggets over 12 months, and distributed each of those 12 a minimum of 12 times, you’re already at 144.

Now imagine doing this for a few core pieces in your arsenal and creating new stuff on a reduced frequency.

THAT’S EXPONENTIAL.

This practice has got to be intentional.
And, remember, there is some degree of systematization you can bring in as you scale it. You can use tools to support automated distribution – like Buffer and Hootsuite. There’s Missinglettr and Lately that can help you automate the break up of the content and scheduling.

Want my book on making your writing UNboring?

Slide
Get UNboring on Amazon

Mood of the moment: Stop wasting content you already have!

Know your content; know yourself.  

I am offering an intensive review workshop for small business. A deep dive into your content so that you know exactly what documents and systems you have (and might have forgotten), what formats you own, and where you can find the original pieces so that you CAN USE THEM MUCH MORE. 

You’re going to need it in a recession.
If you’ve got over a 100 pieces of content and still find your team creating a lot of new stuff, you may need this.

Check out the program

Filed Under: Blog, Crisis Communication Resources

Steer clear of humour around the Oscar debacle

March 30, 2022 by cpdigital

Anyone who knows me, knows my love of memes and gifs.
And knows how much I love using them as a simple way to entertain audiences.

So, when the material of major “meme-value” comes around, I can usually call it.

I can usually say, “Let’s have a perspective on this, because that will be fun for us and our peeps”.
But today, on the day after the Oscars, here we are, with a bunch of brands using memes, as you would expect, of what happened between Chris Rock, and Will Smith during the Academy Awards.

There’s a lot of tension surrounding this incident that people probably don’t understand.

There’s lived experience,
There’s the possibility of a mental health breakdown in the degree of trigger vs response here.
There’s a general background of friendship among the parties in question – Jada included.

If you’re a brand (corporate or personal) stay away from it.
Don’t go there, don’t make a meme.
Keep your brand out of it.
Don’t use this unfortunate breakdown on many levels for gain, because there’s layers to this discussion that you want to stay out of unless you fully understand it.

This night was a “work event” for the entertainment industry, one of the finest, it could be said.
And it went horribly wrong.

Let’s not sensationalize that.
Instead, from a workplace perspective, here’s my advice as a communicator: educate yourself further; there are a number of people who are talking about it. Get clear on your thoughts.

If you’d like a source, here’s one: Avery Francis on Twitter. You’ll find some food for thought from an inclusion perspective on why this is a loaded topic.

PSA: We just need to sit this one out unless we’re aware of the nuances

Resist the urge to use slapping memes, this week in general, and for several months to come.
Resist the urge to get involved in a joke that is clearly punching down.
Resist the urge to comment on things involving physical violence where you have no business (it’s not like we can jump on a screen and save the day.
This is NOT the metaverse.)

This subject is going to have extremely polarized opinions about who thinks who is right and who is wrong.

We all have freedom of speech.
Jokes get funnier when they hit on sensitive topics.

That said, when you are making a joke that is clearly punching down to physical abilities and acts oblivious to the racial tension contained within the fact that you’re commenting on a black woman’s hair. In public. In 2022.

*please find me shaking my head*

As a brand, in this environment, you’ve got to be careful with that.
Be careful with any commentary.
Because, it’s loaded folks.

Where’s the line between sensitivity and censorship? 

I certainly don’t know.

All I know is that if things have the power to visibly hurt someone trainer for the public eye, like they did Jada (focus on her disgusted reaction in any video you can find that hasn’t been taken down – I won’t risk linking here. And forget the stupid fighting boys for a second.)

So, right now, if you are a brand that is considering getting some quick audience attention by using the meme of the moment, take it from me as the proponent of “doing almost anything for a laugh”. As the author of a book in production about making an effort to bring more levity as a brand…

You want to sit this one out.
Lay off the jokes.

Filed Under: Blog, Crisis Communication Resources

Podcast Panel: Four content audit things you’re probably not thinking about… and should be

August 18, 2021 by cpdigital

For this episode of 🎙The 4am Report🎙 we bring you (🥁drum roll🥁) a panel of experts on content audits. Yes, most people hate the idea of a content audit. It can feel like a lot of work. But these bright minds in the world of marketing all agree that a content audit is crucial – not only does it help you figure out what content your customers are consuming, it saves you time and energy as you can repurpose content – ultimately, amplifying your reach👏. 

Together with Will and myself, on this episode we have Amber Khan, founder of Amplifyology, a repurposing content marketing agency in London; Romina Buchle, marketing manager of a B2B lead nurturing firm in Zurich called Aioma; and Kira Tchernikovsky, an international marketing consultant based in Toronto. 

We started off speaking about our pet peeves and how they keep us up at night. Mine is the sheer amount of new content out there. 

via GIPHY

In most cases, without there being any kind of plan for that content. 

Kira agrees that creating content for the sake of content isn’t a great strategy. ” If you know why you’re creating content and audit and repurpose content, you can measure it and do what needs to be done to achieve your goal.”

For Amber, what keeps her up at night is when people use content out of context. “If we don’t start from a place of context, it’s basically saying, well, I’ll just throw something out on the web, and hopefully, it will work, hopefully, it will get you the kind of attention you want. And maybe you’ll gain some followers. If the clients come from a non-marketing background, it’s hard to explain to them that the audit is required in the beginning to select content that is contextual. And then work with it, create your goals, repurpose it, whatever, but start from there.”

“A lot of people think content auditing is just one thing they do one time and then they forget about it,” Romina added. “They don’t do the work afterwards; they forget about the actual things they created and about all the rough diamonds they have that just need to be polished a bit” 💎. 

Here’s four content auditing things you should be thinking about according to our worthy guests:

  1. Focus on your Ideal Client Profile (ICP)

It is tempting to be all things to all people but targeting your ideal client profile is crucial – and an audit can help you narrow down your focus. Romina tries to go into each stage of the customer journey. “I want to see how I can optimize this stage or go into different topics and how I can really nail the touch points in the topic area along the journey a customer takes.”

“ICP is very, very important.” Amber related. “I feel that a lot of times we are writing, or the companies are writing, for so many different ICPs. And it gets confusing. For example, they might be targeting pet owners, but they may also be targeting cat owners. So first you need to figure out the ICP, who is it speaking to, then you have to figure out the topics for that ICP. And categorize them.”

Kira suggests choosing two or three ICPs to run tests on to find the best performing audience. “You have to nail the journey for that specific ICP, be it pet lovers or cat lovers, because otherwise you won’t be able to measure.“

  1. Test by running ads

According to Amber, running ads are a great way to establish patterns and find audiences. “In our case we run Facebook ads for a particular piece of content from a webinar or training. It’s long form content, an hour long at the minimum. By running ads, we figure out very quickly if the concept and topic resonates with our client’s audience. And if it does, we take that big piece of content and repurpose it, not only for different types of content, but for various spots in the customer journey as well.”

  1. Use public domain content 

Kira feels that a content audit can also include looking beyond your own content to repurposing content from people who have published in your field, in the public domain. This can include auditing the news to include relevant content (aka newsjacking).  

“I’ve started to do third party relevant content lately. Say we’re talking about digital transformation. There are these sources, like Boards of Trade here in Canada, for example, who run webinars with amazing experts that are publicly available. If it’s an hour-long panel discussion, why can’t you take that and do a quick bulleted post? It will be so helpful to other business owners, as they don’t have to go through the whole hour. And you don’t have to create that content, you just repurpose, it is publicly available.”

  1. Trawl your own company for content

According to Romina, it’s important to think about auditing the content from within a company. “A lot of companies have so much content flying around in different departments, and you can use all this content for your marketing, of course. So, I feel like the first step you need to take is going internally and saying, ‘hey, I need to know stuff, guys’. And really also checking how you can get the content from your audit departments and then repurpose it. There is a lot of potential just lying around.”

via GIPHY

For more on the specific strategies and tools these experts use, you’ll have to 👂listen to the episode👂. 

Want to chat more about your marketing concerns (or any of your content!)? Give us a shout at C+P Digital – we would love to help!

Plus, if you’re losing sleep over a particular marketing/business related problem or if you would like to suggest a guest on the 4AM Report, let us know.

You can find us on Apple Podcasts – subscribe to us – you won’t regret it!

And as always, sweet dreams😴…well, hopefully!

Filed Under: Blog, Crisis Communication Resources Tagged With: amplify content, content audit, content auditing nuggets, content auditing tips, content creation, digital marketing, ICP, ideal client profile, marketing, podcast panels, repurposing content

Tactical crisis communication tips

July 19, 2021 by cpdigital

Welcome back to the 💫4 AM Report💫, where we’re taking some of our own advice and repurposing some podcast episodes from the past. You’ve heard us speaking about the content audit and recommending that you know what you have in your bag of tricks.

via GIPHY

This can help when you want to say something again (because it’s still relevant or pertinent for the time) and so you don’t always need to be producing new things (yippee). As Susan says, “reuse with pride”. On this episode, we talk about crisis communications, whether it’s for the post-pandemic world at large, or the greater consciousness that’s making each of us more aware of social justice and how we can contribute to it. 

 

In the last month and a half or so in Canada, we’ve been on the news cycles surrounding the discovery of graves in residential schools. And we know that Canadian businesses and many other large businesses have struggled with crisis communication. What do you do? How do you not say the wrong thing or not be tone-deaf and come up with the perfect statement in response to something? Maybe you have a crisis communication plan. Either way, these tips can help: 

 

  1. Stop, drop and roll 

Do this when anything hits the news cycles that requires sensitivity, whether it’s a large issue that affects the world, or something that affects your company. Stop and rethink what you have to do, stop all automations and then continue (and we’ve written a wonderful blog post that covers this topic if you want more). 

 

  1. Make a good apology

When things go wrong🧻, despite your best efforts, and despite multiple plans, the best course is a good apology (read more about this here).  

In this episode, which is an amalgamation of two past episodes, you’ll get our best tactical advice for what to do in a crisis. And it’s not doing nothing at all.

via GIPHY

Hope you enjoy it!

If you’d like to chat more about your crisis communications (or any of your marketing), please give us a shout at C+P Digital – we would love to help!

Plus, if you’re losing sleep over a particular marketing/business related problem or if you would like to suggest a guest on the 4AM Report, let us know.

You can find us on Apple Podcasts – subscribe to us – you won’t regret it!

And as always, sweet dreams😴…well, hopefully!

Filed Under: Blog, Crisis Communication Resources

#111 – Stand up for what you believe with Shelagh Cummins

July 7, 2021 by cpdigital

As social injustice rocks our society, Shelagh Cummins joins us to discuss how to stand up for what you believe, even as you run your business and focus on sales

A business coach, strategist, and founder of The Road to Seven Shelagh’s goal is to help women entrepreneurs use their voice and their platform as they grow a freedom-based, profitable, and fulfilling business.

She shares:

  • The positive side of Covid-19 (say what?)
  • The importance of breathing into what is in alignment for you
  • How to get to your messaging with one simple question
  • That it’s not all about you – so, make a stand, but don’t make it personal

We talk about tough topics in tough times, but it’s not all grim. Like Shelagh says, we create our own sunshine>🌞

Enjoy!

About Shelagh

Shelagh Cummins is a business coach, growth strategist, and founder of The Road to Seven. They provides coaching, education, and access to capital so that women around the world can build profitable and fulfilling businesses.
Driven by an unwavering belief in the power of women and their impact on society and the economy, The Road provides the tools, the support, and the community needed to achieve your wildest dreams.

Shelagh inspires others to park the excuses and become #womenofaction. She is not afraid to kick out the crutches, make over mindsets, and flatten fears – always with a healthy dose of humour, candour and wit. Through practical strategies, personal stories and real-life insights, Shelagh helps women see the possibilities of their ideas, the power of their leadership, and the potential of their vision – all in a human and relatable way.

Website

Filed Under: Crisis Communication Podcasts, Crisis Communication Resources, Podcasts

How to navigate an exhausting news landscape as a small business trying to market

June 30, 2021 by cpdigital

May and June of 2021 have been heavy for Canadians. Many Canadian brands and individuals are trying to figure out their articulation and actions in light of the bloody past of a nation coming to light surrounding the residential schools in Canada. All while navigating thoughts around a day of celebration.

It’s beginning to be widely recognized that what we know so far is likely just the beginning. There’s a lot more coming. 

In moments of reckoning surrounding a deep social injustice like that which Indigenous people in Canada have endured at the hands of settler colonialism, it’s hard to think about what to say, or how to make any sort of impact from a marketing and communication perspective.

For small businesses, specifically those between 1 and 5 million, navigating crisis communication – the guilt, the burnout, the uncertainty on how to go about doing business while this is the backdrop – can be a LOT.

How do you balance life in a global pandemic with ongoing self awareness and discovery?

How might small businesses be empathetic, self-educating allies, while respectfully doing our job as business owners, which often requires actively marketing and selling what we do?

If you, like us, believe that your teams, your partners, your collaborators, and your customers are your greatest assets, you really want to be thinking about what is challenging them on the daily and either:

  1. Fix their problems in your communication with them or
  2. Find a way to add to their days with levity and kindness 

Towards that end, here are The Three Bs Holding Back MANY small businesses: Budget, Bandwidth, and Burnout, and some thoughts on navigating them

The burnout part in particular is something we think is appropriate reading for a time in history when people are maxed and overworked in the extreme. 

The dreaded ‘budget’ issue goes first!

via GIPHY

Yes, budgets are potentially the largest obstacle for many people, so we wanted to break down the budget thing a little bit. A few things can help when dealing with a lack of budget:

  1. Look at your line items differently (maybe what you spent on in person events in the past can be redeployed for a podcast or a virtual event series?)
  2. Look at collaboration differently. In the face of insurmountable obstacles, often, honest and upfront conversations with peers in your network about how much you have to spend and what you’re looking to achieve can lead to some amazing partnerships that you’ll play for long game!

And when it comes to making those almost non-negotiable investments in marketing (visibility is non negotiable if your goal is growth, so marketing tends to be a line item on most small business budgets) our ‘secret sauce’ is not s secret. 

Think flywheels over funnels.

And take each piece of content you create, and fully make it count. We call it the Anchor Theory of content marketing and it helps build out a library of valuable thought-leadership material in a variety of accessible formats.

Remember folks: batch production equals efficient dollar usage!

Who isn’t feeling a little overwhelmed these days?

When it comes to mental bandwidth, we haven’t even begun to quantify how overstretched small business teams aree. 

via GIPHY

Covid-19  has left a majority of small business stretched  thin ( understatement!) – servicing clients (YAY!), planning for ongoing post-pandemic survival, while still finding the time to toot our horns with our own content output. (Add to it a lens of social awareness reckoning!)

It’s CRAY!! BUT not impossible.

  1. Stop thinking of a “blog post” as 500 to 750 words of copy! Instead, take a page from our book – add video clips, audio snippets, animations, images, memes, graphics – any and all the rich media you can find to help spin off your anchor content.
  2. What if you don’t have the resources to make these splits? Fear not! What people think of “blogging” has evolved. And the key is to NOT go radio silent because you’re too busy to produce your own content, or even think about what to do in times of crisis. Rich media is the gift that keeps on giving! Sharing other people’s content with context, cause and commentary (instead of lazily hitting a share button) is a very goo idea.

Let’s attempt to tackle that  BURNOUT!!! 

If you’re NOT suffering from some form of burnout at the moment, well bully for you, Mr. Robot! We certainly are, and so are most of the peeps we chat with on the regular.

Home schooling/summer management of them kids (depending on where in the world you are).
Work-from-home.
Money stress.
Loss of rituals and routines.
Keeping a business afloat. 

This year has already been a DECADE and yet, we all must keep going.

And one big thing that helps in times of stress and uncertainty? Humour. Little moments of joy.

via GIPHY

Think about injecting humour, levity, and laughter into your marketing in a respectful way regardless of the backdrop. The tone is most important.

You don’t have to be the Court Jester, but don’t be afraid to have – and share – some fun!

If you would like to read more about employing a type of entertainment that helps soothe the collective cortisol, you should read our guide to ASMR as a tool for marketers in times of crises.

If you’d like to listen to a more detailed version of how to help manage budget bandwidth and burnout for small business teams, listen here!

This episode is an updated production of a series produced at the end of 2020, captured here.

Filed Under: Blog, Crisis Communication Resources Tagged With: balance, bandwidth, budget, burnout, communication, marketing, respectful

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