c+p digital

Conversion driven digital marketing agency, focussed on creative content.

social distance marketing

The Benefits of Daily Stand Ups

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Welcome back to 🎙The 4am Report🎙. We have a Mara Svenne back on the show to talk about the benefits of Stand Ups🧍‍♀️🧍️. Not the funny ones (usually).

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Disclaimer: We love funny at c+p digital, so don’t be scared to use a little bit of humour to make Stand Ups fun. Some of our Stand Ups have featured onesies and terrible puns(ies)🤣🤣🤣. 

With our shifting workforce and the likelihood that we’ll continue to be virtual or hybrid for a while still, team Stand Ups (aka short, focused, and productive meetings) are incredibly useful right now.

Let’s face it, it’s so easy to miss emails or forget to respond to something. A Stand Up is a collaboration tool that reduces emails in your inbox, and helps teams work better and more efficiently. We use Stand Ups as a productivity tool for our team at c+p digital.

Mara is an agile coach and facilitator, who works with many software and management leadership teams. We worked with her on a large content audit a few years ago, where she introduced us to the value of virtual daily Stand Ups to help manage the multiple moving pieces of the project. Here’s some of the key benefits of Stand Ups:

Short, sweet, and focused

According to Mara, a Stand Up is a daily 15-minute planning meeting of what’s going to happen and how to help each other. “It’s not a status report, it’s, ‘here’s what I’m working on, I’m making good progress’. ‘Or here’s where I’m struggling’. ‘Or I might need somebody to help me with this, because I don’t understand this area of the work’. ‘Or I’m missing something, can you help me get that information so I can continue’. The idea is that you’re continually checking in with each other to see how the work is going.”

Keeping things moving

“Ideally, you actually stand up. because it forces the time box to be 15 minutes because nobody wants to stand up for an hour. And it gives the energy in the virtual room because you’re all standing up.” As Mara relates, key decision makers and executives are present to move things forward. And if somebody has an idea, you park that for after the stand up. “So right after the stand up, you say, Will and Susan need to meet with Mary, the rest of you can go to finish your work. And you guys stay behind to talk about the question or challenge or ideation in depth.”

Getting your priorities right

“What’s important about today that you want to accomplish today. This is about going through a whole project plan for the next six months and when this is happening.”

Multitasking is a myth. 

“Even women cannot multitask, no matter what they say! Your brain can only do one thing at a time. So, finish that and get to the next most important thing. It’s worth saying, ‘I’ve got two things. I can’t get both done today. What’s the priority?’”

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In this episode you’ll find out why you need to lay the groundwork and establish team norms to build that trust within the team – so that you have each other’s back.
You’ll also learn some key time management tips used in Agile, like Scrum and Combat (for more on Combat listen to Getting Sh!t Done with Mara Svenne). 

Tune in to learn more about how to support your team, build relationships and prevent burnout by making extra time to talk and be there for each other (often before or after the Stand Up). 

And if you need more convincing before you hit play, Mara talks about how focusing on the things that are closest to being done, gets things done. Along with the value of retrospective Stand Ups, so you can “inspect and adapt as you go along”.

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!

The 12 Formats of Podcast Episodes You Should Be Using

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Surprise! The good kind…because we’re talking about podcasting again. Susan has put together a framework for how to come up with endless amounts of episodes and formats to keep things interesting. 12 formats that will help you hook your audience, cut the clutter, and may even make your work a little easier. 

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We’re going to talk about a few and hopefully, get you so curious and eager to hear the rest that you’ll feel like you have no choice but to listen to the podcast! 

  1. First up is strategic teaching. This revamps the tired and bored podcasting format of interviewing a guest or just sharing your thoughts, because you get to showcase your expertise. For example, on The 4AM Report we might share a particular way of operating or a system we use, or even something we know, like audio and how it’s going to impact people’s business.
  2. Then there’s tactical teaching, which is another format that mixes things up a bit because you can provide a bunch of tools or tactics for your listeners to use or download. “I think people really love that, they’re like tell me what to do. Give me the blueprint, and I’ll run with that.”
  3. Another cool way to change up your podcast format is to create an episode arc. This can really make your production more efficient. We could record a 30-minute episode for The 4Am Report, but why not break it up into three parts and create a three-series arc? It’s more digestible, goes deeper over a shorter time span, and gives you a bit of breathing room if you are tight on time and bandwidth. Instead of drowning your audience with information and scaring the sh!t out of them, you’re giving them one piece of info. at a time and letting them run with it.

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This very podcast is a great example of a potential episode arc. We could do a separate podcast on every one of these points. So that’d be a 12-parter! Long live long-winded content✨! 

5 and 4. Another way to really turn the traditional podcast upside down is the podcast cohort, basically getting a panel of experts together to weigh in on something and how this amplifies your audience (we spoke about this here). There’s show & tell which is profiling a case study or use case on your show. This can also feature two or three people talking about something you’ve achieved and how you did it.  

  1. This one is fun because you can draw from your internal team and tactical processes. It’s a way to showcase your team on the inside or a process you use again and again. You could have a  team member come on or a client who uses that process and just beak it up and bring in different perspectives. For example, we did an episode on The 4AM Report where our writers came on to chat about their process and share some tips on how they approach different tasks, like social media or researching long-form copy. 
  2. You’re in touch right? Maybe your business wants to be inclusive or get known as a thought leader. To establish credibility, you can bring together industry analysts or workplace commentators to talk about things that are impacting our times and start making wider social commentary on more than just your business. 
  3. Every week, we newsjack with pride. If you don’t know what this is, read more here. We have Thirsty Thursday, which is a roundup of the hits and misses in the world of marketing, pop culture, entertainment, social injustice and more. We pick our top five to seven favourite stories, and we chat them out on video. But then we also release this as a podcast episode.

So, that’s a sneak peek into newsjacking. For more on why newsjacking needs to be agile and quick, you need to listen to the episode. And you’ll also find out why this helps you jump on the topics that people are searching for (aka more traffic) and can even show you care🤗🤗🤗.

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9-12

Let us summarize points 9-12. Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose, and repurpose again! From combining podcast episodes or repurposing and clustering them together, to rolling out episode highlights or bringing together themes, repurposing can be as easy or involved as you want it to be. You can also repurpose events, like your mastermind / live event or zoom recordings and make these into podcast episodes… And guess what? This is when the podcast flywheel starts to work for you because it just gets easier and easier to get that volume and promote the hell out of yourself👏👏👏. Plus, nobody gets bored with it because they haven’t heard it yet. 

We ♥ that so many people love podcasting. So, let’s all pick it up a notch by 🎧listening to this episode🎧 and learning how to entertain and engage your audience with a bunch of great formats.

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!

What do The View and The 4Am Report have in common? Introducing Podcast Cohorts

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Welcome to The 4AM Report. To start, we’d like to share a quote:

“I’ve always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds and views. A working mother; a professional in her 30s; a young woman just starting out; and then somebody who’s done almost everything and will say almost anything.”

-Barbara Walters

If you haven’t watched The View, which kicked off in the late 90s, each episode started with Barbara reading this. The show, which was revolutionary for its time, featured 5 different women who joined this panel on daytime TV to talk about politics, social justice and share their expertise.

We keep talking about The View because this show is what we’re trying to do with podcasting. We’re replicating the idea of people coming in and sharing different perspectives with a wider audience. And we’re doing it by creating podcast cohorts of five people.  Here’s a sneak peek into the five key reasons you should consider a podcast panel:

  1. More accountability

When you’re in a mastermind or in a cohort, you tend to get things done purely because you don’t want to be the person that shows up and says, ‘I didn’t get it done’. 

  1. Reduced Bandwidth 

The first resistance we hear when it comes to creating a podcast is ‘I don’t have the time to do this’. Especially if you’re working solo. But if you’re working with podcast cohorts, you’re cutting your bandwidth by creating syndicated content. You’re releasing similar material that’s now going out through four or five different feeds, which are going to be cross-linked. It’s going to give you good Google juju. That’s how you can do the same amount of work for an incremental amount of output.

  1. Amplify your network

Creating a podcast cohort is a really meaningful way to amplify your networks, especially when you’re not necessarily doing as much in-person face time on stages and panels. For us, creating a podcast cohort has resulted in a minimum of five times our regular traffic. Then there’s the mastermind side of it, as some of the guests on the panel form relationships and end up working together. It’s also a way to collate information, bringing together different perspectives or expertise so that your audience doesn’t have to sift through five or six podcasts from different specialists to get the information they want. 

  1. Up the entertainment quotient

Just like The View brought women together, a podcast cohort brings people together, often to discuss serious topics, but also to bring some fun and levity to the show. We’re big fans of the entertainment quotient and it’s why we use metaphors like ‘what Barbara Walters did for daytime TV back in the 90s, we want try to do for podcasting in 2021’. And it’s easier to people to get (and resonate with).

  1. Get better together 

‘We are better together’ is a value that came from the pandemic, it became a hashtag and people use it to tell their stories. But when it comes to podcasts, it means that if you use a cohort or a panel you can feed off each other, amplify each other and just create better content than you might flying solo.

If you’re even a little bit intrigued by the above, 🎧listen to the episode for more🎧.

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!

A Rebuilding Roundup: Key Infrastructure Needed for Our New Normal

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I don’t know about you, but here at c+p digital we’ve noticed our thinking shifting slightly. Dare we say, toward the positive? We’re not naïve, we know there’s a long way to go before we’ll see ANYTHING resembling normal, but it almost feels like we’ve entered a new, never felt before (in our lifetimes, anyhow) stage of this particular Covid-19 grief we’ve all been going though: let’s call it cautious optimism!

Here in Canada, individual provinces are at different stages of re-opening and loosening social distancing restrictions. But loosening they indeed are! Wheeee!!

And that inspired us this week to bring you a special, “rebuilding roundup” of some of our recent 4 AM Report podcasts. Instead of the gloom and doom of March and April, we’re focused on the new normal for businesses. And we wanted to share episodes that would inspire you as you navigate these new, still slightly choppy waters.

Of course, many entrepreneurs and business owners simply aren’t ready to take next steps. We know that. But inspiration only comes to you if you seek it. So, let’s celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit and doing whatever it is you have to do that takes you to the next step and keeps you from jumping off those cliffs!

We’ve curated five episodes we think you’ll learn something from. Let’s get started.

Upending a Successful Business to Follow Your Passion? That’s NUTS! Or IS it?

Sandra D’Souza, Founder and Managing Director of Sandstone Solutions Group, talks about upending your tried and true business networks, what it’s like to feel like a “newbie” while dipping your toes into a new sector, and what it’s like to start again from scratch (sort of).

As an experienced business professional with over 20 years’ experience in senior finance and recruitment roles, Sandra shifted the focus of her very successful business – going from a comfortable money-making space, into new uncharted waters!

Very BRAVE!

That said, it’s not surprising that what keeps her up at night is breaking into a new audience segment and making those solid connections we all strive for in order to grow. 🌱🌱🌱

Why Publishing a Book Can Lead to Serious Business ROI

Be honest. We’ve all thought at one time or another “I should write a book!”…amiright?

Or, maybe you’re looking at the screen cock-eyed right now wondering why a business owner/entrepreneur should put the work in and get a book out?

Well, Scott MacMillan, President and Executive Publisher at Grammar Factory Publishing, brings the receipts!

Of those who wrote a book, 86% of them grew their business, 72% got speaking engagements, and 34% saw their overall earnings double! Plus, being published gave them authority and helped them stand out from competitors.

BOOM!

Building Relationships from Behind the Screen

Video might have killed the radio star, but it ALSO provided many (if not most) of us the ability to continue working during these crazy, Covid times. It’s also added a valuable extra layer to marketing efforts, if done right.

That’s why, on this episode of the 4 AM Report, we did a deep dive into how to slay your next video meeting. This top talk with a video expert – Janine Harris, executive producer at Keyring Media Inc., specializing in video for business – will teach you:

¡   Tips and tricks for looking fine on camera.

¡   How to jazz up your surroundings so people are focussed on YOU!

¡   And how to use video, in general, in your marketing efforts.

Pro-tip – good lighting should be your North Star! LOL

HR and Small Business – Invest in Talent Infrastructure BEFORE Crisis Strikes

We talk a lot about building out corporate infrastructure, most importantly digital infrastructure, that sort of thing. But more and more companies, large AND small, are realizing just how important it is to invest time, energy, and real emotional intelligence in your people.

Life Works Well’s Helen Patterson talks about investing in an often-overlooked part of small biz infrastructure – human resources! What better time, really, when the work-world is upside down!

You’ll learn why it’s so important to have HR policies in place BEFORE a scramble starts. Why the hiring process isn’t the best use of time for a busy entrepreneur. And why compassionate and humane leaders who treat staff with respect will sail through any crisis.

Solid content, and much needed as employees start to return to work.

Sick and Tired of Non-Stop Bad News? Get Ready to Be Covid Inspired!!

Ugh. The news-cycle these days is brutal. And as if 2020 couldn’t get any worse – we now have Murder Hornets!! Murder. Hornets. Ugh. In this episode, rather than doom and gloom and “what’s keeping you up at night?” we shift focus and bring you ALL THE GOOD NEWS!

There are some really exciting and innovative things companies are doing to stay in business and survive Covid-19, and we (Will and Susan, of course!) focused on four categories:

¡   The all-in, boots to the ground, search for a vaccine!

¡   Health and lifestyle/beauty (Hello! Remember haircuts?)

¡   Sports

¡   And technology

It’s a nice reminder that there still are great people out there and lots of good news these days. And that’s the type of content I know WE are here for!

We’re of course on Apple Podcasts – subscribe to us – you won’t regret it!

Plus, if you’re losing sleep over a particular marketing/business related problem during this Covid-19 economic uncertainty, or if you have a guest idea on the topic, let us know. Drop us a line at c+p digital.

And as always, sweet dreams…well, hopefully!

The only kind of intelligence that counts now is emotional

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Ah, we continue to social distance.

The gap between our expectations and reality, as far as this COVID thing goes, is the requisite 2 meters, some might say.

In this time, one of the biggest changes I’ve made to how we do business is this:

(And yes we continue to do business. If you’re saying that’s not possible or has been cut way down, and you have transferable skills to the interwebs, you’re wrong 🙂 And you need to do this.)

Pick up the phone.

Here’s who I am. Someone who likes to hide behind my screen. There are very few things in my world that can’t be achieved from behind a screen.

But EVEN with that generally outlier view to life as a 40-something, I’m finding this shut down hard.

Nobody ever likes to be FORCED to do something.

And that suspension of life and liberty is a tempting little place of loss in which we react much like we do in times of grief. At the end of March, the Harvard Business Review published an eloquent piece titled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief“.

In a creepily foreshadowing-ey move, 2 years ago, we at c+p digital came up with a change management model for communicating in times of (generalized) crisis.

In this moment, the name we gave that model, which we trademarked by the way, seems deeply tone deaf. (Its #FlipIt2TenX – named for it’s massive ability to convert 10 times as much as your current CTA conversions. Obscure. Weird. But fucking effective. Like a lot of what we do.)

But that’s not the point.

The point is while we probably will not use that name for a while, the model is this.

All change (and crisis) brings resistance.

Your mind likely reacts with fear because it perceives the change as a loss of life and liberty in its current form, in some way.

So it reacts like it does when it’s grieving.

Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance!

That’s how we think all crisis (or change) communication works. And we put our time and actual dollars into developing that thinking.

Emotionally intelligent thinking.

Then a year ago, we started a podcast. A digital marketing firm that came to the party a decade too late, or so we thought. So we had to bring something special.

The something special was a hook.

We called it The 4 am Report, and we asked marketers and entrepreneurs, ‘what keeps you up at night?’ Dude, is that ever a loaded question right now.

And we’ve lived up to that emotionally intelligent responsibility as well.

Why?

A deep understanding of headspace.
That comes from years of mental health issues that were never understood.
From being dismissed, on multiple levels.
From knowing quite clearly what we didn’t want, even if we had no clear clue
what we did want.

When you start with the acceptance, emotionally intelligent communication gets very easy. (That’s what our change management framework was all about.)

And then demographics and psychographics start to MEAN something.

Here’s Will’s example. So you say your audience avatar is a 40 year old mom of 3. She’s obviously employed and had a particular kind of life up until very recently.

NOW that’s completely changed.
That same lady is homeschooling her 3 kids.
Failing on multiple deadlines.
Trying to cook and clean and second guess whether delivery is entirely safe.
And probably discovering she doesn’t like her partner very much as a person 😉

That’s a whole other person.

Does your marketing get that?

Probably not.

Figure out how to make it happen. Emotionally intelligent communication is all that matters in this moment.