206. Taylor Mason on the Value of Content Marketing for Coworking Spaces

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206. Taylor Mason on the Value of Content Marketing for Coworking Spaces.

00:00:01 Welcome to the everything co-working podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host coworking space owner and trend expert. Jamie Russo, Welcome to the everything coworking podcast. This is Jamie Rousseau, happy summer. I hope you are taking the advice that I shared on a recent podcast to take a little time off and enjoy recharging.

00:00:39 A bit as coworking season tends to be a bit slow during summertime for my friends in Australia. I know it is not summer for you. So you may be experiencing the, the opposite effect. So let us know how things are going down there, but for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, things tend to quiet down during the summer. So I hope you're enjoying some adventures with your family and getting out and about getting some new perspective.

00:01:06 I had two friends in town this week, which was such a treat. Both of them actually from Chicago. One was Mara Hauser. Who's been on the podcast. And another one was one of my very first coworking space members at interspace. When I had my space in the west loop, she might have been my very first member. Anyway, she was that member who showed up every single day when the space was new and not full yet.

00:01:32 And so I will always appreciate her. And we became friends and she was traveling through. So we actually had a beach picnic with her and her family at Fort Funston on the coast, which was a major treat for a Tuesday night and not something I usually do. It's so good to get out of the typical weeknight routine. I love it when I'm nudged to do those things.

00:01:54 So before we dive in to today's interview, if you're working on opening a co-working space, I want to invite you to join me for my free masterclass three behind the scenes secrets to opening a coworking space. If you're working on starting a space, I want to share three decisions that successful operators make when they're creating their coworking business. The masterclass is totally free.

00:02:15 It's about an hour. If you'd like to join me, please register at everything. coworking.com forward slash masterclass. Today's guest is Taylor Mason, and I'm not going to do a long intro on him. Cause we kind of talk about, you know, how I got to know him in the beginning of our discussion, but we talk about content marketing, which is super critical for coworking spaces.

00:02:38 So coworking spaces are part real estate, but not really a real estate business, right? They're more of a hospitality business and a marketing business, hospitality and customer acquisition are really the drivers to success for a coworking business. And there's a lot of discussion these about landlords renting their own flex business or coworking business. And it really comes down to can they run the hospitality and can they run the customer acquisition?

00:03:11 Because acquiring customers for a co-working or flex office space is very different than acquiring customers who sign five to 10 year leases, right? So that customer acquisition happens through marketing paid marketing and content marketing. The paid marketing tends to be a little more straight forward and we can outsource that pretty easily. We can outsource content marketing easily too, but I think we get stuck on thinking we should totally do it ourselves.

00:03:34 We get overwhelmed and we're not sure where to start and we're not consistent. And so we don't tend to be wildly successful with content marketing. Some are. So there are some great examples in our industry, but Taylor focuses on content marketing for coworking spaces. So we talk about kind of how to get started, what to focus on and the ROI for content marketing in a coworking business.

00:03:58 I think you're going to really enjoy our conversation. Taylor Mason, thank you for joining me today. You are in outside of Vancouver. I am. Yeah. Just outside of Vancouver. Yeah. I'm always like trying to keep track of where everybody is. So a Canadian, we have lots of Canadians in our audience. I have a lot of community manager,

00:04:18 university Canadians. So I think we have to tell the story of how I found you. And then we'll have you run through your background and then we're going to talk about content marketing today. So speaking of content marketing, I think I first saw you on LinkedIn. Cause I tend to scan LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn. It doesn't suck me in quite as much as Facebook does and I follow launch workplaces.

00:04:45 And I think you posted a little case study of some work you'd done for lunch and Mike Creel and his team. And I was like, who is this guy? And I think I clicked on your blog post. And then I subscribed to your newsletter. And then you so kindly mentioned me and your needs. You don't to Put a podcast out. There was like right on the money for being,

00:05:08 I was like, well, this works. I know. So totally One of those like serendipitous timing things. So I was like, who is this guy? Who's now mentioning my podcast episode in his newsletter. So I reached out and it turns out you met Kevin Whalen at a dog park, which is also super serendipitous and Kevin's been on the podcast.

00:05:28 I need to get him back on. And he hasn't been on in a while, but his episodes are fan favorites. He talks a lot about marketing and we'd done talked about Google ads and paid advertising. So Taylor, tell us kind of your story and we're going to talk about content marketing. So tailored has a varied marketing background, but it's focusing on content marketing for co-working spaces.

00:05:51 So I'll stop talking. Taylor, tell us a little bit about you. I started my career actually in PR in 2013. And, and so that's kind of where I learned this love and respect for organic engagement with people. It's, it's always felt really powerful to me and felt like something that needs to be utilized more and sometimes isn't, but I think a lot like you,

00:06:12 I know that you kind of said in your corporate life, you felt like you were getting the soul sucked out of you. And I, I started to feel the same way in my career and I was looking at the trajectory. I just didn't feel right. So I got an opportunity to start taking on some content projects and over a number of years,

00:06:28 I spent to build the business up. And eventually I, I realized actually I think that content has kind of like all the best storytelling aspects of PR, which PR was losing. So it just seemed like a great transition. And I left got into a coworking space. I hadn't really heard of it before. And I was working there and I was like,

00:06:44 this is incredible. These people are amazing. The environment is inspiring and I kind of just fell in love with it and like about serendipitous. It just so happened that I got a few opportunities to work with co-working spaces and realized that it was a huge, I think untapped opportunity. And I think that there was, you know, not a lot of people realize how amazing it was yet.

00:07:03 And I wanted to be able to help tell that story and help showcase a better way to work for people. So that's how I ended up where I am today. Long story short. So what was it that drove you to join your first coworking space Was just working at home for like three or four months probably. And then I kind of being in an agency environment for so long where it was like hustle and bustle all the time and,

00:07:23 you know, as a management. So there was people in and out of my doors and I was constantly talking to people in meetings and then I transitioned to being at home and like, didn't leave my sweatpants for three or four months and I have no engagement. I said it's a little bit stir-crazy. So at the time I just was looking, I was looking at options and eventually just bit the bullet,

00:07:39 I was like, I'm going to go to the house. I can't, I can't stay here anymore. I'm gonna go crazy. And so I did and it was awesome. It was like, it's such an eyeopening experience and it made me put on jeans. Right. Totally. And did you feel like you needed, you renewed to working on your own,

00:07:55 right. And for working for yourself, did you feel like you needed to be like with other people who were doing something similar? Like from a mindset perspective? Yeah, totally. You know, like you would get into these conversations with people who weren't doing what you were doing, but they were kind of in the same grind as you, right? Like everybody's there just trying to build something everybody's working hard.

00:08:14 You see the same people there at 7:00 AM leaving at 7:00 PM and you're doing the same thing because everybody's trying to get to that ultimate goal they have or whatever. And it was super inspiring and being at home with the dog was nice, but she didn't exactly get me motivated to work harder. So being around a lot of people with the same mindset was a huge boost and great learning.

00:08:34 Yeah. So it was kind of a loaded question, but I keep talking too about, from a marketing perspective, like what are you selling on your website? Right. Like how do you explain to people, how do you bottle that reason that you got out of your house? Right. It's not really about, you needed a desk because you've got a desk at home.

00:08:53 It's like you needed something to help jumpstart your mindset and feeling like your routine and like feeling professional and maybe like a little imposter syndrome, like you're sitting in your sweatpants and you're, you know, at your desk at home. And you're like, am I real? Am I, you know, do I still, you know, have what it takes?

00:09:13 I need to leave the house and feel like, like a professional. I also read yesterday. I was just trying to think of where it was. But an article that showed some research, somebody did a study on a negotiation scenario and like half the people were in sweat pants and half the people were in suits. And the people in suits just like Baloo the,

00:09:33 the sweatpant people out of the, out of the water in terms of the like dollar amount that they negotiated. And the point was like, look, the sweat pants matters. Like you don't have to wear a suit, but you need to like get, yeah. It's funny that that's where we're at. That we're actually looking at that now obviously with remote work taking up,

00:09:50 but it's so true. You got to take yourself a little bit seriously that other people take you seriously. As much as they say it's a scenic man or whatever, I guess it must have a little bit, I Think it does even just with your own mindset. Okay. So let's, I was peppering you with questions before we started about like ROI on content marketing.

00:10:09 So we'll start from the beginning and just kind of talk about, so I've had folks like Kevin and recently had Rubin who are both Canadians on the podcast talking about paid content. And I'm a big advocate for Google ads. And, you know, you need to find your active searchers where you need to attract your active searchers because they're the ones like ready to make a decision ready to pay you.

00:10:30 They probably need space, but you play in the land of like organic engagement, building a brand over time. I'd love to just kind of hear, let's start with, from your perspective, what's the value of organic engagement for coworking spaces versus, you know, the paid ads. Yeah. Well, and I mean, I think that's a real value and it's the same as when I was doing PR and working with marketing teams and advertisers is that it has to,

00:10:57 it's kind of a unique to the gang, right? I mean, it's important to do the paid, but you also need to have an organic side that compliments that, which is a little bit more organic. It gets to people in a more value driven way and you're providing something that's useful to them rather than just selling them something. And so I,

00:11:13 I know I mentioned to you, there's something called the mere exposure effect. And I don't know where this started. I, I heard it from a business strategist named Kerwin Rae. He's an Australian guy, but essentially the idea here is the back end in 2005, you only need five exposures to somebody before they wouldn't have trusted familiarity with your brand, which obviously for businesses is huge.

00:11:32 You need to have that trust built with people. And now it's something like 20 exposures. And the, you know, the thing is how do you get 20 exposures to people to build that trust without annoying them? I don't know about, I don't know if I'm speaking for everybody, but I I've opened up Instagram and seen ad over ad over ad to the point where I just want to throw my phone out the window because it's too much.

00:11:54 So to get to that 20 exposures, organic content is a great way to do that because it's value driven. You can get your brand in front of people without constantly constantly selling. You can give them something they can use, they call it utility content, right? It's things that entertain things, inform things that are helpful rather than just straight up sales.

00:12:12 So I think that's really important. So Would you say, I'm curious about, you know, I Searchie, when I think about who's going to buy a co-working membership, I think about it in terms of like those people that are solution aware and problem, problem, aware, solution aware. I know I don't like being at home and I'm aware of coworking.

00:12:30 And so I'm going to go Google coworking near me. And those folks probably are going to get to you through your Google, my business, listing your website, the sales funnel for those folks is going to be shorter. And then I think about all the people out there, especially now who aren't, maybe they're vaguely problem aware, but they're not really solution aware.

00:12:50 They don't know much about coworking or sort of the value of it. Right. They may think of it as sort of just space. So is content marketing more for the second audience? Or how would you tell an operator to think about who you're going after? I mean, I think that really, it could be for, for both in a lot of ways,

00:13:09 but I think that the way to look at content marketing is to think about, you know, your podcast or your episode the other week where you talk about really identifying your own values and what makes you unique is so important. And I was going to mention that too, because I think that coworking is such a community based experience, right? And I think that one space is not going to work for everybody.

00:13:29 Every, every space has its own culture, its own thing that makes it unique. So I think that you should think about content marketing from the perspective of who is your audience, like who do you want to get in there? And then you would craft your, your content around it. So they couldn't be that there could be that they're looking, it could be that they're not aware yet.

00:13:46 And you're able to inform them, create a knowledge gap. You know, you can, you can teach them that it's available and why it might be helpful. Or you can just give them education about why this is the right one for them. So I think it really just depends on your approach. And it's kind of like a, you know, like how long is this string sort of thing,

00:13:59 if you can tailor your approach to reach whoever you need to, you just, it depends on how you get there. Yeah. So talk a little bit about how you build sort of that, that brand, that story through content marketing, you know, you talk about each, I think that the good news is each coworking space is a little bit different.

00:14:22 And so if you can communicate the fact that you are different and give people a sense of, of your culture and your brand, then you can attract people. But yeah. Can you kind of talk about how you do that through content marketing? Yeah, absolutely. I think first and foremost, it comes back to, you know, as you said before,

00:14:41 it just worked out for you. You mentioned that on the podcast, but understanding what you're all about and what value you bring to people and then articulating that properly, you got to know your audience, right? I mean, if you're, if you're going to appeal the satellite teams more than, you know, independent creative people, then you're going to take a different approach.

00:14:57 So you're going to the tone that you use, the kind of content that you put out is going to be different. If you're dealing with, you know, say small business owners who were looking to bootstrap their PR efforts or whatever it might be, then you can put out content that will teach them how to, you know, leverage PR tactics for under $500.

00:15:14 Whereas if it's a big corporate team, you might approach them with something like, you know, how to hire, you know, remote talent or whatever it might be. So you really just got to tailor your content experience to those people and in doing so you kind of define what your space is all about. And you can also look at things like member spotlights,

00:15:30 profiling, the people who actually use your space. You know, I know when I was looking for a coworking space, one of the big things that helped put me over the, not the edge, but you know, that made me make my decision, was seeing the kind of people who were working there and understanding that there was going to be a place where like-minded people to myself where,

00:15:47 whereas I probably wouldn't have been a fit at a, at a massive space that I've, you know, all corporate satellite teams, it wouldn't have been the right fit for me. So it just comes down to knowing what you're all about, knowing who your ideal member is, and then targeting or tailoring the content that you put out to appeal to them as specific.

00:16:04 Yeah. And I think some space owners struggle with making that commitment. Like they want to sort of want to be for everyone. Yeah. And so it's hard. You have to make that commitment when you do content. Cause otherwise you'd be too generic and you can't get to the people that, that, you know, to your point, they have to talk directly to you in order to attract you.

00:16:25 Yeah. Well, the thing about a niche as well, right? I think that, and it's funny cause I've had this gone through this exercise with my own businesses, picking a niche is scary because you feel like maybe you're, you're narrowing your scope so much that you're going to run out of run out of options. But the reality is that a niche is just shows that you're specialized to one person or that you appeal more specifically to one particular audience,

00:16:47 which is great because you don't need every, you don't need a 75% of the people who fit that category. You just need a few hundred or a hundred members or whatever your, your number is. So having a niche is great because it gives you a to dial in on specific people without going too broad. Totally. I think coworking space owners in particular worry that,

00:17:09 you know, they're right. The sort of that scarcity mindset, and they're nervous to pick a niche. I have a woman in my mentee program. She's also Canadian and she's opening a space. That's just for attorneys and it's a coworking space, but it's, you know, office you'd get a lot of office, but she like every detail is for them.

00:17:28 She, she knows she's herself as an attorney and she knows what coffee they like, what size they want their desks to be, where you know, all the things she knows exactly what they need. And she's a created a space exactly. For them. I'm excited for her to start content marketing because I think it's, so her message is so clear I'm for you and Yeah,

00:17:49 creating content. It's never easy, easy. But when you know who you're talking to, one of the, one of the big things, I always tell people, you know, whether it's me helping them write their content or helping them to write their own content or learn how to do it this right. As if you're writing to somebody, whatever content you're creating,

00:18:03 do you live with one specific person in mind, you can almost create a partner profile of who somebody is and write directly to them because then, you know, you're going to create something that they're going to appreciate and that's going to move the needle for them and give them some value. And so when she's looking at it from a law perspective, you can absolutely dial that into,

00:18:19 to hit your target markets super, super specifically. So I assume this is one of the sort of first things you do with the teams that you work with. Is there generally sort of resistance to that? Like identify an ideal member? No, Like I actually think, I find a lot of the spaces that I work with have kind of come to that point.

00:18:40 And so a lot of the times when I'm coming into the process, it's that they've already realized that this is important to think about that. So, you know, if I'm working with them on their brand messaging, then it's, you know, we take that and narrow it down on something else. But a lot of the time people are already, they already know owners already know what they want to do and who they're going after.

00:18:58 And then we just kind of dial it in and get the content And get there. So that being said, we've talked about content marketing can be challenging for coworking space owners. So oftentimes they'll prioritize, maybe paid marketing. And then, you know, they maybe they don't know where to start or why, why is it that that content marketing tends to get kind of move down,

00:19:26 move down the list. I mentioned, you know, I'm super into like list building. And actually for June, our community manager university training is on list building and then it'll be about newsletter. And you know, some simple things you can do with your newsletter to be engaging at a high level. You dive into those in details when you help people with their content marketing.

00:19:45 But, you know, I feel like that's further down the priority list for a lot of owners and community managers who might handle that. Yeah. Tell us why you think that is. It's, you know, there's a lot of different reasons why it might be, and it really depends on where people are at, whether they've decided it's worthwhile or not.

00:20:04 I mean, a lot of people just simply don't know the value don't realize the value. I think, you know, we've talked about with paid the ROI is very cut and dry, whereas with content or with any organic engagement, it takes a little bit longer to see the, the positive results from it. And a lot of the time, people just,

00:20:21 it's not their core thing. They don't really understand it. They don't prioritize it. Maybe they, maybe they do appreciate the value of it, but staying consistent, understanding what to write about understanding what to put out. There's a lot, you know, even, even if it's not, if it's not the thing, that's the core aspect of your business.

00:20:37 It's hard to focus on it. So yeah, there's a lot of different reasons why, why people not necessarily resistant, but maybe just don't understand why it's important, how to do it and what value can bring back to their space. So I'm S I'm such an ROI, like always focused on what's the return and 80 20 it. And so it's harder to do ROI for content marketing,

00:20:59 I think. But what are indicators like that it's working in that it's making an impact? Or how would you think about, you know, sort of removing the term ROI? How would you help people know like if what you're doing is, is working or making an impact on the business? Yeah. I mean, I think that it's really just a matter of,

00:21:19 of watching changes over a period of time. I always say six months is kind of how long you really need to give it before you start seeing an impact, but you can start watching things like organic traffic. You can start watching things like how long people are spending on your website, how many visits they're, they're coming back for. And then more specifically,

00:21:35 once your content starts getting a little bit of traction, you can look at, you know, how they got to where they put that page and then where they went from there. So if they're coming into your page on a blog post, and then heading to a service page or learn more about you, then you know, that whatever you're producing is engaging enough to lead them somewhere,

00:21:52 that they, you know, they're more likely to purchase. So they're getting more informed and educated. You can also do things like setting up your book, a tour, or a contact us buttons on your website and Google analytics. You can track how many of those clicks and completion is actually came from your content. So there are ways that you can do it just by watching the metrics,

00:22:13 email as well. You can, you're talking about before, you can see exactly how many people opened, how many people clicked, where they clicked, what they clicked. So if you've got something that's, you know, book a tour today, you can see exactly how many people went through your email. So there's a ton of different things that you can watch for.

00:22:30 And depending on how invested you are and how many things you're doing is, you know, you can have more or fewer metrics to watch. So I'm going to throw a quick question at you that I didn't put in our practice question. Okay. So I'm curious about newsletters. We were talking a little bit in our prep discussion about how important newsletters are.

00:22:48 So you, you own it, right? You own your email list. We were talking, you mentioned like Instagram was down for six hours the other day, and it just gives you that like red flag of, oh, that could happen. And then I can't reach people. You know, if you have Instagram followers, theoretically, you know, that's at risk and you,

00:23:05 can't also organic. I always talk to people about this. Like organic reach on social is so low. It's like maybe it's 10%. You know, I see that in my stuff. It's, it's hard to get in front of people for free on social, although it's a component of what you need to do for content marketing. So we won't, we won't pick on it too much,

00:23:22 but the newsletter is like, you're you control it. Right. You control the subject line. I mean, your readership is your, your open rates. Never going to be a hundred percent probably, but you know, you can get it a lot higher than, than 10%. So quick question about the format of the newsletter that I wonder about a lot.

00:23:41 And I wonder if you have a recommendation, you do a very simple, and we'll make sure we include the links to your newsletter. And you have a couple of other resources for us. Do you publish weekly? Yeah. Publish weekly. It's pretty simple. It's mostly texts with a couple of links. So then there's like what I call the kitchen sink newsletter,

00:24:00 which I see a lot of co-working space operators do. And I think we used to do it and I kind of do it in my newsletter cause I'm always like, well, I want to do the, you know, here's what I'm thinking about this week. And then I want to do the member feature and then I want to do the resource links.

00:24:15 And so I've got a bunch of sections and I see co-working space operators while we have events and we have member events and we have the member feature and we've got the deal. We want to tell you about like the kitchen sink newsletter. Do you have a, like any guidance on which format or how to know which one might work for you? Yeah.

00:24:35 I mean, I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong to that. Like, I'll take mine for example. I'm, I'm kind of, of the more, is less school of thought, especially, especially when you're, when you're publishing weekly or two times a week or whatever, when it's higher volume, I like to go a little bit less and make it high value.

00:24:57 Because if it's three times a week of kitchen sink in your inbox, people are just going to be like, this is too much I'm inundated. So I personally, if you're, if you're publishing frequently, if you're sending emails frequently, I like to keep it short. I like to keep it. Value-driven couple of thoughts, maybe some storytelling. And I like to include curated links that people are gonna find interesting.

00:25:16 Right? It's just another way to, to have value for members is even five points of relevant other curated content. But if you're doing like a monthly newsletter and you're only contacting people once, then feel free to go more in the kitchen sink side. I think that there's more that you can include when people hear from you once a month, they're gonna be more inclined to read it from top to bottom without feeling overwhelmed.

00:25:36 And then also with internal sometimes know spaces we'll do externally mills and then internal newsletters. And I think if it's already your members, then you can go a little bit heavier. They're more interested. They're already engaged. Whereas if it's kind of people who aren't engaged yet, keep it brief giving just value and then let them move on with their day. Well,

00:25:57 I I'll stop there cause we could probably do a whole episode on that. I have a lot of like, yeah, I would love to measure. I think the, the most challenging operators are those that do a lot of events. So they have something like, I'll read the subject line and it'll be specific, but then there's the long scroll through all the events for the next two weeks before I get to the thing they talked about in the subject line.

00:26:21 And I'm always so curious, like, is that working? Or should they, you know, should they do an event email and then a regular email, you know, how to, how to mix it up. I always would say to people, what do you read? Like when you, when you get an email or a newsletter in your inbox,

00:26:38 what do you read versus what do you just file away quickly? Right. I mean, it's a pretty bet that whatever you read is probably going to work similarly well for other people, like if you like something that's big and comprehensive and there's a million things in it, that position it as though you're okay. Here's like a million things that you're going to get.

00:26:55 You know, if not, I like a simple idea. One thing, two things, if you like. Yeah, Right, exactly. Again, it's a put yourself in your customer's shoes and then yeah. What are they or test it. I keep thinking, I need to test the really simple email. And then I, then I get stuck on the,

00:27:11 but there are all these other things I want people to know. And I'm sure with a better content marketing strategy, there are ways to kind of mix through your mix up like channels for your content. So, okay, well, let's talk about, you know, creating content, somebody new, most coworking space operators don't come in with a marketing background.

00:27:32 I always think if you come into co-working with either a real estate background or a marketing background, you're like way ahead of all the passionate people who are like, I'm just, I really want to bring people together and create this amazing place for people to build their businesses. You have to bring in a lot of expertise to make the business really roll. So assuming or listeners not a strong marketing background,

00:27:55 I was telling you before we started, I can literally picture myself sitting at my laptop in my space in Chicago. Like I need to write a blog post and or a newsletter. I don't even no idea what to, like, I had no framework for content marketing at the time. And I stuck, you know, I talk about it a lot because I study it so much because I realized like I had,

00:28:17 I was probably a little bit similar to you. I had a big company marketing background, like yours, you're, you know, millions of dollars marketing budget and you've got a PR agency and then you've got, you know, a website age, you got like specialized people to do all the things and a lot of money to throw at this stuff. And so I didn't do any of it myself.

00:28:37 I was just sort of managing people. So when you have to actually sit down and either you're writing the content or even thinking about outsourcing it, yeah. How do you start thinking about the basics of content marketing for coworking space? Where to start? Yeah. I mean, I think that, I think that a common misconception is that it has to be complicated,

00:28:58 but it does. It really doesn't have to be complicated. I mean, if you wanted to start on your own and just get a content strategy going on your own, just focus on the basics, start with your newsletter, start with your, your blog. I wouldn't even recommend starting with social media quite yet, just because I feel like you're going to get a higher ROI from blog and newsletter.

00:29:17 You can get away with speaking The same language on that. Yeah. You have to do it. It's part of the mix, but Yeah, totally start with your blog and a newsletter. It can kind of almost be like one hand washes the other incentives. Right? You can use your blog to inform some of your newsletter. There's ways that you can talk a lot about disseminating your content,

00:29:36 all the different ways that you can. You know, one blog article can go to seven different seven different things. I won't go down that rabbit hole now because it's more complicated. But when you're thinking about what to write, you know, who it is, you've already got the information at your disposal. So start with who your members or your ideal member are.

00:29:53 Right. What what's interesting to them, what do they like? What do they do for work? What do they like personally, think of all these things, that ways that you can bring value to them and just write that, you know, I always like to tell people to create content pillars. So maybe it's, you know, like stuff that helps them with their business stuff.

00:30:10 They'll find interesting personally, you know, if you're a single space operator, you can tap into your community and the city that you're in, all those kinds of things. So you already have the information as to, what's going to resonate to sit down, write it down, dial in who exactly you're speaking to, and then just brainstorm ideas of what's going to be interesting and your content doesn't have to be long.

00:30:32 You know, I think a lot of people like to do 2,500 word blog posts. I think that you're better off staying with 750 words. You know, don't, don't write 2000. If you can say better in 750 words, keep it simple, carve out time in your day and just make sure you do it once a week or however often you Do.

00:30:49 So in terms of, I love thinking about pillars. I think I was doing, I had a content planning session with I'm still on the GWA board. And so I did exactly what you're describing. I just sat down with a spreadsheet and I went month by month across the top. And then I, you know, marketing, you know, leadership,

00:31:07 finance, operations, like what are the things that operators think about? And then, you know, what are the topics that might kind of fill in there? And then what does that, you know, how does that manifest yet? Is it a blog post? Is it a member feature? What does it look like? But it's really, yeah.

00:31:24 To your point, it doesn't have to be hard. It can be super, super simple. And I'm curious too. I think when I started writing for my coworking space, I felt like I had to be a content expert about something, but I had to teach people. Right. You're shaking your head. No, because I think that's one of the blocks people have is like,

00:31:44 I have to say something really smart and teach people things because that's what blogs do. Not necessarily the case. Right? Yeah. Can you, I Think a lot of like a lot of content marketing and marketing in general is just research-based right. It's, it's research into your members. It's understanding what's going to everything you do should be value driven. Right.

00:32:02 So what's gonna, what's going to bring value to them and be helpful. And then everything else that you can research. Right. And nobody's an expert on everything. And if there's one thing I learned from being in PR, you know, I was working with back in the day automotive brands and all over the board in beauty. And so you become,

00:32:18 you can become Mac and cheese. That was my yeah. Yeah, Exactly. Right. And I'm sure he didn't set up as an expert in that, but you can kind of become a pseudo expert in the things that you're writing about. It's just, it's a matter of learning where your audiences learn about the things that are relevant to them and then provide it to them in the form of valuable content.

00:32:38 So can we for a minute about like getting personal, because I think so. I find in my writing people, you know, people who do content are always, you know, talking about like getting, you know, email responses and I will like crickets until I start telling stories. And I have to, I feel like I have to balance it a little bit PR I'm just for everybody listening.

00:33:01 I'll hold on the CrossFit stories for awhile. Cause I, I think I've done three newsletters in a row talking about this CrossFit competition and all the things I, you know, learn sort of business wise and personal wise. But I had one of my highest open rates from last week's newsletter. I'm sure it was subject line, you know, but also then there was a story in there.

00:33:20 So I find people will hit that reply button and respond to me when I tell a personal story. Absolutely. I'm such an advocate for the personal story and the reason being, I think that, you know, as a, as a co-working space owner who you are, it informs so much of the culture that happens in your space. I love the storytelling.

00:33:40 I love finding a way to tie it back, you know, and I think it applies to no matter what model of your businesses, if you're a feeling to commercial landlords for a managed model, then you know, being personal can share your expertise on why this matters. And then on the flip side of that, if you're operating a single space or a few locations speaking to people about,

00:34:01 you know, ultimately you're a business owner just like they are right. I mean, they love to hear from it. It might not be, might not be directly applicable to their business, but I think there's a lot of learnings in there that can be reapplied to other things. I think that having that personal touch as somebody who is like them, it goes a long way.

00:34:16 Right. It's you know, people are joining coworking spaces to be with like minded people. If they know that the owner is a lot, like them too, it just creates that common ground. And I think it makes it all that much more appealing. Yeah. And even, you know, sometimes it's not the owner writing, so I run the group for community managers and oftentimes they do the newsletters,

00:34:36 but even doing right. I like the owner perspective or, you know, a word from the owner kind of thing if the owner's interested in writing. And I, I think it's such a good point. It's like, I always tell new owners, I know you're going to want to do the two words because prospective members really relate to you because you both are business owners.

00:34:54 If that's who your target market is. Right. So you're nervous about handing it over to your community manager who doesn't actually own the business, but you know, you can do that, but it is true. And so that the newsletter can be a way to like, get the owner voice inserted when the owners, maybe not on site every day, to your point for multi-site operators,

00:35:14 you cannot be at all the sites every day. You know, you have to let your team do it, but it can be a way to kind of relate. And to your point, like, even though they're not in the same business that you are, everybody's still thinking about marketing and finance and email newsletters. Like we all do the same stuff in our businesses.

00:35:31 It's ultimately Just about getting more customers, whether your customers or members or whatever other businesses you're in, everybody's the same sort of mindset, Right? Yeah. Go down the rabbit hole of how to multi-purpose the content. But can you just like high-level for people who are kind of thinking about, well, I gotta write a blog post and then I have to figure out what to put in the newsletter and then I have to figure out what to put on social.

00:35:52 Like what are a couple of your favorite things to do that kind of run across all the platforms? Yeah. I'll speak for what I do for maybe my business. Just as like a, as like a base level, you can start with, write a blog post, then share it in your newsletter, whether you, I don't always like to focus the newsletter entirely on the blog posts.

00:36:12 I like to have a story and then include it with some other things so that you're diversifying a little bit and then you can share it on social media. And when you're sharing on social media, try to distill down whatever blog posts you've written into the key points and leave it all there. Don't don't necessarily make people click away from your social media in order to get the value from it.

00:36:31 And then on a more, on a higher level, you can think about doing things like gated content, creating eBooks. You can, you know, if you have one topic and 10 articles about it, you can group them together. Maybe have somebody design it, put it on your website as gated content so that people sign up, drop you their email address in exchange for downloading this resource.

00:36:51 There's a ton, ton of different stuff that you can do. You can do podcasts. You can, you know, there's a million ways. Yes, Sir. I would be curious if you start to see that with the folks that you're working with, there are a lot of coworking space owners now that are doing podcasts, which I love, I think it's such a,

00:37:05 still such a unique way to reach, you know, a local or a, or a broader audience. So yeah, didn't mean to jump on the podcast, but I think maybe a myth that people have with content marketing, because I struggled with this for a long time and I'm still like talking myself into the multipurpose thing is you think everybody's paying attention to you everywhere.

00:37:28 And that people will be like, oh geez. I just saw that in the newsletter. I heard that on the podcast and I'm over that. They're not, that's the thing too. Like the blog People will go on and check when they want to check, but the newsletter, you can deliver it directly to people. So you might be sharing something by your newsletter that people haven't seen yet on the blog.

00:37:48 And it's almost, I almost say it's a, it's a disservice to whatever piece of content you don't disseminate it somehow. Like if you just write something and just let it sit there, then it's, you're, you're Some rule of thumb, like spend X amount of time creating content and then X percent of time promoting it. Yeah. I mean, honestly I'd say like,

00:38:07 like a 50, 50, like I do a 50 50 split kind of in my day. Like if it takes me an hour to write an article, then it'll take me an hour to go on and, you know, build a newsletter for and find some other stuff to include in that newsletter, put a post on LinkedIn, create something for Instagram,

00:38:22 whether it's a visual or a video and write it up. So yeah. I mean, I think that for me, I think it's 50, 50, it's all about what you want to put behind it. Right. It's But it's not an especially usually blog posts. It's not an, if, if you build it, they will come kind of thing.

00:38:38 No, you need to get, you need to get to it. And eventually like, you know, as your, as your blog gets better and stronger and people start to love the content more and more it's it's like anything, right? It's as much as you're reaching your audience, you also might reach somebody who might refer you to somebody else. Who's more in your audience just because you're putting out awesome content.

00:38:55 Right? If you, if you look for a blog article on a specific topic, it might not necessarily be a company that you're directly finding new business with, but if it's a great article, you might refer it and somebody might want to be in that company. So it's all about broadening the surface area and just getting in front of them. Yeah.

00:39:11 20 times. Right? I mean, and that's part of the reason, right? Some people are right on, on different platforms. So if somebody is thinking about sort of how to systemize their content creation, what are a couple of kind of quick tips you would give for them? I just think that making sure that you have a content calendar first and foremost,

00:39:39 so that you're not trying to make stuff up on the spot, like don't wing it, don't wing it. Right? Look, do your research on your audience, get an understanding of who they are and then brainstorm as many topics as you can. And then have a content calendar, have timelines publishing dates so that there's a layer of accountability there for you first and foremost,

00:39:58 and then just dedicate the time, put it in your calendar, block off two hours once a week on a Monday or a Friday, or whenever you choose to do it so that it's there and you have to look at it and it makes it a little bit harder to miss it. So I think it's all about just set up a system, create some accountability for yourself,

00:40:15 understand what you're going to write ahead of time so that you're not starting cold. And then just keep it simple content. Doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have to pack 1,000,001 ideas into a single post. You can focus, you know, think about what's one question that your prospective member or crew member might have and then answer it.

00:40:32 And that's, that's all there is to it. Don't overthink it. Be consistent. Just stick to it. The consistency piece is a really big deal when I started podcasting, I think in 2015, very occasionally because I S I was stuck in that. Like, I wasn't, I didn't have a content calendar. I wasn't blocking off the time to do it.

00:40:52 And so simply I just wasn't that committed to it. I loved it. And I, I wanted to do it, but I just didn't do it consistently. And when I started committing to, I am not going to miss a week, like, I don't care if it's Christmas, if it's whatever I'm publishing, my downloads went through the roof because consistency is such a big deal.

00:41:13 I mean, podcasting is, is one example. And iTunes like, kind of has an algorithm where if you don't put out content, they sort of stopped downloading your episodes. And it's easy to lose people, but I think newsletters are the same way. You know, if people don't know, if you'd be able to see you for awhile, they're like,

00:41:30 who are you again? Why are you in my box after like a, of whoops. So even just the simple consistency is a big deal. I also think that content sort of begets content. Once you get into the habit, your brain starts, like I see content ideas all the time. I'm constantly like writing down ideas and saving them for later.

00:41:52 But at the beginning it was harder. I wouldn't sort of see content ideas as often. So, And the ball rolling and also listen, right? Like listen to people, you know, when they come into your space for a tour or when they sign up. And it's, I have some, I have some clients who do onboarding questionnaires and they get 10 questions about,

00:42:11 about their members. And then all of a sudden you've got this wealth of insights for what they will matter to them. And you can actually pick out specific questions that they want answer. Whether it's, you know, we send a knowledge gap about why co-working is a benefit to their business or whatever it might be when you listen to people and read between the lines a little bit,

00:42:28 you can actually pick up the exact things that they want to hear. And then great. You can also, yeah, because there's a whole other rabbit hole of, you know, like going into forums and going into places where you're your prospective members hanging out, listening to what they're talking about, you know, responding there and using that to inform content.

00:42:45 Yeah. We'll Have to do another episode. Cause I knew we would run out of time. So for folks who are, you've given some great tips, some folks are going to still be a little bit stuck and say, I can't do this on my own. Can you just talk about what you do with the clients that you work with? And then I think you have a free resource for us that you wanted to tell us about.

00:43:05 So I do. Yeah. The first thing I do with my clients at the same thing that I would advise you to do with yourself, if you, if you wanted to get started, I just get to know exactly who their member is. Who is your ideal member? What do they want, what do they want to hear? And then I'll use that information to build out content pillars,

00:43:21 right? Then you have four content pillars. You can cycle through them every month to make sure that you're giving value to whoever in whichever way, at least once a month. And then just brainstorm questions. What do they want to know? What do they want to hear? What's going to be valuable to them. How can you help them? Everything with content should be value-driven.

00:43:37 It should not be about you. It shouldn't be all about them. Grieve. It helps them. It can be about You. If you have a story to tell that helps your members. Exactly. Yeah. But focus it on them and how it helps them. And, and just, yeah, we consistently think of, think of the questions you can answer and then answer them and then just show up,

00:43:55 show up frequently. And you write content and posts, social, write newsletters, you and your team sort of you'll actually run a content marketing program for somebody. Absolutely. Top to bottom. I think that like, as we said, consistency and knowing where to start as hard. So when I work with people, I come in and I take it over top of the bottom.

00:44:16 I collaborate with them to make sure that we're getting it right. But everything from publishing their content to writing in and measuring it and all those things take it all off your plate. Awesome. Okay. So tell us freebie, where do we find you where the best places to find you and we'll include all those links in the show notes. Yeah, absolutely.

00:44:34 You can find me online@etailmaker.ca, as you mentioned, I have a, a bit of a freebie course. That's a seven day email course, but it'll just give you all the ins and outs of the one-on-one of starting your own content strategy. So if that's something you want to do on your own, I'd recommend you check that out and then you can also find me on Instagram at Where specifically,

00:44:54 should they find the course? Is there a tail maker back forward slash or is it ran on your homepage? It'll be right there on the homepage right there. Okay, perfect. Awesome. So we have to do this again because I think we could, we could go down a couple of the rabbit holes to dive into, but thank you for joining me and for kind of giving us the high level.

00:45:14 And we're glad you're here. I love talking to people who are focused on our industry. Cause you just have a really like laser focused insight into, into what space operators are up to. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Appreciate the opportunity.

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