Show notes
This week, Sidney sits down with Mikayla Anderson, the Account Executive here at Revision Marketing. During their conversation, they discuss Chambers of Commerce, and how they can benefit from repurposing content. They also offer different ways to dissect old content for new ideas.
In this episode of EntreNetwork we cover several key topics including:
There’s value in promoting online (7:42)
Transcribing your video into blog posts (10:29)
Your audience is in different stages (14:04)
Newsletters still work (23:00)
Incentivizing chamber memberships (25:55)
Involve team members, content is everywhere (32:17)
Creating content generated off of people (35:55)
Understanding your target audience (41:20)
This is brought to you by Revision Marketing Group
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Transcription
Team RMG 00:00
Welcome to entre network brought to you by revisione Marketing Group. This podcast is meant to serve as an entrepreneurial knowledge base of wisdom and practical tips in marketing, branding and technology to help grow your business effectively.
Sidney Jackson 00:16
Yeah, okay. So welcome back to the entre network podcast, we have a very special guests and co worker, Makayla Anderson. She’s our account executive. But she also does a lot of the overall design work for graphics and website development. So welcome to the podcast.
Mikayla Anderson 00:35
Thanks for having me, as always, today, I’m tired, but you know, it’s going and it’s Tuesday.
Sidney Jackson 00:45
It is Tuesday. But a week is gone by pretty quickly.
Mikayla Anderson 00:49
It is. Summer is upon us. It’s gonna be 70 degrees tomorrow. So I’m very excited.
Sidney Jackson 00:56
That sounds pretty exciting.
Mikayla Anderson 00:57
That’s very exciting. Are you kidding me?
Sidney Jackson 01:01
70. Yeah, but um, so I brought you on a podcast to talk about how to repurpose content for Chambers of Commerce. So we recently brought on the Chamber of Commerce. And we’re doing a lot of overall marketing. But I always kind of admired different chambers of commerce is just because of the education that they was able to bring to their membership, and also the business community. So when people think of like the Chamber of Commerce, as they always think about them adding value to the membership base, and they look at it as an opportunity to showcase their own personal business. So that’s the main reason people go to the Chamber of Commerce’s is to go to the network and events, get more publicity for a business, and different things like that, of course, you have a lot of different activities for different chambers, but most chambers advocate for like small businesses, which I can really love, because, of course, even a small business owner, but yeah, so I wanted to touch on this topic, because it’s a lot of opportunities for different chambers to repurpose content that they’re already developing. What do you think about that?
Mikayla Anderson 02:23
I think it’s 110%. Correct. So currently, we have the Hispanic Chamber of Louisiana, as one of our clients right now. And it’s been incredible. And it’s been amazing. And it’s been a long process, we actually just currently launched or went underwent a redesign of their entire website, which hasn’t been done in over 20 years. And so you can imagine that, but I never realize the amount of content, that chambers had a lot of contents so much. And like, when they came on, I was like, okay, like, this is exciting. I’ve never really like talked to chambers before, like really, like got to know them. And like, I don’t know, if it’s like mostly like a southern thing. But being from the north, right. I was not familiar with Chambers of Commerce at all. And so I don’t know if it was, like, just different, or I don’t know, if I wasn’t just exposed to them or probably
Sidney Jackson 03:34
wasn’t exposed. Yeah. So because x Christian with the Chamber ranks, its chambers pretty much everywhere in every state, right? It’s plentiful. I don’t
Mikayla Anderson 03:49
know if I was just oblivious living in my own little world. Yeah,
Sidney Jackson 03:54
probably so because, um, people don’t know about SBDCs or ataque, or different things like that, where it’s organizations that add a lot of value. But the overall marketing approach is just kinda limited in the sense. But once you’re in, you’re kind of in. But no, yeah, so that project is definitely incredible. And we have a lot of headway as far as a website and doing different marketing activities, jumping into newsletters, and then content development soon, so I’m super excited for that. But as far as chambers, you mentioned, me didn’t know how much content they actually had, until we got into that project. And it was like, we shared the Google Drive and they just started dumping information so much.
Mikayla Anderson 04:45
I honestly probably have to reorganize it again.
Sidney Jackson 04:49
No, it’s definitely a lot of information. Yeah. And most times that’s, that’s incredible, because clients don’t give all of that information. Right. But at the same time, you’re kind of just like, oh, we have all this information, what do we do with it? So you see all of these websites, for chambers, where it’s the navigation is just a lot
Mikayla Anderson 05:14
extremely.
Sidney Jackson 05:16
And the so 20 page, oh, are 20 Plus pages, where information is just kind of tucked within different information. And you really have to know what you’re looking for to see. Get to what you’re trying to get to, even even in most times, people or chain or members don’t know about the different resources or content and things like that. Yeah. So for chambers is super important to not segment that information, but break it down. So I want to talk specifically about repurposing content for like the different events that chambers have. And they have a lot of different events, of course, you have like signatory events, for different chambers that’s focused on fundraising activities and things like that. But you also have events where it’s educational, right. And it adds a lot of value to the memberships. And they have a different pricing structure. So members get in free or at a discounted rate, versus the general public. But what that and what the power that chambers have, as far as I’ve been an educational powerhouse, you have the potential to do content as well, especially if you’re recording it. So jumping into like 2020 2021 COVID hit. Did you see a lot of companies go online as far as like different webinars and things like that? Well, yeah.
Mikayla Anderson 06:49
I mean, I think like everybody did it. And like I was still in college at the time. Well, that’s kind of crazy. And so I was still in college in 2020. And so my classes were online. And so once that happened, and job fairs were online, and all this different stuff. And like, like, I think, honestly, think about how much money YouTube made, like for real. And so I think everything went online, and for it to be in like 2020 and everybody go from like being in person and doing all these different things. Like I feel like businesses thought that that meant doors were shutting, which sometimes they did, but sometimes they didn’t. But like honestly, with like it being online, I think people are now realizing that there’s so much value that you can have with like putting stuff online and they realize like the importance of like digital marketing and putting stuff out there. Because if somebody does want, or if it is like an event that repeats, or does want to do something like multiple times, and you only have it like one time in person, but if you have like the opportunity to record it or even like, take like a recording of it, put it as like a blog, post different stuff like that, like you can save so much time and repurpose it so many ways and reach so many different people. And so yeah,
Sidney Jackson 08:26
indeed. And for me, it’s all about efficiency. So even with our signature events that we’re putting on, it’s all about the overall process. So coming up with the creatives and then template, making it a template for different ones that we want to duplicate because that’s pretty much all it is, especially if it’s on one topic. But what 2020 As far as like COVID and everything and everybody moving online, I think or think thought that was like a perfect opportunity for chambers to really be able to get not not subscribers, but attendees for like webinars and things like that. And I’m sure they seen a big increase in that. But even with that probably um, sponsorships went down because it wasn’t live in person and things like that, which is I mean, it’s a give and take kind of thing. But the potential to record that is a lot easier than trying to get a DSLR camera and do it for like an in person event. So I think if they recorded those seminars like the started in a financing or how to market your business or how to do business with the government, so on and so forth. They have all these experts with these seminars and webinars that provide a lot of value to the membership, right? But even with that, if you have like 100 attendees that sign up, and then you only have like 50 That’s actually show up and listen to the content artists expert speaker talk about something that can provide value to them, right? It’s only 50 people, and a cost of getting that expert to beyond this, and then all of the admin costs and things like that. Probably not too much. But at the same time, you can repurpose that content to get a lot more out of it, right. So, with that, if you have like video content, um, it’s super easy to transcribe that and put it on the website as a blog post, which means you benefit from SEO, and then you can also highlight the speaker and then it becomes evergreen content, where you can repurpose it into like a long form blog posts for your benefit, the Chamber benefit. And then next year, if you want to, like repeat that one, you can spice that content up a little bit. But the meat and potatoes are kind of still there, which is super efficient to get more out of individual pieces of content. And we haven’t even gotten into like the short form content yet.
Mikayla Anderson 11:13
Right? No, that’s a really good point. And like, that brings me back to like me being in college because I know that when my professors like they either had like they were parents or whatever might have happened. And you could tell that this was a pre recording at like midnight, because that’s the only time their children’s sleep and low key you’re just kind of like, dang, I can’t ask him questions right now. But like realistically, like, you can always send them an email or do different things. And like, he knows that like that content is going to be there for you to play back, watch it hear it again. And like that was, honestly, there’s benefits. And there’s disadvantages, obviously. And so like, the disadvantages, were just like, well, you know, this is an in person, I can’t ask questions or specific ones or whatever. But being able to listen to it again. And like, do it however many times to where I feel like comfortable. And like I’m actually like, Okay, this makes sense, or taking notes or whatever it is like, it really depends on what your audience is looking for, in that moment.
Sidney Jackson 12:21
Precisely. And I love that because every odd well, your audience is at different stages of the overall marketing funnel, right. So for like chambers, the mission and the goal is to add value to the membership base and advocate for businesses, so on and so forth different for each chamber. But in a synopsis, that’s what it is. So looking at their overall journey, even if they’re not like a member and their own offense about becoming a member, so on and so forth. You have that content on your website, which means you get the tracking information from like Google Analytics to retarget those people and push them to like a signup form for membership, right? Which is super cool. But at the same time, if you do like the long form video, and you make a gated on a website, where you can only watch like five minutes worth of content, and somebody who’s super interested in that specific event. And you don’t have like their contact information. It’s gated, so you can request their email address, and then they can watch the entire video. And with that, you push them to the newsletter or so on so forth. Events, stuff like that. Yep. And you nurture that relationship until they’re ready to either pay for a membership because they see all of the benefits as far as like the gated content, or they just love the atmosphere of it, or they see that you do a lot of highlights of member and a seed of value of the membership, front and back. But that content, it allows for you to get a lot more leads and push your content across different audiences. But with that, it is like your audience is always going to be at different stages. Because for the most part, some or sometimes one person may be able to watch a video, and they see value in being able to replay it. And that’s where they are right. They’re just in the stage of thinking about starting a business or thinking about joining the chamber thinking about this specific topic that they want to learn more about. And they’re not truly ready to engage someone in like a question. Right? And that even plays out and like in person events where they consume what I’m talking about, but they’re not at that point to go up to the speaker for like FAQs or q&a questions. There’s so Yeah, everybody’s at like different stages, but I think it’s a really great tool. are a really great concept of like, really repurpose that content,
Mikayla Anderson 15:05
right? And like, even with like the online libraries of like either different content to, like, what I find super helpful is like when you do have it like built up in a way, if somebody has like questions about something, you can easily refer them to something that you’ve already had have, like ready to go. And so if it’s like, an FAQ about like, hey, how do I apply for membership? Or just like a blog post with like, a list of FAQs? And that blog post has like internal links to either like your website, or like YouTube links or different things like that? Like? It’s just a main hub? Yep. Which is great.
Sidney Jackson 15:48
Yeah. And the chamber, like staff members are, yeah, chamber staff, they may have like questions about, well, we’re doing all of the work as far as like repurposing this content, how do we benefit? And if you flip that, the question becomes, how does the membership I Lorge? Benefit? Right? And I think if that’s like the constant question, you’re going to thrive as a chamber of commerce, and then as chamber staff. And then of course, it’s Chamber members. Because as far as like how the members thrive, is going to or how they get value out of it is, because that content is not just segmented into you have to attend this event at this time. Now, you can do it on your own time, and is the most powerful thing because different people are in different stages. And then at the same time, how members how chamber staff benefit, is you get into a different audience. And then you also benefit for local SEO and things like that. And you also have a lot more inventory to push different things, right. So what if you, and we’re just talking about a webinar where you transcribe it, or you pull a video and you push it on and like a blog post or something like that. But at the bottom, you can have like a newsletter, or a call to action, or a segment it throughout the blog, you can talk about the benefits of being a chamber member, so on and so forth. And people read that they read the content as far as what the webinars about, but they also get the small signal signals from the chamber about membership, precisely. So more inventory to kind of push for members or even sponsors, for that case.
Mikayla Anderson 17:44
Right. I think that’s a really good point.
Sidney Jackson 17:48
Awesome, awesome. And then other one, as far as like, content, specifically for like, webinars, is bite sized content. So you have most speakers, especially if it’s like an educational event, they talk about this topic that has so many great pieces of micro content. So say, for instance, you work with the chamber, and you want to put on event for how to design a website, you have so many different stages of website development, to the point where that webinar is going to be an hour, hour and a half. But it walks you through the entire process. And looking at people or members or prospects on like social media, they may not be ready to commit to that full video. But if you take pieces out of it, such as the introduction, where you talk about the benefits of having your own website versus a, just a Facebook page or something like that, and that clip is probably one to two minutes, they can probably commit to that right. And then you have more inventory to push them to the long form content and get email address if you want it to be gated. So I mean, it’s it’s insane.
Mikayla Anderson 19:10
Yeah, no, yeah. It’s it’s so much like there’s so much you can do with it. And like, don’t like the biggest piece of advice is like with chambers are so many different, like people in that audience. Like you’re gonna have business owners. There’s the young professionals specifically in the Hispanic Chamber we’re working with now.
Sidney Jackson 19:33
And most chambers have like young professionals. Right.
Mikayla Anderson 19:37
Right. And so it’s like with that you also have to keep in mind If this content is applicable to all of these different people. How can I get a hold of not only these young people but also like these older I don’t want to say old people, he’s in season people. And so is it a newsletter? Is it short form video. Is it like we always talk about these different things? We always say like, Hey, how am I going to reach my audience? But like, it’s so true. And I think that’s the biggest thing. You have to ask yourself when you’re repurposing content. Because if you’re just repurposing it to report purpose it without really like thinking about okay, would this be better as a video? Or who am I trying to reach here, kind of thing?
Sidney Jackson 20:28
Precisely. So understanding the membership base, and then understanding who you’re trying to get in as a member, where to go may not even be to get members, right maybe sponsors Cisely. So you have or different resource partners and partnerships and things like that. So from a strategic standpoint, the board of directors for like chambers, they’re always be the ones that come up with the overall strategic plan. So you just have to make sure that the repurposing aligns with that, and where you want to go as the overall chamber, right, because if it’s all about like board member retention or engagement, the content in the possibility to repurpose that may be a little bit different on where you want to have a content strategy that focuses on different things like that not so heavily, but it slowly sprinkles on the overall content, but understanding the membership and where you’re trying to go, and where these people actually engage, right? So is it the newsletter versus Facebook versus Instagram, so on and so forth. Because it may not make sense for you to repurpose a webinar into like bite sized pieces and put that in the newsletter. Because you don’t get a lot of engagement on newsletter, your Instagram may be the best asset for your, um, your chamber, or the most engaged where that audience would see more value in it, right?
Mikayla Anderson 22:02
So let me ask you this. And this is just like playing devil’s advocate here. So if I’m a chamber who has primarily have like active members on Instagram, or on Facebook, let’s say Instagram for this matter. But I really, really want to build up my newsletter, because it is truly like evergreen, like subscribers. And like typically when I say that typically people don’t change their email addresses. And if they do, it’s like once or twice in their life. And so, like with that, what would you say to somebody who, or even like a board director, or a president of a chamber, if somebody is, wants to push them to their newsletter and really wants to start making good content for their newsletter, but has most of their following on Instagram?
Sidney Jackson 22:59
Good question, I would say push everything to the newsletter. It seems archaic, but newsletters still work, especially if it’s done right. For chambers, oftentimes, that’s the most engaged asset that they have, as far as overall audience size, and then it grows over time, or it stays stagnant. But if you have automations, and things in place to grow your newsletter, organically, it’s just going to grow because a lot of people come into contact with chambers, right? So with Instagram, or any kind of social media platform, you’re always at the what, it’s not leisure, um, you’re always dependent on that platform. So we see it a lot with like Facebook, where your, your overall reach decreases over time over the last 10 years where if you had 10,000 subscribers or 10,000 fans on Facebook, and you reached you was able to organically reach like 5000. Now that’s been cut and cut and cut to the point where you’re only reaching one to two or 3% of your fan base. And you don’t really get that with or you don’t have that problem with newsletters where you of course you have people that unsubscribe and things like that, but it’s still your own platform, right? Most of the time. open rate stays consistent. So yeah, I would say build up you know, seller letter as fast as possible. But with that, make sure to newsletter is acting as a directory of sorts, right? Because I know gated content is good as far as like you. You bring in value to the membership base, because you’re sharing opportunities and procurement opportunities and events and things like that to your newsletter. But ever Everybody isn’t on a newsletter. So you have to push people outside of the newsletter to like things like your website, because you have more inventory to kind of play with. And you push them to your website, and they can see all of these things. And then they can click on different things. And like, Oh, I didn’t know that, um, so on so forth. But yeah, the newsletter is definitely a really good platform to grow.
Mikayla Anderson 25:28
Okay. Well, that makes sense.
Sidney Jackson 25:33
Awesome, awesome. But yeah, um, video content and those small snippets to really grow your social media. Because for us, and I say this, because our this episode is, really because the podcast, right, we repurpose a lot of content for the podcast. And it’s pretty much on the same. It’s pretty much almost the same thing as event that chambers put on where it’s educational at heart. So you have these bite sized nuggets that people can really engage with, or consume and short form, right. And then you push those people back to the long form content, if they want to engage with that long form content. And that can be either like on YouTube, where it’s open to the public, or it can be part of a membership perk, where you push out a lot of content, video content of speakers done different talking on different topics. And if someone wants to benefit from the long form, they have to sign up for membership, so on so forth, that’s a really good way to incentivize and showcase the value that the Chamber’s add, in addition to all of the other perks that they offer. Right,
Mikayla Anderson 26:51
right. Yeah, because it’s a lot. And like, I know, Sonny talked about, like, we do a lot with like, our video podcasts. And we do, I think it does really apply to like with chambers too, because taking the time out of your day, for an hour, two hours set up, make the outline, I say, an hour, two hours, but it’s way more. And realistically, if you think about it, with a chamber event, like how many hours did you put into it to make fires, contact speakers to make like meal reservations, all of these other things, make sure you have sponsors all like everything,
Sidney Jackson 27:38
it’s a lot. Yeah, and even with that, that’s content. Because people want to see the behind the scenes. Absolutely. And if your chamber is like engaged with the overload the community you have those people in side of chambers that really advocate for the local community and are out there with the people. So damn, turning on camera, and showcasing what they’re doing specifically for this event, that’s two or three months out. And that’s not like super promotional content. But it’s self marketing where you can build a personal brand for that individual, or you can build on their likeness in the community to push people to sign up for that event. And it’s not just pushing a flyer out there. Of course that promotional content is needed need it definitely. But um, come up with something different. Because it’s, you have opportunity to create content, right? Every single day.
Mikayla Anderson 28:37
I mean, honestly, like, working at a marketing company, and like, seeing all these businesses like people really just like they love seeing how professional and like put together you are because it’s like aesthetically pleasing. But everybody loves a good laugh. Everybody loves like the authentic side of somebody being like unapologetically like, This is who I am. This is either hard and I’m showing you guys like all the different things that like we have to go through that typically you wouldn’t see anywhere else like it’s like the Howard’s Have you ever seen the How It’s Made show? Yes,
Sidney Jackson 29:20
I love the show
Mikayla Anderson 29:22
where they like go through and they like you have to do this and this and this like I love that because like you’d be like Damn that goes into like one Lay’s potato chip. Like for real though,
Sidney Jackson 29:32
precisely and many people don’t know that. And it goes back to like building a personal brand where you have so many or you have so much expertise in a certain field and people don’t know what goes into that right so specifically for you would like website design people outside of that community or that was knowledge base. Yeah, that knowledge base they think it’s, Hey, we can do it. In two or three hours or something like that, but the overall process, and if you give people insight into that and your own individual way, it builds your personal brand one, which is super important. But it also showcases your expertise in a way that’s not like, Hey, I’m an expert, kind of way. Because it’s still learning. Yeah, everybody’s still learning. So it’s good.
Mikayla Anderson 30:23
Like, don’t, don’t act like you know, everything. Like, honestly, like, and people relate to that, though. That’s why they love that type of content, because they especially was like, and we talked about this on LinkedIn, or sometime, either on or off the podcast, like saying something along the lines of like, this is my SOP for this, what do you think? Or what do you do? That would make it better?
Sidney Jackson 30:51
Yeah, I’m so always trying to learn more. And would like chamber staff members, it’s important to always learn more for them to as far as how to add value to the membership base. So ask questions for the members, share your insight. Because if you’re like a event, planner or coordinator inside a chamber, you have a lot of opportunities to create is Ryan, and you have a lot of opportunities to create content that not only promotes the chamber, but it also promotes your expertise, and event marketing, which only add value to the chamber, because they benefit from your personal brand as well. But even with that, everything just kind of balances out. Because what the chamber gets is more marketing, and then more opportunities to push people to like different events or a membership base, or they like the event coordinator so much that they just want to see her work even more or see the amazing events that they have. So it’s not necessarily, hey, I want to learn about this event. It’s Oh, I seen a behind the scenes from the event coordinator. And she did this and this and this. And I want to kind of see how it all turned out. And so that’s why I go to the event. And you have so many opportunities for that if you involve different team members. Yeah, content is everywhere.
Mikayla Anderson 32:27
And like with our client, right now, I keep saying our client for like with Hispanic Chamber of Louisiana, um, I’ve honestly become like super close friends with myRA. And she’s one of the presidents or she is the president of the Hispanic chamber. And she was super intimidating to me at first, because I saw her as this like authority figure, very put together. But the more I was able to talk to her, and like, I see her commitment to this and see how much joy it brings her. I think that made me feel closer to the organization rather than just like, strictly you’re my client, I’m serving you at this point. And I think that’s what people need. Because like, when people are a part of like a chamber of commerce, it’s really great because it’s for your business, right? But you want to know, in your heart that like, okay, if I’m doing business with these people, or I’m recommending business to you, I want to know, like, you’re great. And I want to support you no matter what. And I was talking about that with Josh Warren yesterday. And he was just like, I want to know, at the end of the day that like this, because it falls on me too, though, right? Because like if you’re recommending bad business, yes. But anyways, I’m getting off topic.
Sidney Jackson 33:56
No, that that that’s absolutely absolutely true. Because for every organization, it’s made up of people, right. So what people if you just have a whole lot of, but in a organization, people may not work which you write or may not become members. Because it’s just the people in a makeup and a culture of the organization. But if you have people that people actually like, or they can relate to, and they want to get to know they’ll shop with you or become members because of that individual or that interaction with different individuals. And that’s true for pretty much all organizations except the bigger ones. But even with that they have the spokespeople and things like that and relationships over decades and then a bring people on board to increase membership base and it’s just a circle of people, people People,
Mikayla Anderson 35:00
right? Like, hopefully we all get to the point in time where we’re like Apple, where people are just like, Oh, you have an amazing product. I have no idea who you are, but it’s me. So one day,
Sidney Jackson 35:13
maybe? Or do we even want to be like that? Right? Is another question. Um, because for me, I still want to do business with people that I know like and trust, and be able to pick the people. Because it’s a for us, it’s a service based business. And Apple, they have services, but it’s primarily one off products. Mm hmm. Which is incredible. By the way, this is not sponsored,
35:39
which you want it to be.
Sidney Jackson 35:48
But yeah, so we touched on a webinars and seminars and different ways to repurpose that content, the other one is going to be like content that’s generated off of people. So people been like new member signups or one of the board members did something great. And you want to like highlight them, or have content on your social media, to highlight the work that the board members are doing in the community, you can also do that. And that’s a really great way to involve more people in organization and have content where people actually share it and engage with it, because it’s the individual. So if I’m on a board, for like a chamber or something like that, and I do something on behalf of the chamber and the community, and they share, that I did this, and I see my big ol head, and I share it right, my mom will probably share it. And then my wife would probably share it, so on so forth, where you get more engagement off of the individual person, because nobody is really just advocating or working with organization unless you have 100 plus years in business. And they know that the talent that’s coming through that are as far as like the board members and the members and different things like that, or quality, because you have systems and things in place to ensure quality. But if you’re a relatively new organization, or it’s super fluid, as far as like the makeup in the culture from year to year, as different things happen, people are going to respond to individual people, right? It’s always going to be people to people. So knowing that and repurposing as much content, based off of like the members, which adds value to the membership base. But it also gives you more opportunity to push brand awareness to the chamber, which is a win win, win win.
Mikayla Anderson 37:50
Oh, for sure. And like, I don’t know, I mean, everybody wants to see their face on Facebook posts. I mean, even if they even if they don’t though, right? Like they still Loki want the recognition? Like do