In episode 33, Veronica Guguian and Jillian Vorce share clever and practical tips for content creation, emphasizing the importance of aligning with company values and measuring success. From repurposing content across various formats to fostering authentic engagement through partnerships, their insights provide actionable strategies for enhancing visibility and audience connection.
Today, Veronica Guguian and Jillian Vorce dive into the intricacies of content strategy, emphasizing the importance of aligning content with company values and goals.
They explore key performance indicators (KPIs), topic selection, and the art of repurposing content across different formats like podcasts, videos, and events to amplify the company's voice effectively.
The duo underscores the significance of measuring content success to inform future creations, centering their approach around audience needs for meaningful communication.
Consistency and authenticity emerge as central themes, with Veronica and Jillian advocating for genuine engagement over superficiality in content creation. They share practical insights on generating topics tailored to client requirements, as well as clever strategies for repurposing content to cater to diverse audience preferences.
Partnerships and collaborations are highlighted as valuable for bringing varied perspectives into content creation, with clear editing boundaries ensuring efficient collaboration.
Special Offer - Veronica & Jillian are teaming up to offer live brainstorming sessions for listeners of this podcast. Listen until the end of this episode for more details. Here is the link you'd like to apply: https://bit.ly/CCP-brainstorm
Mentioned in Episode
About Veronica Guguian
About Jillian Vorce
Credits
Jillian Vorce:
Hello, everyone, and good morning.
Veronica Guguian: Hi there. Welcome to Episode 33. I know I'm saying this every single time, but I'm more like we passed. I apologize to my listeners for my enthusiasm, but I can't stop it.
Veronica Guguian: Yeah. However, today, we are talking about content. And course content is a big topic, but we're going to focus on KPIs on different topics. How should you select topics when it comes to content and how to repurpose it? And I do know, Jillian, KPI's, I think, is one of your favorite topics. It's an important one. And it will dictate, actually, the rest. It can. It should at least have a seat at the table. Let's put it like that. I do agree. And I do feel a lot of the entrepreneurs; I was thinking, what word should I use? And I will just use a lot of them. Of the entrepreneurs out there or content.
Jillian Vorce: Creators forget to look at that because…
Veronica Guguian: It's quite easy to create content, especially now that you have ChatGPT; it's not that hard to create content.
Veronica Guguian: But what will make the difference between content that actually produces something? How do you approach it? What do you use? How do you distribute it? Where do you distribute it? Keywords. There are a couple of ingredients that are a must when it comes to content. And I think the most important thing is how you measure and what you do with those results. Because that can dictate the next content that you create. And people tend to forget about that. I'm thinking about how to start with this one. Maybe we should define what we understand by content.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah. All right, let's go ahead.
Veronica Guguian: Get us started there, Veronica. Great. Well, I did. I did approach it. So content, actually, when you say content, I think the majority is thinking about writing content articles. And I have a feeling you are thinking about the same. However, for me, content can be much more than that. Content is podcasts, right?
Jillian Vorce: We have audio, we have videos. We can create articles from this.
Veronica Guguian: So content is everything that is created and can be a wood of your writing or video that expresses that it's in line with the company values, let's say. And it's placed out there to represent, I think, the episode. In the last episode, we talked about personal branding and company branding. But let's take in this context the company branding represents your company or your voice as a company or as an entrepreneur. If you're just a solopreneur, this is what I understand, my content. Do you agree? Do you have anything to add? Yeah, I think it's what you said. It's anything that can be created or curated even. Good point. Yeah. There are a lot of ways to think about or quantify what content is. I think content is also relevant for events and team meetings. There are a lot of places where content shows up.
Jillian Vorce: It's on our website; it's in our email communications. I mean it's a lot of places. And I also think one of the best, most obvious, and also most overlooked or forgotten about or underappreciated categories of content is spoken content. There's the kind of deliberateness when we're going to be on a stage and speak or facilitate a workshop, but there's also how we communicate about ourselves and our team and our work and our company, et cetera. That's also true. So, content can fill many different sites and vessels of different sizes and shapes. Yes. Webinars, and there are a lot. I'm trying to bring it back for the sake of this episode. Let's take it. I agree with you. I agree fully with what you said, but I think we should leave emails and how you communicate with them.
Veronica Guguian: Your clients from this episode and focus more on the…Let's keep it there. But I was thinking when I was preparing for this episode that the content was more strategic than what you were preparing. Yeah, it fits there. So, the content for this conversation is strategy. It's. Then, perhaps some KPIs and where to incorporate them, and then perhaps related to those could be some of the topical sides, so if you know any tips or just how you approach the topic, it would be way too complex otherwise. Yeah, exactly. Maybe we can have a follow-up.
Jillian Vorce: For the emails and speaking engagements, because the platforms, those are all different, but just in general terms of strategy, like the larger of the KPIs and then possibly how to approach topic generation and/or repurposing of content, some specific things that we do or have done or are familiar with. So perhaps that's a good place to start.
Veronica Guguian: Where to draw a line in the sand about this conversation because many of these topics can all bleed into each other, but, you know, trying to be respectful of each other's time and our listeners' time.
Jillian Vorce: A cohesive conversation. Let's stick to that quadrant.
Veronica Guguian: So, Jillian, content strategy. Yes. How do you approach it?
Jillian Vorce: Content strategy. So first, when I think of strategy, I'm immediately thinking of purpose. So what is the purpose of whatever I'm trying to achieve, and which content might be a part of it? So straight away, some examples…just a few examples. So it might be to educate them.
Veronica Guguian: Might be for thought leadership.
Jillian Vorce: To express my company brand, or it might be to express my personal ideas or, you know, personal brand values. It might be to nurture prospects. So, I spend quite a bit of time thinking about how I want to interact with folks who are in the process of getting to know each other. So they're not actually clients yet; we're just in that “getting-to-know-you” phase. So, I am thinking about how to curate an experience for them through content. I think that's an important one. Beautiful way to present it.
Veronica Guguian: I like it.
Jillian Vorce: Oh, thanks. I spend a lot of time thinking about this, and then also, in general, is it about networking, building relationships, and connecting people, ideas, and resources? So, that's always a strong component of my strategy because it's my default in what I love to do. So, I'm always trying to apply strategy.
Veronica Guguian: To that, and then looking at how.
Jillian Vorce: To quantify that work as well and then showcase it because, to me, those are all opportunities to what I think of as demonstrating our brand. So demonstrating my brand, I think, it's like a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So, this idea of being able to demonstrate my brand values and my personal values, because that's been my episode 13, talking about aligning my personal values of my business and my brand. Right? So that's how I basically walk the talk, right?
Veronica Guguian: Yes. I do like your approach, and I must say mine is also similar, and it's very in line. So, how I approach it is definitely according to my values. What do I want to place out there?
Jillian Vorce: How do I want to be known either as me, Veronica, or the spin ideas, but also looking at the audience and understanding, and that will dictate?
Veronica Guguian: A little bit about the platforms or the topics: What are they interested in? What's the place where they are at this particular moment when I'm creating the content? And depending on that, because we did approach speaking engagements, for example, or things like that, where do I want to be present? And the form of the content, do I want to have it as written content or video? How do I? And also the frequency, I think that's very important. And consistency we kept on discussing that, but consistency is very important as well, because what's the point of creating an amazing article? You create it once, maybe twice, and you start having the engagements. Then you. And stop all the hard work that you created disappears the momentum. Yeah, exactly. And what is very important as well is what the goal was.
Veronica Guguian: Why did I create this? Because if I just say I want to be visible and I'm just going to create and place things there, it will not work. You're going to confuse people if you're not working. Like you said, I want to educate people.
Jillian Vorce: And all your content has this as a goal.
Veronica Guguian: You can talk about the same topic from different points of view, and that's one way you create that piece of content. If you have in mind, ‘My purpose is to educate, or my purpose is to sell, or my purpose is to show how great I am at this.’ They are different. It's the same topic, different approach, different delivery, different pieces of content. And that you will need consistency in this as well. And that being said, it doesn't mean you can't have different types of content serving different purposes. So, one can be about top leadership, one can be about educating people, and one can be about selling. And you have these three pillars, and you create different types of content to promote them, each of you these pillars.
Veronica Guguian: But that will dictate the KPIs because if your purpose is to sell, then you are monitoring probably how many people read from this, how many people booked a call with you, dictates the type of call to action that you have inserted in your article. And, of course, the bottom line is, how many people actually booked with you, right? How many clients became clients? Sorry, how many consumers, content consumers, became clients? But if brand awareness - that's, we do know, is very, very hard to measure. Yes, yes. So, like, how many people may be viewed or read, you can monitor that. But it's very hard to actually put the proper number to eat and to do a proper follow-up. Or maybe you can get into a database, and you have to continue that, the group conversation of people.
Veronica Guguian: Nurturing you is still a phrase that you said is like dating; if you can use this analogy, like, you're not properly dating, you're still flirting, let's say. Right?
Jillian Vorce: Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: It can be very complex and very beautiful, actually. You need to be aware, and this is why clarity is needed to create these processes and the strategy. And how do you create the funnel, basically? And I also think it is important to be real about this: the scope of the footprint of our business in terms of the volume of people. Right. So to have some sort of idea of what your kind of sales process looks like, have it ideally, you know, to me, anytime I can operate from a place of at least being you.
Jillian Vorce: You know, data-informed at a minimum, having some data, and then ultimately being able to make data-driven decisions are really happy places for me. But I think sometimes it also can be known, like, if you know, for every ten prospect calls, like sales calls, how many of those end up becoming a new client? So if you start to put these numbers into place, is it one, is it eight? Like, how many is it? And then starting to look at drawing out that customer journey, how many of them, which is your most effective tool? Like, are they reading your blog articles? Are they following you on social media? Or are you meeting people at events and being able to captivate people through speaking, or what channels are most effective for you?
Jillian Vorce: I think it's really important to know that. But in terms of the digital side, I think it is a double-edged sword because, on the one hand, it's great to be able to deploy all these tools that can measure the number of visitors on our site and how many people read and for how long and who clicks on what, and all that can be really great. But for a lot of businesses, they're dealing with fewer people, and it's much more about managing the relationships.
Jillian Vorce: You know, kind of being human and not robotic per se. You know, it's very hard to make the difference between being robotic and automated too much. Yeah. Still have that human connection. Yeah, I think so. And so, because of that, I'm going to use that as a segue. My attempt to use that as a segue into perhaps a different way to think about content creation for a minute, and specifically the strategy of content creation. And so you mentioned AI.
Veronica Guguian: You know, there's no, it's quite simple to create content now, but one area that maybe it's just because I'm like…
Jillian Vorce: A super nerd, but I actually think this is true. At least it's true for me; it is the time that I'm putting in doing research and working on a piece of content. Those are, that's not time that's just gone. It's not time that's only going into the blog article that I'm writing about or something. It also is content that I'm working into conversations that I'm having with people as well, whether it's via a podcast, if I'm teaching a workshop, or just in conversations with people. These are things that I routinely bring up because they are stuff that I'm interested in and I tend to talk about generally. I'm interested in the things I'm interested in. I tend to ask people that question.
Jillian Vorce: We have a shared interest in topics so that if I'm interested, I can engage in conversation with somebody who has a similar interest, and they may be a potential new client or an influencer to a new client situation. The moment I start relaying some of this, some of the research I'm working on, et cetera, that can be quite effective because that's an awesome opportunity to demonstrate, right in this example, my brand that this is how I approach content, that I do the research, I spend the time that I'm thoughtful, I'm like highly engaged in this process, et cetera. There are all these attributes associated with it; aside from just going on the other side of the spectrum, it is just using some tools and looking up.
Jillian Vorce: How many people are searching for certain surgical things and then crafting SEO, like super tight SEO titles and content and the whole thing? It's such a big issue with those companies, and their content is shit. I apologize. But if you read that article, it doesn't offer any information, and I think it's actually hard. Instead of helping the brand, it is damaging the brand because if the tools are used properly, then they can be used. But that volume of traffic is going to better suit itself. Yes. For a company that has and depends on who's creating it because a lot of the companies out there, what they...
Veronica Guguian: Creating is really bad, but they are selling it. There were so many things that came to my mind when you were speaking, and I fully agree with what you said. And I think the biggest thing is that.
Jillian Vorce: People need to remember, it doesn't matter what tool you're using and actually AI…
Veronica Guguian: And how do you approach creating content? For example, what will the difference be? Are you an expert? Or are you approaching it superficially? Because you, exactly like the SEO companies out there, because they will use the tools they will create, it will serve the purpose. But when you really read that piece of content, you will see it is actually not; it doesn't say anything because SEO keeps repeating specific keywords. And if you don't do it in a nice way, to actually provide content, to put meat on those bones as well, it's nothing. And you can create a lot of content, and AI creates content, but what makes a difference? You need to see it as a tool. Use it to make your life or your research easier.
Veronica Guguian: But you still need to go and read and put your own tone of voice there. Put the brand tone of voice, and make sure it's expressing your personal ideas that they will not be able to say. Even if you keep on delivering the message and you improve, it will get there. But still, it's not the same because your ideas are going to change depending on your experience, right? Whereas AI doesn't do that. So you do need to bring that. And that will make the difference between someone being a real expert and really knowing something. And the fact that you do the research and you have the conversation. It will be a deep conversation, not a superficial one.
Veronica Guguian: Then you're going to see the difference, and you're going to decide with whom you want to work because it's someone who just talks and presents themselves as an expert. But if you ask five questions, you realize they have no clue what they're talking about. They just know the surface, the buzz. Yeah, the buzzwords. The buzzwords. Or is it someone who actually knows what they're talking about, and they have a deep understanding, and they can actually create and be creative and do different things with whatever you're discussing? So, how are you? I'm curious about a couple of things. So first, I'm curious how you approach topic generation. And I'm also curious about you…
Jillian Vorce: Do you have certain production numbers?
Veronica Guguian: The number of pieces that you want to produce, or it's like that version of a KPI. So I'm curious about either of those, like the topic side or what your objectives are for content creation.
Jillian Vorce: Topics depend on the goals. So, for example, when I last had ideas, my main focus was on educating people. What is a strategy, and why do you need a strategy and understanding of education? And I was writing about that, and all my content was created around that and I was writing one article per week, so.
Veronica Guguian: And what helped me quite a lot was the setting. I needed to write on this day and between these hours, and it took me a while to get into that read. But once did you get into the rhythm? Like I did that for two years. It was very easy because it became part of your routine, like waking up and having your morning coffee, and if you're out of balance with that routine, you feel something is not okay. That became the same. So it took me a couple of months to get into that. You know, like I'm waking up, grabbing my coffee, opening my laptop, and starting writing. And what also helped me, knowing that I was, the night before, I was thinking, oh, I need to create content tomorrow. So what do I want to write about?
Veronica Guguian: Oh, of course, in terms of topic. And I was always getting inspired by what happened the week before. So when you have the goal and then in terms of you need to split what's the main client's purpose? What needs what? I start it to serve writing, and then you make a list, but what? Okay. What really helped me a lot also was being on the ground and talking with people, going to network events, and understanding or talking with my clients and understanding where they are at this point and what they need. So, even if I had an overall idea of what I wanted to write, the concrete topic was actually coming that week based on what was happening.
Veronica Guguian: And that really worked for me because I was in the moment with what was happening and the needs of my clients. So I basically answered what they needed, and it brought me clients as well. So, one goal was for me to educate and brand and actually bring clients, even if that wasn't the goal. And how do you measure how many people are reading it? How many people actually contacted me afterward and asked? Now I have more clients. At that point, I wasn't serving many clients.
Jillian Vorce: It was very easy.
Veronica Guguian: And still, it is not that hard to ask your clients, especially in our type of business, when you work one-on-one with them, to ask what made you come to me or how you find out about, spin ideas or how/what made you work with and choose us. And I was very surprised actually to hear because of the content; this is how they found us because that wasn't my objective. My objective was actually educating them at this point. How do I choose? That was at the beginning. At this point, we are actually slightly changing, and it's the same approach as what we do to achieve our business goals, and then we go to the marketing goals.
Veronica Guguian:
Of course, they are connected, and of course, you look at the one thing that I think we spoke about this is how the marketing goals serve the business goals. You need to look at your overall operation, how much you are able to deliver, and what you need to do. Because if I'm saying I want 100 clients, honestly, at this point, I'm not able to serve 100 clients because I don't have the manpower and the capacity to do that. So, you need to be very realistic. So we need to see what, how many clients, what we want to achieve, what we are focusing on, and what we are launching in terms of services this year, and from there, that will dictate the content strategy and what we want to do. So, are you doing so? I know you have blog articles.
Veronica Guguian: So, do you have a goal for the number of blog articles that you publish per month or per quarter? Or does it vary depending on what campaigns are running or what you think about at this point? It varies because my team is very international, so it took us a little bit longer than it should have taken to be in one place and discuss things.
Jillian Vorce: I love working remotely, so I recommend it. But I do feel that something like that would be a strategy meeting. I do need everyone in one place; that works for me personally. So, we are in the process of actually implementing that and dictating the number based on the content of the KPI.
Veronica Guguian: So this will actually happen this week, but it does dictate how they are influenced. You can't really connect them because, as I said, consistency is the key, and you need to be consistent in terms of whatever you do, be it an article, speaking engagement, or whatever you're doing. Look at our podcast; we're very consistent. We decided we want to deliver this, and that doesn't mean you can't switch when you feel it needs to be changed because it's not working. Flexibility is required when looking at the KPIs or other factors that came into place. But yes, the answer is yes. We choose a specific amount of content that needs to be delivered in order to serve the goal we set. So I agree with that. I think one other area comes to mind for me… So I also, because I have split my brand, so I have the company-facing side, which is on the Jillian Group, and then I have the individual-facing side, which is jillianborse.com. So now it's producing specific content for those two overlapping but different kinds of audiences. So working on that, and that also relates through social media outlets, et cetera, as well as podcasting and all the other things. But I think one other opportunity with content, and specifically content strategy, is through partnerships. This is kind of a low-hanging fruit opportunity for people to begin building partnerships. Audio content as we behave through, or video content. So, it could be a podcast. It can also be with articles in workshops. So I have two or three; I have a few of these in motion right now. So, there's one group I'm working with right now. We're collaborating together and creating a series of content for online events that will culminate in one offline kind of gathering around the topic of ESG implementation strategy for companies.
Jillian Vorce: And so there's a few of us that each have one component. So, mine is the governance side in leadership business operations. So we're working together on that. And so that's a great opportunity to form partnerships, to access different audiences, and to produce something that, you know, myself or me with my team would not have as good of a go at. It's much more strategic to align with other professionals who have complementary skills or audiences or what have you. So have that one. And then we're also creating a series for the construction industry as one of the industries that really could perhaps do a little bit better in terms of not damaging the environment so much, as well as on the kind of diversity front, etcetera.
Jillian Vorce: Here's another quick example: I also apply this approach to blog articles. While it's not a constant practice, currently, we're focused on a series of them. Specifically, there's one article that's almost ready to go. I could have published it about a month ago, but I saw it as a chance to involve other experts. We're collaborating with several individuals to incorporate their perspectives, ideas, and feedback. It's been exciting to see how this collaboration has taken off.
Jillian Vorce: It threw off our publishing schedule a little bit, but I think the result will be better because it'll be a better piece for the reader as well as create stronger relationships with the other folks that we're partnering with for this particular article. And then, perhaps when it is published, they may also share it and recruit little clips to promote it. So, I think the content strategy can be applicable to partnerships. We did that, and actually, that's a good segue to repurposing because we have changed the approach to online networking with the spin. But a couple of years ago, the format was the same. We always have an expert sharing tips on a specific topic. And what we did was we invited the expert actually because you have three minutes, three times three minutes, to share tips. You don't have a lot of time.
Veronica Guguian: To explore the topic in detail. So, to come around to find a solution to that, we invited the experts to write an article in collaboration with us on that particular topic, and we published it on the website. So we had the event that is content, we transformed it in written content repurposing and what we did afterward, at the end of the year, we took, I think we have two editions of the books, we took the entire selection of the articles, twelve, and we put them in an ebook sharing expertise. That became a funnel, actually a marketing funnel, because in order to get the ebook, you need to provide your email address.
Veronica Guguian: So, our databases are increasing prospects or audience, and of course, being in that format and having content, as you said, the expert would want to share it because it's their expertise. And they want to share their knowledge. This enables you to reach more people because you are present to new audiences. So what's the word I'm looking for? Snowball effect, right? Yes. Goes and grows, and it does work, but you do need to, and of course, like everyone, we did; we had better results and not that good results. It's very important to look at the person, the companies, or the expert you're collaborating with and to make sure the values are in line. These values are not only actual but also expectations.
Veronica Guguian: I think that's very important because values and expertise are in line once you are collaborating and doing so many things. But one more thing that needs to be in line is, what are you expecting out of this collaboration? Yes, absolutely. And I love that example you just gave about repurposing the content. And it makes me think of one other that I'll toss on the hat and empty.
Jillian Vorce: Then I think about my pockets.
Veronica Guguian: I am on this topic, but the last one I have is just another. Yeah, it can be a tactic, there's a strategic component, etc., but it's definitely also repurposing.
Jillian Vorce: This is to create audio versions of written content. No, that's a good one. Yes. So, I have a great example. There's a link I'm going to include. There's a social listening company based in the US, B Squared Media, where we had spoken about this, and then they created an article featuring this as an example. So I think it's relevant, it's interesting, and it's a different way to think about how to create indoor repurposed content.
Veronica Guguian: So I'll include the link for that.
Jillian Vorce: And the other way around, especially for smaller clients. What I noticed, and we did, was that she is a fantastic client for creating videos, but when you ask her to write about the same topic or the same idea, she gets stuck. So, actually, what we did was you create the videos. That's amazing content, especially if a person has charisma. Right. And you know, there are some people who are amazing at public speaking and videos, and it just works for them. And you get that, and you just….
Veronica Guguian: Put it into an article. And actually, the trick is that you don't need that person to do it. Somebody else can do it for them. Yes. And you'll be surprised. You will expect more people to be comfortable writing, not speaking. Actually, it's the opposite of my experience, or at least what I came across in terms of clients. So this is a great way to actually create more content for them because everyone consumes content differently, or depending on the moment where they are, they consume it differently. Yeah, absolutely. This is how we actually used to create content, creating content with clients as we would schedule.
Veronica Guguian: Because in my experience, a lot of clients would think, I would say almost without exception, we did have one, and the founder really fancied his writing skills, but everybody else tended to shy away from writing, especially because the blank page of doubt that just looks at you. So what we would do is...
Jillian Vorce: We would create the structure with the client and schedule sessions and interview something similar as well. And then we'd record the whole thing. So then we'd have, you know, some drafts to work from. And in my experience, people love to edit. They don't love to start with a blank page. So we would try to churn out a draft as quickly as we could so they could then make it their own. That was a pretty effective strategy for helping clients create content. So that's helpful to anybody listening, but it is a good one.
Veronica Guguian: We did use it as well.
Jillian Vorce: And then you need to, one piece of advice I will give to this, and I think that's a wrap-up for this one. Be clear on how many times they can edit; otherwise, it can become an endless process because they will always be, ‘Oh, wait, one more thing here. I would like to change that.’ And then you're never going to finish. So usually, it's good to say we have two rounds, and that's it.
Veronica Guguian: Yeah, we're pretty structured about the timeframe and the schedule of all the content that was going on and the deadlines for things and whatnot. So that's a good point, too. So, all right, before we wrap up today's session, we'll just give another plug and share this opportunity we have. I want to tell folks, if they haven't already heard, tell them about our listeners. Brainstorm our sessions.
Jillian Vorce: Live brainstorming sessions for listeners. Since I just butchered it. Do you want to clean up my mess here? Yeah, I was thinking if they haven't heard yet, that means they didn't listen to us. So. That's right. This might be their first time. Maybe they just found out about it. In that case, welcome, and thank you for listening. We had two sessions, one about Online Networking in a Spin and one about the 2.0 version of my company. And basically, what we did, we talked about it, and we used each other's skills in providing advice, auditing, and coming.
Veronica Guguian: Up with solutions on how to grow or provide a different perspective.
Jillian Vorce: And because we had so much fun, we said, how about we are doing…
Veronica Guguian: That for our audience? So, if you are listening and you have a burning question, or you want to transform your business, or you just want an extra opinion, we have a beautiful form with some questions that will be linked in the notes. Fill it out and schedule a call with us to see how we can help you. Providing advice to change your company. So take advantage and pick our brains. I did use it correctly now. And brains out. I'm very excited about that. I love these things. Just see what is happening. And I think that's a wrap-up on episode 33. So, until next time, have a spiffy day. Cheers!