Are You Being Brave Enough, Digital Marketing Chat With Alex & Dave – Episode 108

You know, lots of people listen to this podcast, which clearly they don't. But if they did, I think they would, they would, um, they might find themselves agreeing with us that sometimes doing this stuff feels like, um, it's a hell of a lot of work. And is it really worth it?

Mhm.

It doesn't. It might not be.

Yeah. Well, yeah. It's very market dependent, isn't it? I think you can invest a lot of effort and energy into digital marketing and be getting it spectacularly wrong and never see anything come from it. And, you know, your audience are out there somewhere, but finding them and getting the right content in front of them is very easy to get wrong.

Welcome back to Digital Marketing From The Coalface with me, Dave Robinson. And I'm very tired. You've seen very tired today, Alex. Alex Bussey, this is the podcast where we talk about what we did this week or last week because it's Monday. So we're recording this on the Monday. So we're going to talk about what we tell people.

We're doing it wrong and out of order and that we've already kind.

Of it kind of makes sense to do it on a Monday, really, when you think about it, as long as you're taking notes through the week, which I know I do, I'm not sure you do.

I do sometimes when I remember too well, when I do things interesting enough to write about.

So I'm, I might, I might be ratty today because I'm tired. Um, yeah.

Just ignore you.

Yeah. Just ignore me. Ignore me. Yeah. That's what happens when you don't get to bed till three o'clock. And then.

Not because you were doing anything. I should know.

I wasn't.

Fighting fires. Literally. Fighting fires?

Yeah, yeah, well, it's my fault for being an on call firefighter as well as doing this stuff. Um. So what? I've got some notes of some of the stuff I want to talk about, um, probably in a irritable and ratty kind of way. And you said you've done some preparation as well. Wonders never cease.

I have done some preparation. I've written quite a long and meandering story, and then I realised that this was a podcast and not an appropriate place for long and meandering stories. So I'm quite.

Interested in your long and meandering stories. Kick me under the table. If I nod off, though.

There we go. Well, no, it was just so basically, I mean, so you already know part of the story, but obviously for listeners, I'll explain. So I spent a lot of last week writing what I would listener. Sorry. Yeah. Singular. Um, he's gone now as well because he said that taking umbrage. Um, no, I spent quite a lot of last week writing content for clients and what some people would consider, I guess, like fairly boring or cookie cutter content. So a lot of it was sort of like market pages, you know, um, content landing pages about services they offer. Um, just general sort of like grist, I suppose. Um, and while I was doing it, I was just sort of reflecting on the fact that, you know, you've, you've got this sort of job in front of you, you have to write the content for the keywords. And it's just really easy to get sucked into that, you know, like I'm just trying to cram the keyword in there as many times as possible. It doesn't matter if it's not revolutionary. It doesn't matter if it's not groundbreaking. I just have to say, we do the service and you know what? You get out at the end of that exercise is rubbish, complete drag. You can put it online and it might rank in Google, but it's absolutely never going to convert somebody. And arguably it is going to do a huge amount of damage to your brand because somebody might come along looking for the service, read your dreadful content and think, oh, you know, don't want to work with these guys. They sound really boring. Um, so I spent quite a lot of time just sort of like mulling over the idea that, you know, when you're writing this content, you actually do have to spend quite a lot of time and energy thinking about how you're going to make yourself stand out and not do what everybody else is doing, which is just churning stuff out for the keywords. And then we were having a discussion about it, and weirdly, about five seconds later and literally about five seconds later, an e-book in ebook dropped into both of our email inboxes. And it was just sort of like a marketing e-book. We both signed up to get notifications from the, you know, these people whenever they sent something out, I think.

It was Search Engine Journal or something.

Like that. Was it? Well, I was thinking about the other one. The BBN one actually.

Oh, right. Yes. So it dropped.

Like. Yeah. And it dropped. And it was literally about courage in marketing. And, you know, the fact that you have to be a courageous marketer and not just do what everybody else is doing and playing follow the leader. And it was one of those weird moments where sort of what you're already thinking syncs up with what, you know, lots of other people are saying. And yeah, I mean, I don't believe in the universe giving you signs, but it was a pretty clear sign.

And people can get this from BBN hyphen international dot com. Yeah. I think they can go there and you'll you'll find a download to it. Um, uh, what's it called again? Fearless marketing.

It's yeah, I think it was like marketing for the courageous marketer or something like that. Yeah. But it was just really interesting because this basically they've published this sort of sequence of articles and combined them into an ebook that is all about the importance of sort of being brave and not just sort of sitting there and churning out the sort of same old nonsense over and over again. And there was just some really interesting stuff in there. I mean, one of them was a statistic that I don't really know how true this is, but they were talking in terms of like grabbing attention. They were saying that whenever somebody makes a purchasing decision in B2B or in B2C. So like when you're buying trainers, when you're buying a new bike, when you're buying a new warehouse, whatever it is, there's only ever sort of in your head space to sort of, um, hold three competitors vying for your attention. So you're always sort of thinking about three brands, and there's no real room for anybody else to muscle in on that. And they were sort of talking about how to make sure that you were one of those three brands and sort of how to.

Yeah, I totally get that. And I know I agree, and I realise you haven't finished making this point yet, which is fine, but, um, I think sometimes there isn't even room for three brands. Yeah. I think sometimes for absolutely no reason whatsoever. You've already made your mind up.

Yeah. But that's really interesting though, isn't it? Because it's not really for, for, you know, an undisclosed or magical reason. It's not that you don't know why that's happened, it's just that you're not consciously aware of why it's happened? Well.

You know, last week I mentioned, I think I mentioned in the podcast that I'd gone fishing for the day. And at one point a guy was walking around and we started chatting. And as we were chatting, a fish took, took off, took, took, and it just went hammering across into some reeds and snapped. So I'd lost just this little thing called a feed. Anyone who goes fishing, I'd use like feeder fishing. So it's just this little it's like a weight with a little grill on it and you can pack food into it. So when it lands on the bottom, you're going and there's food around it and it's just feeder fishing. It's sort of. And so I decided to get a replacement. But although there are loads of these things on the market and they all do exactly the same thing I wanted, I think it's Preston the maker. That's it. I didn't care that the others were as good. Same price, cheaper. And I want that's the one I want not and not even because it performs well because all it does is dump food on the on the bottom of the of the pond so that there's a there's something to attract fish in.

So there's not really anything you can do wrong.

But yeah, it can't really do anything wrong. The prestige of it. You could make one out of, you know, bottle tops. And a lot of.

People do because that's what fishermen are.

Like. I mean, and, but yeah, but I just, I wanted that. Sure. And I wanted it Amazon Prime.

Yeah.

And I couldn't, I just got so because I couldn't find that exact thing that I wanted and it was delivered in prime and, and delivered tomorrow. But I think that was me being very specific.

But it's interesting, isn't it? Because when you go down that path and you're sort of like, right, this is the one that I want and it has to be this one. It's unshakable, that conviction. And I think it's really interesting that companies manage to insinuate themselves into your sort of life in that way, isn't it, that you don't realise how sort of in thrall of their marketing you are? Because you're right. You do think I must have that one? That's the only one that will do. People do with Apple stuff all the time. Especially like, I must have an Apple Mac. I must have an iPhone. I mean, I'm guilty of that too. Yeah.

Me too. Me too.

Me too. One hundred percent. Their marketing.

Doesn't the internet lend itself to that?

I think.

So. You know, before the internet, which you won't remember, but I very much do.

I remember there was a day choice.

Came down to shops, magazines for research, probably speaking to people to try and figure stuff out and then decide like, yes, you definitely want this brand or that brand or one of these three. As you say, brands.

You get like a plurality of opinions that way. And the internet. You're right. I mean, one of the things I think is really interesting is when you look at a search engine results page or Serp, it is, or we at least order the results one to ten. It's a competition. It's a league table. And the thing at the top is the thing that attracts the most attention. And when we talk about this all the time, when we're talking to clients because we'll say things like, oh, this is a very noisy Serp. Meaning when you Google it, it's, you know, lots of companies pop up, lots of advertising, there's lots of stuff going on in the page and what we're effectively saying. And I guess what the BBN thing is saying that it's, you know, in actual fact, these are all opportunities to capture somebody's attention. And if you miss it, somebody else will do that instead.

Yeah, but they're not, I think they're not talking purely about capturing.

No, they're.

Attention or no, no, maybe they are. But we're not talking about capturing attention as in like ranking for a keyword and therefore being at the top. It's like, what do you do with that opportunity?

Well, yeah, this is exactly it. I mean, and it's, I sort of think of it as a three step process, right? Because you've got to capture the attention initially in somebody's got to find your content before you can do any good stuff with it. But critically, then you actually, like you say, have to leave a lasting impression. You have to do something memorable with that opportunity. I mean, that's effectively what you're doing a lot of the time with paid search or SEO or whatever is, you're creating an opportunity to potentially capture somebody's attention. And then a lot of brands, I think, you know, you know, arguably us two at times like are guilty of sort of squandering that opportunity by not thinking enough about what you're going to do, not just to engage somebody in the instant. You're not just trying to get them to stay on the page for three minutes or five minutes or whatever, you're trying to make them remember your brand the next time they want something, or the next time they're thinking about this, or, you know, when their boss asks them for a recommendation, it's your brand that pops up. And I think that is the really challenging bit really. Um, and certainly the bit that takes the most time and attention to get right.

Yeah. When do you think um, or sorry, I'll, I'll phrase that again. Like I said, I'm very tired, so just please bear with me. When do you think, um, when do you think that people are being brave and when do you think people are just being dicks?

That's the difficult.

Thing. I think people try and be brave with their marketing. Yeah. But actually just come across as dicks.

Yeah.

Or I mentioned the peloton thing because that came up in something we were reading. Yeah. Where they basically, I think from memory, the advertising was basically trying to get a very pretty lady to buy a peloton so she so she could be super fit because that's what her husband would want her to be or something. Something really something really gross.

Just rubbish.

You know, the motivation that they were trying to instill in this fictitious um, user of their system was, was, was that. Yeah. And, and it backfired horribly on them. Apparently it affected the share price and sales went down and all kinds of bad shit happened and other companies actually parodied it and yeah, very successful.

Well, it's like that really famous example, isn't it? I don't know if you, um, who was it that did it? There was a hairdryer company, I think, or, or a technology company. And it was like to celebrate Women's Science Day and they were like, girls design a hairdryer. And like, you.

Don't feel a little bit sorry for them because that's probably not like what they intended.

It was just like, oh, here's how to be sexist, I think. Yeah. And I think there are other brands that get it spectacularly wrong in this same way, but more subtly as well. Like I always think like innocent, the smoothie brand, like they definitely think that their marketing is really brave and out there and they're being a bit different and a bit quirky, and it's just really f*cking annoying. And I think, yeah, I think you can get it really badly wrong. Like you say. And I think you can also just sort of like forget that your marketing is designed for a specific audience too. Like a lot of people can get really tied up with being controversial and edgy and forget that actually their customers are people who don't like that.

Well, here's, here's a case in point because many years ago, we were before you came along to read eval and we were talking about an idea, and I think it was Dave that came up with the idea, which we all thought was highly amusing, but we never went with it because what we were, what we were talking about at that point, we were kind of heavily focused on websites and web design and stuff like that. And basically we wanted people who had a website that was shite to come and speak to us.

So we.

Could create something. And he came up with this word, which is like one word, which was web site question, question mark. And it was like a play on words because it's obviously meant, you know, it's your website, right? But one word website in question. And you know what? We, we nearly went with it. And then we just thought it's probably a bit crass and a bit not that funny.

And also fundamentally, you're going to get people who are like, maybe, no, their website isn't great, but probably don't want to admit it to themselves. And they're going to see that and think like, oh yeah, I mean, one hundred percent. I think you have to be really careful. And I think that's the point, isn't it? We're not talking about being edgy for the sake of it. I think brave looks like lots of different things to, to lots of different audiences.

Um well what I mean, what, what can we say to people that's usable, useful? Um, on this subject, um, being found, getting found in the first place is important. When, when people find you, they very quickly need to be made to feel safe. Um, you need to look credible, which is connected to making them feel safe. And maybe affordability comes into it.

Yeah, I think so. And I think the other thing is just like, I don't know how to express this properly in a way that doesn't just sound really hackneyed, but like, just be actually genuinely useful and stop dicking around. Like we, I mean, not in a self-aggrandising way, but that we've just published a massive blog post on our website that is about like how much a website costs or how much a website should cost. And this is an area that lots of people don't know about. It's also critically an area that lots of agencies don't want to talk about. Because actually, if you put yourself out there and you say, do you know what? We're going to charge you between twenty and thirty K to build a website? You've immediately sort of pigeonholed yourself and you've given the game away like all your competitors can see how much you charge and that sort of thing. But the thing is, if you're not genuinely willing to sort of step up to the plate and give away useful information, people won't think of your brand as sort of useful or helpful. I just think that you're at it like everybody else. And I think that's really the thing when you're sitting down to think about all this stuff and, you know, the place I got to with it, although it doesn't sort of explicitly spell this out anywhere in any of the sort of books I was reading about it is that, you know, this is what it actually comes down to is if somebody lands on your website, are they going to come away having learned something genuinely useful? Because if not, like you're not going to stick around in their head for very long at all. Really? Yeah. Unless it's hilarious or whatever.

Genuinely useful. You know, again, context is important. We're talking like in the B2B area, which is where we operate. We're talking about people who are doing their job, which they might a love or B hate or C kind of love sometimes and kind of hate sometimes they're trying, they're trying to get, they're trying to have an easy life or solve their problems, look good in front of their boss. Um, if they are the boss, they just want a good solid solution that doesn't make them look silly at some point down the line. Interesting conversation today with a potential client. Not so sure. Um, he's been working with a very big agency, like a hundred odd people, um, based in various places down in the southwest mainly. Um, and, you know, that whole thing hasn't gone well and it's, and it's compromising his business and I don't really think he feels silly. He just feels like this agency have let them down, which is why he's speaking to us and other agencies to try and find a better solution. But it's a situation nobody wants to find themselves in. You know, if you think about the public sector, the reason that you go jumping through hoops in the public sector is ultimately, you know, those people are just wanting to pick the right organisation to help them solve a problem and deliver something. Go on. What are you laughing at?

Shame they can't ever f*cking do it, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, we could talk a lot about why the public sector for small businesses like us are getting it's spectacular, spectacularly wrong again and again. Yeah. But yeah, that's not yeah.

I mean, and I think this is really just like a back to fundamentals thing. I mean, we've talked before a lot about in previous podcasts that whole idea of like the, um, they ask you answer sort of methodology.

Book, which I would still highly recommend.

Yeah. And, but I think it's like, just, it's just really critical to remember that somebody comes online to find what you're doing when they have a problem, they specifically want something. And if you can help them do that, and even if it is just steps along the way, and I think this is the thing, isn't it? You don't have to provide all of the answers and all of the solutions. You just have to help them sort of navigate whatever they're struggling with and anticipate what the actual problem is, help them find a solution. And as long as you can do that repeatedly, I think you're in a good place. But I think when you lose sight of that and you start just doing stuff for the sake of it, and you're not really thinking about, okay, how will this help? You know, Joe Bloggs, who's got to, you know, he's got to find a replacement. I don't know whatever for his oil drill in three days or whatever, you know, how am I actually going to help him get from A to B then that's when it goes wrong.

Yeah. Because, you know, we work in B2B and, you know, last week I was looking at some of the enquiries that were coming in for some of our customers, you know, and to a lot of people, it would be dull as dishwater. You know, I've, I've got a warehouse and I need a mezzanine floor so I can double the amount of storage capacity the warehouse has got. I see that that's what you guys do. Not us obviously. One of our clients. And, um, can somebody contact me to talk about this? So it's just like, you know, you know, lots of, you know, some design work, steel getting welded. And at the end of the day, you've got this big warehouse with a mezzanine floor in it. It's not exactly space, you.

Know, but.

But but that's how they make their way in the world. That's, you know, they're a very prosperous company. They're doing really well. We've played a significant role in helping make sure that the people who want to buy what they're selling, find them and engage with them, because I think we do a reasonably good job telling the right story as well.

Well, yeah, and again, like giving away the information, I mean, the client in question, we spend a lot of time, for example, writing blog posts that are specifically geared towards people, You know, the people who manage warehouses, like how to think about this, how to work out how big your mezzanine floor needs to be, how to work out, how it's actually going to help you, how to do all the complicated maths. I mean, the thing is like, because we spend so much time giving away the information, people do see us as a sort of that client in particular as an authority on the subject and come to them for help. And that's, that's it really. That is the methodology, I guess.

Yeah. That's right.

Yeah. And it's not super exciting. You're absolutely right. But I think to me, that sort of the idea that it has to be super exciting or groundbreaking every time is sort of, I think one of the biggest roadblocks for a lot of marketers, you know, they're so busy trying to sort of reinvent the wheel. They don't just realise that actually, you know, people are just struggling with this very banal, very everyday problem. And you can still be courageous and brave by just answering that problem in a really, you know, straightforward and useful way. That's yeah.

That's a good segue to one of the things that I had, I had on my list of, um, what we did on the coalface of digital marketing last week, uh, a client that we've got that we've done a chunk of work for, but they're not on any sort of retainer with us. It's not an ongoing like, um, it's not a permanently ongoing type relationship. They just keep calling us in and contacting us when they've got specific problems and challenges. But the conversation I had with them, um, two people at that organisation was interesting because it's clear that they are slowly recognising slowly coming to the conclusion that they've got a mountain to climb in terms of their website is not being found by their ideal customers. They've got a fantastic product. Um, they're in a market where there is demand, not that noisy. Um, there are some aspects of what they do, which is, which has crossover with another related, um, area of business. So it's almost like if people search for X, are they looking for the X you do or the x they do because they're completely different things, although they sound very similar, I think they've got an element of that going on and, you know, lovely people and a nice chat that we had. But I think they were kind of they were kind of clutching at straws a little bit because it was like, you know, we made some changes to their, to their website that needed to be made because they had a website that was built with HubSpot. So it's a, you know, it's a good platform, fantastic platform. We're currently migrating our website.

Quite easy to get wrong though, I think, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, they had like, you know, like one website with two different templates. They had various things going on. You know, I'm not going to go into any, any real detail, but, um, we, so we did some work for them, some, some remedial work. And then they were like, oh, you know, we, we think that like, since that happened, like things have got a bit worse traffic wise. And it's.

Like.

Well, well, let's just, let's just look at the data. And clearly it hasn't. Oh yeah. Well, because like months ago, like sixteen months ago, we were doing a lot of work and lots of great things were happening. We'll go and look again, look at the data. And no, it wasn't, it was there was it's been flatlining now for a long time. Um, and that wasn't them trying to sort of like point the finger of blame us or anything else. I, you just got this sense of the frustration and this, I think lots of people, um, you know, lots of people listen to this podcast, which clearly they don't, but if they did, I think they would, they would, um, they.

Might.

Find.

Themselves.

Agreeing with us that sometimes doing this stuff feels like, um, it's a hell of a lot of work and is it really worth.

It? Um, it does.

And it might not.

Be. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's very market dependent, isn't it? I think you can invest a lot of effort and energy into digital marketing and be getting it spectacularly wrong and just never see anything come from it. And, you know, there's your audience are out there somewhere, but finding them and getting the right content in front of them is very easy to get wrong. Yeah. And I think.

When you do find them, when you find your tribe, it can be, you know, it can be lovely.

It's powerful stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it works. And this is the thing we come back to time and time again. It works. We see it work. And then people tell us, oh, it doesn't work for me. It's like it does. You just you're just not quite going about it the right way. But I think you sort of touched on something really critical there, which is that it is also really difficult for a lot of people to tell what is and isn't working and why it isn't and isn't working. And it's not like a jab at anybody listening to this who is a business owner, because you've got enough on your plate as it is. But I think that lack of fundamental understanding around the tools, how to track things like traffic, how to work out where your leads are coming from. It's surprising the amount of conversations we have where people are like, oh, I thought that was working really well. And then we're like, but it's not. Or, you know, oh, that doesn't work at all. And we're like, oh, but hang on a minute. It's actually driving loads of leads. It's not uncommon to have those discussions. And I think that's probably like an area where if you really want to sort of go the distance with this and make something of it in sort of ten or twenty years time, the time you spend now learning how to sort of look at the data and interpret it properly, is time well spent really being able to sort of pick these things apart.

Speaking about things that work and don't work, I got. Well, you spoke earlier about the fearless marketing article which BBN had put out, which I thought was interesting. I've skim read it and it's on my list of things to like sit down with a cup of tea and actually have a proper look through.

That sounds idyllic, doesn't it? If only that ever happened. Yeah, I know. Like you see those images that you have, like marketers, like sat on the sofa on the train, just like scrolling an ebook. And it's like, when have you, when have you found time for that? Yeah.

But another article that came in, and that's what I thought you were, you were speaking about when you initially started off on telling your story. Um, is I think it was a search engine journal article that came in. Um, and I thought, oh, that sounds interesting. And I went to read it and it was gated.

Oh.

So where are we on gated content? So just to explain anyone who's listening, who's not sure it's that situation. Everybody's been in it where there's something that you want to read. You've been enticed for an email or a web page or something. But in order to get that piece of content that you want, they want to know who you are. Give us your, give us your email address and give us your name. And then we're going to start spamming the hell out of you. So people have got wise to it and they use disposable email addresses, or they put like mouse at Disney dot com or something like that as their email address. Um, and so there's a lot of debate and we've had a lot of conversations internally about whether this stuff really works anymore. And where are you on this idea of keeping content hidden until somebody tells you who they are?

I think the thing is, like the reality of the situation is, and where we'll always end up, I think is unfortunately, as my history teacher said to me once when I was, I think, sixteen years old, the thing you keep getting wrong is that you expect there to be a right answer, and there isn't. There's never a right answer. It's always depends. Yeah. And I think, you know, unfortunately with this will be the same thing. I'm sure for some markets it works fantastically well. I'm sure that if you know the value of somebody's email address like is in, if you have like a fantastically good email marketing machines set up on the other end of that, and you get that email address and you can put that into a workflow, and you can bombard people with messages that absolutely convert them every time and offer real value. Then the amount of downloads that you lose by putting the gate up is probably worthwhile. It probably makes sense, but unless that's the case, it just adds so much friction to the process. I mean, I've had to talk so many clients down and to be fair, sometimes unsuccessfully, like we've done stuff quite recently where we've put, you know, sort of track records up for people that are gated and, you know, quote unquote sensitive information. And even for one client helped them write a disclaimer that explained why they were getting their content and that it was definitely worth downloading, which tells you everything you need to know about how that's going to go. Yeah. Um, I just think it just adds so much friction. Like people really can't be bothered. And you get hounded nowadays for your email address all the time. And I just think an awful lot of people, especially people who are in sort of decision making positions, are very leery about opening their inbox up to yet more spam. And I think that's, again, you just have to consider the context of what you're doing. You know, if if you're trying to get in front of a chief financial officer or, you know, whatever and persuade them about something, do you think that person has time to sign up to something that's going to spam their email inbox? Probably not. They're wise to the tactic. And, you know, I think unless you can do it incredibly well, it's probably a waste of time.

Well, this is it. And I think that's exactly the point that needs to be made. So I've remembered now it wasn't search engine journal. It was marketing donut. Ah yeah. So it was the email came in. It promised something moderately interesting.

Yeah, they always do. Yeah.

But it was gated. So I just want to hell with that. Yeah. And I never bothered. Um, and I think the key to that is it was moderately interesting. And if you're going to get content, it needs to be the sort of content where people will absolutely just like they'll even give you money to get access to that piece of content, you know, obviously paywalls, a conversation we could have. But because like last time on this podcast, I think I talked about what a disaster a lot of newspaper websites are because they're we're not using paywalls.

But it is true. I mean, it's true. I mean, one of the successful examples of gated and paywalled content that I can think of offhand, like industry reports where, you know, you can download. For example, the Self Storage Association published a report every year that shows you like industry trends and how many new businesses have opened and all that sort of data is so useful that people can and will pay for it. But unless it's that interesting, it's really not going to work. And just to sort of link this back to what we were saying at the beginning, Marketing Donut published something that was moderately interesting. And if they'd given it to you, you might remember them later. You might, you know, you might be walking about, you know, thinking, oh, I wish I could solve that problem. I know, I wonder if those guys at Marketing Donut have written about this, but they missed that opportunity. They lost it and they lost your attention because they put up a stupid gated content thing. And that's yeah.

I mean, yeah, just to reiterate, the gated content was, was only, um, unwise. He's putting it diplomatically, um, because the content wasn't something I was desperate for. Yeah.

So had you been desperate for it, you probably would have bunged in your email address.

I would have. Yeah. Which just answers the question, you know. Yes. Gated content makes sure it's good to play, but make sure it's outstandingly good. Yeah. Go on. What have you got on your list?

Um, that is.

There was one thing on your list.

It was one long and convoluted thing.

Well, it was only long and convoluted because I got involved in the conversation and actually fleshed it out a bit.

Well, I mean, the thing is, really, this last week has been I mean, the beginning of the month is always a little bit like this for us. We plan, we do a lot of planning for clients, and then we start writing and then get that out of the way.

So did you just did you just say, get it out of the way?

Yeah. Why should I not? Are we not being that honest?

It sounds a bit like, uh. Like what? You were just telling people what not to do.

Nah, you can do it well and do it quickly. It's just. It's one of those things, isn't it? You just got to get that.

It's a definite swan moment going on at the moment. He's like, just still trying to give us the impression he's gliding along after dropping that bombshell about just getting it out of the way. But underneath his flippers are going like the clappers.

I'd make a magnificent swan, thank you very much.

Okay, I tell you what I was. I was on the golf course last week and a swan. I was walking around. I was just, um. I can't remember if I was playing with Julie's husband or whoever, but yeah, so Swan, because there's a number of swans and they have young on, on the, on the lot next to the golf course every year. And, uh, there was one of these swans out flying and it's always impressive seeing swans flying because they are big.

Yeah. I remember the first time I saw a swan on land. I was really quite creeped out by it, because you don't realise just how big they are until they're standing sort of three foot away from you and it's bigger than you.

They're big birds. Um, what else happened last week? And I don't know if I don't know if there's a point to this, but, um, kind of recorded half a podcast. So I, I, I'm involved in another podcast with Alertise, the strategy execution software for not for profits. And we had a guest on. So Steve and the guest are in Perth, Western Australia, and I'm here in Scotland and um, we've tried various things. We've, we've tried some of the tools where you can record and we got let down, um, because the tool basically lost the connection or did something and it didn't record what was actually quite a good podcast. And so we were looking for other ways to do it. And I, you know, we use this, uh, little zoom, whatever it's called zoom h6. I think it's called Google Zoom h6. It's not, not you people listening.

You can Google it to see if you're right.

Anyway, it's a Zoom h6. It's a fantastic little piece of kit. Um, and then we use these lovely.

And it seems relatively bomb proof.

Sure. SM seven microphones which let you get that nice DJ sound if you want it. And that's all good. Um, but what Steve does at the other end is he started using GarageBand and instead of like preparing for this podcast, he went he went to their office to record it. And it looks like what he's done is actually recorded the audio used. And it's used the microphone on his headset to record the audio. So it's like we're going to use it because.

It was a what choice do you have?

Well, no, we could redo it, but it was a good conversation. But it was um, it's just a bit echoey and going back to gated content and content. Generally speaking, I think maybe the point to this is if you're going to do a podcast, and we were in conversation with a number of customers and clients who are about to start doing podcasts with our help. Um, because we've learned a lot doing this From The Coalface podcast. And the Alertise strategy podcast that we do. Um, and we've got a few other podcasts, um, in, in the early stages of being developed, but just like spending a couple of quid on some decent gear, that's very simple. Like, you know, when we record this, I, you know, we, we get the microphones from, you know, that desk behind you and we plugged them into the Zoom h6. We know where the levels need to be because we've done it a hundred times. We press a button, a single button, and it's recording this really high quality video and audio rather. Um, well, if Leslie's in the office that day, sometimes we record video as well and sync it up. But, um, we, I think podcasting is still like growing and something that businesses should consider, especially if there's not many or if or maybe even sometimes no people, nobody in your space, no companies in your space doing it. Consider it. But like, don't take the kind of, uh, Heath Robinson approach to getting it right. I mean, there are ways to get this stuff right. We might get away with that one. Um, like I say, there wasn't really much of a point except, you know, at the coalface, I recorded half a podcast. Not my fault. Steve's fault? He was being silly.

It's a tricky thing, isn't it? Because not not to get too meta about it, but like, yeah, you're asking somebody to invest time and effort in listening to something like this. I think if the audio quality is bad and they have to work hard to understand it, that's a big ask. Do you know what I mean? Like to stick with that and to listen to it all.

I've listened right through to podcasts that were bad from an audio quality point of view, but the content was fantastic.

And that's the thing.

But I've listened like five minutes in to a podcast that was a really, really interesting subject, but not quite interesting enough for me to tolerate the bloody awful audio quality. And it's, you know, you don't have to spend a fortune to get it right. But if you're going to do it, take some advice. We're happy to give you advice if you need it, but do it right.

Well, the other thing I think that's really true is like, to your point about rerecording, one thing I've learned doing this is that an awful lot of time, you know, podcasts are better when they are natural and sort of off the cuff and worse when they are planned and rehearsed. And I think key to all of this is you probably can't really rerecord a podcast because you got it a bit wrong. You could try, but it's probably not going to be very good. Probably sound a bit stilted and a bit weird.

Well, if you've planned it out, Like, you know, we plan out these because as we scribble things down, as the week progresses, it's not what we're working on, but it's not scripted, obviously. I think people maybe realise that, um, so we've got our notes and what we wanted to talk about. And if, for example, this fantastic Zoom h6.

We could probably pick it up again.

Worked didn't work rather, and we would probably have another bash at it. We did. I think we, we have put at least one podcast in the bin, but I think that was one of the ones where like twenty minutes in, we both looked at each other and went, oh, this is, this is shit. Let's just stop.

We can't force it can, you know, but but we have also, you know, had stuff happen in the past where, yeah, we have sort of lost. And I think it's that thing where you're trying to write something. We've all been there where you've written something in your head, not managed to get pen to paper in time. You sit back down and you try and recapture that initial thing and it just never works. It's never quite as good as it could be. So yeah, like you say, I think just make sure you sort of intending to get it right the first time because there isn't really a do over, I don't think.

No. Agreed. Okay. Good stuff. Okay. I think we've done that to death. Uh, you're listening to Dave and Alex on the, um, from the coalface Digital Marketing From the Coalface podcast. I nearly said the Not For Profit Strategy podcast, not for profits strategy podcast.

Have you been moonlighting on another job? Have you been cheating on. I have.

Um, if you want to sending any questions, uh, anything related to the stuff we're talking about, or if you've got any comments on the format that we now use this kind of easy, easy chat about our week at the coalface of digital marketing, then we'd love to hear from you. You can get in touch with us at red evolution dot com. In the meantime, let's, um. Well, it's no time to pack up for the day, isn't it? I suppose it is, yeah. And the weather's finally turning to autumn after the late summer that we've had. Yeah. Just which way now I'm going to stop.