Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:01:42]

If you've been in business for 2 years or more, you've probably created a shit ton of content from blogs to emails to social media posts - there's so much content. And it's multiplying like rabbits.

But wouldn't you like to get more out of all of the hard work you're putting in? If you want to do less but better marketing, it's time to resurface and repurpose some of your best pieces.

But how do you do that?

When Andrea Jones mentioned in the Expert Up Club that she just finalized a process to find the best of the best content, I knew I needed to have her on the podcast to talk about how she's repurposing her content as Andrea has been creating content for years, she has so much of it.

Now if you don't know Andrea Jones, she is a social media strategist helping brands with bold personalities, bold opinions, and bold ideas make bold moves toward elevating their thought leadership. and growing their business using the power of social media. So let's dive into this conversation with Andrea so you can get more from each piece of content you create and make your marketing more effective. And suck less, too.

Michelle Mazur[00:01:42]

Get ready for the Rebel Uprising podcast, the only podcast dedicated to business owners who feel overlooked for their expertise, skills, and experience. Let's claim your expertise and turn your complex ideas into unmistakable messaging that grows your business. I am your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur, the author of The Three Word Rebellion and your Rebel Truth Telling guide to building a business that gets noticed.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:14]: Andrea! Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited that you're here with us today.

Andrea Jones [00:02:16]: Yay. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:16]: One of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is because in the Expert Up Club, we were having a conversation about repurposing. And you and I have something in common. We've been in business for quite some time, we have created a massive body of work. There's some gems in there, but I'm finding it really hard to dig out those gems, resurface them, repurpose, reuse them. So I wanted to dive into this topic because I know we're not alone. Like, if you've been in business for probably more than 2 years, you have a crop ton on content. So the first question I wanted to ask you is when you are looking to repurpose content, how do you choose what to repurpose when you're practically drowning in your body of work?

Andrea Jones [00:03:11]: Yes. This whole conversation started for me when I was pregnant. Fairly immediately my energy dropped. So, like, if I'm going at a 100% every day, I was operating at, like, 30%. I was like, Oh, we have to change something very quickly. So that's when I started leaning in on repurposing. And so that's the big question. Right? how do we know what to repurpose? And I think that especially as social media evolves, marketing evolves in general, it's not as easy as it used to be. You know, we used to just take the same square graphic with a caption and post the same thing to, like, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:55]: Yes!

Andrea Jones [00:03:56]: We can't really do that as much anymore. The repurposing conversation for me starts with the core concepts, you know, the themes that happen in the conversations in your business. And so taking a deep dive into, you know, what are the themes that I talk about very often.

I use Airtable for this. Some of my clients use Notion for this. You can use a spreadsheet, use a Google doc, but just starting to list out the themes that I think represent you know, what I work on social media mindfulness, content repurposing, values-based business. So those are the things that I like to associate myself with. And then I actually would go through my content and try to pull out micro pieces of ways that I would say this. I started doing it myself and then full transparency my team does it for me now.

I would listen back to my podcast on 2x, sometimes 2.5x speed, to hear my little chipmunk voice and look for not just the things that I was saying, but how I was describing it. Analogies, stories, things that I think are a little bit different from what people say and especially the bits that are relatable. For example, one of the things that I said years ago was about, like, taking your phone to the bathroom with you.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:25]: Oh my gosh. That is so relatable.

Andrea Jones [00:05:27]: We all do it, right? But, like, we weren't doing that 10 years ago or 15 years ago. It's a new thing, right? So now I bring that up a lot, and it's in my, like, digital database of, like, this is something relatable that we all relate to, and I reference to it again. So that's kind of where this whole process started. And when it comes to like choosing what to pick, it's a mix of like intuition and really knowing who you're talking to. so intuition on, like, what I think will really illustrate my expertise the best and then knowing how to translate that to language that my audience connects with.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:08]: So how did you figure out the language that your audience connects with? Cause I think that is also a big stumbling block for a lot of business owners.

Andrea Jones [00:06:16]: The thing is too, I tend to geek out about the data a little bit, a lot bit. But I started with my top-performing podcast episodes. So podcasting is my main thing. We have over 250 episodes It’'s what I do, what I spend the most time on. So I looked at the top episodes from the past couple of years and noticed where the trends were. And so I started with those concepts because as much as I love talking about the data, my data episodes just don't perform that well. I did one a couple of months ago about engagement rates, and I loved it and people were just like, eh okay, you know? So, we're not gonna pull a lot from that episode. We may pull a lot from the episodes that really resonate with people.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:06]: I think that's really funny because I am also, like, a research data person and I know that if I'm like…You need to do voice-of-customer research! People will be like, I am not listening to this episode.!

Andrea Jones [00:07:19]: It's so funny how that happens because we, I mean, we have to look at it, but someone described it to me as, feeling like they're doing a weigh-in on, like, some wacky diet plan. where they felt like they had to step on the scale every week to, like, see how much weight they lost. So that's how it felt to them. I was like, oh, okay. I relate to this. And I don't wanna be the person who says step on the scale every week. So I have been trying to find ways to illustrate that a little bit more, make it a little bit of a lighter lift. But I love it so much that I'm like, what, how do you not wanna, like, dig into your Instagram Reel analytics and see long someone watched it integrate real. What?!

Michelle Mazur [00:08:01]: You're like, you're gonna learn so much. It's so cool. And I think a of people are like, oh, yeah. I'm gonna learn how much that I suck at this versus, like, oh, no. I can figure out, like, what's working double down on it.

So you've resurfaced what to repurpose. What are your next steps as you and your team start repurposing your content? What is the process that you go through?

Andrea Jones [00:08:35]: I use this on social media, but first in other areas in my marketing, which I think is key because a lot of repurposing talks about reposting to social. But social is the last step for me a lot of times.

Right now, we're doing a lot of this with our email marketing. So I like to write storytelling based almost like marketing mindset style newsletters every week. And so looking back at the top performing ones and during pregnancy when I first had my baby, I was just straight up, like, these performed well 5 years ago. We're gonna share them again now. We're just gonna update, you know, swap out IGTV for TikTok, and we're gonna go. You know? Readdressing it to fit the present day. But then we started getting more elegant and pairing ideas. And I think this is where having the database is helpful because in my Airtable base, I call it the digital brain. I can go back to an analogy I use. Like, social media is like dating, but I wanna make a new reference to today. And so it may take social media is like dating and then pair it with a new concept, like, I don't know polygamy. We don't want, you know, polygamy is not for everybody. So we're gonna be, focused on one social media network instead of dating them all. So, it's some people. It's great for them. For others, it may not fit for your lifestyle. So, you know, taking an older analogy and concept and then pairing it with may maybe something new that I said. And that comes from reviewing my digital brain. So I'll literally just comb through and look and repurpose that to the newsletter. And then they also become social media posts. So If something really resonates with my email list, then I'll turn it into social media content. And so it really starts with a larger podcast

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down into the email newsletter, and then it goes into social media content.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:27]

Yah, that’s funny. That's exactly what I teach inside of the Club. I call it the content waterfall. It's like, what is your overarching theme for what you're creating? And then what are supporting pieces, which are your blog posts, your podcasts, and then you take it and get your newsletter from that, and then it trickles down to social media. If you wanna be on social media.

Andrea Jones [00:10:48]: Right! And I think this is the other thing about this is we've been able to produce more content with less effort and people keep saying, Andrea, it seems like you're everywhere. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm not. I promise you it's like a lot of repurposing. Even taking simple things like a social media post that worked well in the past and recording it as a TikTok or an Instagram reel. Or, you know, taking a carousel post and turning that into just one static image instead of, you know, 10 slides. So it's we're saying a lot of the same things, and we reuse a lot of content. We just kind of reformat it as we reuse it.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:27]: Alright. So I already hear kind of an objection in my head that I know people are gonna have But what if somebody knows that I've said this before?

Andrea Jones [00:11:36]: Yes. So this is and I forget the psychological term for it. something about, like, feeling like a spotlight is on you? Yeah. The spotlight effect.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:45]: Yeah. The spotlight effect. Yes.

Andrea Jones [00:11:44]: Because we see our stuff all the time really value it. And so when people say that, I ask them to think of one social media post they saw last week. It's so rare. It's so rare to remember one. We kinda remember the concept maybe or how we felt, but we don't remember it word for word. And we consume a lot of social media content. Remember, poop scrolling. Like, we're all we're all doing this. So it's reinforcement in a way that's very similar to, like, a commercial jingle. You know, the first two or three times we hear it, we don't really remember it. And then suddenly, we're, like, humming it in our heads. You know, it's not because of one time of seeing it. And so when we repeat ourselves in our marketing, it actually reinforces our values, our concepts, our philosophies in a way that's very manageable to us as like a person putting ourselves out there in the world

Michelle Mazur [00:12:42]: Yes. I agree. One of my best performing social media post is something like, I can't remember what I ate for dinner 3 nights ago. Why am I gonna remember what you posted on social media 2 weeks ago.

Andrea Jones [00:12:54]: Yes. Exactly.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:46]: And people are like, oh, because I feel like, especially in the online space, there's, like, create content, create content, create content, and you're on this hamster wheel, but you've created some good shit that needs to come back to the surface, but I think we're afraid, like, oh, well, people are thinking I'm not working so hard. It’'s such a weird mindset.

Andrea Jones [00:13:22]: It is. And, like, if we look at big brands, they're doing this too. Like, challenge you when pumpkin spice latte comes around, it's the same stuff. They may change the colors a little bit, some of the language, but it's the same content. every year for pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks. And now other companies do the same thing. It's not like Starbucks has a monopoly on pumpkin spice lattes, but it's kind of like a thing that happens every year around the fall and they reuse the same content and they post the same content to cross all of their channels in their email marketing on their website if a major company with teams and teams of people are doing this,I promise me you have permission to do this too.

Michelle Mazur [00:14:05]: Yeah. And especially they know it works. It's been optimized. Like, they have tested it. They know what works. They know that they can change things. It's the same like with their Christmas promotion. we all know we're gonna get a new kind of red cup, and they're gonna have some new drinks, but they're just repurposing all of that. And I think because I have a background in corporate I'm like, look at how these big companies are marketing and do that. Like, not to the scale, but, like, some of their principles really work for no matter what size business you have.

Andrea Jones [00:14:43]: Exactly. And I think that's part of the permission that I'm hoping that I can give experts and business owners is we hold ourselves to high standards and we want to be creative and have creative outlets and produce custom content, but there's only so much we can give. And so I'm not saying everything has to be repurposed, but if we can start thinking about our content in a way that we're gonna repurpose it one day, we may actually make different decisions about how we create that content too.

For instance, my podcast, I record audio and video, and it goes on YouTube. I tend to interrupt myself a lot when I talk so pulling a clip from the podcast was becoming challenging for my team. And so we sat down and talked about what clips they were choosing, and they told me, Andrea, you keep interrupting yourself so we were having trouble, like, picking out a clip. Now when I record podcasts or if I'm on podcast, I try to be very mindful about choosing my words in such a way that this can be repurposed later. Let's finish the story, Andrea, don't interrupt yourself. And that has really helped starting from the very beginning of my creative process and going, this is going to become other forms of content one day. has really helped me create

a better creative process at right at the beginning.

Michelle Mazur [00:16:07]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Alright. So we are gonna get nerdy and talk about data. So how are you tracking what works when it comes to your marketing?

Andrea Jones [00:16:15]: Yes. So I, again, use Airtable. I'm an Airtable fan girl. and I input certain data points. followers is kind of like top-of-the-line. Kf this number is growing, It's like very lightly I'm headed in the right direction. I look at engagement, not the number, but the engagement rate. So out of all of my followers, what percentage of them are engaging with my content? That's more important to me than engagement as a number by itself. And then I look at intent or intent to take an action. So if we're on Instagram, for instance, how many people actually went to the profile? how many people actually click the link in the bio? Cause that's kinda what I want. So I track those numbers on a larger scale. And I looked at the month over month, to make sure I'm headed in the right direction. For repurposed content, specifically, I look at my top-performing content pieces. So every single month, I do keep track of 3 to 5 posts that did really well. This is so that I can just straight up, repost them again next year. Now I will say this, engagement rates have gone down. just overall. This is where I'm, like, geeking out in my podcast. So even though I'm straight up reposting something that worked well last year to this year, the overall percentage of my audience that is engaging has gone down across the board. So that specific post has actually gone down. as well. so let's say last year it got 70 likes. This year it got 60 likes. Right? So The engagement has gone down a little bit, but if I start really digging into it, it's 60 completely different people. So to me, it's a win because I'm reaching new people with this content piece that I already created. The kind of friend to this, the partner to this strategy is also creating new content as well. So by repurposing my content, I'm able to then make space like test new theories and test new content as well because I don't have time to create new content every single day. So the time that I save by repurposing, I then test new strategies and new content pieces. And so then the following year, hopefully, I'll have newer, fresher content to then repurpose again.

Michelle Mazur [00:18:36]: Interesting. I wanna follow up on engagement rates because I find this interesting. So what is happening? Why are they going down? Cause I think this is good to know because if you're doing a social media experiment and it doesn't seem to be working, it might not be you.

Andrea Jones [00:18:53]: Yeah. It's very much like When the economy goes down, it's not just like your business that's seeing less business. It's kind of everyone's business is seeing less business. That's what's happening on social media right now. A few theories that are happening are the post-pandemic thing where we spent so much time on the internet during the pandemic that we crave other outlets at the moment. So there's just not as much logging in. There is way more content than there ever has been. So the feeds are very crowded and highly competitive spaces, and people are changing platforms. So the only platform where engagement increased was TikTok. TikTok saw a 5% increase across the board from 2021 to 2022. Every other platform saw decreases in engagement So people are going to other platforms. And I think there are other things that aren't even considered in this platform Substack to me feels like a social network, even though long form content, it's very social. But it's not often included in these reports on social networks. So I have no idea if people left Facebook and Instagram to go to Substack. I don't have that data. But one of the theories is that they're going into smaller containers to be a community with people.

Michelle Mazur [00:20:09]: That makes sense. Even from a psychological view, like, we're all seeking a place to belong. And sometimes when you go on Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever, you feel somehow “other’d” So, like, finding the smaller communities on, like, Substack or, you know, paid communities that fit your identity, I feel like that's where people want to go. They wanna just be with their, I'm thinking of the Cheers theme. Sometimes you just wanna go where everybody knows your name.

Andrea Jones [00:20:42]: Yes. You know, you nailed it. I feel like that's what I feel in the Expert Up Club. Because I don't fit in a lot of marketing spaces because of the way my philosophy about marketing is different from other marketers. So I don't fit in that room. And then I don't fit in the room with, like, traditional business owners because I'm in the online space. And so I do sometimes feel like in social media there's this expectation as a marketer that I'm gonna show up in a certain way, and I just don't. I don't have the time to live and breathe Instagram all day. I just don't fit in in a lot of these places, and so I definitely see that shifting in the future. of people finding their intentional group and they're spending a lot of time there instead of trying to be like mass marketed to literally everybody on the world.

Michelle Mazur [00:21:37]: Exactly. Exactly. Alright. So I have one final question for you. What's one thing you're doing to make marketing suck less?

Andrea Jones [00:21:46]: Oh, having fun. So this is where content repurposing has opened up space for me. I am just playing on social media a little bit more instead of everything being so structured and it's having some really good emotional benefits. We'll see what the reports say at the end of the day, but emotionally, I feel like I'm having more fun connecting when I can show up with a little bit more of a human side instead of a marketer and a business owner than I'm, you know, I'm trying to make money. So this sometimes means just sharing my thoughts asking questions, and participating in a little bit of a different way. And it makes marketing suck less because then it doesn't feel like I'm just looking at all of my followers as dollar signs. You know?

Michelle Mazur [00:22:30]: Yeah. It's interesting because, like, Threads has been really good for that for me. Like, I just kind of I wanna post a picture of my cat. I pokes a picture of my cat. If I have something snarky to say, I'm just snarky. I told someone, like, I'm choosing the chaos strategy when it comes to marketing. because I feel like it's marketing and be such a heavy lift, especially when you're juggling, like, client delivery and sales. Like, it's a lot. And, yeah, we can have just a tiny bit more fun with it and just be who we are and say the things that we wanna say. It definitely makes marketing suck less for me too.

Andrea Jones [00:23:09]: I do feel like though you're very unapologetic about your approach anyway, which I admire, And so I I feel like that's why I'm attracted to people like you and Maggie Patterson. Like, you both just just say what's on your mind, and I'm always I feel like I filter myself a little bit, and so absolutely on threads. I'm like, can we can we say the fuck word here? Like, can we Can I play a little bit? Like, I don't usually do this, but let me, like, lose a little bit, and it feels good. It feels really good.

Michelle Mazur [00:23:37]: Yeah. It it won't, you know, like, I think there's so many rules that go along with social media, especially, like, you're on LinkedIn. And if you're, like, your post needs a great hook. Otherwise, no one's ever going to read it. And then you need to do it storytelling in this specific way, and there's so many rules that when you can just like let loose and say whatever you wanna say. It's just so freeing.

Andrea Jones [00:24:00]: Yes. 100%. And I think I do think this is the direction that social media is going, and it gives me a little tiny bit of like an existential crisis moment where I'm like, oh, am in the right place? Cause I feel like what I've been teaching for the past decade is changing. And now I have to think about where this is going. But if I just lean into like the community side of it, I feel really good about, like, let's just be a human, make connections, and enjoy.

Michelle Mazur[00:24:29]: Yeah. I love it. So, Andrea, tell everyone where they can find you.

Andrea Jones [00:24:34]: I'm at OnlineDrea dot come. That's OnlineDrea everywhere on social. So if you search that, you'll find me. And then my website on OnlineDrea.com, we have the podcast. I have lots freebies right on the homepage that you can sign up for and just enter into my world and get my different perspective on social media marketing.

Michelle Mazur [00:24:54]: Alright. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been a great conversation.

Andrea Jones [00:25:00]: Thank you so much for having me.

Michelle Mazur [00:25:02]: Now you are ready to do more with the content you've already created. We work so hard creating each piece of content that frankly, it doesn't make sense that we create something once, put it out there once, and then never use it again. As business owners, especially those who are juggling client delivery sales and marketing, we need to work less hard and get more from each thing we create.

And one thing I'd like to call out from this interview with Andrea is don't be afraid to look at your metrics. Find out what's working, what's resonating, what's not, because you want to resurface the best pieces. And the only way to figure that out is by looking at the numbers.

If you want to hang out and tap into the wisdom of other experts like Andrea Jones, she is a member of the Expert Up Club, and we'll be having our next open house for this one of a kind community that will happen on September 20th. You can RSVP at drmichellemazur.com/openhouse to join other experts like Andrea getting the message out about their business

Michelle Mazur [00:26:34]: If the Rebel Uprising podcast is helping you claim and communicate your expertise so that your clients can find and hire you, please share the show with a friend.

The easiest way to do that is through PodLink. You can find the show at pod.link/rebel, and that page will allow anyone you share the show with to subscribe and start listening in their favorite podcast player. That's pod.link/rebel.

The Rebel uprising podcast is a production of Communication Rebel. Our production coordinator is Jessica Gulley-Ward of Juggling Logistics. Our sound engineer is Stephen Mills. Rebel Uprising podcast is recorded on the unseated traditional land of the coast Salish Peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duamish people, original stewards of the land past and present.