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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast! New episodes coming in July!
On today's episode, you'll hear from a cofounder that's cracked the code on creating entertaining content that brings in serious business. This is the be a marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Sherest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business, even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
Dave Charest:Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be a Marketer Podcast. As always, grateful for your attention. And please join me in welcoming my partner in podcast, the one and only KelsI Carter. Hi, KelsI.
Kelsi Carter:Hi, Dave. I like that title. That was kinda cool.
Dave Charest:Oh, there you go. I've got a whole series of things ready for you now. I've got a list of things to try
Kelsi Carter:Oh, do you?
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see how this goes as we
Kelsi Carter:So now you don't have to think about how to introduce me every time.
Dave Charest:You know, I was I was getting worried. I'm like, all I ever say is, here she is, Kelsi Carter. I'm like, we've we've gotta make these more interesting. So prepare yourself, but partner in podcast works for today. Yes.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Kelsi Carter:Prepare yourself. She is here.
Dave Charest:Here she is. She is here. Here now is she. Anyway, I'll stop that. KelsI, the big question for you.
Dave Charest:Would you ever consider starting a business with a sibling?
Kelsi Carter:Oh, I mean, with my sibling, no.
Dave Charest:Somebody else's sibling might be okay.
Kelsi Carter:Somebody else's, yes. But my own, no. Because I just don't think that would go very well.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I think sometimes it takes a very specific type of family relationship, relationship, I think, to make those things happen. And and often many businesses do it. Right? I think this is what's interesting.
Dave Charest:You have those family run businesses. But then there are those that are kind of a dysfunctional family unit to begin with, which does not translate very well into a business setting. Right? So Absolutely. One of those things you gotta look out for.
Dave Charest:The good news is that, of course, our guest today is someone who actually did that, started a business with his brother. And spoiler alert, it wasn't very easy at first. But I think they ended up, doing alright for themselves. Kelsey, what can you tell us about our guest today?
Kelsi Carter:Today's guest is Dan Knowlton. He is the cofounder and chief marketing officer of Knowlton, which is a marketing agency based in The United Kingdom. So Dan and his brother Lloyd started their marketing agency, Knowlton, back in 2015 right out of their parents' spare room. No fancy coffee, no real agency experience, just two brothers who hated their day jobs and wanted something different.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Like many small businesses, right, they didn't exactly have a game plan when they first got started. In fact, Dan admitted to us that he had absolutely no idea what they were doing. And he studied marketing at university and had some business experience after graduating, but neither of them had actually worked in an actual marketing agency before.
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. And the as you said before, the things at the start for them were pretty messy. It wasn't easy for them to work together. They tried a lot of stuff. A lot of it didn't work.
Kelsi Carter:Some of it did, but a lot didn't. So they had completely different personalities and skill sets. So he jokes that they used to argue for days until they figured out how to play with each other's strengths.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Well, it's a good thing they did because today, they've grown their agency, Knowlton, into a successful business that's now creating content and campaigns for big names like Nestle, the BBC, and even Constant Contact. Yay. But, of course, they didn't start there. So let's go to Dan on the pivotal moment that changed the direction of the business.
Dan Knowlton:I think there was one sort of pivotal moment for us in our business where when we just started in our parents' spare room and we were just winging it, we, you know, we were trying and testing lots of different things. We didn't have really have defined roles in the business. It was like, you know, you do this, I'll do that. And one day I was like, I'll do this, you do that. You know, it wasn't we weren't prioritizing our work based on our skill sets and what we're good at.
Dan Knowlton:Eventually, after, like, a few years, we started to realize, ah, Lloyd is way better at this, and I'm way better at sales and marketing. He's way better at kind of managing projects and people. So we actually defined our roles. And at the time, it it seems funny. I think he we decided he's CEO and I was CMO, although we were literally a two person company working from our parents' spare room.
Dan Knowlton:But I guess, like, although it's laughable, it kind of gave us purpose and a role that we could we could work. We had responsibility in a certain area, and that was really the starting point of, I guess, say properly inverted or properly growing the business where we're like, right. You focus on delivering the projects, I'll focus on winning the work, and each week, let's meet and decide certain metrics that we're we're measuring on an ongoing basis to check that I'm delivering what I need to do to make this business a success, and you're delivering what you need to do. And that was, like, I guess, one pivotal moment and that there's a whole range of other things as well on top
Dave Charest:of that. I assume you you're setting goals in all of us too, or did you do any of that stuff, or did you not do that at the beginning?
Dan Knowlton:So thinking back so it started in 2015. We kind of set goals Yeah.
Dave Charest:Ish. Right.
Dan Knowlton:Right. Like, we should try and achieve this. And they go, this is making us sound really rubbish. But we at the start, we were, like, naive. We did not know how to run the business.
Dan Knowlton:So we were like, let's try and win this many clients, not really know what we're doing. But there was there was something I wanna share with with you and the listeners that is something that we did in 2020 that completely changed our business. So we went to this seminar from a guy called James Sinclair, who's, like, a really well known business owner and entrepreneur in The UK. He's got lots of different businesses that are doing really well. And as part of his seminar, one of the things he says was you need an end point.
Dan Knowlton:So whether or not you know what you want to do with your business, whether you know you wanna sell it or you just you you don't wanna sell it, you need to decide an endpoint. What is the endpoint, and what do you what is the ideal outcome for that business? So we never thought of this. So we spent a whole day strategizing around this. So this is the first thing.
Dan Knowlton:What was your endpoint? So we set a ten year goal in 2020, which we're still working towards now. And first of all, it started with, like, revenue and profit metrics. Like, what size do we want the business to be in terms of, like, revenue and profit? And then once we'd set that goal, we then worked backwards and started to ask ourselves, what does the team look like?
Dan Knowlton:You know, to deliver that level of of work at that volume, what kind of structure to our team do we need? And this is obviously ten years down the line, so this is way ahead. And then working backwards from that, you know, what else do we need to do? What kinds of work do we need to be delivering? How does the different types of work that we're delivering sort of work out in a pie chart?
Dan Knowlton:What what what should we do here? What should we do there? So really working backwards from that endpoint, and we we created a whole spreadsheet where we we forecasted, like, year 2020, this is what we need to be doing. This is what the team needs to look like. Twenty twenty one, 20 20 two, 20 three, 20 four, 20 five.
Dan Knowlton:And that activity is something that any small business owner can do, and it can completely change the trajectory of your business as it did for us. Like, we've grown significantly since that point of us being in our parents' spare room, and I think that it was down to that. Like, one of the main factors is is setting those end points.
Dave Charest:Yeah. It's interesting how that really does make a huge difference. Right? Because, like, I feel like you're just kinda you're doing stuff, but then once you kinda set the goals, you're kinda doing stuff more pointedly. There's a purpose behind it.
Dave Charest:And you well, you know why you're doing it. Right? Like, okay. What to your point, working backwards and just knowing how to get there, and I think it's the same for, okay. Now we know what I'm trying to do this.
Dave Charest:So what does that mean from a marketing perspective? Right? Like, how do we have to approach that, and what works there were there for that? So I love that. And that's something that we hear lot, actually.
Dave Charest:So well, good thing you went to that somewhere. Right? Like
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Yeah. Seriously, It completely changed. And and I think that that was that was the starting point. Like, that was a starting point for to us from going to from naively starting a business to just doing some random stuff, and we got lucky sometimes and want some clients and did some good work to actually having a structure and an endpoint.
Dan Knowlton:That was the start point to us actually thinking like, oh, wow. We've actually got a proper business. Now we need to come up with processes. Now we need systems. Other things I'm thinking of that were pivotal moments for us utilizing, like, different software to attract customers that we're you that we're working with and and, you know, using tools like Slack to communicate with customers and, like, building in these these small things that are like, oh, that's only just a little tool that will help us.
Dan Knowlton:All these tools come together to help you to actually run a business efficiently and effectively and make your life easier. Like, before using those tools, it's like you're just randomly doing stuff, and it's a a big mess.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Well, talk to me about this then. Right? Because, like, I feel like also too. Right?
Dave Charest:Like, I agree. Sure. Tools, right, are helpful, but sometimes the tool itself is a roadblock. Right? Because now you gotta figure out depending on the tool.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, some things are designed better than others, but you also have to say, okay. Now I gotta now I gotta figure out how to use this tool. Right? And so you gotta submit the time to do that.
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. I guess in the early days, we were kind of very time rich. We were customer poor in terms of, like, we didn't have customers, but we had all the time in the world. And also, like, when we started our business, we did it at a stage where I had I didn't have a house. I lived with my parents.
Dan Knowlton:I didn't have children. So it was that time of life where it's like, we can take risks and we can, like Right. Work at the weekend and learn how to use this random tool and then implement it and, like, oh, it failed. Let's try another one. And it's I even had a call with a guy the other day that he he was starting an agency and he was, like, a small business agency, he was asking me for kind of advice on whether he should quit his job now and just go for it.
Dan Knowlton:And I was like, you've got to these things take time. This was another thing that we learned quickly. Like, it it's taken us so much longer to get to where we are now than I've thought at the start point. I thought looking you look you can pay yourself to everyone else, don't you? Look at all these other successful small business owners.
Dan Knowlton:They're smashing it. You know, within a year, they've grown. They've hired this massive team. It's literally taken us nine years to get to the point now where I feel like we're actually really kind of making a mark in our industry. And I think too often, we we see other people, like industry leaders, and think they've done it in a in a year.
Dan Knowlton:You know? We can do that. So that patience part has been so key to to us as well.
Dave Charest:Well, that thing too is I mean, I think that's a fallacy on many levels too. Right? Because we only see, like, the the outward piece of it. Right? They're like, oh, now they're an overnight success, but they're you know, to your point, there was probably nine years behind that overnight success too that happened.
Dave Charest:Right? It's like, alright. Calm down. You know? But Yeah.
Dave Charest:It's funny how oftentimes I mean, I think social media plays into this a lot too, how it can kinda make these comparison moments where you probably shouldn't have them. Right? But tell me about, like, what do you love most, I guess, about running the business that you've been doing this now for a while?
Dan Knowlton:I personally like, my my role as CMO is I I kind of manage all the new business for our agency. So all the sales and all the marketing, kind of head up with our with our team supporting us. Two things that I absolutely love. One is delivering amazing work for our clients. Like, there's nothing better than getting positive feedback when you and your team have put all this effort into a project and you've, like, spent all these hours and effort and then it delivering great results and then the client being really happy.
Dan Knowlton:I think that's amazing. It just makes you feel good. Secondly, with from a selfish marketing sales perspective, they then spend more, and, you know, it helps grow the business. But I guess aside from that, I really get a buzz from pitching and winning new business with new customers. It's just so yeah.
Dan Knowlton:I feel like it's almost like a game of really and and I've I've read loads of books around sales and stuff. There's a there's a really there's two really good books that that really helped me to kind of carve my teeth in sales and marketing, which I think all small business owners should read. One is Gap Selling by a guy called Keenan. It really made me understand sales and how to sell people stuff. It basically talks about the gap between where your customer wants to be and where they are now and the impact of that gap and how you can sell to that gap, basically.
Dan Knowlton:And there's loads of great frameworks and insights, and I I still utilize that framework in all of my sales calls. So so that's something I really recommend, to do with sales that people read. The second one is is a qualification framework called MEDDPIC, which is really great. It really helps you qualify deals. A kind of funny story, a silly mistake we made early on in the business.
Dan Knowlton:We had no idea what quali qualifying potential leads was. We didn't know what that was. So I remember spending hours and hours dealing with this potential lead. We spent, like, two days developing this whole plan. I drove for two hours each way to present to them only to find out they had, like, a £50 budget because I hadn't qualified them and checked that they had you know I mean?
Dan Knowlton:So it's like Yeah. We've learned so much from making these silly mistakes. I'm sure lots of other small business owners have done the same, and that's that's how we we plan.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Well, I'd love to get into some of this. Right? So I know I know, know, as we've been talking, as you're mentioning now, of course, like the first two years of running your business, right? Like a lot of the marketing stuff that you were doing kind of, you know, you tried, tested, you know, failed with some of that stuff, which again, to present us another way, I mean, today you're doing you're obviously doing well for yourselves, but you're also, you know, running million dollars.
Dave Charest:You're bringing in million dollars of revenue for clients and stuff like that. So not to make it sound like, man, what the hell are these guys doing? Right? Yeah. But but it's true.
Dave Charest:Right? When you get started, you learn these things. So I don't know. Share some of those things that maybe weren't working for you or that you were learning from even just your point of qualifying. Right?
Dave Charest:So what did you do to then well, like, what changed? How did you rectify that and and anything else you might have?
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Yeah. So we've made so many mistakes over the years. So, yeah, the the qualification one, I think, made that mistake of putting loads of resource into something which where they didn't have any budget. So the mistake was feeling silly and having that emotive like, this feels rubbish.
Dan Knowlton:I need to do something else. So then I my dad's actually been in business for quite a few years, so my first point of call was, this thing happened. What should we be doing? And he was like, oh, I've got a friend who works in sales. Have a chat with him.
Dan Knowlton:And he event he he the first sales qualification framework he gave us was was MAN, m a n, means authority need. Check they've got the means or budget. Check they're the decision maker authority. Check they actually need what you're trying to sell. That was, like, a very basic framework.
Dan Knowlton:He's like, okay. I'll do that. And then we use that for, a year, and it worked really well. Then it started to we got started to get bigger, like, more complex potential opportunities with much bigger well known brands, and we needed a more comprehensive framework. So we started using the GAP framework, then the MedPig framework I mentioned.
Dan Knowlton:So I guess that's one of the big mistakes, like the qualification part of sales.
Dave Charest:Before you jump on, though, wanna ask a question on the the man piece. So are you doing that work? Right? So the qualifying and stuff, are you doing that work pre? Right?
Dave Charest:Like, are you proactively reaching out to people? Like, how did that come into play?
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. I'm trying to think but I know how we do it now because it's fast forward. Back then, our entire marketing strategy back then was inbound. We would basically create educational content to support marketers. We'd learn a new strategy.
Dan Knowlton:I'll give you an example. One of the first things I did in 2015 was I grew my Twitter following by creating content on Twitter, obviously, x now. And and I I did these certain strategies and used certain tools to help me do that. I created an educational article. Here's how we grew to 50,000 Twitter followers and how you can too.
Dan Knowlton:So that attracts marketers who want the same result. They land on our website, on our blog, they read that, they look at what we do, etcetera. So it was all inbound. So at that point, I used the man framework when I had the initial sales call. They would get in touch on a website.
Dan Knowlton:Hi. I read this article about you doing cool stuff on Twitter. Can we have a chat? Yes. Let's have a chat.
Dan Knowlton:We'd have a at that time, it was a lot of in person meetings. Now everything's done on Zoom. But have that use that framework in person. But for anyone listening, I think I would really recommend looking at MEDDPIC. Even if you're early in on this, I wish I had that more comprehensive framework because it's it's actually my friend works in enterprise sales, and it's designed for enterprise sales, but you can apply it to any kind of new business.
Dan Knowlton:And we utilize it in all of our sales. That's really, really effective.
Dave Charest:What else from a marketing perspective that you were, like, know, getting in and you're starting to do and just either for yourself or for your clients? Like, what worked, what didn't work? Yeah. Like, how did you get to this place where you are now? Like, you feel good about what systems you have in place and that type of thing?
Dan Knowlton:I guess the first thing is we spent in the first two years, like, trying and testing lots of different things like we've already discussed. So we created educational blogs. We ran ads. We built websites. We did all of these different these different marketing approaches.
Dan Knowlton:In 2017, we accidentally discovered this unique approach to marketing that now generates millions in sales for our customers. This one framework that we kind of call advertainment or entertaining advertising. Up until that point in 2017, a lot of what we were doing was some of it was working, some of it wasn't, but it was quite boring and dry, like educational content. Like, it was alright, but it kind of we didn't focus on making it enjoyable to consume. I guess that's that's what I'm trying to say here.
Dan Knowlton:Educational content is hugely valuable, but we we did nothing to stand out. So in 2017, we wanted to try something completely new. So we wanted to create this testimonials video to help us drum up new business. But we knew that testimonials videos are pretty boring. Right?
Dan Knowlton:Like, who wants to watch a five minute video of of our customers saying how brilliant we are? It's kind of like, you know, Yawnfest. So we wanted to do something a bit different. So what we did was we went out and shot interviews with our actual customers, like a traditional testimonials video. We asked them questions like, what's it like to work with Knowlton?
Dan Knowlton:How did we help you? All that kind of standard stuff. But what Lloyd and I also did was we dressed up as different characters pretending to be our own customers with wigs and, like, fake mustaches. And it had, like we were, like, saying witty stuff, you know, how brilliant these guys are. It cut to, like, us and then us dressed as random people.
Dan Knowlton:And the so we kind of cut the fake interviews in between the real interviews. And what the fake interviews did was held the attention of the viewer long enough to make them watch the actual real interview with our customers saying good stuff about us. Mhmm. And we we created this, like, five minute testimonials video. And at the end of the five minute testimonials video, this text came up on screen that said, you've literally been watching an advert for our marketing agency for five minutes.
Dan Knowlton:Imagine what we could do for you. Right? So we put that at the end of the five minute testimonials video, posted it on Facebook at the time, which is where we mainly had a presence there. Didn't think much of it. Went to bed.
Dan Knowlton:Woke up the next day. This video has thousands and thousands of views, tons of comments of people not only saying, like, wow, this is such a good piece of content. We love this. But, like, getting in touch with us to to wanna work with us. So that was, like, a real light bulb moment for us that you can you create content that has a kind of highly selfish objective of, like, driving sales.
Dan Knowlton:But if you deliver that in a sort of selfless way, like, if you make it interesting to consume, you can actually get your customers to enjoy the process of consuming the content that convinces them to become a customer, which is is quite an innovative process because traditionally, advertising has been very much, I'm gonna sell this thing to
Dave Charest:you.
Dan Knowlton:We're gonna and, yeah, from there, it kind of all kicked off. We started doing it for brands, and and it worked really well.
Dave Charest:Well, I wanna I wanna come back to it, but I wanna just touch on something that you mentioned here that that I think that's the that's the interesting thing. Right? Particularly when you start thinking about the ability for everyone to cut I mean, everyone in many instances and all marketing today, I think, is all content related. Right? But I think that's kind of the point.
Dave Charest:Like, you can be the thing that people are trying to consume, or you can be the thing that's interrupting them Yes. Or actually be something that if you are interrupting them, you're doing it in a way that they're like, okay. Cool. They don't feel like, skip, skip, skip, skip. Yeah.
Dave Charest:Like, you know what I mean? Exactly. So I'm curious, though. You mentioned, okay, twenty seventeen light bulb moment. Okay.
Dave Charest:Here's what was the impetus for the Like, were you like, oh, nothing's working. Like, this sucks. Like, how did you get to let's try this.
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. No.
Dan Knowlton:No. Really good. Like, the was because we had done some stuff that had worked previously. Although we hadn't grown loads in those previous two years, those educational articles had helped attract new business that we've delivered support for and helped them. Right?
Dan Knowlton:So it kind of worked. But the moment for this this video was the fact that it was a highly sales focused bit of content. You literally could it couldn't have been more focused on drip general business for us. Yeah. It was literally our customer saying, Knowlton are brilliant.
Dan Knowlton:You should work with them. They help you know what I mean? Like Yeah. So whenever we'd previously tried that style of content, especially on social media and other platforms, no response. You know, us bigging up ourselves and saying, we're great.
Dan Knowlton:You should work with us. No one cares about that. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.
Dan Knowlton:Ignore. So this was like, we've just created a highly sales focused piece of content that's generated more organic reach and engagement than any of our value adding exciting content that we thought was exciting at the time. So that light bulb was like, well, we and they they generated loads of new business for us. People saying, I want a video like that. I wanna do my marketing like that.
Dan Knowlton:And then we're like, wow. We can we can do this for brands. Like and and I guess the the closest thing and, it's much bigger scale, but think of, like, Super Bowl ads. Yeah. It's a similar concept to that, creating marketing that people enjoy consuming, and it convinces them to buy stuff.
Dave Charest:So how do you then start thinking about like, talk me through, like, how you then structure the videos to kinda deliver that. Right? Because there's plenty I think there's probably plenty examples of things that I mean, even Super Bowl ads in many levels where you're like, Okay. Great. I I love that, but I don't know who it was for.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, it's not like so how do you then make sure that that you're creating something, again, for yourself or for your clients, right, that is actually gonna lead to something?
Dan Knowlton:Great question. I'm gonna tell you something else that we mucked up that helps answer this question. So after we had the moment, we still tried and tested more content, some content that didn't work so well. And I think some of the content, we went too far down the route of trying to create funny, cool content, but forgetting about the thing like, oh, we're actually still trying to sell stuff. Yeah.
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Like then we went down the route of, like, let's do a reaction video of us doing these weird challenges and stuff, and let's do this. Then it's like, yeah, like, random people are like our parents are like, oh, this is funny. Well, our friends from school are like, yeah, this is cool. But it wasn't helping, like, generate business.
Dan Knowlton:So we had to then go back to the drawing board. Like, what worked about that testimonials video? It was like, oh, it actually combined the entertainment fun element with the sales kind of focused element. So leading on from that, how can, like, small businesses apply this, and what's the starting point? The starting point is asking, who is it you are trying to convince to do something?
Dan Knowlton:It's super important to understand what keeps them up at night, what challenges they're facing that you can solve. And I highly recommend, like, actually going speaking to your customers. I think a lot of marketers think that they just just know the answer. Like, I know that, of course, they're facing these problems. Like, actually going and, again, this is we made these mistakes early on.
Dan Knowlton:We just guessed what our customers' challenges were. Actually, go and speak to them. And even, like I guess, if you haven't got budget, right, think of who's in your network, who's in your family, your friends that is in that target market that you're trying to target. Go and speak to them. Ask them what what challenges they're facing around whatever problem or service it is that you provide.
Dan Knowlton:And that's a starting point, actually understanding who it is you're you're trying to convince to do something.
Dave Charest:It amazes me how simple a thing that is to do and not many people do it. Right? Like, I can even I remember early on, like, in my content career, like, we were going to work with one of our customers to kinda do something, and I was, you know, all proud of myself. Like, I arranged the day, like, in a a way that, like, I thought, alright. This is gonna be really helpful for you.
Dave Charest:And I sent it to him, and and he was like, okay. Great. But this is what I wanna talk about. And it was like a whole like, just ripped it apart and, like, a whole different thing. And I was like, okay.
Dave Charest:A lot of this stuff is the same stuff, but just he was saying it in a different way. And one of the things I'm always like, the worst thing we can do as marketers is sit in a room and try to think we know, like, what the problems are of people. Right? Because, like, even though we might have a general idea, it's the nuances of, like, the actual problem that you miss because Yeah. You're not in the same situation.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, I don't have a like, I'm working for a company. Like, I don't have to make payroll. Like, I don't have to Yeah. Like, I don't have all this other baggage on top of it that makes it difficult to do.
Dave Charest:And so it's just such an easy thing to do. Right? When you're like, okay. Like, yeah, talk to people. Like, because you're gonna learn so much more than guessing, and then you implement.
Dave Charest:Right? And then you can start to see, like, how that changes things. But, like, point well taken there for sure.
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. I think just one thing to add to that, Dave, to go to the deeper level, because I think most people will get that point. Speak to your customers, ask them what their pain points are. Yeah. But focused on what's what's worked for us, and, hopefully, this is adding that next level of value for the listeners, is don't just do the standard stuff of, like, what challenges are you facing?
Dan Knowlton:What do you think of our competitors? Like, yeah, yes, that is useful to an extent. But what we found helps us shape the best advertisement campaigns for some of the world's leading brands is going that next level deeper and actually asking them, like, things like right right now, in your friends' WhatsApp groups where you're chatting with your mates, what are you talking about? What TV shows are you watching? What videos are you sharing with each other?
Dan Knowlton:What, like, food are you talking about? Like, try and understand, like, what are they actually pop culture references and stuff. What are they talking about with their friends? Because you can then start to actually shoehorn your own content ideas and things tapping into those things that they actually care about. And that's how we've got that next level of context of, like, how we create culturally relevant content for the for those people we wanna convince to do stuff.
Dan Knowlton:Understand a deeper level. They're not just Susan who's 40 from London. It's like Susan who's 40 from London, who's currently watching Peaky Blinders on TV, and she really cares about this one character. We could create content because our brand slightly ties into that that could really resonate with her. You know?
Dan Knowlton:And that's a random example, but can you understand how it, like, goes at deeper level?
Dave Charest:Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's a that's a great point to bring up because, like, I think, you know, to your point, what's that famous thing that goes around that's, like, Prince Charles and, like, Ozzy Osbourne. Right? The the same demographic.
Dave Charest:Right? You've seen this thing. Right? But, like
Dan Knowlton:Same age.
Dave Charest:Same. Right? Like and so, like but you're gonna talk to those people, like, completely differently. Right? Like, they're gonna be interested in different things.
Dan Knowlton:That's so true.
Dave Charest:Well, tell me a little bit about, like so, obviously, like, you're doing things like you're building your personal brand as well. You're obviously building the brand of the company. How do you guys find time for your own marketing? And, I mean, is it something that you're doing? Because I know you you, like, you host a podcast, for example.
Dave Charest:So I guess, like, how do you actually find the time to make sure you're marketing on top of actually doing the work that you need to do for clients? Right?
Dan Knowlton:I'll tell you exactly how. Because we when we started out, we faced this exact problem, the classic feast or famine. We do loads of marketing. We get business. We get too busy.
Dan Knowlton:We stop marketing. We've got no business. We have to do loads of marketing. It's like it's like an emotional roller coaster where you're like, too busy. Help me.
Dan Knowlton:And then you're like, not busy enough. More marketing. So after, like, I guess, a year and a half or two years of that, which was really wasn't fun, we did something we called content Thursday. We call it content Thursday, but it's basically marketing Thursdays. Mhmm.
Dan Knowlton:So we were like, right. We need to stop this feast and famine. What should we do? So Lloyd and I and, again, it was just us two in the business at the time. We were like, every Thursday, every week, we are gonna schedule an entire day no matter how busy we are with clients, with anything else.
Dan Knowlton:That Thursday, both of us are spending a whole day working on our marketing, and a big part of that was creating content, but there's a whole range of other things around that. I guess that was the first kind of basic way we did it. We did it like that. And there was no there was no, like, oh, actually, this client wants to do this thing on Thursday. It's like, no.
Dan Knowlton:We are we are sticking to this plan of, like, every Thursday. So the simplest thing is schedule the time to do it. I guess since that point, that was, like, 2017 when we started doing that. We've now evolved a lot further from there. And now, I guess, we treat our own agency as if it's a client.
Dan Knowlton:So we literally we're obviously a run a marketing agency. We do this for lots of brands. I think just after 2017, rather than just Content Thursday, we wanted more flexibility of when we're creating content, what we're doing, how it's gonna work. So we literally started allocating a certain amount of resource to us as if we're a client, and on a monthly basis, creating content, running campaigns, going to events, networking, speaking at events. There's all these different marketing channels we're trying and testing, and we treat ourselves like a like a client and actually made sure we did it.
Dave Charest:I love that on a couple of levels. One, like, yeah, scheduling the time, treating yourself with a client. I think that's a good way to kinda also kick yourself into a different mindset. Right? Because I think sometimes it's easy to kick the bucket.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, know what? We'll do that later or whatever. And then so I think dedicating that time, making it nonnegotiable is is good. I also I think what I like about what you what you guys do in particular too is that you're you're actually doing the thing that you do for clients.
Dave Charest:Right? So you're demonstrating that through your work versus so I'm saying this because, like, I feel like sometimes, like, I I hate when you you'll you'll see somebody who's like, video marketing is so important, and we create videos. And then you go to their site, and there's no fucking videos. Like like right? Like, it's like, you should be selling me by doing the thing that you're you're saying is gonna work for me.
Dave Charest:You know what I mean? So I love that you guys do that. So I wanna shift this to, you know, maybe just thinking of, like, what you're seeing out there today, like, just in terms of, you know, brands, small businesses, applicable to them, of course. But, like, what are some of the mistakes that you're seeing out there right now that from your perspective?
Dan Knowlton:I think the first thing is focusing too much on yourself. And I'm saying this as someone who's done this. You know, as a small business owner, and especially, like, if you're someone who's kind of the face of the business, not everyone's like this, but, you know, still, you still think everything's about you and your company and your brand. Like, you know, people are gonna care about us. They wanna work with us.
Dan Knowlton:The honest truth is no one cares about you. No one cares about your your brand. All they care about is problems they've got and how they can most effectively solve them. So do a little activity now if you're listening to this. Look at your website and look at how the copy is written and analyze it and think how much is it focused on you versus the problems that you solve with your customer.
Dan Knowlton:Like, it's really important to speak to your customer and their problems versus we do this, we do that, we're great at this, we're brilliant at that. It should be completely focused on your customer. So that's one of the biggest mistakes, focusing too heavily on yourself versus your customers and their problems. I guess the second biggest one, which is what we sort of focused our whole business around, is when you you stop focusing on yourself, you focus on your customers' problems, then you actually need to create marketing collateral that your consumers or your customers actually enjoy consuming versus disrupting. Like you mentioned earlier, Dave, that there's that the disruptive marketing, oh, go away.
Dan Knowlton:You know? The TV ads that you're, like, instantly trying to flick through to look at your phone, you don't wanna be that. You know? Everyone well, you know, most people don't like watching ads. So anything that looks like an advert, people are gonna quickly skip away from.
Dan Knowlton:So start focus on creating content that people actually enjoys consuming. So it doesn't have to be down the entertainment route like we've taken. It could be educational, you know, teaching them something, showing them how to solve certain problems. It could be inspiring, Getting them, you know, inspired. A lot of, like, you know, personal trainers and fitness people and brands do this.
Dan Knowlton:Getting people pumped up to want to go and eat healthily and train and exercise and all that kind of stuff. So a whole range of content you can create that doesn't just help promote what you do, but actually gives your customer something.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I mean, that gets back to that whole idea of, again, if you know who the customer is and who that market is that you're kinda going after. Right? Like, that's gonna that's gonna be the driving force behind how you approach doing what you do. Right?
Dave Charest:Because, like, I could argue there are things that you and I, being in the industry that we're in, and see something be like, that's the most boring piece of content I've ever seen. Whereas somebody that that's actually designed for Exactly. In in that industry, they're like, I love this. This is amazing. Right?
Dave Charest:And you're like, what? Right? You almost can't take your own personal preferences into account sometimes. You have to think beyond that. Not that you don't I mean, yes, you wanna have your own point of view and you wanna have your way, and it's a delicate balance with that sometimes, but you always have the the guiding light.
Dave Charest:The north star has to be the customer. Yeah. I think you would maybe agree that, like, a lot of marketers are wasting money in many ways today. Talk to me about why you would believe that.
Dan Knowlton:I guess we did that. So so we we spent years we spent years doing marketing stuff, inverted commas, and not measuring the success of it and going off a whim. So we let we but the first, like, probably probably the first would be three or four years, you know, and and we used our intuitive way to tell us what worked and what didn't. And it worked to an extent. You know, we kind of got a vibe of if things were working if someone had mentioned, oh, I saw this thing you posted on LinkedIn, or I listened to your podcast, and it was kind of intuitive, like, oh, they mentioned that, so it must be working.
Dan Knowlton:But that's not good enough. Like, what what we've got to know, and I think what all small business owners need to get to, is truly understanding and measuring the performance of all of your marketing activity and what it's doing for you. So I'll I'll give you an example. I'll give you a very specific example. So like you mentioned, we've got a podcast called Business Anchors where my brother and I, Lloyd, who's my cofounder, sit down and talk about lessons we're learning whilst growing our agency.
Dan Knowlton:And we started that back in February 2020. We did that for a number of years, and we were fully tracking. We started tracking all of our customers that came in, where they found us, where they'd seen us, and a large amount of them were were coming from the podcast. They were mentioning, oh, I listen to business anchors, and then I this and that and this and that. So we we started tracking all that.
Dan Knowlton:And then last and I don't think I've even told you this, Dave, but the we've actually just stopped recording the podcast because not that it wasn't working, but because we noticed a shift in most of our customers saying they'd seen us through LinkedIn. So we were like, why are we not putting more energy into LinkedIn? We're putting a lot of results to produce a podcast. I'm sure you know this, Dave. Yeah.
Dan Knowlton:Produce a podcast, everything that's around that, the planning, the prep, it takes a lot of resource. And we are putting a lot of resource into producing this this podcast every week. And looking at the resource we're putting into that versus the resource we're putting to LinkedIn and the results we were getting, we were putting a much less resource into LinkedIn and getting a lot more opportunities. So we were like, why don't we do more of that? And and I remember we actually, January, we paid a lot of money money to for consultancy from this guy who had sold his agency for millions and millions and millions.
Dan Knowlton:He was someone who we really looked up to, and we paid a lot of money for him to give us advice on how we can fast track our growth. And there was one there was one bit of advice that he gave us that is like this the whole, like, why on earth are we not doing that? He literally said to us in in these consultancy calls, he was like, tell me what you're doing now and where most of your business is coming from. And this is where the shift started to go towards LinkedIn. And we were like, yeah.
Dan Knowlton:We've noticed, like, LinkedIn, we keep almost everyone's mentioning LinkedIn. We've got these re we work with the BBC. We work with Sunnyd Nestle. They've all kind of come through LinkedIn. And he's like, do more of that.
Dan Knowlton:I mean, like, what? And he's like, do more LinkedIn. What are doing now? I'm posting a few times a week, spending a small amount of time. Invest five times as much time doing that.
Dan Knowlton:Right? This is what he told us in January. We started doing that, and we've more than doubled the size of our agency since then because we just and I think anyone listening to this, it's it seems so I felt so stupid. Like, I hadn't thought of this. But anyone who's listening to this, ask yourself, where does most of your business come from now?
Dan Knowlton:You know, is it in person events? Is it through a podcast? Is it through paid ads? Do more of that. It sounds so stupid, but it's like
Dave Charest:Well, I I I think that's so it's interesting. Right? Yeah. It it sounds stupid, but to hopefully make us all feel better. Right?
Dave Charest:I think it's a human thing too. Right? Like, we always wanna do the thing we're not doing. Right? Right?
Dave Charest:And it's like, we're not doing that. Right? Yeah. But, like
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Charest:Because we say the same thing with, like, small business. Right? Like, you don't have a lot a lot of time to invest. Right? You you probably don't even have a marketing department.
Dave Charest:But, like, even with, like, social, like, I would argue for a small business, it's like, you're probably spending way too much time on social when you should probably be doing more on, like, your like, your email. Right? For example, if you spent half as much time on your email in nurturing that audience, you'd probably end up in a bit in a better place. Right? But similar, like, with social, though, it's not that you don't wanna do social, but stop trying to do everything on every platform and just pick one that's kind of working for you or you you're noticing more engagement or something.
Dave Charest:Right? So that you can get really good at that and then build on it. Right? I I almost think that you have to you almost have to do the foundational and things that are like the, oh, yeah, duh stuff first. Right?
Dave Charest:So you can earn the ability to go play with something else. Right? But, like, if you're always trying to play with other things, you're actually not creating the infrastructure to support that. Right?
Dan Knowlton:It is difficult. It's difficult, though, Dave, because there's lots of fun shiny things.
Dave Charest:Well, that's part of the problem too. Oh, look over there. That's fun. Yeah. Totally.
Dave Charest:Totally.
Dan Knowlton:That is the trouble. But yeah. Completely agree.
Dave Charest:Well, to that point. Right? So, like, obviously, like, you're seeing a lot of success with LinkedIn. I've got to imagine, though, you're working with some other brands that are maybe seeing success on other channels. Like, what would you like, in terms of social media, what would you say or what are you seeing in terms of just different platforms and and ones that may offer potential for different types of businesses?
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. So lots of different things, but I I guess a few key things come to mind. What we're seeing working incredibly effective right now is the things that are generating the most organic reach and engagement for for a lot of the brands we're working with is tapping into trends. I'll give you a few examples. So with with the brands we work with, we're constantly trying and testing new approaches, styles of content, tactics, formats.
Dan Knowlton:The one thing that consistently generates the most organic reach and engagement is is tapping into trends. And there's there's one brand we work with called Mister Freeze. They like they produce all the kind of well, like, 80% of the ice poles that's, like, ice pops or whatever that's sold in The UK, they're they're that brand. We we've tried and tested a whole range of different content, and something that we've been testing that consistently works is tapping into trends. For example, I don't know if you've seen those kind of creative transitional hook videos where it's like a viral video where someone's gonna slip over and it cuts to a video of a of a company.
Dan Knowlton:Like, there's there's Houston what's it called? I can't it's like a car company in the in The US that that does this really well. They generate millions and millions of views. And, yeah, it's like a viral video cuts into a video of you, and we've been testing that. And some of these videos, we shoot on a phone, they take, like, five minutes to create millions of views.
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Millions of views for tapping into that trend and and trying something that's working now.
Dave Charest:I think Kelsey was talking about this actually, like, on TikTok where there were car dealerships doing or or car manufacturers doing, like, people about to, like, fall or, like, get hurt. And then it's like, yeah, yeah, slide into savings. Like, nothing like doing those types of things. I was like, alright. Okay.
Dave Charest:I get it. I get it.
Dan Knowlton:That's one tiny example. So there's there's there's a few companies that do this incredibly well. So in The UK, there's a company called Currys, which, like, sells electronics. So if you want inspiration, there's so many ideas they produce that the small businesses can kind of steal. Like, for example, one video they've just they've just posted, like, a few days ago that's now on two or 3,000,000 views, they got their Gen Z employee to create a script for a video for, like, a kind of middle aged man one of their team who's middle aged.
Dan Knowlton:And he's there, like, saying all this Gen Z language.
Dave Charest:Lingo. Yeah.
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Yeah. That you you know, skibbity toilet. Don't know if you've heard of this. There's all weird things that Gen Z and Gen X are saying, and, like, they're really it's really clever what they're doing.
Dan Knowlton:Just definitely check them out.
Dave Charest:Well, I mean, you guys specialize in video and things like that. So, like, what would be your tips for maybe a small business kinda getting started with video marketing and, like, obviously needing to do that without, like, high production costs and things like that? What would what advice would you offer them?
Dan Knowlton:Yeah. Again, I've been here. Although, like, we've got we've got a whole production team now, nine years down the line. Lloyd and I started shooting videos on an iPhone. I don't even know what iPhone version it was then, but, like, no equipment or anything.
Dan Knowlton:I guess the first thing to understand is you have to make crap content to learn how to make good content. So you have to go through the pain of creating content that isn't Hollywood production to learn how to create better content. That's the first thing. Don't expect that you're suddenly gonna have, like, a Hollywood production video when you're just starting out. So go easy on yourself.
Dan Knowlton:Don't set to high expectations. Most of the value you will get from those early stages of creating videos when you don't know what you're doing is the learning part. You know, you'll get most of the value from having an idea, trying to create it, posting it, seeing what happens. Oh, let's try something slightly different. Someone commented that they like this part of that.
Dan Knowlton:Let's do another version of that. So so, yeah, first thing is that. Second thing is stop worrying about what other people think. So this this was another, like, massive barrier for me when I started creating videos as a small business down in one when we were in my spare spare room is worrying, like, what are my friends gonna think of me making videos about our business? You know?
Dan Knowlton:So it's really important to to kinda stop worrying what people think. Don't worry if a video gets five views. Like, e even for some of these big brands, like, let's take Mr. Freeze, for example, the one I just mentioned. So we try and test so much so much different content.
Dan Knowlton:Some of it generates millions of views. Brilliant. Great. Some of it generates 2,000 views. And, like, when I started out, some of my videos generated two views.
Dan Knowlton:I think you need to stop worrying, like, about what other people think and just start creating because that process and the learning that you'll you'll get from things that didn't work and did work will eventually get you to a point where you're you're really understanding what resonates with your audience.
Dave Charest:Yeah. It's funny too. It can change too, and it changes so quickly because I think, you know, a lot of times too, the the platforms are trying different things, and they're doing their things. And you because, like, to that point, right, I remember I had a I had a post that that did really well. I think I had a video with it.
Dave Charest:So I was like, alright. So I'll try to repurpose that. And I did, like, an image, but I told the story in a different way. And, like, crickets, like, nothing happened with that one. I'm like, what's going on?
Dave Charest:Right? I'm like, what's happening there? Yeah. So it's like, yeah, you you kinda have to develop that mentality of really going in. There's no right or wrong, and you're kinda going in to test and learn.
Dave Charest:Right? And then, like, if you've got something, ride that wave while you can because it's probably gonna change within a couple of days. Right? Like, sometimes. Right?
Dave Charest:But, like yeah.
Dan Knowlton:That's another key point. I've I've done a few talks over the years, and one of the one of the key points that I always make is 20% of your marketing should be focused on trying and testing something completely new. So if you're kinda listening to this and you you wouldn't be able to tell me one new platform strategy or tactic that you're testing and and learning from this week, you're missing out on a massive opportunity. So, like, always be testing. You know, the more you're failing, the better because the more lessons you're learning.
Dan Knowlton:So it comes back to the point of stop worrying what other people think. Stop worrying that your videos or your content's gonna get no views and no engagement. If if that happens, try something new. Like like you said, try a new format with your images. Didn't work, Dave, but you're gonna try something new and it will work.
Dan Knowlton:And you keep trying and changing and trying and changing, and eventually, you get to a point where you really start to find like we did in 2017 where we accidentally discovered advertainment. That was down to trying and testing a thousand different things. That one thing worked. 999 failed miserably.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, clearly define roles in your business, especially when working with family. Dan shared how initially he and his brother, Lloyd, didn't clearly define their roles. This led to confusion and frustration. Once they identified their individual strengths, Lloyd's knack for managing products and Dan's skills in sales and marketing, they designated specific responsibilities.
Dave Charest:Even though at the start, their titles, CEO and CMO, seemed funny to a two person team working from their parents' spare room, this clarity gave them purpose, direction, and focus. This shift was pivotal in their growth. Now depending on where you are in your business, there may be a lot of roles you're filling, but it's still a good idea to map out what you want your role to look like. That way, as you grow, you know where you need to hire others to pick up the slack. Number two, set clear long term goals and work backward from them.
Dave Charest:Another transformative moment for Knowlton was when they attended a seminar in 2020. The seminar emphasized the importance of establishing an endpoint, a clear vision of where they wanted their business to be in ten years. By determining specific goals related to revenue, team structure, and the types of work, they mapped out a clear road map, breaking it down year by year. This strategic clarity allowed them to grow significantly compared to their earlier days of winging it. Now long term goals help you work towards something rather than just waiting for things to happen.
Dave Charest:And number three, create marketing that people actually enjoy rather than just tolerate. Dan shared a pivotal experience from 2017 when they created a humorous, entertaining testimonial video, blending genuine client feedback with entertaining segments of them dressed up as silly characters. This approach kept viewers watching, turning something typically dull into engaging content that drove actual sales. It was a moment highlighting that effective marketing content doesn't need to be dry or overly promotional. It can be fun, relatable, and still convert.
Dave Charest:It's okay to have some fun with your marketing. So here's your action item for today. Create better content by having a quick chat with one of your customers. The key is to go deeper than just business. Ask them about what's buzzing in their world right now.
Dave Charest:What shows are they binging? What's everyone talking about in their group chats? What videos or memes are they sharing with their friends and family? This kind of conversation will give you a deeper level of insight, helping you craft marketing that's genuinely relatable and culturally relevant to your ideal audience. Give it a try.
Dave Charest:Your next great idea might come straight from one of those casual chats. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show.
Dave Charest:That's ratethispodcast.com/bam. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.