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  • How We Work
  • Portfolio
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  • Team
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Top Tips for Creating Consistent Content

7th September 2015 By Ian Winterton Leave a Comment

Consistency is just as important as quality when it comes to content marketing. Ben Adam-Smith from Regen Media explains how improving your systems can make this important aspect of modern business more manageable

System running smoothly 

Frequency and consistency are essential ingredients in any content marketing strategy. Viewers, listeners or readers will quickly drift away if you fail to give them what they’re expecting, when they’re expecting it.

Ben Adam-Smith produces a flurry of content for both his businesses – Regen Media and House Planning Help. From podcasts to blogs, there’s always something new to work on and squeeze into his busy schedule.

 

Personal Choice

Ben believes the frequency of content you produce should be personal to every enterprise. But when you set it, you need to stick with it.

“Frequency is something that you set yourself,” says Ben. “It could be once a month, once a week or once a day. You don’t have to go overboard straight away – but once you’ve set your frequency, you really should keep to it. You’re setting expectations with your viewers or listeners. You’re telling them when they should expect something from you.”

Ben had never had any problems meeting frequency until last year, when his now one-year-old arrived. It’s a reality that many businesses face when personal situations change or you decide to increase your output or frequency of content.

“Having a baby exposed holes in my systems,” says Ben. “It’s the same for other businesses too. Maybe you do have time to do all the things in your content strategy, but it often gets to the point where you can’t do it all yourself. You might be okay if you just produce really simple content. But if you’re keen to increase quality and value, then you get to a point where you have no more capacity. It becomes so difficult.”

 

Systems Equal Success

Ben solved his content conundrum by assessing his systems and working out how he could delegate certain processes. He sums it up with a quote he heard at Podcast Movement 2015 from entrepreneur John Lee Dumas: “Systems equal consistency – and consistency equals success.”

“Looking at my own systems exposed that they’re all very dependent on me,” he says. “So I needed a strategy where I could be involved to a much smaller degree. It’s difficult, because you want to do it all. But if you want to build your business, you have to accept that you can’t.”

Ben broke down his processes and worked out how other suppliers could deliver different parts of the puzzle.

“For my podcast, you have the researching of guests, the interview, editing, and writing up show notes. When you break it down you realise there are plenty of efficiencies you can make.”

 

Relinquish Control

The part Ben found it hardest to release the reins on was the editing of his podcast.

“I worked in radio for a long time and always did my editing myself, but the way I like to do it takes a long time, so now I’ve finally hired an editor. You realise, ‘okay it may not be exactly as I would do it’ but it’s up to me to feedback – and it means you can get the content out there when people expect it.”

It’s this balance between quality and consistency that Ben feels is particularly important.

“Of course, quality is important, but there’s something really important about consistency too,” he says. “For me, it’s just as important as quality. So if you’re just starting out, the quality may not be there straight away. But we’re all on a learning journey, so it’s important to get out there and produce it regularly. You shouldn’t expect it to be amazing straight away. Just do it – and you’ll hone your art over time.”

 

Here are Ben’s top tips for getting on top of consistency:

 

1. Find your sweet spot

When you’re starting out, don’t try to do too much in one go. Build up slowly and get a feel for the work that’s involved. By doing so, you’ll find your sweet spot and work out what you can deliver consistently, without compromising on quality. Just like producing too little content, producing too much can also be counter-productive. Ultimately, you’ve got to look at your business and your goals. Understand why you’re doing this.

 

2. Simplify your processes

If you need to produce very frequent content, then it’s a good idea to simplify your processes. You don’t want it to become a chore, otherwise you’ll take the fun out of it and people will notice. Maybe you could leave out editing all together and broadcast the full interview. Or perhaps you could just provide a summary of the show in your show notes, rather than more elaborate ones. You need to create a plan that’s workable and allows you to meet your frequency requirements without losing your enthusiasm.

 

3. Group important tasks together

Think about which tasks you can group together and also those you can automate to reduce the time spent on them. For example, if you spend a lot of time organising interviews – going back and forth to find suitable times – there’s a useful app called ScheduleOnce. It allows you to share your calendar and shows your contacts the time blocks you have available.

It also takes a lot of time out of your day if you can do lots of the same task at once. I love doing one-on-one interviews, which can be time consuming with travel etc. So at the International Passivhaus Conference, I went a day early and did a number of face-to-face interviews in my hotel room all on the same day.

 

4. Delegation

Take an inventory of tasks that go into content creating and consider which ones you really have to do. Quite often there aren’t many. If you have the resources, then get people to help you. I found it hard to let go with editing – but if you want to move your business on, you have to do it. Finding good people isn’t difficult. Websites like Elance, Upwork and PeoplePerHour all have user rating systems so you get a good sense of what people are like. But it’s important to remember that you get what you pay for.

 

5. It’s okay to take a break

If you have a change of circumstance, like starting a family, I think it’s okay to ramp down your content creation. On the whole, people understand. Also, if you’ve lost enthusiasm – you might even hate what you’re doing – then there’s no shame in stopping that particular aspect as you’ll still have learned a lot along the way. You have to remember that this is work. You’re choosing to do it to further your marketing, so if it’s not working, there’s no shame in stopping.

 

How have you delivered consistent content to your community? Please share any tips and tactics that have worked for you.

Filed Under: Content Creation Tagged With: blog, content, content creation, content marketing, frequency, podcast, processes, systems, videos

The Advantages of Building a Video Library For Your Niche

14th February 2014 By Ben Adam-Smith Leave a Comment

As I write this article it is raining. In fact January 2014 has been England’s wettest month since records began in 1766.

With flooding even in my local town I took time out of my workday to capture the impact on video.

Why am I telling you this?

building flooded

Seize Content Opportunities When They Arise

This flooding is potentially useful to me in my housing niche (I run the website House Planning Help). I don’t actually need this footage at the moment but I went on the shoot for my library.

I am aware that these floods could be the affects of climate change and if I ever want to illustrate a flood, which I see as pretty likely, now I have the material.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Video Marketing Tagged With: content, library footage, niche, stock footage, video, video production

What Preparation Should I Do Before Recording My Podcast?

20th May 2013 By Ben Adam-Smith Leave a Comment

Do you feel that your podcasts could be better?

Are you doing everything you can to prepare for a great episode?

We share how you can get the most out of your preparation time.

Creating any content is work and a podcast is no different from writing a blog post or making a video: it needs to be well thought through.

While you could just start recording and see what happens, it’s almost inevitable that it’s not going to be as focussed as it could be. If you’re watching a presenter on TV or listening to a DJ on the radio and it all seems effortless, remember that the majority of the time it is no such thing. There are scripts or preparation of what might need to be covered.

man thinking

The key advantages of doing your preparation is:
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Podcasting Tips Tagged With: ad-libbing, content, ideas, podcast preparation, podcast template, podcasting, preparation, preparation document, script, show prep

How to Create Content That Will Make You an Industry Leader

1st March 2013 By Ben Adam-Smith Leave a Comment

Are you concerned that your content is just average?

Do you want to stand out in the market place?

This article shares how starting an investigation can pay many dividends.

We live in a changing world where keeping your finger on the pulse is more and more difficult. However, this does present excellent opportunities for content creation. If you work in a niche that you love, then things just get even better. It’s time to scale up your ideas.

Strive to Do More with Your Content

Quite often you hear internet marketers saying things like: “You need to become the online encyclopedia for your industry.” While this is a very worthwhile goal, could you be doing something more worthwhile that would also act as an encyclopedia? Let me explain.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Content Creation Tagged With: content, content creation, content marketing, starting an investigation

What Happens When Content Marketing Becomes Too Popular?

15th February 2013 By Ben Adam-Smith 2 Comments

Are you concerned that you’ve heard about content marketing too late in the day?

How can you be sure that your time or resources are well invested in content marketing?

In this article you’ll discover that content marketing is going nowhere and why starting to build your platform today is a good idea.

 

Where is Content Marketing Going?

It’s a question that you might have asked yourself, as a content creator, when you start to see some results. The strategy is good. Whatever your area of expertise or wherever your passion lies, you can create your own online resources (or encyclopedia). Of course, this will forever be work in progress! Your approach may be unique but a lot of your content will overlap with others.

Encyclopedia
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: content, content marketing, innovation, innovator, internet marketing, library, niche, online encyclopedia, platform, pyramid

6 Ways to Generate Content for Your Business

25th January 2013 By Ben Adam-Smith 2 Comments

In our last article we looked at what content is and why it’s useful. Now let’s start generating some!

It’s an exciting prospect but what if you have absolutely no clue what to produce? It is probably worth mentioning at this point that certain topics give more scope for content creation than others. For example, if you run a sandwich shop there is only going to be so much you can say on the subject, whereas if you run a computer repair company then you have a much wider scope for opportunity. All that said, it often comes down to how creative you’re being.

Get into Your Customer’s Brain!

This should be your focus when you are creating content. It really doesn’t matter what you think is interesting as it’s all about your customer or client. For my House Planning Help project I picture Graham! I imagine him to be between 47, successful in his chosen profession, he has a wife and kids, he loves learning and will be thorough in his research of house build options, time is his most precious commodity and he sees a future where energy is double or triple the price of what it is today.

This clear image in my mind allows me to test content. Will whatever I’m creating be something Graham is interested in? If it isn’t then I need to go back to the drawing board.

If you know who your target customer is, try to imagine how he or she might view your business. What do they really want to know? Can you be the resource they need?
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Content Creation Tagged With: content, content generation, niche

What is Content and Why is it Useful?

4th January 2013 By Ben Adam-Smith Leave a Comment

Content is a word that seems to pop up everywhere these days and while we probably know it’s important, we may not know how to apply it to our own businesses.

The dictionary definition of content in the sense to which we’re referring is:

All that is contained or dealt with in a piece of writing, etc.; substance.

stack-of-books
I would go on to say that it’s something valuable, that when consumed by a person benefits them in some way. It’s the meat of the subject, the crux. It doesn’t have to be serious as it could be something funny. It could be on any topic. Content is the good bit!

I am now going to give you the most important tip you will ever receive about content creation. Are you ready?
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Content Creation Tagged With: content, Evernote, Google likes content, how to rank in Google, what is content, why is content useful

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