We all have a story, both personally or for your company or organization.  Your story is important.  And the reason we need to know our story and how to tell our story is to 1.) connect; 2.) customers/clients; 3.) credibility; 4.) make music.
Listen to this episode to learn more.  Contact me at lee@ashbyandwatts.com or visit my website:  www.ashbyandwatts.com to learn more.

Why is Your Story Important?

Content marketing is powerful. When you are able to create a strategic content plan, it leads to trust with our audience, which leads to revenue and growth.  In this episode, Lee Watts breaks down what is important to ask yourself when creating a content strategy. Are you read to connect the dots?

Create a Killer Content Strategy

Clarity is king if you want to grow your business and brand.  In this episode, Lee highlights why clarity matters in your marketing strategy.  She follows up with some tips on how you can work your way toward creating more clarity in your business and marketing.

Why Clarity Matter and How to Get It!

Understanding and knowing your target audience is so critical to growing your business or organization.  Often business owners will hesitate to focus on a specific audience because they thing it means they are elminating other potential clients or customers.  However, focusing on your ideal and target audience or buyer personas can actually GROW your audience.  This episode will touch on a few ways you can determine who your audience is and  the benefits of knowing your target audience.

The Power & Purpose of Knowing Your Target Audience

Marketing plans are critical for growing your business or organization.  But, it doesn't need to be that difficult.  In this episode, I will address how to create a simple marketing plan.

The Key Elements of Marketing Plan and Strategy

We often hear about knowing your audience.  Whether you are taking the stage to speak or selling your services or products or even going on a job interview.  Understanding what is valuable to others and what their needs are is crucial to moving to the next level in business and in relationships.  

This podcast will dive into knowing the power of understanding your target audience and your target market and the difference between the two.

The Power of Knowing Your Target Market and Audience ... and Knowing The Difference (made with Spreaker)

Summer brings not only sunshine and vacations but also unique opportunities for businesses to connect with their target audience in a vibrant and refreshing way. With the right summer marketing strategy, companies can leverage the season's energy and consumer behavior to boost brand awareness, drive sales, and foster customer loyalty. In this article, we'll explore key steps to create a successful summer marketing strategy that will help your business shine in the summer sun.

Crafting an Effective Summer Marketing Strategy: Winning Over the Seasonal Marketing (made with Spreaker)

Welcome to the connecting the dots podcast with your host Lee Ashby Watts. Our podcast is committed to delivering marketing, branding, and strategy advice for the small business owner. And now let's start connecting the dots.
Hey, Hey. Hey, it's Lee Watts with connecting the dots, a podcast of Ashby and Watts consulting. Thank you for joining me today. So today we're going to talk about pivoting and not pausing. We are in the middle or at the end of a pandemic and Hey, it's caused a lot of people to change or at least review the way that they are marketing and connecting with their audience. So I wanted to talk specifically about content because you guys know that I love content and I believe, yes, content is King. How we distribute is queen and it's everything, right? If you are a thought leader, brand owner, a business owner, you cannot ignore content in whatever form it comes. Whether it's funny, a tick tock, Instagram, blogs, public relations, however it comes. Um, you know, business brochures, content is important. So when we hit a crisis, do we stop our content or do we again review and decide to pivot?
I will admittedly say when the pandemic first started and we were all forced to go home and shelter and, um, it was a little traumatic and I probably stopped content for awhile because I didn't know exactly how to feel about everything or where to go and if it, you know, selling was appropriate. I wanted to be sensitive to those things. And as a result it probably caused me to, uh, to stop, to pause. So I will talk a little bit about when it is time to pivot and not pause. Um, even though you know, we are looking at returning to work right now this is being recorded in the middle of, of May 2020 there will be other crisis. There will be other things that come, whether it's worldwide or global or something that hits your business or even your personal life or your industry and how to react to those things, um, is important.
So, um, pivoting and not pausing. So number one, um, the first thing that we should be doing is an audit of your content. So when I say an audit of your content, there are things that are probably automatic in your business that you do. You may have scheduling platforms that you use where certain things are scheduled to go every week, every day. And now is the time when anything happens that is off course or different, it's time to review your scheduling. Should we pause what's already being scheduled to go out? And that goes for anything that feels, worldwide or widespread, even down to something as simple as, it's not simple, I don't mean to demean it, but the death of Kobe Bryant for a second, most of the world or the country took a pause. Um, especially hearing about his daughter dying, you know, the whole thing was very tragic.
So if you had something within the day or that hour going out about some awesome new product or some awesome, funny video or something like that, that was not the time. So anytime something big is happening, to stop for a minute and do an audit, look at things that were all automatically scheduled to go out and decide if that should be paused. Right. Then also, do we need to, as you're doing an audit of all of your content, ask yourself if you need to change the tone of your information, of your content that is going out. Um, if it is a crisis, for example, the pandemic, should the tone be softer? Should it be more helpful? Um, things that you may normally have sold. Are you deciding to give it away? Because everyone stopped to think about their finances at this time.
So think about the tone. Think about changing the offer, the call to action, and also when, as you're doing an audit, the other thing to think about is to think about the audience. So for example, with the law firm that I work for, I am used to communicating more client facing information. I am communicating to clients, potential clients, to our companies that we work with. However, during this time I was pulled into more internal communications. Um, softening some of the messaging that was going out internally. Um, adding a different perspective to that messaging. So whatever your company may be, um, even though you are probably used to talking to clients, think about what the messaging, what, what other audiences may be looped into your messaging. Maybe if you are used to talking to, um, leaders and business owners, um, those are typically the buyers of your products or your services.
Are there parents that you need to talk to now for whatever reason? And not necessarily because it's going to benefit a cell that you're trying to make, but because it's the right thing to do and you want to be a value in your industry. So think about if the audience needs to change when you're doing an audit of your content. So the second thing that we're looking at when we are pivoting and not pausing is what does the audience need or want at this time. Now, I am, I know I have a video of this on my YouTube channel and I'll try to remember to leave it in the comments below. But I'm a big believer in the, um, emotional marketing and you always need to consider the emotion of your audience, the emotion that you are trying to invoke, the emotion that you are trying to tap into to calm, to address.
And, and that's in good times and bad times. Don't ignore the power of emotional marketing. So specifically in this time, what does your audience need or want? It's not just emotion. I mean it's not just the service or the product that you offer, but also there's an emotion that you're tapping into. So figure out what that is. If it's pure information and just urgent information and steps, clear steps, is it an they need to just be calmed and reassured, um, what is it? And try to meet that through your content also as you're looking at what your audience wants, um, look at the actual content and, um, does it need to have, again, less sales, um, be more concise. Um, is it sufficient what you're saying? And then obviously, uh, or maybe not always. So obviously, what type of value are you offering in your content, uh, during this time, although again, we're almost two months in, going on three months in.
Um, it may be a little late if you have not already started providing value to your listeners, to your followers, to people engaged with you all. Um, so make sure that whatever you're doing, you're always adding value. I think I've, I have not paid for a webinar, I'm sure during this time, because people realize, Hey, we need to just give value right now when it's time for people to start spending money again and investing in. And although there, there is money happening, there are definitely people purchasing, but when you can add value and give it for free, do that during a crisis. So, the third thing, and I think the final thing for, for this podcast is where can we repurpose? So during a crisis, when you are pivoting and not pausing, this is an excellent time to review. What are the, uh, what are the different ways that our audience needs to receive the message?
You may be used to blogging and writing. However, there's so much noise going on. And should we give it to people in several different ways? Should we also blog and do a webinar and do a podcast and do an FAQ? And not saying that you have to do five or six different things, but don't rest on only giving out content in one way, especially when the noise is high and we need to rise above the noise. So think about that. Think about the many different ways that you can distribute and give content. And if you would like a list of those ways and you're kind of stuck like, Oh Lee, I can only think of maybe three ways to get content out. I have a whole list or you just reach out to me at lee@ashbyandwatts.com and I will send you, I think I have a list of 50 ways that you can repurpose content and I will send that out to you.
Just put in your subject line content and I will be sure to get that out to you. So just wanted to review those few things on how to pivot and not pause when it comes to your content in a crisis or in any situation where you know you've hit a bump or something has happened, but you know, you can't stop. You just need to revisit how your content is working for you. So that is it today. Thank you so much for joining me and be sure to check out my other podcasts. Visit me at ashbyandwatts.com and again, if you want a copy of the many different ways that you can repurpose content, uh, be sure to hit me up, Lee Lee at SB and wants that. Com. Thank you for joining.

Pivot, Don't Pause Your Content During a Crisis

Creativity is not reserved for the select few.  All of us have some degree of creativity, it is just a matter of improving it and learning how to let go and use that muscle of creativity.  Check out my podcast on 5 tips for exercising creativity in your business, life and even relationships.

Let Go and Get Creative - Tips on Thinking Creativity

Knowing your value proposition and USP (unique selling proposition) is important on both a personal level and as a company or enterprise.  However, so many people are unclear of the value they bring.  On today's episode, Lee Watts discusses a few key points on how to identify your value proposition.

Levitica Lee Yvette