012. Dan Norris – Content Marketing For Startups (Part 2)

 

Timestamp:

1:05 – Is content marketing important for startups?
1:36 – Dan’s views on approach to successful content marketing for startups
3:28 – Audience and the Content Marketing Map
4:23 – Dan’s three keys to successful content marketing
5:17 – The importance of differentiation in content marketing
8:14 – How to get started with your startup
12:41 – How to come up with a good name for your startups
18:17 – The importance of design

 

 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to part two of my interview with Dan Norris. The first part focused on startups, and if you haven't already done so, please have a listen to the previous episode, which is the first part of the interview. Welcome to the second part of the interview, which focuses mainly on content marketing. And another really important thing you mentioned in your talk was content marketing. Do you believe that content marketing is a very important part of a startup?

 

Dan Norris

Well, I believe that people it's a difficult question to answer. I think good content marketing can be a huge asset. And if you're good at it and you do it well, and you're able to do it in a way that grows and scales, then it can be an asset that just keeps rewarding you. And that's exactly what we do it's all we do is content and sort of word of mouth and we don't advertise and we've built a million dollar business in less than two years.

 

Ash Roy

You made a very subtle but important point, and that is don't just do content marketing because someone said Dan Norris is doing content marketing. It's recognized the fact that Dan is producing content about something he loves and he actually enjoys the process of content marketing. So if you're going to do it, do it well or don't do it at all.

 

Dan Norris

I think so. Or put a strategy in place to make sure it does get done well, but it gets done well by other people, and that's possible. It requires you to have a good strategy to start with and have a good point of differentiation. It requires you first and foremost to know what good content is when you see it. And that's not easy. And so in my next book, Content Machine, it's basically going to be around those three pillars, which is one is just the fundamentals of knowing what good content is, knowing what works. And the second is differentiation because you can produce good content, but if everyone else in your industry is also producing good content, you're still not going to get noticed. And the third is automation or delegation. So basically, okay, you know what good content is. You've got some kind of strategy that makes sense and that differentiates you from everyone else. How are you going to do that on a reasonable scale without it having to be you that goes in and does all the work? And that could apply to someone who loves content like me, apply to someone who doesn't like content and just wants someone else to do it for them. In my case, I love content, but I really only love writing about the content that kind of inspires me at the time. It's more of like an artist approach as opposed to a kind of quantitative approach. So all the content on WP Curve is done by someone else now because I wrote a lot of that content and I kind of got to the end of my keenness for writing about that topic anymore. So I put this structure in place to enable someone else to do that for me. And I think you could use that if you didn't want to do it at all yourself. Although it's always going to be hard to know what good content is if you're not prepared to do any yourself. But more to the point, you can use it to build something scalable rather than relying on you to go back in and create all the content and manage the whole stuff yourself.

 

Ash Roy

There's one more thing that I think is really critical to content, and that is the audience. So all of those things that you talked about are very important, but I would say they need to be actionable for the audience. They need to be emotionally appealing to the audience and the contrarianism needs to appeal to the audience. So I think if you produce content with your audience in mind, you're much more likely to produce good quality content than just blindly just producing content for the sake of it.

 

Dan Norris

Yeah, I agree. I think in this Content Machine book, one of the things I was trying to do is to say, okay, what are like the ten things that examples of what good content is? And I kind of realized that I can do that to some extent. Like, I can tell people what I've found good content to be for me. But I think really the answer to that is you need to do it yourself and work out what is really resonating with your audience because it's going to be different for everyone. But like you, I've noticed the three things I try to do with my content is one, be as actionable as possible. So our really long detailed actionable guides get a lot of traction. The second is some kind of emotional connection. So like the Talk at Shramco's event, I think people came up to me and said they could relate to that because they've been through the same thing. And the third is some kind of contrarian idea because I think if people hear an idea that is different to what they've heard before, it kind of grabs their attention and gets noticed a bit more. So they're the three things that have worked for me and there's going to be some overlap, but it might be different for everyone.

 

Ash Roy

Okay, so it's almost like I think you're saying you target the precursor ideas rather than just the particular idea around WordPress. So for example, you might write content about do you need a website or not?

 

Dan Norris

That's right. The only thing that I would kind of argue with a little bit on that is there's a common message out there that you need to create. You need to basically create things that solve problems for your customers. I'm not sure I agree with that because I think if you're creating content for an audience and your business is structurally your business is fundamentally sound. Like you've got a really logical offer that's differentiated. It's in a big market. So if one person hears your content and refers you to someone else, then your business might come up in that conversation. Like if you got those fundamentals right, I think it's perfectly okay for you to be creating content not directly for your customers. And that is not a message. I hear too much out there. It's like create content for your customers. But I think our content often has nothing to do with WordPress. So the logical process would be, okay, you've got a WordPress support company, go and think about all the WordPress issues and write a blog post about every issue. The problem is people don't care about that and it's not differentiated at all. So a blog about that that started now would probably have no impact. So instead we create broad content that appeals to a broad group of people and then when they share it, there's a very good chance that it will be shared amongst people who have a WordPress support problem. So I think you can build your audience and it can be a lot broader than your actual business as long as your businesses kind of can satisfy some percentage of that audience.

 

Ash Roy

That's great advice.

 

Dan Norris

Boring content is not going to get anyone's attention. I think what you do is you write, you first of all, make sure that the content you're going to create is not boring and is going to stand out. And if it means that you're not creating content that's exactly in your niche, then to me that's fine. It's a better situation to get traction for content and only a small percentage of those can be customers. But then the people who share them will be spreading those ideas further and that content will have traction. It'll get links and your site will get more authority and your brand will get out there. I think that's a better situation than specifically trying to target problems that are going to result in boring, undifferentiated content.

 

Ash Roy

Your content has to stand out from the crowd.

 

Dan Norris

Yeah. And it also has to be interesting to you. I mean, like, if I'm starting WP Curve again two years ago and I'm sitting down and instead of writing my monthly reports, which I absolutely love writing, instead of doing that, I'm writing how to create permalink in WordPress. I mean, I'm just going to burn myself out on crappy content that's not getting traction. It's not going to be fun for me. It's not going to be differentiated, no one's going to care about it. And two years down the track, we're not going to have a following. Fundamentally, the content, I think there's like a presumption that you can just create content that's sort of topic based and then you'll start ranking in Google for those topics and if you cover enough of those topics, you'll become the authority in that area. But it just doesn't work like that. If your content is not getting traction and people don't care about it, they're not sharing it, then you're not going to rank for anything. So I think you're making a mistake from the start if you decide to create content that is not going to grab people's attention.

 

Ash Roy

Great point, great point. So speaking of action items and actionable content, if somebody wants to get started in the startup world, what are the first steps that they can take to get started? If a listener wanted to do that.

 

Dan Norris

Today, well, again, it probably depends on what path they're going to take. If they're going to take the traditional path, then it really is about who you know, it's about joining local startup groups, applying to incubators with your idea, finding a co founder. If you don't have a co founder already, you need that. If you're going to go through a traditional startup process, you absolutely need a cofounder, and I'd argue you need one anyway. But they're the things you do. There's online communities, there's podcasts. I like this week in startups. That's the first thing I would do. If you're not aware of that show, I'd listen to that and just start to get your head around what all this stuff means.

 

Ash Roy

This week in startups. That's right.

 

Dan Norris

You did mention that this week in startups yeah. And just meetup.com if you're in any sort of reasonable size city, there'll be startup meetups and get togethers, that kind of stuff. There'll be coworking spaces, I go and work in a coworking space and that's where all the startup events will be happening. That's probably where the incubators are going to be. And the investors, if there are investors in your area, will probably be there. You can get on Angel List, which is a site that ranks investors and startups, and start learning about the companies that are getting funding crunch bases and other site that you can learn about the companies that are getting funded to get some ideas. That's kind of the traditional component. And then the other way is to basically take all the bits from that and then start your own business, but do it in a start up kind of way. And that's, I guess, my book, The Seven Day Startup is specifically aimed at people that want to do that. And I write the book because I didn't really think there was that much out there available to those people.

 

Ash Roy

Okay, and that book is available on Amazon?

 

Dan Norris

Yeah, just Amazon seven day startup. It's only on Amazon. And you can buy it as a physical book or you can buy it as a Kindle book. And the Kindle book is, like, $4 or something.

 

Ash Roy

Cool. Well, I'm going to grab it.

 

Dan Norris

Yes.

 

Ash Roy

There was one more resource that you had mentioned at the Superfast Business live conference. I think it was called the profit. Is that right?

 

Dan Norris

Yes. So the Profit is a TV show. And again, you're probably not going to get anything specifically actionable out of a TV show like the Profit, but it's just like the kind of underlying messages that go into your brain over time and you kind of start to realize the things that are important. So there's a few things I can pick out from that TV show. It's Profit. Pierre Fit and the guy's name is Marcus Lamonis and he goes into businesses and he does like a good and ramps his Kitchen Nightmare style makeover. And so there's a couple of things I picked up. One is he always goes in and he tries to fix people. Product and process. So there's three P's. So in every business he looks at, he will look at what the product is like, what the process is like, and what the people are like. And he'll make changes to those three things. And that's how he'll turn the business around. So I think if you've got a current business, they're like a really good rule to think about those three things. The other thing he does, I think, which he doesn't really talk about, but I just noticed him. What he does is he turns these old trusty sort of businesses into really, like, smart looking, modern brands. And I think he does that first and foremost by choosing businesses that have potential to be transformed into those brands. He'll find like a local business that is like buying and selling cars. That's the first episode I watched was the local business is buying, selling cars. It had been in business for 30 years or something. It wasn't doing very well. It was all tired and old. But the concept is something that could be done all around the US. The name was really solid. There's a lot of potential there to turn it into a franchise type business that is like a brand that is seen across the whole country as opposed to this one little operation that was just mismanaged by these two brothers and had sort of gone stale. And so he turned that around by turning it into this national brand, turning into a franchise, fixing up the branding, fixing up all the processes for buying and selling cars, just maximizing the margin at every point to produce. A situation where they're making a lot more in each car and then also help with the people in terms of them working together and that kind of thing. But, yeah, that's the thing I noticed the most, is that what he does is he creates brands.

 

Ash Roy

So it sounds like a very entertaining way to learn about startups, at the very least.

 

Dan Norris

Yeah, definitely. Like if people like something like Shark Tank so Shark Tank is kind of like good for it's more like inventions. But business is often not about inventing something, it's more about like improving processes and getting people to work together and creating a brand and that kind of stuff. So that's why I like to profit more because I think it's more actionable than something like Shark Tank.

 

Ash Roy

So maybe it's more about reinventing something, reinventing themselves, definitely.

 

Dan Norris

But I think it's also like you can pay attention to those things. One of the things he says is that brands should be conversational and that's something that's really stuck with me because I think about the startups that impact what I'm doing. Startups like Uber or Slack or Airbnb, these kind of brands that just fall into your conversation and they just become something that you're talking about all the time with people and there's no fluke in that. Like people really think about when they're naming their company, when they're creating their logo on their design and their branding, like, is this going to be something that can fall into conversation? And I think that's how startups grow. So that's an idea I got from the profit and that I observe in other startups as well.

 

Ash Roy

I remember you talking about that in your talk at Superfast Business Live and I remember thinking, geez, does productive insights fall into conversation? I don't.

 

Dan Norris

Well, that's the thing is I think if, like if there's a bit of a difference between, like a typical business that people start in, like a consumer end product and I think a lot of these companies that are startups end up being like a consumer product type business where it's like Coke or like a brand like that, that just has to be this really, like, tangible, personal kind of thing that people can talk about. And the closer you can get away from this big corporate branding through to that consumer level, consumer grade product, I think the closer you have to having a startup. And something like Slack is a really good example because they're coming out of that world of enterprise software that's kind of clunky and horrible and impersonal and they've just provided this consumer grade version of it that's on par with like an Instagram or a Facebook that people can use and fall in love with. And that's why they're having such a massive impact because people just sign up for it and they just love it. They tell their friends and they have this lovely experience using the app and it talks back to them when they're setting themselves up and all that kind of stuff. The branding is all on point. So getting close to that like consumer grade product I think is what startups do really well.

 

Ash Roy

Yes. When I talked to Chris Garrett in one of my earlier episodes. He makes a very important point that conversation was about content marketing, but he talks about how content marketing creates a conversation. And I can now draw a connection between what you're saying about startups falling comfortably into conversation and content marketing being an important conversation between a buyer and a seller, at the end of which a transaction happens. So what I hear you saying is that the simpler and the less formal the name of the business is, the more likely it is to fall into a conversation, the less likely it is to be intimidating to somebody and sound very corporate. And that's exactly what is going to help it to grow.

 

Dan Norris

Absolutely. And also, I think sometimes it's worth thinking about the type of product and how people might refer that. I can give you an example from our beer. So I've got a brewing business called Black Ops Brewing and we're opening a brewery on the Gold Coast this year. And we're doing a beer, which is like an Australian version of a French cezana. It's like a lighter summery beachy sort of version of a French style beer. So we're sort of brainstorming names and my co founder Eddie was like, oh, we should call it beach. And I'm like, Well, beach is not the sort of name that falls neatly into a conversation about the beer you're drinking. It's not like, oh, I'm drinking beach. That just kind of sounds stupid. You know what I mean? I didn't tell him that. I just meant

 

Ash Roy

it doesn't sound like a conversation somebody would have for a.

Small recurring fee of $10 a week. I won't tell him that either.

 

Dan Norris

Rhodes, how are you going to stop me from churning?

 

Ash Roy

Sorry, John. What did you come up with then?

 

Dan Norris

Yeah, so we came up with the name Beach House Ale.

 

Ash Roy

Oh, that's nice. Okay.

 

Dan Norris

Yeah. So Beach House gives you that same feeling of it being a beachy sort of beer, but it's something that fits into conversation. We had it on tap a week ago up in Brisbane and people were saying, oh, yeah, I'm having the beach house. And the bartender was like, oh, this is a beach house, ale. It's sort of like a beachy version of this French style beer and it's just like it falls into conversation.

 

Ash Roy

Tell me something here, Dan. This is interesting, is it not? Not a little bit too long compared to, say, a slack or an Uber? Aren't there too many syllables?

 

Dan Norris

Two syllables is fine. People don't usually say the word al when they talk about beer, so people will just say Beach House. I think two syllables are definitely fine. I mean, even something like airbnb is with the airb and b, four syllables. That's yeah, that's so two syllables definitely fine. And as long as it's quick and easy and to say and and you can picture someone saying it in context, then I think that's that's what's important.

 

Ash Roy

And the recall, I think the recall, it's got to be very easy, isn't it? Isn't that an important part of it?

 

Dan Norris

Yeah, I think if people have something and they're like, oh yeah, I had this beer that was sort of beachy sort of version of this French beer, then they're much more likely to remember something like Beach House than if we just called it like Australian cezon or something.

 

Ash Roy

No one's going to remember that. Right, yeah. I don't know if you've read a book called Mainta Stick, but it's fantastic and it touches on some very related points where we talk about having these short forms, these words that connect people to ideas very quickly. So in Hollywood, for example, they would say Terminator is like, I can't think of a good example now. It's like, I don't know, some incredible action flick with a lot of guns or like you said, a few examples in the talk, uber is taxis without price or something like that. You know what I mean? It's a shortcut that makes sense.

 

Dan Norris

I haven't read the book. But if you can give beach House is exactly the same thing. You're giving people a word that they understand.

 

Ash Roy

It conjured up an entire image and a lifestyle and a feeling, just the word beach house. And then you put Ale on the end of it and they just get the feeling.

 

Dan Norris

And design, this is all really part of design and it's just a complex, misunderstood area. And in that talk I tried to talk about design as much as possible and probably talked about it a bit too much but I think it's a real art like coming up with these kind of names that people really fall for. That's something that startups really do and people just in general business conversations or like internet marketing type conversations. This is not really the sort of stuff you hear talked about all that often, I don't think. Like, design is kind of seen as this like go to 99 designs and get four versions of a logo and pick the best one. That's really not what design is. And I don't think you can overstate the importance of something like that if you're producing something that you want people to care about.

 

Ash Roy

Right. Okay, Dan. Well, that's fantastic. That more or less brings us to the end of our podcast. So if the audience wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way?

 

Dan Norris

I've got a bunch of different businesses for different things, so it sort of depends on what context. But I guess look at your show notes. You can give them the address and we can put all the links up to the different stuff I'm working on and they can check those out. But wpcurves. Just wpcurve.com. Black Hops is the brewing stuffblackhops.com. Au hello is the contact form and live chat plugin, which is hellofi.com. And then the two books, Seven Day Startup on Amazon and contentmachine.com for the upcoming content marketing book.

 

Ash Roy

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Dan.

 

Dan Norris

Thank you. It was fun.

 

Ash Roy

Yeah, it was great.