How do you take the wide range of content assets, channels, and tactics and make them into an actual strategy? Join us with special guest Sarah Noel Block, talented marketer and podcast host, CEO of Tiny Marketing, where she focuses on Inbound marketing for tiny teams We’ll be discussing how to build effective and efficient content marketing for tiny teams with tiny budgets. Whether your team is large or small, these takeaways will help you and your team make your time, money and effort go further.
The right marketing strategy will show you that even the smallest teams can have great results and great ROI.
This week’s guest has insights that will help you show up, add value, and build trust with your audience. How? Using simple, yet impactful content marketing and repurposing frameworks. Whether you have tiny or huge resources, you can build HUGE results.
You’re about to learn the best ways to build and execute a content marketing strategy, regardless of how big your following is. Marketers, get ready! It’s time to build your content pillars.
In this episode of Markigy Podcast, your host Leanne Dow-Weimer welcomes Sarah Noel Block, Content Marketing Strategist and CEO of Tiny Marketing, to talk about how to build effective and efficient content marketing for tiny teams with tiny budgets.
In this episode, we discuss:
If you have a tiny team and a tiny budget, executing a content marketing strategy can seem daunting… but it doesn’t have to be. The tips and tactics Sarah shares will make it so much easier! Just remember, start by finding out what your audience cares about and then figure out how you can teach them about their own problems.
Meet the Host:
Leanne Dow-Weimer, Founder & Host of Markigy Podcast https://www.linkedin.com/in/leannedow
Meet the Guest:
Sarah Noel Block, CEO of Tiny Marketing and Host of the Tiny Marketing Show
https://www.linkedin.com/in/Sarahnoelblock
Links to content here:
Visit Sarah’s website: https://www.Sarahnoelblock.com
Check out the Tiny Marketing Show: https://www.Sarahnoelblock.com/tiny-marketing-show
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Markigy: The Science of Marketing Strategy in your favorite podcast player.
This episode was produced and brought to you by Reignite Media.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Hi, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. So today on this episode, we have Sarah Noel Block for who does inbound marketing for tiny teams. She helps entrepreneurs and marketers show up, add value, and build trust with content marketing and repurposing. [00:01:00] She's also the host of Tiny Marketing Show, which is a really great podcast for people looking to add content marketing and get all sorts of ideas.
Sarah, go ahead and tell us more about what, what you do in, in your background.
Sarah Block: Yeah, so I've been in marketing for 15 years and I always like to remind people that I was doing content marketing before it had a phrase, like before it was called content marketing. I called it education-based marketing, but I've.
Found it important for marketers to, to be a teacher and to teach their customers how to solve their problems. So that's how I approach marketing. I've had, I founded a tiny marketing two years ago, um, full-time, but I was doing it on the side for about 10 years. and there I work with, you just said it, entrepreneurs and small businesses to help them build out content engines and repurposing frameworks.
And then I work directly with a lot of companies [00:02:00] too, doing the actual content production. And then, yeah, I have the Tiny Marketing Show podcast and YouTube where I talk all about that, how to build effective and efficient marketing for tiny.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Awesome. And I think it's so cool that you were doing this before.
It was cool. I, I know that that is, I mean, I, I relate to that so strongly. You know, I, I think in like 2010, I was trying to get back links and people weren't like, yeah, this is seo, this is social media marketing. I was like, no, I need to be like on Twitter, . And um, you know, what a wild ride that's been, uh, so right.
I think like the OGs in marketing, understand good marketing, like regardless of channels. I
Sarah Block: remember when Facebook first launched, and it was just colleges, and I was in my first marketing job when they opened it up to businesses and I was like, oh my gosh, let's get on this.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: New thing, new thing. We've got me [00:03:00] here, you know, I love a
Sarah Block: shiny object.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Lemme see it. Especially when it still has reach. . Yes.
Sarah Block: It was all organic then they didn't even have a paid option.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: I know, like that's that's so crazy that you were on Facebook before it had paid options. Yeah, you needed a.edu . Oh man. So, so when you have been doing this for, so. , what are some of the strategies that you really have found to be like the most impactful to someone starting their, their kind of content engine?
Or, or like, how do you, how do you st help them at the beginning to, to wrap their mind around what you're trying to tell them?
Sarah Block: Yeah, so at the beginning, you Don't just jump in. You need to understand your customer first and build out that foundation, and you can do that with testing like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, [00:04:00] Instagram, whatever.
Those are all great platforms to do some testing. So come up with your content pillars, what your customer has a problem with, and what you solve. Where that meets in the middle, that's where your content pillars. live and test out that type of content on those platforms, what gets the most engagement, and that should be what you build out to create that content engine that'll turn into something bigger.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Awesome. So you know, kind of see, see if what you think it is really is what resonates with them. Yeah. And
Sarah Block: then, when you're a tiny guy and you don't have time or the resources to actually survey your customers, or you don't even have customers yet. Mm-hmm. , that's the best way to go about it, is just go to the masses and see who engages with it and they'll, they'll raise their hand, they'll tell you what's working, what's.
Yeah,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: and, [00:05:00] and it can be hard cuz at first you'll hear a lot of crickets. .
Sarah Block: Yeah, , oh my gosh. The crickets. You feel like you're screaming to a void, but eventually people notice you exist.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Definitely. And, and to that end, I've, um, what's your take on, I've heard people say like, oh, my account's not big enough to do that kind of testing.
Like, what, how do you feel about that? Like how do you
Sarah Block: reframe that? Like your, your platform, your social media followers? Yeah.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: They're like, well, you know, I, I don't know how much impact this is gonna be, or, or, you know, I can't. . Like for example, here's a concrete example like Instagram stories. You can do these like surveys, like these polls.
Mm-hmm. . And I think they're great for market research. I love them. I, I have so much fun with like, with them. Um, and I've heard people say like, oh, well you can't, my account's not big enough to ask these type of
Sarah Block: [00:06:00] questions. Well, it can be . Um, you gotta start somewhere. So, , you might as well just start talking.
You might not have a big enough audience to start getting a lot of poll results, but I at least know on LinkedIn, polls are boosted more than everyone else, than like text-based or video-based content. So your polls will get seen by people even if they're not followers of yours. And I mean, I started at zero.
We all started at zero. You gotta just get started and. people will find you as long as you're talking about things that they care about.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Definitely. What, um,
Sarah Block: so
Leanne Dow-Weimer: following like what people care about and, and trying to like get started on that, what are some ways that, um, that,
Sarah Block: that people can do that? , um, find out what people care about.
Yeah. I would say the easiest. If we're talking to people who have no [00:07:00] audience right now, my go-to first thing is going to publications, media kits. Like let's say you want to talk to small businesses, and that's who you. . If you go to like Small Biz Trends, their media kit and download it, there's a ton of information in there that will help you understand your audience a little bit better.
Same goes for all of those major publications. They have done tons of research on their audience. Find publications that align with your audience and they'll have the data. So that's a good place to start. And these publications already have content. So you can steal them for your testing. Use their content pillars and see what works for your audience.
That's when the testing takes place, for
Leanne Dow-Weimer: sure. And so, okay, let's say someone's moved on a little bit and now they're ready to do a con. What is a content pillar? Let's, let's explain the concept of a content pillar.
Sarah Block: Yeah. So a [00:08:00] content pillar would be like the overarching things that you're going to talk about.
So categories. I would say you don't want to go too broad because then you're known for nothing. You need to. , like four is a really good number. I like four content pillars. And it would be broader topics like email marketing, social media, um, project, probably like more like marketing, operations, things like that.
And then you can pick different topics within those pillars. But they are, they're broad topics that you wanna stay within so you become known for. So, .
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah. And, and I think that that's a really great way to explain it sometimes in my head, I, I get very visual and I imagine like an ancient grease like pantheon kind of situation where you have the, the columns and the pillars and they're holding up everything.
Sarah Block: That's a good way to
Leanne Dow-Weimer: put it. That's, that's where my mind [00:09:00] goes. Very visual. Very,
Sarah Block: you're holding up your marketing. I get that your pillars are, , you pull them through to all of your marketing. So that, I like that. Yeah.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: I mean, we're, we're gonna be a little goofy about it, right? . So, um, with these pillars, one of the things that you recommend for like, strategically is to not, um, overwhelm yourself with too many, too many choices.
Mm-hmm. is kind of what I'm hearing. It is tick to about four.
Sarah Block: Yeah. It's more about overwhelming your audience. So they are like, I don't know. you're an expert at because you're talking about too many things, , so you don't wanna overwhelm them. Yeah. It'll dilute
Leanne Dow-Weimer: your message really completely. So with these pillars, then what,
Sarah Block: then what?
So the pillars pull through to all of your other marketing. You wanna keep it consistent with your content marketing. So these pillars will be [00:10:00] what you talk about on social media in your email newsletter. Blogs, podcasts, uh, YouTube videos, whatever it may be. Keep it to that. And you want your pillars to highlight your services.
Obviously the things that you'd be willing to sell, and think about it like a dent, uh, Venn diagram. What you sell, what your audience needs help with. What's in the middle is those content pillars and it needs to align with your products or services, and that's what you talk about everywhere.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Exactly. I love it.
Um, so when you have these pillars, you know, kind of one way I think of pillar content is some like big project that then I can distribute on many channels. Is that a pretty fair way to think of it? ,
Sarah Block: I see where you're coming from. Like a pillar page?
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah. Or like a video or a webinar
Sarah Block: [00:11:00] or, yeah, that's not what I'm talking about, but I do understand what you're talking about.
So when I say pillar, it's more along the content strategy, um, range. So it's more in the found. of what you'd be talking about, but those big pillar pages and videos, those would be taken from your pillars. These are the topics that I can talk about, and then you definitely want to repurpose them and make sure.
They're everywhere. If you're what you're talking about, I always refer to it as core content. This is a core piece of content. It's a big chunky one, and I can knock it around and create a bunch of little content babies for email and social and video and whatnot. .
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah. So, so that's a really great way to, to explain the misconception between pillar strategy and pillar
Sarah Block: tactics.
Yeah. Two different things, [00:12:00] but I do understand what you're saying. two different
Leanne Dow-Weimer: things. But if we drew a Venn diagram, they do mean the middle .
Sarah Block: Yeah. They're aligned. ,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: they're synergies there. Mm-hmm. , um, sorry, I just think synergies is a funny word. . Um, because it's so overused, jargon wise. Oh, very
Sarah Block: much so.
Love my synergies.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, it's, it's synergy season. Um, feel
Sarah Block: synergy outside
Leanne Dow-Weimer: right now. . Um. . And so, so strategically there is the, the pillars and then, you know, when someone doesn't have an audience, they can kind of test and play around and see what those are gonna be. Mm-hmm. , um, how much do you think the pillars should reflect internally?
Like what's happening within the organization or the entrepreneur versus what their target market needs or? .
Sarah Block: By internally do you mean like what products or services they're [00:13:00] working on right now?
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Um, not just that, but like their overall like culture or vibe or preferences or, you know, yeah. That personality.
Yeah.
Sarah Block: I think all of that falls, it doesn't really fall into the pillars category, but it falls within the voice, right. Your brand voice. So all of that should be part. What you're using to create your content, because you don't wanna sound like everybody else. I, I have this webinar that I do sometimes that's a content differentiator, and it's basically defining your voice, what makes you different, and how you can stand out from everyone else who's talking about the same old stuff.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Absolutely. And, and so I know it sounds, it's starting to sound with all my questions, like I don't know anything about marketing, but guys, bear with me. I'm asking things that are common misconceptions about what Sarah's talking about. . There's also the fact that like
Sarah Block: people use different. [00:14:00] Different phrases for all of these things.
There's not like a set, this is what you call it. So
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, for sure. There's, there's very few set defined things. Yeah. Um, you know, I, because we could even go so far as to call this a demand generation strategy. You could,
Sarah Block: we could call it inbound. Yes. And like some people would consider social media not part of content marketing, but I think it falls under the content marketing umbrella.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Have I, I would micro content. , it's a hill I will die on. Social marketing is a part of content marketing. Mm-hmm. , it, it, there's just no way. It's not, um, same with email 100. Yeah. Because it, it's literally a piece of content. Like it's, yeah. How can it not be? Are, is there no words or pictures or videos?
There's no subject line. All right. We're reinventing email marketing it. Now a does Page
Sarah Block: five. . You win this one, .
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Um, so [00:15:00] now what are some things that people commonly do, like think about the best way that you've seen someone execute this pillar strategy? What are some of the characteristics that you've seen there?
Sarah Block: I would say saying the same thing in very different ways. So I went to Content Marketing World, it was in September, and I s I I, I love the pillar strategy. So I sat in this little, I sat in a pillar strategy session and I was like, okay, this is brilliant. So what they do is they create a giant pillar page, and this is referring to pillar content , not pillar strategy.
Um, they created giant pillar page, and then they break it down into a whole bunch of different blogs and different social media posts and email. It's just a matter of repurposing everything that you create, but having that pillar [00:16:00] page that is linked back to, and referred to in all of those, it's.
enormous juice for seo. It's great for that, but it's also really helpful and valuable for your audience as they're trying to learn this thing. They have a lot of different resources to choose from, and everybody, I said earlier, I think marketers are teachers. Everybody has a different learning style. So by creating content that's video, podcast, blog, you are giving them the education in the format that they.
the way they learn. .
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, a hundred percent. Because, you know, maybe somebody doesn't have time to read the whole article, but they can listen to a podcast on their commute. Yeah. Or vice versa.
Sarah Block: Yeah. And take away any friction with those long pillar pages and put a table of contents that's linkable to get them to the different sections.
Make it easy for them to use your content.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Absolutely. [00:17:00] Um, and then, I mean, the, the, the data analyst kind of side of me is, And then you can mark, you know, like your, you know, your KPIs against who clicked what, and you know, what your results were. You know where heat map it, like, let's see where it got the most interaction and, and attention.
Yeah. But if you,
Sarah Block: that's brilliant.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: If you don't, um, . If you don't put it out there and you don't start it as a pillar and you don't refer back to it, you'll never know.
Sarah Block: No, no one's seeing it. You can't create content in a vacuum and not have a repurposing and distribution strategy to go with it. It's just gonna sit there.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: and for smaller organizations. So let's say you're not like a big behemoth, like let's say you don't have 400 million of marketing budget a year, , right? What, like, do you feel like this is especially impactful for them and like, how so?
Sarah Block: Yeah, I mean, I don't have 400 million marketing dollars and [00:18:00] this is what I did to build my business.
It's all organic. It's all through content marketing, and those are the companies that I work with too. They're all somewhere between like 1 million and 30 million companies in revenue. So 30 million sounds big, but usually they don't even have a marketing department yet. That's the size they're at, and they don't have a.
Marketing budget at all. It's just for outsourcing. It has a massive impact because you can get, you're showing up everywhere. You're showing up in all of those platforms. You are building trust and value for your audience wherever they might be. So it's very impactful to do it that way, and definitely add PR as part of your content strategy.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: I love it. I love, I love PR for this. Um, I think that as far as, um, SEO and just kind of back links and credibility, that just having that press [00:19:00] release even, even if you're just gonna, you know, Table stakes, like start at the, the very basics, just having
Sarah Block: a press release. Yeah. For backlinks. It's amazing.
Even if like nobody good picks it up, it gets picked up by, I don't know, like 250 just by distributing it. And those are some solid backlinks. But for like when I first started my business actually, . I started my business. I'm doing an in-person speaking thing tonight with American Marketing Association, and this is the topic I'm talking about, so it's fresh on my mind.
I was working on the deck earlier and I had built up my personal brand and my entire year worth of contracts to make up my salary before I ever left my job, and I did that part with PR first, doing guest posts in other public. things like this, being a guest on podcasts and webinars and YouTube videos, [00:20:00] and that is where my first, like 12 clients came from.
Was that
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah. And, and I wanna point out something that they stands out to me. Right. Because I, I agree with this fully, right? You have to pr your own career mm-hmm. , because nobody knows what you know, unless you tell them. You know it. Yeah. So, just like our, our clients can't exist in a vacuum. , you know their content if If you don't distribute it, if you don't put their name out there, if they don't do any sort of content or other marketing, no one will know about them.
Same with us as people and professionals.
Sarah Block: Yeah, and you could think of PR too as a distribution tactic for your own content, which is you. Everything you say is your own content, and you have an opportunity to share your content on all of. , different publications or podcasts that you might be on and you're getting in front of a new audience that could potentially buy from you.
Even [00:21:00] now, two years later, 50% of my, of my clients find me through pr, stuff like this. That's so cool.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: That's the, so anyone listening if you are worried about getting started, like, you know, it sounds like Sarah's really used herself as proof of concept for some of her. You know, no subject. Always test subject.
And, and I think that's the side of a good marketer, right? Is, is that we believe so strongly and passionately about our ideas that we're willing to use ourselves as Guinea pigs. Yeah,
Sarah Block: yeah, definitely. I , I've always been the test person. Let's see if this works. Oh, that was a failure. . All right, so I'm not going to be doing that with anybody.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: uh, now. Kind of coming back to, to failures, and um, and pillar content. Who is this wrong for? Like, who wouldn't this fit? Right. With [00:22:00]
Sarah Block: pillar content itself? I can't imagine that it wouldn't fit with anyone. You need to be able to have, it's, it's about your niche. Mm-hmm. , no matter your size, you need to have that niche and you need to have.
Matters to your audience front and center. So you need those pillar strategies. Now, content marketing itself, I would say it's not right to start at the very beginning with that. Um, as I was just saying, I started with all PR and then I moved into content marketing, and that worked really well for me. So now my business is still 100% organic.
All the sales that come in. It's 50% from content marketing, 50% from pr.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah. So I, I would say that you need to have just enough to have credibility, um, as far as content goes, if we're gonna be very generous with our [00:23:00] definition of content.
Sarah Block: Yeah. Like if on social media, you definitely wanna start that from the very beginning.
Yeah,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: definitely. And, and you know, a website or a landing page of some sort.
Sarah Block: Yes, you definitely want a website, , but like, you don't need to launch a podcast. You don't need to launch a YouTube channel or a blog right at the very beginning. Um, you wanna build up that audience first so you have people to distribute it to.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, I mean, . I see. I see the opposite too. Right? Let's hear it because if you're trying to. It's the har this is where it depends, right? That's, that's the, the marketer's favorite phrase. It depends. It is my favorite. How'd you know, , . If you go all in on creating a community by jumping into, like podcasting or it, it all depends on what you're outbound connection, [00:24:00] relationship building looks
Sarah Block: like.
Yeah, that's that's true. If you're able to build an. , if you have that skillset to build the audience while you're creating those channels, because that gives you something to talk about and distribute, that's a different case. I agree with you there,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: but it's hard, right? That, but first, it doesn't matter which method or strategy you choose, you have to be talking at someone instead of everyone.
Yeah,
Sarah Block: exactly. That's why I'm like, hmm. Content pillar in the strategy. , definitely it should be for everybody. Even a single personal brand. Definitely.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Um, so now when we look at what's happened, um, kind of this winter as far as the changes in algorithms and ownership of platforms of, you know, all these many things that are just kind of [00:25:00] a part.
Playing the game as far as like social media or content building. Um, where do you think the future of marketing's going?
Sarah Block: Yeah, I mean, it, it needs to move more towards personalization and. With what you were saying before, with social media, with the algorithms changing and all of that, yeah. You don't own those people.
I might have a great audience on LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever, but if Elon Musk just bought Twitter, if that was my main platform, and he decides to turn it upside down, I'm, so you wouldn't be able to have those, like move that relationship internal so you have those email address. and then you can move them through into other pieces of content and have more of a relationship.
But then as far as personalization is concerned, like I like using tools like Bonjour, [00:26:00] where you could do like one-to-one videos with people who subscribe. It's just quick 10 seconds of your time, but it feels really personal and you build more of a connection with that person.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Definitely. Um, In fact, in a future episode, Casey Hill of Bonura will be joining us.
Oh, nice. . So, you know, I definitely think that there's, uh, I think that there's a lot of value there worth investigating. Um, you're absolutely right. Where now where you think it is going and where you think it should go? Do you see any, any kind of split in the path?
Sarah Block: where I think it should go and where it is going.
Yeah, I mean, I think that it is going more towards mass and automation where there is [00:27:00] less personalization, but it really depends on the marketer taking hold of that because you can still create that personalized. relationship with someone, even at Mass, you just have to do it very strategically. So hopefully that's a priority.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, and, and I think kind of relating that back to the pillar content and you know the customer is that you have to understand your people.
Sarah Block: Yeah. Yeah. You really do. You need to know where they're hanging out online, what they care about. Otherwise, well, you're not gonna have an audience .
Leanne Dow-Weimer: So, um, so if you were gonna give someone like two or three tips when they're thinking of everything that we've talked about today, what, what would you like them to kind of really
Sarah Block: take to heart?
Yeah, I would start with interviewing your customers and making that part [00:28:00] of your process so you understand what their pain points. Why they chose to work with you instead of someone else. What it is that stood out about you and the experience of working with you, understand this information because that'll make it a lot easier to create that content later and to understand how to sell later.
So have those conversations with your customers. and you can have personal conversations first off, but once a year I would also send out a survey so you can at mass get that information too. Absolutely. Yeah. And then, um, my third would be to have conversations, real conversations on social media. It's some of my closest business friends I'm met through LinkedIn and.
uh, it wouldn't happen if I didn't, you know, respond, reply back to people in, in the comments or engage with [00:29:00] their content. So those conversations really make a huge difference.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. We met through LinkedIn, right? Yeah, we did . And I'm so grateful for that. Um, you know, I think you just have such a wealth of knowledge and experience and thank you for sharing it with us.
Um, if someone wanted to find out more about what you're up to or listen to your podcast, how could they get in touch? , you know, stay connected with
Sarah Block: you. Yeah, so all of the social medias and my website, it's just my name, Sarah Noelle Block Easy. And then my podcast and YouTube show are tiny marketing.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Awesome. Well thank you so much for joining me and I am, you know, once again Sarah Noel block bringing us the facts about pillar marketing, what it is and what it isn't, and, uh, you know, thank you so much for joining.
Sarah Block: Thanks for having me.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: You've been listening
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