Expert Series – Q & A

It has been a pleasure for us to get the opportunity to pass on our community questions to Dan Knowlton! Dan has been a big influence on our team over the last year and has been amazingly supportive by giving us the time to answer these questions.

ABOUT KNOWLTON 

Knowlton is a family-run video & social media marketing agency, we produce creative videos & social media ads that drive a trackable ROI.

Lloyd & I started the Agency 6 years ago & have worked with some amazing brands over the years, from Wahl, to FIFA, Nestle, Eurotunnel & more.

We work with clever Marketers to produce creative video, perfectly built for social media platforms, as well as cleverly targeted social media ads, which deliver a trackable return on investment.

Whether you want to engage & convert millions of new customers, or creatively communicate an important internal message to your team, we’ve got you covered.

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Knowlton create amazing brand strategies for their clients! What are 3 key tips you would give to a small business reviewing their social media activity?

One of the biggest mistakes I see with small business’ social media is it looks like a knock-off version of every other small business’ social media. There’s nothing unique about it.

Firstly, take a look at your social media. Does it look like everyone else’s in your industry? If so, you need to shake things up!

Start looking for inspiration in new places, here are some suggestions.

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Listen to The Business Anchors Podcast (It’s the only business podcast you’ll actually want to listen to at the weekends)

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Check out the Unicorn Facebook Ad Creatives Group for inspiration from the top 1% of ecommerce Facebook Ads that have generated $50k-500k profit or have accumulated 1 million + views profitably.

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Join The Friday Club (A weekly newsletter with the best Marketing content we have consumed & created each week)

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What is your favourite platform for your business and why?

For me, it’s got to be LinkedIn. We’re a B2B Business & LinkedIn is perfect for getting in front of B2B decision-makers who are in a ‘buying’ mindset.

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What have been your favourite and least favourite changes to social media platforms over the last year?

I’m really not a big fan of live-audio platforms like Clubhouse. I’ve never been a fan of live video as I think you have to sift through a lot of waffle to get anything good. Live audio is the same, it’s a really inefficient way of consuming content.

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What is entertainment marketing?

Producing Marketing content that entertains the audience, whilst subtly ‘selling’ your product or service. The key thing is to remember it needs to still support your overall strategy of driving sales.

Posting funny cat videos isn’t ‘entertaining marketing’.

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What are the benefits of entertainment marketing?

 

I could go on all day, but I don’t want to bore you, so here are 3;

 

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It builds an audience of people who care about your brand.

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It helps lower your audience’s defenses, making it easier to sell to them.

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It puts your audience in a good mood, making it easier to sell to them.

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What have been your favourite entertainment marketing campaigns? (yours and others)

I still love the classics like Dollar Shave Club & Old Spice.

We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from these for some of the campaigns we have run, like this one for Wahl, as well as this one for Buy Whole Foods Online.

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How can a business use this form of marketing to stand out on social media?

Producing ‘entertaining’ content doesn’t mean you have to suddenly become a comedian. I’d always recommend that your content needs to be in line with your brand.

Saying that entertaining content could be a really insightful interview show, an emotive talking head of you sharing your story etc.

One way we ensure our content resonates with our audience is to first truly understand who it is you are trying to relate to.

Once you’ve mapped that out, you can start to research & understand culturally relevant situations that they will ‘get’ that you can tap into.

What TV shows do they watch? What do they talk with their mate’s bout in the pub? What are they screenshotting and putting in their friends WhatsApp group?

Do your research. Once you truly know your target market, producing content that resonates becomes a lot easier.

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Do you need to have a budget for wigs?

Of course! hahaha

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Talking about wigs, you had a great marketing strategy where you sent wigs to potential clients. Who came up with that and why?

It was a combination of Ida form our team & I who came up with the idea.

Firstly, you should watch this video if you are reading this & have no idea why we are talking about wigs.

 

Secondly, it was a creative approach we used to get noticed by people in our target market who were already showing signs of interest in what we’re doing.

That strategy generated;

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4 social media posts about us


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2 calls


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1 virtual strategy session booked


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1 pending proposal


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10 X ROI (so far)

For a small test, it wasn’t bad!

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Your Friday Club newsletter has been a great resource for us over the last few months. How valuable do you think email marketing is going forward?

Very! Looking at how volatile social platforms can be (for example Twitter copying Clubhouse with it’s ‘spaces’), building a presence on ‘owned land’ is so important.

Email Marketing is one channel you can use that doesn’t have an algorithm preventing you from directly reaching your audience.

It’s a way of directly getting in front of your audience.

P.S You should sign up to The Friday Club.

 

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Recently on your podcast, you talked to Lloyd about negative feedback you had from a listener.

As a brand do you think it is important for people to respond to negative feedback or trolls online?

Yes & no. I think it’s important to not let trolls take up much of your thinking time. Sometimes though, what they say can be quite entertaining, so sharing it is fun.

 

Gary Evans

Gary Evans

Gary is the Founder of Feedalpha. He has a background in AI, Data Analytics, SEO, Digital Strategy and Web Design.