Episode 17: How to Create Blogs that People Actually Want to Read

Rather than trying to brainstorm and write "articles", it's often helpful to think about blogging as creating a "resource" for your audience. Thinking this way adjusts your mindset and gets you into a frame of mind to create something your audience actually wants instead of simply telling them something. It's often described as "selling the destination" (that thing your reader wants) instead of "selling the journey." (the thing they need to do, in order to get the thing they want)

For example,
Instead of an article about "What clothes to wear for photos", create a guide about "How to look better in photographs." It's the same information, but created from a different mindset - and something your reader actually wants!

IN THIS EPISODE ...
[02:47] Think of your blog as a "resource"
[05:48] The biggest mistake that bloggers make
[07:04] Why blogs must provide value
[08:04] Example of a "resource" blog
[11:22] Change the perspective to align with readers
[14:19] Write like you're talking to one person
[25:36] Recap of the 4 steps discussed here
[26:58] Focus on the destination - not the journey
more topics... how to blog, blogging for seo

MEREDITH'S HUSBAND SAYS ... 
"It's usually best to blog yourself, rather than outsourcing."
"Providing value can be your marketing holy grail."
"Focus on the destination instead of the journey."

Episode Transcript

Meredith's Husband: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody.

Meredith: [00:00:22] Hey, everybody.

Meredith's Husband: [00:00:23] Thanks for coming back. Good to have you. I hope you're doing well.

Meredith: [00:00:26] It's great to have you.

Meredith's Husband: [00:00:28] How are you doing?

Meredith: [00:00:29] Me?

Meredith's Husband: [00:00:30] Yes, you. Yeah, great. My wife.

[00:00:33] I'm great husband. How are you doing?

Meredith: [00:00:36] Yeah, I'm doing pretty good.

Meredith's Husband: [00:00:37] Good. Listener? We hope you're doing fantastically too well. What did you realize?

Meredith: [00:00:43] I realized when I go back and edit these episodes and I say when I say, How are you doing? You say how I'm doing, I often say the same thing to me. I sound exactly like my brother.

Meredith's Husband: [00:00:54] Oh, really?

Meredith: [00:00:55] Whenever I do it, it's funny.

Meredith's Husband: [00:00:58] I haven't noticed. I can't look out for it.

Meredith: [00:01:01] Yeah, I probably, you know, it's I'm sure I'm probably the only person who's going to notice. Yeah, except maybe my brother if he ever listens. So I thought we would talk today about blogging. I know we've talked about blogging before a couple of times. Yeah, but it's such a big topic, and it's one of the things that you kind of have to do on an ongoing basis that I think the more the tips and the, the more ways you can think about it, the more ways you can approach it, the more helpful we can be.

Meredith's Husband: [00:01:35] Yeah, it definitely seems like it's so over looming. I feel like I'm standing under a trestle of grapes. Is that trestle that what is new is going to be food when? When you're, you know, like you're under yeah, when there's vines of grapes growing above you and you're underneath that and you just feel welcome to my brain.

Meredith: [00:02:08] Yeah, I was going to say, this is how you're

Meredith's Husband: [00:02:10] Making a scrunchie. Yes. Oh, I said your name.

Meredith: [00:02:13] I'll bleep it out. Ha ha. You know there is. You have said it a few times and I've bleeped it out. It is in. There's one episode. There is where it remains. So that's like a it's like an Easter egg. Oh, OK. Thing. I'm not a very excited Easter. Yeah, but a little. But if you want to find it, go back and listen. All you got to do is listen to every single episode from start to finish. No, actually, it's it's in the very beginning. It's in the very beginning of one of the episodes, so. Ok. Blogging. So we've talked about, I think episodes eight and nine were both about blogging. But I've mentioned how you want to think about creating blogs as creating resources. Not, yeah, not writing articles because that's boring, but creating a resource for your readers. And that just puts you in a different frame of mind. Yeah, because what that's going to do is that's going to that's going to make it better for people. And if people really do see your your blog as a resource, they will link to it. And that's great for us. You know, that's how you really get like top ranking is when other websites link to yours. So how do you how do you do that? How do you create a a true resource because that's, you know, probably easier said than done. I mean, it helps, I think, just to be in the right mindset.

Meredith: [00:03:35] But then you also get to actually do it. So in one of those previous episodes, I think I think there was an accompanying video and I showed a blog that I started during COVID and just kind of started the blog as just a test. And I just started creating these articles that I knew would be really useful to people. And they were, in essence, what I do as an SEO day to day. The tasks I do. I just kind of share with people how I'm doing it, so I'm literally giving away the stuff that I charge for. I'm giving it away for free. I know that might be people will object to that like. Well, yeah, I try. So people might object to that. You might say like. But if I, you know, if if I give away the stuff that I'm charging for, who's going to pay me, trust me, that that doesn't happen in my experience, if somebody is going to pay, if they're ready to pay you for something, whether it's a service, no matter what it is, they're not going to see if you have if there's a blog article on your site about how to do it, they're not going to do it themselves. Right? If, if, if there are somebody who's willing to pay you right, they're going to pay you like they don't want to do it themselves. Yeah, yeah. Because you're saving them.

Meredith's Husband: [00:04:56] Exactly. Exactly.

Meredith: [00:04:59] So, yes, so I created these

Meredith's Husband: [00:05:01] Articles because most people, you know, when I used to at the beginning of my photography, I would watch a lot of creative live lessons and classes, and I would watch them all. But I found out that most people would just buy them and be like, Yeah, I'll get to that. I'll get. And then at the end, you just go, just somebody else do it for me because you just don't have the bandwidth.

Meredith: [00:05:29] Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you can you can do that with blogging also a lot. Tons and tons and tons and tons of people do this with with blogging for SEO purposes. The problem is that you can usually spot those blogs because they are garbage. Right? I mean, they're just, you know, you're essentially hiring a blogger to write, I don't know, like five cents a word or one cent. I don't know what the rates are to write about something that they don't know anything about.

Meredith's Husband: [00:05:58] Right.

Meredith: [00:06:00] And they might do some research and they might you might give them some notes, but it still is not coming from an expert. So like, I can't go hire a blogger and say, write a blog about where your heart. Yeah, true. But in this case, if we're creating a it's just a resource. I can't create a blogger. I can't ask a blogger to go write about how to optimize a site if he's, you know, he or she doesn't know themselves, right? So. So anyway, it is best to do this stuff yourself. And I know it. I know I'm. Trust me, it's that, you know, it's both at the top and bottom of my to do list all the time also, right? But they're one of one of those. In previous episodes, we talked about methods how how to do it quickly, how to make it more efficient with like a voiceover and using a transcript and that sort of thing. We can cover other topics like that as well. But here I want to talk more about what goes into your blog. How do you truly make a blog a resource? That's great. So, so like I said, you've got to give away valuable information. You your tendency will probably be to hold your best information back, you know, whatever your best kept secrets are because you want people to pay those pay you for those, exactly the opposite is true. Nowadays, there is so much content online that you need to get people's attention by showing your service, by providing value, by showing something. Marketing has really shifted with the whole in the last, you know, handful of years and and actually doing your stuff and providing value is your can be your mark.

Meredith's Husband: [00:07:46] Right.

Meredith: [00:07:47] Whereas in the past, your good stuff, your value was always what people paid for and then you would have a website to to sell it, you know? Right. But but but the way the web has evolved over the last handful of years to a decade as has really kind of changed that. So that blog that I'd launched and I didn't do anything to it in terms of SEO, I just gave it good titles. I knew the topics that people were going to be looking for. So I did that. I didn't do anything else. I didn't build any links. It's a brand new domain. I've done nothing. It has been online since June, I think, and it's now getting just under a thousand visitors per week.

Meredith's Husband: [00:08:28] Whoa. Yeah.

Meredith: [00:08:30] And I've done nothing. Whoa. I haven't even I haven't done anything to monetize it either. But I will soon be putting in, you know, offers and surveys and and finding ways to monetize that. Yeah. First, it's great to build up the traffic. So in doing absolutely nothing. I mean, I created the articles

Meredith's Husband: [00:08:49] That you created the art that was

Meredith: [00:08:50] That

Meredith's Husband: [00:08:51] Continue. So you did everything June and then nothing since June.

Meredith: [00:08:57] No, I've been. What I did is I created a bunch of articles, like about a hundred grand. Those articles are specifically how to use SEMRUSH to optimize your site. So if you use SEMRUSH, you set it up, you're going to SEMRUSH is going to give you a list of errors. So if you have a particular error, you can go to the blog, you search for that error and I have a blog, a little tutorial, video and explanation. How do you solve this? How can you resolve this issue? Got it. That's what every article I did about not 100, but near nearly 100 of those. Then I put it online because I didn't want to put just one or two online because right seems like it would be kind of frustrating for users. So I I put most of them the majority online all at once, although what you have mentioned in the past is that Google does like consistency right in your publishing. So I do, I do. I held some back and I published them one a week, one a month. I also create additional articles. So it's the site is continually growing. It's it's there's always a recent article.

Meredith's Husband: [00:10:03] Not maybe it wasn't something like I did in June and just left it to right.

Meredith: [00:10:08] So although for for several months I did, I just put up the articles and then just watched the organic traffic grow. Wow. And it was amazing. It was. It's not, you know, I'm not getting 10000 visitors a week, but it has been an amazingly consistent increase in in visitors each week, almost a straight, almost a straight line. It's because normally when we're doing SEO for a site, you'll see you might see some spikes up and then valleys and other spikes when you do certain things and and they take effect. It has been, I don't think I've ever seen a blog with this consistency. I have I have a feeling because I have done nothing in terms of SEO. It's just naturally

Meredith's Husband: [00:10:51] Building. So really interesting.

Meredith: [00:10:53] Yeah, it is real. I got a kick out of it. I showed it. I showed it to some colleagues and I'm like, Isn't this amazing? And they looked at the overall numbers and they were just like, Yeah, no. And I'm like, Look, how consistent it is. And they're like, No, and these are other marketers. They're like, No, you should be 10x ing. You're, you know, whatever, right? Anyway, so that so that is one one way to do this now. You're still going to need to come up with information about what people are going to truly value, right? Right. So a lot of a lot of photographers and we can brainstorm some more ideas, but a lot of photographers, I think, will have blogs like Hey, what to wear during a photo shoot, right? Mm hmm. So that is what I would call selling the journey instead of the destination. Actually, this is a fairly common saying. It's I'm not coming up with it. But what you know, what is it that people, you know, let's take that. Let's say you're going to write that article, right? Ok, but you need to make it a resource you need to make. You need to make it appeal to people so that they're going to be like, Yeah, I want to do that. That's what I want. So instead of like, Hey, what? What to wear doing a photo shoot? What do people really want? What are people? Want to get out of that right out of that information, what is it that they are? What is the end result for them? So I would assume it's something like how to look better in photographs?

Meredith's Husband: [00:12:24] Yeah. How to look your best? All right.

Meredith: [00:12:26] Yeah. How to look good in photographs. And then it can be it can be more than that. It could certainly include what to wear. It can be. I know if you have told me how to angle your head, you know, put your chin down, lean forward just a little bit. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are other tricks. You know, I I watch or I see pictures of of models on runways and there's always a pose that they use. I'm sure

Meredith's Husband: [00:12:50] They're sure.

Meredith: [00:12:51] I'm sure there are tons of poses that yes. So I'm sure there's a bunch of little tricks like that

Meredith's Husband: [00:12:58] And it keeps going forward and down. Not just.

Meredith: [00:13:01] Right. Oh, you don't you don't want to like dig your chin into your throat.

Meredith's Husband: [00:13:06] Right? And yeah, OK, I want to add the chins we want to detract. Right? Yeah.

Meredith: [00:13:15] Just one chin.

Meredith's Husband: [00:13:16] It was like one. It's very easy to have more, but right now, less is more.

Meredith: [00:13:23] So that's one idea, then you can take that, you know, that idea of what was going to be a what to wear and you can you could build a series of resources, you know, and the the main the central topic, the tent pole topic could be how to look better in photographs, and then it could be the right clothes to make you look thinner. Or, you know, you know how to look thin wearing clothes. You know, it's what I'm what I'm saying is you can build other blogs off of that main topic, right? And that would be very I. I would read that right. Like, yeah, I hate the way everybody hates the way they look in photos. Who doesn't want to look better? So that's so sell the destination, not the journey. Right now, in creating that article, another thing that I like to do and I do this with blogging and with email marketing is write like you're talking to one person. Yeah. So especially if you're writing, I learned this while doing email marketing and I struggle with, you know, an email that I'm going to send out to a whole bunch of people. And how do you appeal to everyone? And then I realized, Oh, that's kind of that just I end up writing crappy emails.

Meredith's Husband: [00:14:37] Yeah. Well, because it comes out a lot better.

Meredith: [00:14:41] Yeah, and it's just not really I'm not appealing to everybody.

Meredith's Husband: [00:14:45] It's not authentic.

Meredith: [00:14:46] I'm not appealing to individuals, right?

Meredith's Husband: [00:14:49] You know, when I did voiceovers, well, I didn't do very many of them because I had my my friend who does a lot of voiceovers, always said, Just talk to one person, just talk to one person.

Meredith: [00:15:01] Exactly.

Meredith's Husband: [00:15:02] And exactly, I just couldn't.

Meredith: [00:15:07] It's tricky. It's tricky. It's tricky when you're writing, I keep I, you know, for a long time, I kept slipping back into writing to everybody at once. Right. But just imagine if you if you receive an email, say you received two emails and they're basically the same thing and one starts off, Hey, everybody just wanted ta da da da da da. And the other one says, Hey, Meredith. You know, that's a very simple, but which one are you going to read when you see an e-mail that starts off? Hey, everybody. You immediately kind of put that on the back burner

Meredith's Husband: [00:15:36] Because you think it's going to everybody. It's not really directed to me. Yeah, it's not

Meredith: [00:15:42] Really for me. It's for everybody. There's nothing special for me. So when you are writing. Yeah, of course. So don't you know, that's not the only trick. You use a person's name instead of saying, Hey, everybody, but the the end your entire blog should be. Imagine you're talking to your one pick your ideal client, the ideal person on your email list and write write something just to them just to write. Yeah. That's your email, so. So same thing with your blog, I like to do that same thing with my blog. Obviously, you're not going to have a name in the beginning, but this is a little bit different from like when you put a video or something on Instagram or YouTube or you're the main portion of your site. That's more of like that is that is more marketing, right? Although I did hear I heard a social media analyst once talking about Kim Kardashian and this guy had he was not a fan, but he did. He did say, You know, the one thing that she does really well is she makes all of her followers feel like they're her best friend.

Meredith's Husband: [00:16:54] Yeah, yeah, that is that is a and yes skill. Yes, that is a skill. And it's probably because she's just talking to one person. And I think I do think in videos, you should just talk to one person. I always, whenever I do any videos on Instagram, which I know I need to do more, I always just talked to one person. Yeah, yeah. And I usually have somebody in mind whether or not they're watching it or not. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It's just like and it's also that authentic communication and connection.

Meredith: [00:17:29] Mm hmm. I used to hear the same thing about Bill Clinton. Like when you met Bill Clinton people. Oh yeah, you could be in a room of thousands of people and you go up to shake his hand and he makes you feel like you're the one person in the universe. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I never met him personally. Right? They won't.

Meredith's Husband: [00:17:47] But yeah, that's one of my friends met him. Remember? And they're like, Yeah, I'm not going to. I'm not going to. I'm not going to fall. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, there is some crazy thing he does make you feel like, yeah, you're the most important, interesting person in the universe. Yeah. Which I think is a good thing to do for your clients.

Meredith: [00:18:11] Oh yeah. Anyone. To be honest. Yeah. What? When is that? Not a good thing? Especially your clients, obviously. Yeah. Absolutely. So what else? I thought we might just kind of brainstorm a little bit about? Not necessarily your blog, but yeah,

Meredith's Husband: [00:18:28] My photographer currently.

Meredith: [00:18:31] Your blog exists.

Meredith's Husband: [00:18:32] Yeah, I know

Meredith: [00:18:33] It's

Meredith's Husband: [00:18:35] A lot of ideas.

Meredith: [00:18:37] So actually, actually in the spirit of talking to one person, yeah, let's brainstorm about your blog. Oh, OK. Let's talk about your blog. Ok. Your ideas. So OK, what are what what you know off the top of your head? What are some things that you would would blog about some topics?

Meredith's Husband: [00:18:53] Well, I you know, there's my love for animals, and so I like talking about the animals that I get to photograph or meet in Brooklyn. That's always my favorite thing. Those are the blogs that I've created. I've also created blogs about the importance of memories and why we think they're important. Like, why is it important that we have photographs? What do they? Serve as in our lives, and I was just talking with friends the other night on a zoom about if you photograph something, you're more likely to remember it and it will become a memory. If you go back and you look at your life and you see, Oh, we photographed this party, you're going to remember that party more than anything else that happened that you didn't photograph.

Meredith: [00:19:47] Mm hmm. So what in that? So what would be the destination instead of the journey? So the journey would be, you know, photographing your parties or whatever so you can create memories? What what is what is it that the person? Who is looking back on those photos, what what is the destination, what do they actually want? At a deeper level?

Meredith's Husband: [00:20:16] I would say the Times, yeah. Remember, they were happy. It feels good,

Meredith: [00:20:24] It feels good. They were happy. I would say this is about happiness and making, yeah, building creating a happy life.

Meredith's Husband: [00:20:32] Yeah.

Meredith: [00:20:33] So that is more the angle than of, you know, why do we take photos? That's fine. That's a that can be a blog article. But what is the purpose, right? You know, make your future self happy. Yeah, something like that's pretty cheesy. I mean, that's horrific. Yeah. But but that's more the the angle.

Meredith's Husband: [00:20:55] It's kind of what is it like fuel for your future? You know, like when your when you life gets challenging and difficult, you can always go back at these photographs and be reminded of a connection or a good time or an adventure or an experience or something you had. Yeah, which is so interesting because often in the moment you just think, Oh, this is whatever. For example, there's I have a client who has a two year old and she makes a mess when she eats, but she loves her food. She will just shove everything into her mouth. And I photographed a whole bunch of images of it, and the parents laughed because they said, Yeah, this is where she is now. I don't think we need too many of these images because we see this every day and I saw them. I said, you just

Meredith: [00:21:50] Went, Yeah. Wait, wait until you're not dealing with it every day.

Meredith's Husband: [00:21:53] You're not going to deal with it and you're going to miss it. So you want you want these images and

Meredith: [00:21:59] They think that you are in currently in the actively in the process of creating memories. But of course, we always are.

Meredith's Husband: [00:22:05] We are all of our experiences. That's what we're, you know, they say, What are you left with? Your left with your memories? Mm hmm.

Meredith: [00:22:15] So that's kind of one way to shift.

Meredith's Husband: [00:22:18] Invest in your memory.

Meredith: [00:22:21] Yes. Is that she that's a good market. That's marketing. That's a that's a good headline on one of your website pages, right? That's not a blog article, right?

Meredith's Husband: [00:22:32] Could it be? I love a blog article.

Meredith: [00:22:35] Invest in your memories. I wouldn't know. That seemed to me. Sounds like why you should hire me, right?

Meredith's Husband: [00:22:43] Why are you?

Meredith: [00:22:44] Why the the whatever wording you use, the the message surrounding why you should hire me, or why should you hire me? That's your website. That is not your blog. Don't ever, don't ever make your blog promotional. People do not like that. People are not going to link to that. More importantly, so that's huge.

Meredith's Husband: [00:23:03] I think that is a big thing.

Meredith: [00:23:06] Yeah, that's everybody. Does that like, I mean, business owners, especially, you know, for like a decade at least I've been I tried to, you know, I talked to business owners about what should be in their blog. They all they want to do is promote. Why would you put anything online if you're not telling about how great your product is, but know that's your that's that's the information that goes on your website, it's not that you don't want to put that information out there. That's your website information.

Meredith's Husband: [00:23:32] Interesting.

Meredith: [00:23:33] Your blog has a different goal. You're not selling your stuff on your blog, the site navigation.

Meredith's Husband: [00:23:42] Go ahead. The blog's goal is.

Meredith: [00:23:46] The blog's goal is. In terms of SEO to help build your rankings, and in doing that, you need to get links, which is why you want to build resources and not say, OK, nobody is going to link to a sales article, right?

Meredith's Husband: [00:24:00] Even even if it's good.

Meredith: [00:24:05] If they know a friend is looking to to right, buy something or invest in services or something, they might, yes. But even if you have a relatively decent resource blog, that is valuable if you end it with and so you should hire us by doing ABC. Fewer people will link to it. Trust me, I've written to, I believe, count the number of people. Yeah, people are. People are not going to want to link to that.

Meredith's Husband: [00:24:31] That's a good point.

Meredith: [00:24:33] So it's it's much more difficult to get SEO value from from content like that.

Meredith's Husband: [00:24:38] That's good to know. Ok. Mm hmm. I learned something.

Meredith: [00:24:43] That's good. Now that was the objective practice. Yeah, it's always yeah. You know, like I said, blogging is always at the both top and bottom of my to do list like write it in theory is at the top. And in reality is always at the bottom. Yeah, yeah. So it's true for it's true for everybody. And that's why if you haven't checked it out, I think it's episode number nine where I talk about methods of or no, it's episode number eight. If you don't like writing, which I don't personally like writing and sitting down at a blank page and starting, I pick a topic and then I just start talking about it kind of like what we're doing here, right? And then I transcribe it and then I adjust it, and there's a blog.

Meredith's Husband: [00:25:30] Voila.

Meredith: [00:25:32] Ok, so just to recap, yeah, there. Remember four things create your blogs. Think about your blogs as resources. Yeah, instead of articles, give serious, genuine, valuable tips. Give away good information. Give people something that they really do want, even if something that you are, especially if it's something you feel like you shouldn't tell people until they pay for it, you know, right? Number three, imagine just talking to one person. Not don't put us something out there. It's expecting you have a million readers. Just talk to one person and sell the destination and not the journey. Talk about the destination. And not that you can talk about the journey, but present it as the destination. Hmm. How to achieve the destination? Right.

Meredith's Husband: [00:26:21] Right. Thank you. Very helpful.

Meredith: [00:26:25] And with that, we will speak next week. We'll see you next week.

Meredith's Husband: [00:26:32] See you next week, next week if you guys have any questions. Let us know by.

Meredith: [00:26:40] I'll handle that in the afternoon.

Meredith's Husband: [00:26:44] Well, thank you so much for listening.

Meredith: [00:26:45] Bye, everybody. Just kidding. We're back.

Meredith's Husband: [00:26:48] We're back. Ok, so what I what I was like my question, which I asked off air, was Wait a second. Oh, our what is the destination again?

Meredith: [00:27:00] The destination is to look better in photographs. Ok. The journey is what you should wear. Ok, destination is what you want. That's what I want. The journey is what do I need to do to get there? Now in life, you very often hear the advice like enjoy the journey, right? Don't just focus, you know, focus on the journey and not the destination, because when you get to your destination in life, whatever that is, you're different.

Meredith's Husband: [00:27:28] It feels different than you thought it would.

Meredith: [00:27:31] Yeah, it's not going to feel any different than it is then you feel right now. Right? Most likely, or very possibly. In fact, you know, I would say this is that you are at the destination, right? This is the destination you already here. So. Now, that might make any sense.

Meredith's Husband: [00:27:48] Forget also now because, yeah, I feel like the question is. The destination. So the destination is. Mm-hmm.

Meredith: [00:28:02] The destination is what people want. What is what are what is what do they point to in the horizon and say that's where I want to go?

Meredith's Husband: [00:28:10] Right? Not necessarily what you are selling or providing.

Meredith: [00:28:15] Correct. This is remember, this is your blog. Yeah. Talking about your blog and how to create the blog separated.

Meredith's Husband: [00:28:23] I feel like we're trying to promote, promote, promote. Yes.

Meredith: [00:28:30] I feel like people don't want to be promoted to, you know.

Meredith's Husband: [00:28:34] Yeah, of course not. They want just want to be. That's why all you know on Instagram now, all the ads are just people young, normal quote unquote people saying, Oh my gosh, I just tried this and it does this for me, and that's what I've been looking for. And I just had to share it because it's amazing.

Meredith: [00:28:57] Those are just straight up ads. Those those are clever. Don't get me wrong, but those are trendy. Those those are dated, those are going to get old fast. I figure, and you won't you won't see those for very long.

Meredith's Husband: [00:29:07] That would be great.

Meredith: [00:29:09] And it's a but it's a super cheap way for for companies to ever.

Meredith's Husband: [00:29:13] Yeah, no kidding. Really? It's really, really.

Meredith: [00:29:16] No, because you crowdsource it, you just say, Hey, we need an ad, and here's the script. Submit your ID, do it and submit it. If we choose you, we'll feature you or we'll give you 100 bucks or, you know, whatever, you'll get 1000 submissions, right? You know that Doritos did that for their Super Bowl commercials.

Meredith's Husband: [00:29:37] Yes, I remember you said

Meredith: [00:29:39] That several years in a row. That's the only reason I know that is because my brother's friend won two years in a row.

Meredith's Husband: [00:29:46] That's so crazy.

Meredith: [00:29:48] And he won. And then there's a big cash prize. But Doritos had thousands of commercials completely produced for them for free. Gosh, for a Super Bowl commercial.

Meredith's Husband: [00:29:59] Wow.

Meredith: [00:30:00] And then they just chose the winner and gave them, I don't, you know, I think I think the first one was like $10000 or something. Wow. How many Super Bowl commercials are produced for $10000?

Meredith's Husband: [00:30:10] I was just going to say probably one.

Meredith: [00:30:12] Probably, probably that one.

Meredith's Husband: [00:30:14] That's that's that's it.

Meredith: [00:30:15] That is I think it's now more like a million dollars or something, but it's I'm sure. But yeah, but imagine doing that in, you know, in today's world and saying, create a 30-second commercial. And, you know, we'll put it on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook, et cetera. It's going to be commercial, right? But some guy goes and sits in his car and does a selfie voiceover for 30 seconds. You're going to get thousands of those. I mean, if you have the visibility

Meredith's Husband: [00:30:43] And no doubt they will promote their own commercials on their social media, of course. So you're going to be getting that much more.

Meredith: [00:30:55] Marketing that probably I mean, unless it's unless they're already influencers, that probably won't be. And if they're already an influencer, they're probably not going to do this. Probably.

Meredith's Husband: [00:31:05] Yeah, but how many people want to be influencers? Because that's what people go to college saying now I want to be an influencer. Mm hmm. That's what they want to be now.

Meredith: [00:31:15] Yeah, no. Ok. Get free. Well, we are way off topic.

Meredith's Husband: [00:31:20] I just thought it was interesting because I was just trying to figure out. Wait a second what? I got confused between the destination and the journey when your was

Meredith: [00:31:30] And when you're writing a blog, a resource blog. Think, think, think about it first. And keep in mind, what do people want? What is right and objective from this that people don't really they don't really want to know what they should wear in photographs, right? That's not what they are really seeking. They want to know, how do I look good? How do I have photographs that where I look great,

Meredith's Husband: [00:31:52] Where I look great? That's the difference and feel. Just how do I feel good about my photos? How can I feel good? But here's my quick question. Rather than saying What do people want? What about just saying, what do I want? And and then making it about, you know, sharing it with the people. But it's all based on what I you know, we all want the same thing. So right? Looking inward first and then trying to explain why I want to achieve this feeling for myself and for my clients. Does that make sense?

Meredith: [00:32:31] Well, you don't want to talk about what you want as the photographer on your blog. Right? You don't want to. You do want to talk about one person. Like I said, you imagine talking to one person and giving them, it's almost like your your your blog entry is like a little secret. It's a little aside. You're saying, Hey. And you're and you're giving somebody some valuable information,

Meredith's Husband: [00:32:53] Right, but what I was saying

Meredith: [00:32:55] Directly to them?

Meredith's Husband: [00:32:56] Well, what I was saying is if I were to be photographed by somebody else. Here are the things that I would be concerned about interested about. Worried about excited about fearful.

Meredith: [00:33:11] That's yeah, that's good to come up with your topics, right? That's a good way to generate your ideas. But then you want to take those ideas and you want to then focus on the destination. People are probably not out there thinking, if I were to be photographed by a person, things that I would be concerned about are. You've got to think about what is the deeper objective for them. Hmm. They want to look good in there in there. They want to have they want to have really great photos,

Meredith's Husband: [00:33:43] Right, because they want to feel good about themselves. Mm hmm. What are their sales?

Meredith: [00:33:52] Or what are their fears about being photographed? Yeah, no, everybody. Well, maybe not everybody, but a lot of people, most people on some yeah, on some level are, feel, feel, feel.

Meredith's Husband: [00:34:02] I feel fearful.

Meredith: [00:34:04] They feel full of fear. There feel fearful. Of having their photo taken, yeah, yeah, so that's that's a that's a kind of basic. Instinct. I don't I used her basic instinct. That's a basic feel. You know? Yeah, that's a that's that's something you can. That's the that's the that's the thing that you want to appeal to

Meredith's Husband: [00:34:30] Emotion, human emotion.

Meredith: [00:34:35] Yeah, sure. You can keep saying if you want.

Meredith's Husband: [00:34:37] No, no, no. I hit that wrong note at the end and it all, you know you're with me and then you're just it was

Meredith: [00:34:43] It was good until the end. Yeah, yeah.

Meredith's Husband: [00:34:45] Yeah. Ok, great. Thank you. So.

Meredith: [00:34:50] Figure out what the destination is. And then speak to that, don't. Ok, yes. Don't present your blog resources as describing the journey. Present them as this is how you achieve this destination. Thank you. So it may make more sense, yeah. Ok, good. Hey, we're leaving now.

Meredith's Husband: [00:35:17] For Real.

Meredith: [00:35:18] We're not coming back

Meredith's Husband: [00:35:20] Next week. I got to take a yoga class.

Meredith: [00:35:23] Ok, bye bye. If you're finding this helpful and you want to help support the podcast, you can go to Meredith's husband.