Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You know, you need to spend time on your marketing, but somehow it always seems to end up moving further and further down the to do list. And we get it. You're in client meetings, on client calls, writing policies, pulling quotes. It's no wonder why marketing feels like a chore.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Not having enough time for marketing is one of the most common challenges that we hear from agents and advisors. So today we're taking that challenge head on. By the end of this episode, you'll know how to turn one piece of collateral into a full month's worth of content across every channel each in just a couple of hours a week.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: 42% of small businesses globally say that they have under one hour a day for marketing. And that's according to Constant Contact State of Small Business Marketing Report. Joe, you've watched agents try to keep up with marketing for years. So today we're gonna introduce a repeatable framework that our agents can follow. So, Joe, if you could kick us off, let's get started and walk us through just the high level strategy that we're gonna be getting into today.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's all about working smarter, not harder. So in the old it was okay, well, you have to create video and you have to create blogs and you have to create social media content. And everything was from net new.
You don't need to do that anymore. You can create one longer piece of content, whether that is a long article, whether that is a long piece of video. And you can now utilize AI to help you get that into different layers of content, either for social media, for shorts, which is super important these days, for your website, for email, for everything. So it's pretty amazing how AI can help us now and really streamline the that whole process works.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, and you just mentioned it. We'll be talking about AI. But speaking of which, HubSpot came out with their State of marketing report earlier this year and found that a third of those surveyed say that AI saves them over 15 hours a week. I mean, that's a big chunk of change that you're keeping in your pocket. So Joe, when it comes to AI, where does AI play a role when we're executing that strategy?
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Oh, it plays a critical role. So whether it's you created a video and you're using the transcripts to help create all those other pieces of content, whether you're utilizing AI to help with inspiration of making those content, you can use AI to help you with the research that goes into what it is that you're gonna create to ensure that what you're creating is what people actually wanna hear about. So in my opinion, the AI use cases are endless. And to me, I think we're figuring out more and more and every single month we figure out new ways to utilize it and new ways to make ourselves more efficient and, and also new ways as like a checks and balances of keeping us honest. Are we doing the right things by analyzing reports based off of the content that we're putting out there?
[00:02:38] Speaker A: And if you're an agent and you're looking to sit down and execute this strategy by carving out just a couple of hours a week, what is your starting point? Where do you begin?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: I would recommend starting with the research. Okay, so I would start with the research. I would put into AI exactly who it is that you are trying to educate or you're trying to provide value to start there and give it your goals and tell the AI. So you have to treat AI as your assistant.
It's a virtual assistant that is sitting there waiting to help you. So utilize it from the very beginning to say, here is who our audience is. Here is what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm trying to create one, maybe it's a blog article every single week to start out if you're not comfortable with the video. I'm trying to create one high value blog article and I need your help doing research to understand my target audience's needs when it comes to the topic that I'm trying to teach them about. What it will do is it will pull all the trends, it will look at search behavior, it will come back and say here are the hot topics that are the types of topics that you need to consider for these blogs. Then keep having that conversation with it. What are some long form content ideas that I can utilize that will gain interest or curiosity about this topic? It's going to feed you back things like, oh, here's the top 10, you know, mistakes that people make when they're shopping for life insurance. That's your starting point. But do the research first because the last thing you want to do is create content and put all that time and effort into something where your target audience isn't asking for it.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Right?
[00:04:08] Speaker B: You want to make sure that you're providing as much value as, as you can. So the more that you know your target audience, the further ahead you're going to get.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: That's such a good point because what we're talking about today is saving time. But the time that you do spend on marketing, you want to use it efficiently. So if you're just guessing what your audience wants to hear about or know about, then you are putting yourself at risk of wasting that time when you're conducting research. There is some caveats that we should mention. One is that you can't just take everything that AI generates at face value. It can hallucinate. So you need to cross reference, you need to fact check, and on top of that layer in your own experiences and your own opinions. Because if you're just relying on what AI generates, then you, you're not using anything that's unique to you. Can you add anything to that?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: That's a great point. And one of the things that we've talked about, especially if you're an agent who's not used to making content. And so maybe it's one of the easiest pieces to start with, is who you are and why it is that you do what it is that you do. And that piece alone is something that you can start with and it's always gonna be unique to you. There's always different reasons that people got into this industry. There's different histories of what they did prior to this industry. There could be career changers. Those are pieces of gold content, and those are things that you can share with your AI. So then that way it intertwines those personal stories with the stories and with the topics that the AI is recognizing as being hot topics for your target audience.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: And that helps you start to stand out from everybody else. That is just taking AI at face value.
Joe, this is a great strategy. I do want to make sure that our audience understands what a piece of anchor content is. This is an example right now. This podcast episode is something that we would use as a piece of anchor content. If you go to our YouTube page right now, you'll see shorts, clips from this podcast and then we use those to create blogs and social posts. And then we'll wrap all of this up into our monthly newsletter. So this is AMM showing it in real time. But Joe, we also know that especially in the health and wealth industries, there's seasons and there are busy times and maybe less busy times.
As an example, you're an agent preparing for AEP and you still feel like your back's up against the wall. How can you still make sure that this can fit into that busy schedule?
[00:06:29] Speaker B: And I think it's all about being consistent. And if you know that you're gonna be, you know, have time issues when we get into the October, November, December area, because you're so busy selling and you're not gonna have Time to really create a lot during that time. This is when in the summertime. So where we're at now, this is when you can get ahead of that game and you can really begin to prepare. And as we mentioned, take a day and record videos, write an article, utilize AI to write that article, start to get it all together and then take those pieces and utilize AI to break those pieces down into those smaller pieces that you can use months ahead of time. So, and the great thing is is all of the platforms that we're utilizing for promotions all have scheduling. So if your main channel is Facebook, go in and schedule your posts ahead of time. The more that you can get comfortable with it, you're going to see that you can take what one day of just dedicating it to making marketing material and you can make that last for a month or two easily. And the other thing to keep in mind, and I think this is really important, not everything needs to be net new and so you don't have to recreate all the time. When people come to your page and they're meeting you for the very first time, they're not going to go back and stalk your entire page for the last three years and see what you posted. So if you have evergreen content that you know you can reutilize, take advantage of that. If it's been six months or eight months since you've utilized that content and it's timely to that time of year, go ahead and reuse it. And if you have really good content that did really good in 2025 and you're coming into 2026, reuse that content. Just make a few updates to it. There's no reason to always recreate the wheel. Sometimes some of your best pieces of content just need to be reserved again because now you have a net new audience that's now looking at your channel and wanting to learn.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: And we have a great episode up right now on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast about evergreen content. But I'm glad you brought that up because if our agents are out there looking to get the most out of their content, that is something that they can publish once and it will continue working for them months, sometimes years later.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: I also like how you're kind of suggesting that you should be forward thinking if you know you've got a vacation coming up or it's a holiday season or aep, plan ahead and that evergreen content is a great storage bank that you can keep and publish when you know you don't have that time.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: That's I think it's important to note too that a lot of the social media channels, their post lifeline is longer now. So it used to be, you know, you would post something and people would see it maybe a day or two or even three after you posted it and you'd be getting still likes on it. That lifeline of that one post, especially if you look at like a channel like LinkedIn, it's posting stuff from three weeks or it's sharing stuff from three weeks ago for you. So where it used to be? Oh well, on LinkedIn you need to post three or four times a week. Not necessarily anymore. You can get away with doing one or two a week knowing the lifeline of that one post is now three weeks.
And so it really, it's kind of catering to us. And the good content that you create, it's going to resonate. So that's what you need to watch for is those impressions, what does good and then feed off of that.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So we've done our research, we've either written a long form blog or we've shot a long form video. Take your pick, either can serve as your anchor content. Alright Joe, I want to shift this over now to the quality of content. It's well known that perfectionism is the quickest way to kill momentum. I think a lot of people out there when they think about marketing is that they have to start out perfectly with an aesthetic Instagram profile or viral videos on TikTok or you know, a thousand reads on their blog.
Can you level set though and set things straight?
[00:10:06] Speaker B: No, I think just be real. That's what will, that will showcase more of who you are than a polished full set video ever will. If you can go out and you can explain things the way that with your own personality, your own take your own experience, that is what's going to resonate with your audience. It's not about making it look like the other person. You don't want to do that. You don't want to blend in. You want to make sure that people understand who you are as a person, who you know why you are doing, what it is that you're doing and make them realize the difference that you bring to the table. We say it all the time. There's thousands of digital marketers out there. There's lots of people who are talking about the same topics that we are today. But what sets us apart is us. It's our personalities, it's us coming together and it's the way that we explain things and the way that we Share things. That's what sets us all apart. So don't be afraid to be yourself. And I try with some of the shorts or the quick videos I make, I make it a rule where I'm recording it once and I don't care what it looks like it's going because that's the easiest way to do it and you get used to it. So in the beginning it's really frustrating and you're like, oh, people are gonna judge me. But as you keep going with it, you realize, you know what, that's okay because people make mistakes and people are gonna see that and be like, oh, all right, she's real.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: And the more that you do it, the less and less mistakes you'll make.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Exactly. Because you get more comfortable.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Exactly.
We have our long form piece of content that gets clipped into short form videos.
However, if you do use video as your long form piece of content and you are maybe not a fan of getting in front of the camera, then that means you only have to get in the front of the camera one time a month because then everything else gets clipped from it. Now we mentioned that you can also start with a long form blog article, but then that would require you to then take that script or the content within that article and and then record individual short form videos. So anybody out there that is a little bit camera shy, I would recommend starting with that long form piece of content. Because you're one and done. You get it in front of the camera one time and you're done. And all of this is meant to prevent you from getting in front of a blank screen and not knowing where to begin. Because, Joe, we know that marketing fatigue comes from having to start over and over and over again.
So if you create one piece of content, that's a great way to keep yourself from burning out. Jo, any final thoughts or words of advice for our audience today?
[00:12:23] Speaker B: I think it's the same advice I always give. Just get out there, start creating the content. Don't be overjudgmental. Give yourself some grace. It's okay. Just start creating it, get it out. Even if you can't do that long video in the beginning, get used to the shorts. The shorts are super popular right now. Make five one minute shorts. Utilize TikTok just because it's an easy to use platform to help you do that, and then you can save it to your camera roll.
There's things you can do to make it easy. Don't overthink it, make it easy and start with the easy answers such as who you are and who it is that you're trying to help.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: All right, before we say goodbye, let's just run through these steps one more time. That way we can ensure that our audience knows exactly how to put this into action. So as you mentioned, the first step is do your research. AI can help. What's that next step?
[00:13:05] Speaker B: The next step is keep having the conversation with AI. Make sure after you do that research, utilize that AI to help build the outline of the content. So once you know what type of content, if it's an article, help it utilize, help you use AI to build that out from there, make sure you edit it, make sure it sounds like you, make sure you know, you put that human touch on it, refeed it back into the AI and help or ask it to help you break it down into those other pieces. Ask it to use that content to break it into social media posts. Ask it how you can utilize it into shorts. Keep using AI as your assistant. If you're unsure, ask AI to act as your marketing specialist and ask it keep having that conversation, that dialogue, and most important, when you finally get to that piece that you really like and that script that you really like, tell the AI to remember it as a piece that you are very happy with. And that will help as you move forward, cutting out some of that back and forth conversation.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: And then from there, that one piece of content lends itself to a full month's worth. And of course, if you need any help executing on these strategies, that's why the Amerilife Marketing Mentors exists. Please reach out to us. We'd love to have a conversation with you and you can find us on every single social media channel. And we are back again with podcasts and webinars all the time. So we hope that you'll join us for the Amerilife Marketing Mentors. I'm David Belville.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: And I'm Joe Barker.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: We'll see you next time.
