The Content

When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. — Meredith Hill

My flip on this famous quote is: The smaller the niche, the further the reach.

The more concentrated and specific your content is, the easier it will be for your customers to find it, and you.

Scooter Company

As a scooter rider and scooter company owner, my main method of marketing for the last 10+ years has been to film my friends and I riding our scooters and put the videos on YouTube where other scooter riders naturally come across it, see how we ride our scooters and occasionally decide they want the same scooters as we are riding in the videos which are designed specifically for doing the kind of tricks we do.

I have survived off this method since 2011. It works!

The beauty of this example is that even if it didn't work I'd still be having a lot of fun along the way. This is where it really helps to be doing something you love, that way even if business doesn't go too well you're still enjoying the process and reaping a lot of rewards regardless. If you love what you're doing you're much more likely to last through the initial grind until you start to make money.

Valuable Information

Content is one of the easiest ways to assert authority in an industry and stand out among competitors. If I'm comparing two yard maintenance companies, the presence of a YouTube channel or social media account full of genuinely informative videos explaining why they do what they do will inspire a lot of confidence.

People think they need to create entertaining content with high production value, but I strongly disagree. There's a time and place for that, but it's not when you're starting out. The biggest hack in the content game is actually providing valuable information to people.

What questions are people asking? What is something that people often get confused about?

When people develop new hobbies or interests, it's hard to avoid an online deep dive into that industry. I've done it with lawn care, golf, surfing, zen gardens, and a variety of other things.

What is the first question a newcomer to your industry will type into Google or YouTube?

When I first started golfing, I literally watched a video about how to position my golf clubs in the golf bag — I was doing it completely wrong, and correcting it made a significant difference.

Podcasting Example

Sometimes I make podcasts with my friends about how much we love Freestyle Scootering, people have told me that listening to these podcasts has actually made them go onto my website, buy new parts for their scooter and go riding. That's not why I make the podcasts, I genuinely love scootering so much that me and my friends constantly talk about it for hours whether we are recording or not. The podcast and thus the conversion to a sale is genuinely a product of capturing and sharing a passion and obsession. When you build a product around something you wholeheartedly love, you naturally make very specific content that you genuinely enjoy making, which also happens to resonate with customers extremely well.

When someone comes to my industry or hears about my brand, there is now over 20 hours of in-depth conversations between me and my friends so any newcomer can go down the rabbit hole.

Skatepark Reviews

It's very common for skaters, scooter riders, BMX'ers etc to look up a skatepark online before going there. To be honest I wouldn't even go to a skatepark without quickly Googling it.

Over the years I have gone to various skateparks and filmed reviews of them. To give people who might be keen to visit them an even better look at the skatepark than what they'd get from a couple pictures on Google. These video reviews now spring to the top of Google when people search up the names of these skateparks. This puts me and my scooter store right in front of this person when they're sitting on their phone or computer eager to go and ride their scooter. It's shown my brand to thousands of people, generating thousands of visits to my website and thousands in sales.

And the best part? I had fun making the videos! It's something I'd enjoy doing even if it didn't generate sales for my business.

Product Reviews

Despite how popular this method of gaining attention is online I still think it's underrated.

Watching product reviews of products you have no business actually buying is part of the fun of a deep dive into a new hobby. I've been doing it on and off for years and a huge game changer for me was when I filmed a product review of a new scooter deck that came out and one of my friends told me that in the video, I held up the product in a certain way that showed him (the viewer) a specific section of the product that wasn't shown in the product photos listed on my website. Having seen what he wanted to see he instantly made his purchase.

I've seen people build multimillion dollar empires off the back of product reviews. Whether you are trying to drive sales to your own product, your own store, or garner attention to sell ad spots to other brands and stores, product reviews should not be underestimated as a form of digital leverage.