Ep. 19 | Part I: Storytelling, Video and the fall of Instagram with Amy Edwards, Nikita Morell and Dave Sharp
Nikita Morell, Dave Sharp and Amy Edwards
Welcome to my newly revamped podcast Marketing In Times of Recovery. I'm your host Ayo Abbas a built environment marketing consultant from Abbas Marketing. And to kick off our revised show name we’re kicking off with a 3 part Australian takeover special.
A couple of my previous guests cited Australian practices as being their inspiration so that’s where the idea for this special stemmed from.
My guests today are:
Amy Edwards, Markedly
Nikita Morrell, Copywriter and Marketing Strategist
Dave Sharp, Vanity Projects
We all operate in a similar world, marketing architects and I’ve become a big fan of all three of them over the past year during lockdowns.
It’s a three-part special which will be released weekly covering many aspects of marketing from strategy to social to print and everything in between.
Part II of this three-part series will be out on Friday 28 May.
This three-part special was recorded on Thurs May 06 2021.
Resources
Practices
Blight, Blight & Blight
Podcasts / YouTube Channels
The Second Studio podcast
Archi Marathon by Andrew Maynard on Youtube
The Local Project
Never Too Small
The Design Emotive
Other Resources
Dave’s 100 Most Followed U.K. Architects on Instagram List
Dave’s 100 Most Followed Australian Architects on Instagram List
Transcript.
Ayo Abbas 00:05
Hello, and welcome to Marketing In Times of Recovery. And I am your host Ayo Abbas. For those who are regular listeners, I thought I'd just give you a bit of background as to why marketing in crisis is no more, I decided to refresh the podcast because I really don't think that after a year that businesses can still be operating in the same crisis mode or state that we were I guess, in March 2020. Let's be honest, most businesses had to adapt, and I guess get used to dealing with uncertainty and change. So in terms of the podcast, it felt like the right time to kind of move the conversation on to recovery. But in terms of the format and what's going on, it's still going to be interview led, it'll still be built environment related. And it'll still be based on lots of great conversations about business, but also about marketing. So hopefully, I hope you still subscribe, still listen and still enjoy the show. Anyway, to kick off this special refresh episode, I thought I might as well go global, do something big, go big or go home. So, this is a special Australian takeover. Featuring three very special guests who hail from Australia. And in terms of my podcast, many people from Amos Goldreich and BVDS are often citing Australian architectural practices as being their inspiration and they kind of look to them for their marketing and their ideas for how they tackle things. So, I thought there are three people who I have followed in the past year on social media on LinkedIn, mainly, who have stood out to me as being kind of marketing consultants who specialise in the industry and really know what they're talking about. And they look awesome. And they've gladly kind of agreed to come on to the show. So we've got Amy Edwards from Markedly, which is a digital marketing agency which specialises in working with architects, we've got Nikita Morell, who is a copywriter extraordinare, who is amazing on LinkedIn do check her out. We've also got Dave Sharpe, who runs his own consultancy business fantasy projects, where he coaches international architects from around the world in terms of their marketing and paid ads, so three different people who all have from Australia, and they are awesome to talk to. So they're gonna kick off the first kind of refreshed and rebranded Marketing In Times of Recovery is going to be a three parter. So make sure you kind of listen to all the episodes, and it's going to cover marketing in terms of strategy, social print, and everything in between. So I hope you enjoy listen to the interview as much as I did. Today, is a very, very special episode, we are going international. And we have three guests for you all today. Um, firstly, I'm going to start off with Dave, can you introduce yourself, what you do and where you come from?
Dave Sharp 02:59
Hi, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm in Melbourne, Australia, and I'm a marketing coach for architects. And I mostly focus on digital marketing and online type stuff. So, I usually meet with my clients, like once a month or once every couple weeks and just give them kind of advice on their marketing
Ayo Abbas 03:18
Okay. And over to you, Nikita, can you tell us more about you? Who you are what you do?
Nikita Morell 03:23
Sure so, yeah, again, thank you for having me. So I am based in Sydney, Australia, and I'm a copywriter, and marketing strategist for architects, but I'm particularly passionate about writing architecture websites that sound a little bit more human, I guess. So. Yeah, that's where I'm at.
Ayo Abbas 03:43
And finally over to you, Amy, do you tell us about bit about you, please?
Amy Edwards 03:46
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on. My name is Amy and I have a marketing consultancy group called Markedly and we're based in Brisbane, Australia. Mainly what we do is we help people with their strategy for their practice, and then work with them to implement it across content and PR, and digital activities as well.
Ayo Abbas 04:10
Okay, so I guess I'm gonna start off in terms of what you all do, because you're you're all marketers, but you're all doing something could be different. And I recently wrote a post on LinkedIn actually talking they're not all marketers are the same, I guess. Can you talk about a bit about your background and how you got to where you are and the kind of specialisms that you cover. I'll kick off with you, Amy.
Amy Edwards 04:32
Sure. So I started off working in retail marketing, actually, that was my background. So it's always very customer focused and brand focused. And then I had an opportunity to move to a architecture practice and kind of just fell in love with it. I love design and that's where I really kicked off. I love of marketing for design and architects and creatives. And then, really about two to three years ago or I started Markedly and I just kept going from there. And now really what I do is work with small and medium practices just to just to help them either startup or help them to grow or help them evolve as a business.
Ayo Abbas 05:15
Are there any kind of particular aspects of marketing you specialise in? Or are you quite kind of general in what you offer?
Amy Edwards 05:21
I think it's fairly general, I think it's more of a bit of an umbrella term for us really like it to marketing for us is about creating a strategy for people for practices that they can either implement themselves or we help them to implement. It really depends on the practice and where they're headed, and what some of their goals are dependent on what marketing activities we do. But, I mean, generally, I found in the last 12 months, a lot of that has been about content marketing. So, a lot of our work has been there. But it's also been in publishing their work, like trying to get as much publicity as possible. And redoing websites. I think that's kind of one of the big things Nikita's probably found that as well. It's like everyone's suddenly going, Oh, my God, my website's terrible. Can you please help? So that I guess that's, I feel like it's very general. But, but that's sort of where we're heading at this stage.
Ayo Abbas 06:12
So Nikita says we're talking website so you are I guess you're specialising in making websites human, for architects in many ways. And how have you kind of how did you k wind up there doing doing that for architects?
Nikita Morell 06:27
Yeah, so I guess I'm I started in brand management, for bigger companies like L'Oreal and that and then I ended up working at InDesign Publishing Group, so an architecture magazine company, doing lots of their kind of media, as well, some of the copy. And then that's where I fell in love with writing and moved in house, to a really, I guess, well establish them in Sydney. So I was doing in-house copywriting for them. And then I just thought, like, if I can be doing it for this one firm, I just kind of took a leap of faith and thought I can, you know, offer my service to services to more firms. But I think the biggest thing is, is a lot of architects and I could be speaking generally, but they just kind of think their work kind of speaks for itself, which often, you know, visual images it's needed. But also, I guess, I come from the perspective that words also matter. So, as a copywriter, I'm not a design journalist. I'm not a design writer, that often gets a bit confused. So what I do is, I guess, as a copywriter, I'm trying to use words to persuade, you know, architects, you know, their ideal clients, so that they can win more embedded projects, I guess. So yeah, there is a difference there. And, and that's what I apply to people's websites, I guess, like every single word matters, that there's no empty, empty word.
Ayo Abbas 07:44
Wow, I love that every single word matters. And on to you, Dave, you're a bit different on your former architect.
Dave Sharp 07:50
Yeah, not like a registered architect. I was never smart enough to get fully qualified for it. But I did, I did go, I did spend six years at University studying it. And you know, 1000s of hours in unpaid internships, there cranking it out. And so I've done I've done my I've done that time. I've done my time. And then as soon as I realised, I just did not have the work ethic and the patience to be an architect. But I really wanted to, I really wanted to continue to sort of be immersed in architecture, and meet architects and I love small practices, especially sole practitioners, practices with 10 or fewer people is like what I find really interesting, I think they do the coolest work. And so yeah, it sort of led me into what I what I was doing, which was kind of combining my interests in sort of social media and marketing with my interests in architecture and business. And then I slowly went on this kind of journey to where I am now with it.
Ayo Abbas 08:50
Okay, so, I guess, in the UK, we are coming out of lockdown. So things are starting to reopen? How's it kind of been for you in the past year? And I know what happened in I guess, March 2020. All around then, for you, Amy, how's it going?
Amy Edwards 09:10
Well, I think like most people in the world, a lot of things just stopped, you know, and I think particularly for business and particularly for practices, they kind of went into panic mode. And I think they just ended up stopping a lot of their marketing and their communications and then writing and they put everything on hold. Probably, also because their projects were put on hold for they you know, they don't have a lot of funds coming in. So it's hard to have funds going out at the same time. But I found you know, obviously, Melbourne for us went into a really big lockdown period. And then I think once that ended, I think people realised that nothing was really changing. Like, you know, we'd hit some kind of stable period and I realised, actually we've got to start doing some marketing otherwise, nothing's nothing's going to change and nothing's going to get better unless we start getting back out there again. So for me, I felt like around that October time, things started kicking back off again. And it has been pretty much steadily on the up since then. I'm not sure about the others. But that's that's our response anyway, definitely up in Queensland.
Ayo Abbas 10:13
And from your perspective, Dave, how's that been? Because you've got more international clients, haven't you?
Dave Sharp 10:18
Yeah. So like Melbourne, where I was living was like, a nightmare. But, but in terms of work, it was actually quite nice to get to talk to clients that weren't under a 23 hour a day lockdown, day-to-day because so many of my clients are around the place, like, I've always had my sort of approach that I don't really care where a client is. And I don't focus in Melbourne on Melbourne, in particular, because I don't like leaving my home office and meeting people. So, it doesn't really matter. But I'm here. So I have to work. I have to work with people from everywhere. But pretty much the same thing that Amy picked up, really, it was like March, April was like. Oh, my God, where did my clients go? It was just everything was on hold super, super quickly. Yeah. Um, yeah. And then after that, it's just been super consistent. And month over month, getting kind of busier and busier, around the end of last year kind of reached, you know, sort of more clients and more work than I sort of at was at the peak before COVID. So, and then it's been all kind of good since then, as well. So yeah, it's been a really strong bounce back. And I think what we, what we saw a little bit was that, you know, when, when people are worried about, I guess, the future, or they are feeling like their business is quite quiet, they sometimes some practices are more willing to take a bit more risk and invest in getting some help with their marketing who previously might not have felt that they had a really strong need to do that. So, I saw a lot of that type of stuff in the second half of last year.
Ayo Abbas 11:48
And are there particular things? Nikita, are there particular things that you've seen people bouncing back with? But also, what types of things they're asking you for? What are they coming to you for?
Nikita Morell 11:59
Yeah, so I guess my experience was similar in terms of that there was a bit of a, I guess, a standstill in March. But what I found as well is there was a huge increase in people coming to me for website copy. And I think that was because a lot of their projects got put on hold. So, they just kind of had that time and maybe a bit of space to relook at their marketing and where they were at, you know, website one of those things, it's always kind of like, on the to do list somewhere down the bottom. yeah, it wasn't something that you don't look at for months, or even years. So all of a sudden, a lot of people coming to me kind of saying, hey, I've been meaning to do this. Now I have a bit of time, which was I guess a positive for us marketers to come out of it too.
Ayo Abbas 12:46
So have websites been the big thing or or do you think? Is it social media websites or combination that you think people are really kind of moving towards at the moment.
Dave Sharp 12:57
I think they're probably moving away from social media and moving back towards websites, and email marketing, and maybe content marketing, they're more open minded to maybe doing some writing or doing some maybe starting a podcast or something like that. I there's always this sort of undercurrent of interest in Instagram. And but that, I would say, I think the excitement around Instagram is dropping off a little bit over time for architects, so I don't get the same, you know, fixation on we have to, you know, have more Instagram followers that I used to get, you know, two, three years ago. It's like a completely different environment right now, for a lot of architects,
Ayo Abbas 13:37
any reason why you think there might be a drop off in kind of social media and Instagram and people wanting to do as much? I'm gonna ask you that Amy
Amy Edwards 13:45
Was it for me? I think we could go for it Dave honestly. Perhaps I can, I'll kick in and I'll pass it back over. I don't know. I think people I think people are tired. I think the people are just digitally tired. I think they've, you know, there's a lot of stuff that's online at the moment, and they're a bit overloaded. I do wonder whether on Instagram, you know, there's been this big change recently with the algorithm and, and pushing people more towards doing Reels. And I think, I think that has impacted a lot of stuff. I think people are getting a bit tired of things that don't mean anything. I think they're looking for engagement and story. And for me personally, like I know, a lot of my clients are really transitioning more to LinkedIn, because they can do something of substance there, but also because they can talk directly to the client, and it feels like a better connection. But I'd be interested to see what you both think, on how that's worked for your clients as well.
Dave Sharp 14:46
Yeah, I think Amy's spot on. I think it's the algorithms changed a little bit but also for a lot of architects Instagram was their, their favourite social media platform personally like they actually liked going on there and I think a lot of them are addicted to it. And I think that that addiction started to lose its hold over them a little bit as Instagram maybe got a bit more bit more commercial. Okay, a bit too many weird Facebook features. And I think people just sort of thought, ah, Instagrams a bit lame, and then they sort of started not getting so excited about the results that they were getting on there. So not that not that our marketing should be driven by like, you know, our adrenaline levels, or our dopamine. But, but for a lot of architects, you know, for the, for the average architect, they are thinking about what's exciting and what entertains me in, in my marketing, in a lot of ways. Yeah, not that I advocate for that. But that's a big part. And I think that they have kind of gone like, it's not Instagram anymore. I don't know what it is as much. Now I don't think anything's come along and, and is as exciting for architects as Instagram was at the peak, but you know, who know
Ayo Abbas 15:52
Instagram is so visual, so it kind of just plays to the whole kind of architectural world and, and what they enjoy, doesn't it. So the fact that, but now it's like your engagement is going down, you can't do as much business people aren't coming off the platform. It's kind of, I guess it's more consumer led as well with a lot of the Facebook features, right? It just makes it so much harder. And Nikita, do you have anything in terms of social media and the impact of it and why people may be turning off or potentially?
Nikita Morell 16:18
Yeah, and I think Dave and Amy, they've covered it off pretty well. I think the only thing I'd add is that I've seen a little bit more. I think Dave might have mentioned it just a little bit more interesting podcasts. A few studios have started their own podcast, like from the top my head. The second is called The Second Studio. They've just started on. So, they've had one recording for a while, but and then even YouTube little mini videos. There's Archimarathon by Andrew Maynard made in their studio, like I think, yeah, they're moving maybe I don't know, if it's like a general or a bigger trend. But I have seen these kind of Yeah, these more kind of interactive, like little episode type things pop up.
Ayo Abbas 16:59
I guess it's that shift, isn't it towards content that you're producing yourself? And you can push out yourself? Yeah, I think, you know, when it's social media, it's like, you're reliant on them to push it out for you, which you don't know, when the algorithms change, or your content goes, you know, doesn't get much engagement. So personally, publish yourself. Okay, so in terms of 2021, and what's kind of going on now, in terms of the industry and the sector? Are they kind of particular areas or trends that you think are thriving? Amy?
Amy Edwards 17:31
Oh, gosh, that are thriving,
Ayo Abbas 17:34
Pushing forward?
Amy Edwards 17:36
I think I definitely think I think content marketing seems to be there's definitely been a massive push on that in last six months. I feel like that's been a really, really big thing. And I think maybe maybe it's not so much from the marketing perspective. I don't know if it's that we're pushing it. But I think suddenly, architects are starting to understand the value of it. You know, it even comes back to one of your recent posts that you did as well, that was, you know, talking about, like getting published from having a blog post, you know, I think they they're starting to see that there's much greater value than just putting a picture out, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a voice and a story that they can tell behind that. And I think that seems to be what's gaining traction for them too.
Ayo Abbas 18:19
in the cases question. So in terms of storytelling, What kinds of things do you think architects should be doing to tell stories?
Nikita Morell 18:25
Yeah, so I mean, this is an interesting one. Again, I come at it from like a copywriters perspective. So if a client, for example, wants to get more clients through the door, or more clients that are a better fit, or better projects. Then I always say that their storytelling, really, even though it's their story, they really need to be putting these ideal clients, front and centre. So they really need to ask themselves, like, what value is this story to the reader or the audience and I think that sometimes architects can be a little bit me centric. So it's a bit like, I've won all these awards, I'm done this amazing project. So it's kind of flipping that on its head and saying, your, you know, your project could be amazing as this one that I've just done, if you work with me, so again, it's that it's like a subtle shift, but it's telling a story. As well as I think using words to tell stories, I think architects are quite, you know, visual creatures. So you'd like to put a lot of images and but you know, having small captions that kind of keep context to the project or, you know, talk about the client and what they were struggling with and how you solve their problems or Yeah. I mean, I'm just like, there's certain things that images can't capture like, you know, the feel of you know, running your handle on the timber you know, like a custom bespoke cabinetry or, you know, the temperature of a room or the the noise or you know, the ambience so they're, they're these words, I think can help with storytelling, as well.
Ayo Abbas 19:48
And Dave, in terms of, I guess, how do you kind of inspire or help the people that you coach to kind of tell their stories or, or feel confident to share their stories? What kind of advice do you give them
Dave Sharp 20:00
Yeah, well, getting that getting that confidence is always, always tricky. I, I tried to get them to just sort of dissociate from thinking about it, there being an outcome and really trying to drive for a specific outcome, you know, that they might be looking to generate more work. But if that sort of is the frame that they go into any form of content marketing through, it's always going to, I think, end up sort of dry, dilute it. Yeah, making making what they're doing, they're a little bit less authentic. Yeah. I think, you know, it's really important that whatever medium an architect is going into, to do their storytelling, it's one that they're comfortable with, and that they, they are probably, again, going back to the personal aspect of it, that they probably have a personal interest in, you know, I wouldn't ever encourage somebody to like start a podcast, if they themselves don't have Apple podcasts on their phone, and they've never listened to a podcast. Like that's not, that's like, not a great, you know, not a great idea. So, so there is that sort of thing. But you know, what, I also am a big fan of getting somebody else to kind of tell your story for you, if you really can't do it yourself. And I think that this is why, you know, working with a writer is super helpful, if you can afford to do it. Making sure that you're aiming to get published in publications that commissioned their own original writing as well can also be really valuable. Yeah, because they're gonna get maybe even another like, we have magazines in Australia, where they will actually hand pick another architect to write an article about your work, which can be really interesting as well. And the third one that I think just sort of trumps everything is what's going on with video these days. And if you look at YouTube channels, like The Local Project, The Design Emotive, Never Too Small and a few of these other channels that we've got in Australia that are doing really, really well. I think you get to hear they interview you as the architect, and then they edit you together to make you sounds like bloody brilliant, and they make you look really cool as well. They sit you in your space, and they do all this, like really sexy cinematography, and you're just like, talking about the building. And somehow they just make you sound like a complete genius. So I think that can also be a good way to do it as well. bring in somebody else to kind of get it out of you. Because you might not be able to get it out of yourself. It just might be too difficult
Ayo Abbas 22:23
Amy, I've seen on your Instagram that you've been filming with some of your clients recently. So how do you get them to kind of tell their story and feel comfortable?
Amy Edwards 22:32
I think I think feeling comfortable is a hard one. I think on film. It's like when you press record, even on a podcast like for now you go Oh, I'm so nervous. You know, I think when you when you suddenly put in that spot, you kind of have this little mini freakout. But I think just recently in the videos that we've been doing, a lot of it has been trying to keep it about a conversation. We're trying to keep it as a conversation and ignore all the stuff that's around you. But I think that comes with practice and and not rushing and taking your time. I mean, we were lucky in that sense that we had. We had good budgets to be able to do those filmings, and I think, you know, created really beautiful quality film outcomes. But I do wonder, I think there's so many more opportunities that people are going to do filming themselves and filming more of what they're doing just in-house. I'd love to see some videographers helping out on that and see helping architects figure out how they can film really well. Do you know what I mean? So it's not amateur hour, but still providing something that's quality. Because it's still quite expensive. Like it's still expensive as an avenue to go down if you are employing someone to do a video of your work.
Ayo Abbas 23:42
I know one of the people you work with Dave is Amos Goldreich? Who I who does amazing filming, like his Instagram feed is beautiful. And I'm had him on this podcast as well. And so what kind of, I mean, what, what sort of advice did you give him in terms of video and tackling all of that?
Dave Sharp 23:59
You know, the funny thing is like, wait, Allison, I probably haven't discussed Instagram for like two years.
Ayo Abbas 24:05
So not even last year?
Dave Sharp 24:07
Yeah, we just got we discussed it very early on where he was extremely reluctant to over sort of he was he I don't know, I think he was like, getting started and building that confidence. And that sort of sense of what do I post and he hadn't, he hadn't done like, necessarily all the experimentation that he would go on to do and figure out kind of what things work and what things don't work. So my advice was always just like, you know, feel free to just post probably more things than you think are okay to post either in quantity or variety. just just just test more things. Yeah. And you will end up figuring it out naturally like what you should do. I try not to sort of prescribe you should do exactly these things. Like ultimately for somebody to get comfortable and familiar and know what they're doing in any of these areas. They just have to do it and I know that's like very simple advice but but that's really kind of got to be a real big part of it. So, yeah,
Ayo Abbas 25:03
yeah. So in terms of kind of, I guess, a final kind of question on kind of video, I mean, video in terms of websites, is there any kind of guidance you've given to some of their websites that you've been involved Nikita? Or do you literally just look at the copy? And? Or do you give them guidance on how to kind of bring stuff to life?
Nikita Morell 25:20
Yeah, that's an interesting question at the moment. Most of my clients have just been quite copy focused. So they haven't I mean, I do, I guess, part of my strategy sessions, if I do think kind of like video content will be a value to them. I direct them at the moment. Yeah, it's been quite, let's just focus on the coffee. I mean, I've had a few clients that have come to me and they've got like, you know, they're celebrating their fifth anniversary for the firm. And they want to put together a video with like, I guess, in the radar, so I can help them with that. But yeah, at the moment, for me, personally, it's just been more website copy, and like about pages and biographies and that.
Ayo Abbas 25:57
Okay, so I'm going to talk a bit about, I guess, Australian architecture versus the UK architecture. So, I was just kind of wondering, when I have a couple of my guests have kind of earmarked the Australian practices as kind of being more forward-thinking in terms of, I think, how they tackle some of their work, but also how they tackle their marketing are there differences or similarities that you kind of see between Australian and UK practices?
Dave Sharp 26:24
Yes, I think UK and Australian practices are like, the most similar to any, you can take any two places on the planet, I think the closest together UK and Australia, they, they they're very, very, very similar. And they because they have extremely, I think, similar tastes in architecture. I think they're definitely aligned there. I could not say the same thing about you know, UK and America or, you know, other parts of Europe and Australia. There is definitely an alignment in terms of this is the kind of work we like, this sort of no even going to try and describe it. I feel like I'll butcher it. But similar work. We also have. We I think we also we also have a I guess, like a thriving small practice. And real scene and really good work happening at that smaller end. which is again, not saying I necessarily would say about some other countries. It's it's going really well at that end. And we also have, I guess, similar, similar kind of like landscape in terms of the architecture media, and then also what firms do individually. I think there's just, there's just so many similarities in those different areas. I think whether it's kind of a big difference is the main thing I found was that for a long time architects in the UK, just like did not have Instagram, which I found like pretty astonishing. It was I felt like it was like 2018 before architects made the big leap in the UK from like Twitter, to Instagram. And so yeah, that would be the main thing that always stood out to me as like, you know, deeply disturbing.
Ayo Abbas 28:00
You do you do a list of top top practices on Instagram.
Dave Sharp 28:04
I did. I did. I did. I did my top 100 of Australian architects most followed on Instagram for a bit of fun. And then I started doing the top the top 100 Uk ones and to to get into the Australian top 100 you needed like 14,000 followers. And to get into the UK one you need about 500 followers. UK architects on the top 100 that hadn't posted in four years. So it was slow but but you're very top heavy. You've got like Zaha Hadid Norman Foster these, you know, these Heatherwick and all these like, you know, 1.8 million followers up the top. I mean, we're the closest I think the most we have is 100,000 followers, so we don't have like famous architects in Australia. And so I think that's a key of key point of difference as well.
Ayo Abbas 28:55
And Nikita, so I know you work internationally, don't you? So, do you see the differences between I guess, Australia, the UK? And I guess you're writing for the US as well, right?
29:06
Yes, a lot of my clients are in the US. And I think Dave is very much on the money when he says the aesthetic is quite is different. So yeah, and I just I actually recently collaborated with this lady Juliette Mitchell. So she Yeah. Yeah. And as we did like a guide for entering awards, which is another part of, I guess, marketing, a marketing strategy. So yeah, I mean, I, yeah, there are definitely similarities. I think. I've found that a lot of I don't know, Dave and Amy can correct me if I'm wrong. But I've also found that a lot of smaller firms now are engaging in things like lead magnets like download our brochure, and obviously, they're kind of moving towards maybe growing that email list, which is something kind of, you know, aside from those newsletters that everyone sends, I think they're trying to really kind of invest in that. They're slowly seeing the value of having a really engaged kind of audience. That's something I've noticed in in Australia.
Ayo Abbas 30:11
But yeah, and in terms of writing, NikitaHow is there a different style in terms of tones of voice in terms of the different? Is it very, very different? Oh, I saw this question I actually don't know.
Nikita Morell 30:23
Yes, obviously, it's like, dependent, like, practice upon practice. And that's a big part of writing. Any website is really uncovering that tone of voice. You know, you've got some, like, even there's this amazing little small firm in Melbourne, black blight and blight and honestly, like you, yeah, maybe put a link in the show notes or something. But his website, he's just like, Yeah, he's a solo guy with just the copy on it is enough to really think oh, my gosh, I have to work with this guy. And I think one big thing about copy and tone of voice is that, you know, everyone always says in the marketing world, like know, like, and trust, but that whole like factor, like, no one wants to work with a jerk, right? So you might as well have like, really nice kind of friendly, approachable cough, like copies. If someone hasn't met you, and they stumble upon your website, they Oh, hey, like, this guy sounds like a nice guy, I'm gonna get in touch because that's the whole point is to kind of make that next step. Right? Yeah,
Ayo Abbas 31:18
I guess. Um, so I guess if you're an architect, or an engineer, or in the built environment, you are selling your business? And is there a line between what you share personally and business-wise? I'm gonna ask you that, Amy.
Amy Edwards 31:31
Oh, God, gosh, is asking me the hard questions now. Yeah, I think it's I think it's really, I think it's really hard to separate. I mean, I think it's good to separate the two, that's my personal preference is that you have personal and professional away from each other. That's just my opinion. I think it's just, I think, unless you're unless the brand is all about you. And it is your own brand. It's your name, and it's very much your practice. I think. That's, that's a different story. But I think if you're trying to create a brand that isn't about your name, and isn't about you personally, but more about the collective of your practice, then I think maybe you have to separate it out and, and create its own identity that is separate from you as a person. Because there's, you know, generally there's a lot of personalities within the culture of your practice. Right. And, and that's what makes up that culture of practice and, and then creates its own identity, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Ayo Abbas 32:38
So that's the end of part one and make sure you do tune into part two. If you enjoy the show, please do share it with people that you know who might find it of interest because it really does help spread the word. Thank you so much fo
