Marketing: 15 Content Ideas in 15 minutes, February 2021

Hi, it’s Nicola here from Mint Business Club and Michelle from Michelle Rose Marketing And we’re here to give you ideas for February, for your content, 15 ideas in as close to 15 minutes as we can manage. So Michelle kick us off for February. What are we going to start with?

Well, I think we know that February is all about love and Valentine’s day, pancake day, shrove Tuesday also falls in February this year. So they’re the two big ones so decide what you’re going to do around them. I think it might be like for shrove Tuesday, if you’re experimenting with Instagram stories or reels, or you randomly want to do it on LinkedIn, but you want to go live with a pancake and doing something different, decide what you’re going to do and just get that planned in. Or if actually it’s not for you and you want to back away from it, fine. But you’re going to need some alternatives so you can be heard out there.

I mean, if you hate pancakes, it’s a nightmare. So, but you could post about some other kinds of food, but of course, don’t forget that it’s actually, it’s related to shrove Tuesday or as you know, there is a religious element of that. Obviously let’s not forget that, but, and I think Valentine’s day love while, you know, I mean, it’s very cliched and it depends on what your business is. It depends on where you’re coming from, but it might be just nice to, you know, to talk about anybody you’ve ever loved in your life to talk about the love for your business, to bring your friends in. It’s not, it’s not just that Clinton card moment, you know what I mean? I don’t know it is, but it isn’t. There is a lot more than just loving your partner.

There’s another two ideas that we thought carried on that whole theme of love and support. Nic, you’ll have to remind me about the days, but there’s random acts of kindness. When’s that?

So it is three days after the 14th clearly. So you can have love, love, love, love into random act of kindness day on the 17th, Michelle.

Yeah. So what have, what have people done for you? I think it’s, it’s much nicer on random act of kindness day to talk about what people have done for you. Maybe over the past year, rather than it’s not a day at a brag, unless for example, Rebecca, with the sinfulness project, you know, there’s a lot going on there and they are out helping people and they’ve got volunteers and you might want to celebrate that, but it does bring in that whole love, even with your customers. Do you reach out on that day? They don’t need to know it’s random act of kindness day, but you reach out and check in on, on them.

What about, what about being actually having a day where all you do is random act of kindness. So you tag someone in, or you leave someone a review or you send a blog post to someone or you, you know, or you I dunno, share a photo of someone’s products or, or anything, because if you are going to be randomly kind, you might as well do it on random act of kindness day. And imagine all of those people who are going to be like, Oh, that was so lush. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing that for me. Thank you for leaving that review for me today. Thank you for writing a book. Thank you for posting that card because you could actually plan something around that. It always works as great marketing, but it just makes you feel good. Like random acts of kindness are just mint.

And I think then that you realise that as well, that your, you know, your marketing and your promotion is so many people go, Oh it didn’t work. And I said, well, how much effort did you put in? And there’s that momentum that when you’re engaging with other people and getting involved in conversations, I think what you can put in comes back and rewards you, you know. I’m a lurker in a lot of groups, but that’s fine because I’m learning or whatever but, you know, when you actually want to be part of that conversation, you’ve got to put yourself in it. So doing all these nice things to people, you know, doing it so it repays you back, but you actually never know what comes from it because people go, Oh, you need to talk to such and such. They did this for me. It was amazing. But do them with, I think when you give from a place of love, it always comes, it comes back. Doesn’t it Nic?

I’ll tells you about the guy who bought me a coffee. And I was standing in a queue and this gentleman in his seventies paid for my coffee and I’ve never like, I’ll never forget it for all of my life. And I just couldn’t believe it. So of course I bought the next person a coffee cause I wanted to pay it forward and I was goosebumpy and I’m goosebumpy now talking about it because it was a stranger, never seen him before my life, just said, and I was like, I stood talking to him, I said why? And he said, just cause I can, just cause I wanted to, just because I did and all that, I’ve got goosebumps. And it was honestly one of the most lovely things. And then what was lovely, it was, I just went right, fine. I’m going to do it for you. And they were like, what you doing? I’m like paying for your coffee. Cause he started it. We were having this thing in the coffee shop going, he started it, then it just went down the line and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was just one of those moments. I’ll never forget.

Well, we don’t know. I suppose we don’t know, obviously come February how our hospitality is going to be looking and we’ve got Mint members all over the country, but I did have a client who had, or has like one of the children’s role play areas and part of their marketing was just to watch for mums and dads who just look knackered, you know, and then just come and you know, they probably ordered a cup of tea or coffee, but they, whatever, just gave them another one or they just give them an extra slice of cake with a little note, like going, like we’ve got your, don’t worry about it. Just something like that. And they, they had a little target to, you know. Because when you get busy, you forget and you know, and it’s nice to be reminded to be kind so, and I’m sure, but actually, you know, this is 15 ideas, but we’ve probably given you a lot of ideas just in that little bit. So following on from that, what day was send a card to a friend?

Let me just, I’ve just got them down here. That was the seventh. So right at the beginning, send a card to a friend day, which also is time to talk day, because obviously there’s a lot of these days double up. So we’ve got this idea that we’ve got time to talk, right. And how do we do that? If you’re in mental health, mental wellbeing, if you are one of the practitioners, obviously time to talk is a thing, time to talk to your clients, time to talk to your friends, make everybody feel better on the same day as send a card to a

friend day. Yeah.

And, and I know we’re talking about content, but in the wider sort of context of your marketing to send some cards to people to say, you know, it’s January, I’m really hoping this is a good year for you. I’m here for you. If you need me, you know,

February, sorry, because Michelle is going to say

So in February it would be really nice, you know, in the wider context of your marketing to send a card to clients, just to say, you know, whatever it is you want to say, but I might say, you know, I’ve been really proud of the way you worked in 2020, and I’m really excited about what’s coming up for you in 2021, making sure I get my years right now. You don’t have to put a sales message in there. You’ve just done it because you’ve reached out to people. You don’t have to shout about that in your content, Hey, I sent 70 cards. You just do it. And at the minute, like I’m excited getting Christmas cards. Cause I don’t have much contact with people. So getting real Christmas cards as much as, yeah, this, this, this, you cannot underestimate getting something lovely and real in the post. So I would consider that.

Absolutely true. And so this summer gone, Geoff Ram sent out his Christmas cards in the summer with an inverted, can you remember? With an inverted ice cream. So this ice cream was splidgy down and it had the hat on all upside down. And it was just so clever because it was the year, the year in 2020, depending on when you’re watching this, you know, it was upside down and I’m sending you a Christmas card and I just thought it was so clever. I thought it was so clever. It cheered me up. It came with some chocolates what wonderful campaign, but you know, King of marketing and all of that over there. Geoff Ram, absolutely brilliant.

So I’ll just read a few out some here, because if you’ve got pets, you might like golden retriever day. Sarah Louise Johnson, if you’re watching this, that one’s for you and that’s on the third, we’ve got world cancer day on the fourth, we’ve got world Nutella day on the fifth, which is the same day it’s national wear red day. Now come on, Michelle national wear red whilst eating Nutella, you know?

There’s an issue with Nutella and Palm oil. And I really wish there wasn’t because God, I love Nutella. So I’m going to say that actually, if that’s just, if you get involved in some way in national Nutella day, just with this political stuff, just, you know, you might get involved with it because of the other reason. You might be someone like Charlotte with Mini Mixers who source an alternative chocolate spreads from local providers and you want to shout about them. So when you listen back to January, we talked about this, about listening to our ideas, but putting your own spin on them. Don’t just go, Oh, here’s a picture of a golden retriever. Cause it’s golden retriever day. You know, if you’re allergic to dogs and hate dogs, it’s, there’s no point. So make it work for you and make it work for your voice and talk to your customers. But I will be in the house with four jars of Nutella on that day.

Or a different alternative to the palm oil cause we’re both really passionate about the forests coming down and the palm oil thing. And all I can see now is orangutans. So I would have to have the orangutans in there. It would go on and go on. So I think what we’re saying is whilst we’re giving you all of these ideas, the 15 or more as it normally ends up we need you to also be always thinking about your own sales posts. We need you to be thinking about your own content, about your business, you know, and, and just this extra idea generation stuff, leads people to look at your website. Does it take you to the places that they need to go to? How are you making it relevant? Because of course, what we always want to do is have this rich variety of content, different types, different places, different platforms, written, video, all of that. So can we always just be remembering that there is a base of content you must keep always putting out there. These ideas are just to help you, help you bring it all together, if you like, right. Cause some of those days where you having a day where it’s just like, I’ve got nowt to say, I’ve got nothing to think of. Then there’s always the stuff that you need to be saying for your business. Right? It’s always that constant consistency.

Yeah. So there’s that sort of pre-planned, we talked about themes, so having a theme, again there’s another idea around repeating that from January, but you know, you, having your message that you want to get out there. That can be pre-planned. It can be pre-written. You can outsource it if you need to. And then you can do some fun ad hoc days, you know, get involved in this one is a definite one for Nic. You must do it. Chocolate mint day.

Can you believe it? There’s a chocolate mint day. I mean, you couldn’t write it. Could you?

If Nic sent the cards, if Nic sends the cards out, she knew it was send a card day. And then she sent all of the cards with like little mint chocolates. And can you imagine, and then everyone starts posting it on Instagram and saying, you know, it’s national mint chocolate day and everyone’s doing little stories of them eating their chocolate. It would be just like, you wouldn’t have to say post it, but everybody would post

Of course. And, and you know, for me, I’m sitting here thinking I would like that to be our first live event. If, if we could, can you imagine the first Mint get together on national chocolate mint day? I mean, I’m putting that in the calendar because no matter what happens, we have to do something, whether it’s Zoom or not. So you’re right. My head goes, boom, because what can I send out? What cards can I send or chocolates? Where are they going and how am I going to do it? How do I even begin to pull this off? But you know, you just, couldn’t not do chocolate mint day when your business is called Mint Business

Club. And also you love chocolate by the way. So, you know, how do we bring, but from my point of view, how do I bring all my customers into that? Like you said, Michelle, and so these are ideas that we’ve got for you. If you’re sending cards to your customers, if you are doing random act of kindness, if you’re telling people you love them, you know, it’s about your customers and how you can engage those and those people who you are trying to engage.

Yeah. I mean, I know n Mint you have got, we have some chocolate chocolate makers, but people who do tea, you know, we’ll see, but it’s, it’s, I’m using Charlotte again, just because Nic might go and decide that she’s going to do a live in Charlotte’s kitchen, covid dependent, and make like some chocolate mint cupcakes or something like that. And then they might, you know, it’s taken that one idea and if you, if you’ve got something, like run with it and having the faith in yourself, that you can take an idea and make it work.

And what I see often is a lot of energy. Oh, brilliant. And then there’s this momentum and then it just fizzles out and actually no cards get posted, no videos done. And you go, Oh, well, national mint chocolate day was a bust. And it, it wasn’t, you just gotta, it’s, it’s finding that just sensible flow of energy to see an idea through to fruition and if an idea bombs, then so what.

So you sent out lots of chocolate that melts in the post, who cares? I’ll read a few more out to make sure we’ve got 15. Cause we’re just on 15 minutes now. So we’ve got on the 20th, love your pet day. On the 22nd it starts, fair trade fortnight. And I’m a big advocate for fair trade obviously. Because we are, you know, that’s what we do is we’re small businesses. We want to support small businesses and we want to support fairness. So fair trade fortnight starts on the 22nd to the 7th of March. If you sell fair trade products, of course, if you buy fair trade products, if you want to talk about this notion of being kind fair and fair in business and equitable and business and inclusive in business. And if you want to talk about the world, there’s so much and, but I’ll let you go off and research your own fair trade fortnight stuff. And then we’ll bring you to a couple at the end, because I do particularly like on the 27th, national strawberry day, I like strawberries, jelly, whatever, trifle, here we go. But tell a fairy tale day, which I think before. Michelle, we’ve got to finish on tell a fairy tale day cause wow, every business, product, service person, human yeah. What’s your favourite fairy tale from when you were a kid? What is your child’s favorite fairytale? What fairytales were you told that scared you? Are there fairytales that have shaped your business, your life? Do you tell yourself fairytales about your business?

That’s a good one. I like that. Yeah. You live in that pretend. Yeah. I mean, obviously we’ve got Kate from Coco Kids who does all the princess hair and makeup, so she could do some like live tutorials. And we talked about Nathalie. I mean Nathalie’s doing her puppet shows in French. So she’d be able to do some French fairytales. She could maybe run a free live webinar and invite people to come and listen to her, do some free fairytales with a pitch at the end, cause it’s okay to do this free stuff, but always make a pitch at the end. And, and I love that. Like I think as an entrepreneur, people do tend to live in fairy tale, make believe land, and we make it, we tell, we have a chance to actually weave our own story, so, and, and make a happy ending.

So that’s it’s that those of you who then work in mental health and wellbeing, you know, why does the protagonist always struggle? You know, but then what is it about their self-belief that makes them win over evil, what is, you know, why, why do we have to conquer evil? So you can take that and you can weave it into something even sort of related, but different. So use your twist on it. Those ones that if you’re using those and you’re on Instagram or whatever, look for it. We mentioned it in January. Look for the hashtag specific ones, go a little bit deeper, find some more interesting ones because that just spreads your ability to make connections and find new people who wouldn’t ordinarily find you.

So that’s us. That’s our more than 15 in just over 15 minutes, pieces of content. I hope we’ve inspired you a little bit to remember always you’re doing it for your clients. You’re doing it for your potential clients. You’re making it with all of these ideas that fit in with your brand voice. They fit in with what you are trying to achieve in your business. But we just hope that a lot of them will let you have loads of fun because you know, we’ve been teaching this for a long time. Michelle and I, and you know, all we want people to do is have lots of fun with their content, getting the stuff out there and see what happens.

We were laughing before we came on air. I said to Nic, nice hoover in the background. And she said, I know Mike put it on, my husband put it on there and what should I do? And I was like, look, you run a successful business. You’ve got a team of staff. You support people across the UK, but you have a

hoover. You keep it real. You know, we were just giggling. So it’s like, keep it real. It’s that done not perfect message. Isn’t it? That I tell people all of the time and have fun with it and just giggle. And that will bring people to you.

There’s the hoover there. Just, just in case you hadn’t noticed it. And I didn’t want you to notice. I was going to take it off the wall and what does she do? She brings up the hoover, but anyway, and we shall be back with more ideas for March. 15 ideas in just about 15 minutes. So let us know how you get on, right. If you’re using some of these ideas, tag us in. Tell us what you’re doing, but just have loads of fun with it.

All right then. See you later. Bye