Content Marketing Archives

As a video creator, your client or boss keeps changing the scope.. what do you do?

Always remember: You’re creating for the audience of the client or boss, not to please them. When the audience is happy, everyone is happy – all stakeholders, the client, the boss and you.

There must be razor focus on providing value in every second to the audience. The video is made for them, and the purpose is for it to be worthy of sharing, not just watching. Sharing is the highest order of engagement for your work and skills.

So If you have a client or a boss who keeps changing the scope, align your direction with the audience because, in the long term, your skills and creativity in service of the audience will make you rise exponentially in your career.

If you keep pleasing everyone else, you’re just part of the rat race – maybe a faster rat.

You’re working on a video project: how to stop pleasing your boss or client?

Always remember: when you’re creating content, you’re not creating for yourself or the client, but for the audience of the client. Be obsessed about figuring out what’s in their interest first.. walk in their shoes, do research, deep dive into their pain points and micro moments.. make sure you have a lot of dots to connect for that one killer idea.

The goal of the video isn’t just for them to watch it. The goal is to make it so compelling that they share it. Make it worthy of sharing first.

When your audience is happy, & content is being organically shared.. stakeholders are happy. It’s win-win-win. If you start focusing solely on your client, you’ll be stuck in the race of pleasing them.

Stop pleasing your stakeholders, stop pleasing your clients & start creating genuinely authentic content for & about your audience. When you give them value for every second they watch, you’ve cracked it.

How to 10x your digital marketing team’s productivity?

In my experience, in digital marketing – per-person efficiency needs to be exceptionally high. We don’t need people skilled in just one area, We need full-stack marketers – people who can be creators themselves, understand copywriting, video production, analytics, experiment with AI, produce ideas under pressure and more…

Everyone on the team should, apart from doing their primary job, invest time in learning new skills and collaborating with peers in the industry. We need small teams of ninjas or superheroes.

This way, the dependency isn’t on one person but on the team and the process.
When need arises, we have more perspectives, skills and worldviews, leading to on point and faster execution.

In simple terms…

1. Understand the one true metric: engagement

2. Learn and acquire as many skills around it as possible

3. Collaborate and share knowledge within your team

4. Stay adaptable and ready to wear multiple hats

This approach creates a high-performing team that can tackle diverse challenges. Remember, in the fast-paced game of digital content, it’s not about who you are, but what you do that defines you. So, suit up, and create some magic!

How can you reignite your creative spark?

Prioritize fun! Great creative output is always an outcome of fun, freedom, and happiness – not the other way around. The more you’re having fun, the more your mind flows freely. Ideas happen when dots connect naturally.

You can’t force it. Just go for a walk, play a game, chat with a friend. What’s that one activity that gives you joy? Do that for 30-60 minutes and come back fresh.

Creative roles aren’t like traditional jobs. Your success depends on the quality of ideas you produce. And that’s always an outcome of fun, freedom, and happiness.

I remember working on a video once.. which went on to become the one with highest engagement in Asia a few years back… Before we finalised it, we just took a break for a few hours.. filming slow-motion shots of toy cars falling off the table For an hour we made Hollywood style footage with our phones.. After that, we got back to work.

About deadlines, break projects into manageable chunks with mini-deadlines, one brick at a time. Don’t get overwhelmed about building the entire wall. You need progress, not perfection. Celebrate the tiny wins. The more it seems like an adventure, the less overwhelmed you’ll feel.

In my experience, the best ideas come when you’re not trying so hard. So loosen up, have fun, and let creativity flow!

How can you ignite creativity within your team?

Your team is accustomed to strict protocols and feels boxed in with office structures and processes.
Here’s how you can ignite creativity within your team and what worked to produce killer content in the last ten years…

1. Fun

Great ideas are always an outcome of fun. The more fun we had, the better our output. We played TT, charades, watched shows, jammed to music together… Always Prioritize Fun.

2. Break the rhythm

Disrupting routine sparks fresh thinking. Once, I had the team stand on chairs for a meeting. It looked ridiculous but broke the monotony, jolting minds to the new… Another time we drove to the airport together just to return… got stuck in a jam… we had our brainstorm in the car :) Shake up the routine.

3. Free flowing jam sessions

We held unstructured brainstorming where ideas flowed freely. These ‘jams’ allowed for wild, unconventional thinking, often leading to breakthroughs. No idea, no contribution is wrong, and everyone must feel safe to share freely without judgment. Magical dots connect when everyone is in the flow… jamming.

What’s your craziest example of shaking off routine to ignite ideas? Do share… :)