Hey, what is going on? It is the Follow-up Media podcast. My name is Christian Lee, my co-host Riley Austin. Yes, sir. Also, aka the Mexican gunslinger. Zoro over here. Look at that tan face and that awkward creepy mustache.

Anyway, but today on the Follow-Up Media podcast, we are going to talk about what is one of the most overlooked processes. It's one of the most overlooked parts of really establishing a content series, whether that be podcast, it could be just straight uh a video series, corporate videos, but it is the most

overlooked but the most important to establish the foundation for your content and it is called ideiation. Sometimes it's not sexy. It's not wearing lingerie that's going to taunt you, you know, it's just not. And to use a real world analogy, let's just say building houses, right? Uh launching a

restaurant, you know, um this ideiation process is the strategic machine that builds brand equity, drives leads, and grows trust. Really is hands down. Whether you're a business owner, um, creative, or someone looking to launch a show, this episode is going to help you see content and the strategy around it

in a whole new light. Okay. I'm dealing with ideiation or the lack thereof with current clients right now that makes me want to throw myself off of a building. Um, I'm just going to say that. So like for instance, we're just going to put this into a very simple realw world um you know analogy that people can you

know understand. Riley, why don't you uh give them one of your nuggets of wisdom? What would everyone want? I mean I would want a mansion on the hill. Uh but no one talks about the blueprint. Today we're gonna really break down the blueprint and really dive into what we call ideiation. It's the real secret

behind every great podcast, every great video series, and every great brand story. Right. Yep. A lot of people come to us saying, "I want a podcast like X. Can you make me go viral on YouTube?" Yeah. Probably not. That's like walking into Home Depot, buying bricks, and thinking you've built your house. So

really it's a little bit more indepth than that. So ideiation the most important phase when we meet with a client it is concept um it is if you don't do it right it's where people can go wrong. We're architects essentially we are going to create the blueprint that

everything every filter everything is built on. Okay, as we mentioned, build building a house, you you can't can't skip no blueprint. You can't What if a builder said, "Hey, let's uh start laying a foundation, but you haven't decided if the house has two bathrooms or 10, right? Is your is your video? Is

your podcast is it going to have one host, two hosts, three hosts? Is it going to be a damn morning show? I have no idea, you know? Um and skipping ideiation has no plan or structure. It's just complete chaos. Yeah, exactly.

Because it's like and you know, you've got two different types of clients. You've got the ones that are very hesitant to hit record on the mic and then you've got ones that are ready to just go wide open. They don't care about anything except turning on the mics and and think, "Oh, well, great." And in

some instances, even if they might have a good guest, maybe a uh an A+, you know, celebrity, maybe a B celebrity, they might even have a D level celebrity, but nonetheless, they just ready to hit record and think magic is going to happen. You're right. And what ends up happening is I'm not saying

every time because you know there are those lightning in a bottle moments but nothing happens because there wasn't any clear path. They didn't know where they were going with the interview. They didn't know where the format or their content structure of who their audience is. Who are we talking to? What do we

need to get out of that recording in order to gain traction, build awareness, you know, highlight the podcast or video series overall goal? Yeah. For even doing it even better, the why. The why is ideiation. Okay. If you haven't gone through the process of ideiation, you

have not identified a clear why you are doing it. What is the audience going to get from taking their add concentration, right? And focusing it, giving you their attention versus anybody else. The million other, you know, options that people have these days, right?

story structure, how the format, tone, content, all that supports the goal. You know, we have clients right now that have multiple verticals that are trying to bypass the ideation. Some of them have pretty well-known guests. Mhm. Some of them um

have too many chefs in the damn kitchen. So let me stop here real quick. For the people that let's say have those people with a big following, do they automatically expect them to auto like the podcast to kind of blow up just because they are just sitting down or how does that work? So and this isn't a

one-sizefits-all. I mean, if you have somebody that is an A-list celebrity with a million followers who people are gonna gravitate to their content initially, well, you could I mean, it probably wouldn't matter immediately because they've already got a built-in audience and their audience is big. If

we're talking about a business whose audience initially is their existing clients or um you people on their newsletter, people that have inquired, people that have reached out in their business that has had at least a conversation with, maybe done business with, depending on how big the business,

that list can be long. But even then, you might capture a portion of them for a second, but if it sucks and it's got no direction and it offers no value, well, guess what? You think they're going to come back for more and or let alone share it. They're not going to share it. Right. Exactly. Totally. And

so that is why ideiation is sometimes it's not the sexiest. It's not the most fun because it requires you to really define why. Why are we doing this? What is the end result that we're trying to get? How are we trying to impact the audience we are going after?

And then you align content that you think those people or that audience will want to hear, right? Because if not, well, who are you really talking to? And chances are, if you're not defining who you're talking to, then

you're not creating content that is going to appeal to them, right? If I'm talking to a bunch of Mormons, I mean, uh, about having, uh, you know, premarital sex is probably not going to be in their wheelhouse. That's a really kind of outlandish example, but, um, that's all

that came to my head. Understood. Yeah. Yeah, I mean can I mean it got the message across, right? So, um once you've drilled down and you realize who your audience is and the dis the decision makers in the insurance phase, not the general public. Well, then you know how to craft your content. That's

just kind of an example of who you're speaking to. You ever been to the Cheesecake Factory? Oh, yeah. What is the number one problem that everybody complains about when you go to the Cheesecake Factory? Man, it's a massive menu that How do you choose? It's so hard. 28 pages long. Sushi, pasta,

burgers, waffles, a falafel. I mean, you name it. Overwhelming. Yeah, it is. And so that is exactly how most brands start creating content. They try to doing everything at once instead of doing one thing well. Yeah. Right. That's all we're trying to do is do one thing well.

Now, Follow-up Media, I like to say that we do a lot of things well because we have the staff and team that are kind of experts in all these different areas. So, we can handle multiple things. Well, you've gone through the headaches at the beginning from I mean, we weren't perfect at the beginning. Uh that mean

no one's perfect. I I would I I'm hopefully not going to shoot myself in the but I mean no one's perfect now. I mean yeah I mean but that is our job is to guide our clients on how to do things right because this is not a cheap endeavor.

Time, money, whether you do it yourself, you're still spending time, you're still spending money. If you come to a company like Follow-up Media, which is a full-ervice production and marketing company, well, we bring a level of expertise, execution, service, it's going to cost you, but your ROI is going

to be better. But if you're spending money, why wouldn't you want the best chance at the best results? And that's what we kind of sometimes have to fight with our clients because they're like, "Oh, no. We got this." I'm like, "No, no, you don't. because it's gonna come back on us when it doesn't perform. And

if you don't go through this process, I'm not saying it you there there's just a lot of variation. And I think that's what sets us apart at Fallout Media is that before we even give you the pricing and really break down what you're going to either get out of it or the like like I said, the pricing, we make that

discovery call to what kind of verticals do you want to launch? What kind of maybe not even budget. We're not even really talking about money. We're really talking about what you want to get out of doing this, this, and this. And these are all of our umbrella of products that we can we can share to you. Yeah,

absolutely. And you know, for content, it's the power of repetition, consistency, and a direct focus on the objective, what you have defined, your why, who you're speaking with, right?

You know, um here's a little mini exercise for you. If you hadn't described your brand's voice in one sentence, what would it be? Yeah. I mean, if you had to describe your brand's voice in one sentence, what would it be? And feel free to reach out to us in

our comments and in our episode description. And we would love to have people just submitting what their brand voice would be. We'll share it. Yeah, we'll share it. But I would like because you know what? It's kind of like um script that you know for a movie and you're trying

to get money or funding or or get a production company to go, "Oh, this is this could be something." Well, let's say you have 10 seconds in an elevator. What's your log line? What is your hook?

What is it? um two men on a horse um a Mexican gunfighter and you know saves women um in futuristic landscape you know whatever it is um you know for instance like I used to have a podcast and it was called the manfuse podcast and I met with um actually a vocal coach because I did voice over and

she basically asked me this one question it wasn't voice But she says, "Who are you? What is your description?" Like, and I gave her an answer. And she goes, "No, that's not what I asked." She goes, "Who are you guys? What what's the content?" And I went started going through the process and going, "Well, I

mean, it's me and a buddy and buddies my co-host and we're business partners." And she's like, "Okay, so it's a buddy movie. Is there conflict or do you get along?" No. No. We pretty much get along all. So, it's a buddy movie, right? Um, you know. Okay. But what buddy movie can you kind of like I start thinking about

it. I'm like, we're like the Wedding Crashers 2 years after they married those girls. Yeah. What that one sentence, if you've seen the Wedding Crashers and the way it ends, at least the first movie. I don't know if there's a second one in production, but that's what it essentially came down to. We're

like the Wedding Crashers. the two dudes, Vince Vaughn, um Owen Wilson, two years after they married those girls that they hustled that the wedding that gives you an image right off the bat of who we are, the type of com like you know the Yeah, for sure. It's it's a very it's a oneline description, but you

can do that and apply that to your same for your brand's voice, right? You know, there is a six-step process that we follow um at Follow-Up Media when we meet with a client, and I'm going to go through all of that in just a few minutes. So, there's this myth that gear and editing make content successful.

Riley, what do you think about that? I mean, planning makes content successful, but gear makes it look good. Yeah, I mean, you know, absolutely. the gear and your cameras, your mics, your where you're recording. So, follow-up media ideates the six-step process from goals, audience, platform, mapping. We're going

to go in and we're going to expand all of that in just a few minutes. The difference between a content creator and a content strategist. We're going to also talk about that. Riley, I like music. I mean, a good DJ can mix tracks, but a good producer makes the whole sound come together from the ground up,

you know. Um, we I could go on and on about this one particular group and client that I'm dealing with right now. And it's it's it's really a uh a train wreck in a beautiful form, sort of. Um, it's a huge pain in the ass for me. And and I'm on the fence of whether I even want to continue moving forward because

you got too many chefs in the kitchen. They're trying to launch vertical. When I say vertical, I let's just use a podcast, an individual podcast. You got this one that's making content in this direction. This one making it in this direction. You've got some crossover, which could be good. You've got some um

celebrity status there. No ideation on any vertical at all. And what I keep telling the main funer, I guess you'd say the president, the CEO of this particular company, this group, if you don't go through and define the why for each of these verticals, I don't care who you have on, it's not going to gain

the traction you need and you're not going to get the ROI that it could. Hands down. It's yet to be seen whether they are going to just throw caution and money to the wind and go, "Hey, you were right or uh or listen, we're just going to trust you." I mean, it's a common

sense approach. It's it's just the same thing with making personal goals. You don't write down your personal goals. How are you going to achieve them? If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to get there? Mhm. And you got to look into the consumer's perspective as well. If I'm scrolling

down Tik Tok or Instagram reels or or anything like that, I'm if I already see that it's maybe a potential, oh, I see that celebrity that I like. I'm going to listen to it. I already pretty much if you do it wrong, I've already pretty much listened to the podcast in that 20 second clip. And I'm like, screw that.

I'm not going to watch the whole entire podcast because I've already pretty much what I think got out of it. And a lot of people don't go down to the fundamentals of you want that person to think, "Oh, let me go watch that. I only got a snippet of it. It sounds interesting. I want to go watch that." Here's the deal.

When brands start thinking like media companies, they start winning. Look at Gary Ve's media machine. You know how real estate teams become local lifestyle authorities through podcasting? law firms and we deal with a lot of law firms. They're shifting from cold calls to being seen as trusted as trusted

advisors via their video content. So, if you're a business owner and you realize that your content is change it because that's your storefront. And that's when everything on the digital storefront will change for you. Good content doesn't start with a camera, it starts with clarity. Yeah. So, if you're

tired of creating content that doesn't move the needle, make sure you hit us up follow-upmedia.com. Um, you know, we are here to take calls. We are here to, you know, have discovery meetings to kind of examine and and kind of audit your existing, you know, business model, how you are spending your money for

marketing. If you're creating, which a good portion of people that we speak with are really not doing anything, but everything you do from a marketing standpoint needs a blueprint. Content strategy is always going to win. You know, Riley, from how an idea becomes an empire. I mean, that's really Yeah.

really how it goes. So, it's called iviation. It's the process, the nonsexy process of sitting down and defining your why, right? I've used the analogy of of, you know, building a house, um, and not knowing if you're going to need two or three bathrooms, how many bedrooms are you going to need? I mean,

otherwise, you would have an environment that probably doesn't cater to your family's specific needs, right? Here's Follow-up Media's six-step ideation process from concept to content. Not just any content. What kind of content, Riley?

Captivating content. Damn, you're good, man. So, here's the deal. Once I I said it before, whether you're launching a podcast, you're building a video series, creating a branded digital campaign, our ideiation framework ensures every piece of content is strategic, audienced driven, and ROI focused. Let me say that

again. Strategic, audienced, and what, Riley? Captivating. Well, that too, but ROI focused. Yes. Right. Return on your investment for time and money. Okay.

Step one, goal and objective alignment. Riley, give me a little bit. What are you really trying to accomplish? When before cameras roll or mics turn on, we clarify the why. That means digging a little deeper. We want the podcast to grow online. Yeah. Digging deeper than we want a podcast or we want to grow

online. Yeah. No, we work with you to uncover your business's goals, brand awareness, lead generation, authority building, recruiting, etc. Then we try to align certain KPIs, key performance indicators, if you didn't know what that meant. And basically that's like views, engagement, how we're going to convert,

you know, how we're going to grow internal versus external messaging goals. You know, are we trying to get our salespeople to sell more or are we trying to put more asses in front of us that with decision makers to get the green light on doing business with us or or you as a business? Give us a real

world analogy, Riley. I mean, you're so good at this. like a GPS system. You can't build a route without a destination because they never locked into the target. Yeah, that's exactly it. Audience profiling. Who is this for and what do they care about? We research and define your ideal audience, their

habits, emotional triggers, and what drives their attention. This goes beyond demographics to cover pain points and desires, content consumption patterns, tone, language. I mean, some of this stuff is boring. I know. I get it.

Platform preferences. I mean, there is so much that we help define. Real world analogy. You wouldn't give a steakhouse menu to a vegan. Makes sense, right? Yeah. That content doesn't speak to them. They'll probably throw up, right?

They're not going to give you a good review. Then we go to step three, theme and concept development. What's the hook that makes this content unique? Now granted, everybody is their own individual. They all deliver information, process information differently, right? You you could give

somebody the same words and it's going to come off different. There's going to be a different vibe to it. They could be low energy. They could be BD. I mean, whatever you want. But, you know, how is the content unique? Are we repeating the same thing everyone else is? No. And sometimes you can, but if it's delivered

in a more engaging way, sometimes it has more impact. So creative kicks in based on goals, audience. We craft series titles, brand names, podcast or video show structure. Huge one. Not just hitting record and going whatever happens happens. There's a little bit of a format. It doesn't have to be so

structured where it's like no, you you let things evolve naturally, but segment ideas, expert insight. Exactly. Voice and tone guidelines. This is all stuff we do in the ideation process. Real important. So, here we go to step four.

Format platform strategy. How should this content look, feel, and function? And where's it going to live? Content that's not built for the platform it lives on will flop. That is huge.

Content that is not built for the platform that it's going to be published on will flop. Here we determine podcast format. Is it interview? Solo narrative. Is it a hybrid? Is it a video documentary? Is it cinematic? All these things need to be identified. Your audio identity. Does it have sonic branding?

Does it have voice over platform specific variations? YouTube verse Instagram verse Tik Tok verse LinkedIn. Your mind if you're like is blown at this point like holy smokes. Look at all the things we need to consider, right?

There's a lot. But you have a partner with follow-up media. And here's step five, Riley. Yeah. It's a content calendar, which means that we're going to uh pretty much dive into what does success look look like over time. We build a smart release schedule and content flow based on your resources,

audience behavior, and the campaign goals. This includes the planning, pilot, episodes, launch campaigns, creating evergreen content, themes. You can't build month after month. Yeah.

Then there's batch content strategies to increase output with less effort. Right? So, here's the deal. Like a restaurant prepping a full menu, we map out what gets served when and how often. And it's not done on a whim. It's done on a strategy. It's done on testing. And it's done on the cadence that's happening.

You know, like your release, how often are we releasing? you know what platforms are we on? Where is your audience listening most right? Is it at night? Is it during the day? And we can look at all these analytics. And now there is the execution game, right? So this is the part that we launch

strategically with everything mapped out. We move into production with intention. Setting production timelines, milestones, right? assigning responsibilities, hosts, editors, social clips. This is a huge problem that I'm having with one potential client. Too many chefs in the kitchen, people trying

to be everything to everyone and have their hand in every pot. Um, and it's some of them it's not even their pot, which they think it's helping us, the media in a way because, oh, I can do this, I can do that. But really, it's hurting because why hire experts when you want

to be the Right. Right. I mean, you don't need us or you don't I mean, you don't need anybody apparently. But they'll soon find out that having a hand in everything is really, you know, and sometimes you can't really see the effect it's having until after further down the road, right? Because what

you're doing in this ideation process is the foundation. And if your foundation is cracked and shitty, guess what? Your results are going to probably be shitty as well. Yeah. Finalizing, publishing, and promotion strategy, syncing, post-launch, feedback loops, analytics, reviews, and optimization. I can go on

and on, but I'm not going to bore you to death. You know, there is a process to ideiation. We have a six-step process at Follow-up Media. If you want more information, hit us up, followupmedia.com. You can reach out to the Mexican gunslinger. He's always available. Hit us up with any questions.

Join the show follow-upmedia.com. And uh we appreciate you, you know, tuning into this topic that is so important when it comes down to your marketing initiatives or your your concept of your production, your video. What are we creating and why?

That's followup.