The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
Mastering Digital Marketing: A Creative Agency's Guide to Content
"Done is better than perfect" might be the most liberating advice for businesses struggling with content creation. In this revealing conversation, Ty Ridgeway, Managing Director of Shoelace Creative, shares practical wisdom about modern marketing that cuts through the noise of complicated strategies.
The digital landscape has shifted dramatically, with audiences now craving authentic, relatable content over polished productions. Ridgway calls this "ugly content" - not because it's poor quality, but because it feels real in an age where AI-generated perfection is becoming the norm. This authenticity paradoxically drives higher engagement and builds stronger connections with your audience.
Video emerges as the undisputed champion of content formats, with Ridgway explaining why even six-second clips can communicate powerful messages through visual storytelling. For businesses intimidated by video production, there's good news: smartphone cameras now rival professional equipment, making unpolished, authentic content not just accessible but potentially more effective.
Perhaps most valuable is Ridgway's practical framework for content strategy, breaking it down into top-funnel (awareness), middle-funnel (trust-building), and bottom-funnel (sales) content. Rather than following rigid formulas, he advocates tracking performance and optimizing based on what actually works for your specific business.
The conversation tackles platform selection (LinkedIn for B2B, Instagram/TikTok for e-commerce), algorithm navigation, and even the continuing relevance of traditional marketing channels when used strategically. Throughout, Ridgway emphasizes starting small, being consistent, and focusing on maximizing one effective channel before expanding to others.
Ready to transform your approach to content marketing? Listen now and discover how authenticity, strategic thinking, and data-driven decisions can drive meaningful engagement with your audience.
This episode is supported by CareSuper.
Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Harford, your host from the Canberra Business Chamber, and today I'm joined by Ty Ridgway, the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Shoelace Creative. Ty, welcome to the podcast. Very lovely to be here. Thanks, Greg. So Shoelace Creative, you're a full-service creative marketing agency. You're based here in Canberra, You've got an office in Melbourne and you operate nationally. It sounds very grand, but what do you actually do?
Speaker 2:Well, it's kind of like a whole bag of tricks really. I mean we sort of cover the whole ton of creative services with the main focus in content and marketing. We sort of cover the whole ton of creative services with a main focus in content and marketing. So for us it's a lot of video production, a lot of photography, graphic design, marketing, general services, that kind of stuff. So like digital marketing, paid ads, working with graphic design, branding. So we come into a lot of companies and have a look at them from a holistic point, from a content and marketing perspective, and sort of start tweaking things and kind of helping them push the needle in the right direction for their business. Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 1:So how did the business start?
Speaker 2:We actually started in sort of the music industry down in Melbourne. We started off by creating like a one-take session series, so we would go around and film one-takes with mostly sort of Triple J kind of artists at the time and we kind of got our foot in the door through there and it just sort of evolved naturally into more of an agency and a marketing thing. When I say naturally, it was definitely shoved by COVID into that trajectory. We were very much an events music industry which kind of closed down on us and then pivoted and then a few years later here we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic. So how big are you now as a team?
Speaker 2:As a team. So we've got about four full-time staff and then we have a few sort of part-time, casual kind of networks there, and then we've got a large supply of contractors who have worked with us for five years and they come and go sort of depending on the project's complexity. So there might be four of us at one point and there might be 15 of us at one point Right.
Speaker 1:so small and boutique and easily able to flex, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we like to say small and agile.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. And who are your clients? Are you mainly looking after small businesses or are you into the bigger end of town as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're into the bigger end of town as well. So we work from small businesses all the way up to federal government, and that also includes councils down in Melbourne. So we work a lot with the city of Melbourne on all their large-scale events. And then up here in Canberra we're doing a bit more of a focus on, you know, small business government clients, um, so we're doing some work currently with the NVS regulator, uh, and also on a broader perspective within Australia we're working with like clients like AgriFutures, um, you know, sort of in the agriculture sector, but it's still no two days the same, no two clients are the same. Sometimes we're back in the music industry, sometimes we're in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1:So that's quite a mix of clients in a different range of industries there. Is it easy to change gear between them for you and the team?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it actually gives us a bit more of a perspective, because you come at different clients that all work in different sectors and different industries industries but they all have really similar problems and, coming at it sort of, I guess, with like a methodical approach and quite a um, systematic dissection of what the problem is and what's going to fix it, they end up kind of being quite similar at the end of the day, even though they're all working to completely different industries. You know, most of the time it's like they're all working to completely different industries. Most of the time it's like, oh, we've been doing marketing but we haven't actually got the content, or the content's not really working for what we're wanting to do, and it's just about identifying the audiences, what actually is going to resonate and what's going to tick the right box for them too, in terms of what they want to achieve and how they're actually going to tick the right box for them too, in terms of what they want to achieve and how they're actually going to get there.
Speaker 1:So how do you go about doing that? What's the science that sits in behind understanding an audience?
Speaker 2:I think it's in two parts. One is actually understanding the business or the product and so having a really good deep dive discussion about the business itself, getting a really good understanding of what they're trying to achieve, what the tone of voice is, what the brand is, and then from there it's about okay, well, you know who is this going to resonate with, and finding avatars based in those demographics. And you can do that just through, you know, searching and just a bit of research and identifying those key target audience markets and then applying that back across to well, okay, what are you trying to achieve and how are you going to communicate to that market that you're trying to achieve it to? And a lot of it's quite common sense. At the end of the day, it's a lot more common sense than you think. It's like, you know, if you're trying to sell to a business-to-business, b2b kind of product, it's like well, go where there's a B2B audience and you'll probably find that you'll sell some more of that product in that market or that product in that market?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Do you think customers, businesses, need to be across every channel that's out there, or do you think a much more targeted approach is appropriate?
Speaker 2:I think I'm going to say it depends on the business, because a lot of people will really benefit from using multi-channels. But also it's about identifying what is working and then doubling down on that until you've exhausted that revenue stream or that market in terms of marketing. Because there's no point if you're going where we're doing really well, say in meta, and we're a B2C uh product, and then we want to actually now focus on b2b, well, before you try and you know, open up a whole new arm of business and stream, have you maximized your, your earning potential in that current market that's working really well for you? Because a lot of the time there's a lot of optimization you can do to really push that up and move the needle forward in that market before you even start to think about other things.
Speaker 1:Content. You mentioned content earlier and obviously that's critical to marketing brand identity and comms generally, but it can be a real challenge for businesses to be creating the volume of content that's required. What's your view on that? How do businesses go about putting a content lens over their business?
Speaker 2:Done is better than perfect, especially in this day and age. Especially in this day and age, we're seeing so much more of a market flip and a trend towards what we term ugly content or relatable pieces of content, and that is in the dawn of the age of AI. I think a lot of people are seeking authentic content that they can relate to and a lot of the times, that is actually content that is not polished, not refined. It's more authentic to the business. It's more authentic to the business. It's more authentic to the brand. It's also a lot easier to produce.
Speaker 2:Um, you can create a lot more content ideas. So I think, if you find yourself as a business and let's say, you don't, you know, necessarily have the capacity to hire an external agency, but you want to get your content up, um, it's just about capturing things consistently and putting it out there and not thinking too hard about you know, oh, we need this piece of content to be perfect before we put it out. Um, if you aren't posting because you're not, if you, if you're not posting because you're trying to perfect everything, then you're falling behind. And so I think, in this day and age and the way that things are moving towards. If you have an overall kind of strategy, then as long as that content kind of falls within that umbrella, it's good to just get it out there, yeah.
Speaker 1:And video is where it's at you reckon, oh, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we're seeing such a huge rise in platforms like tiktok, um, you know that's come and taken the world over by storm and a lot of these other platforms that traditionally weren't based around video, say. We'll reference linkedin here. For example, you know they've just recently incorporated a real type um video section to their platform and so if you're pushing video content and publishing content on those platforms, they're going to really push your page and your profile and your content to the market, because they want more people to put video up. It's also just so much more engaging. You can get messages through really clearly, quickly, quickly, concisely, um, and it's relatable. Graphic content is great, still has its place, but, yeah, video is king and how long should a video be?
Speaker 2:that's how long's a piece of string. Um, you know, if you can capture attention in a three second video and communicate a message, great. That's why a lot of you know, um, when we do a lot of advertisement kind of work you'll often find. And you know um, when we do a lot of advertisement kind of work you'll often find, and you know, in the industry they call them like brand bumpers, but it's a six second um ad, and so you normally end up with a six second, a 15 second and a 30 second and that'll be. You know, when you you hop onto youtube and there's a six second ad that pops up. Um, so a lot of the time if you are shooting for a longer form thing, you know you can really break it down into all these little segments, and that's a huge thing, as well as content stacking. If you're getting overwhelmed with creating content, make one piece of content that's a bit longer and then you can just repurpose it into a few different smaller, bite-sized pieces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so six seconds is not very long. Obviously Is it practical to be communicating even a single message inside that six second soundbite yeah, I think, I think so.
Speaker 2:Um, we see it, you know, done so effectively across board. You know, if you have a really good message, you can communicate it super quickly with video because it's such a visual format you don't have to spell things out. You can suggest in the way that you film things which will paint a whole picture in a very short period of time. It's that old saying of one picture tells a thousand words. Well, one second of video has 24, 25 pictures in it, so you've got a lot of words you can cram in there Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And the process of producing that video. Like if you're a small business or even a medium-sized business, you might be a little bit scared about that, but is it as simple as using the iPhones that we mostly all have in our hands every day to produce some of that content, or does it need to be much bigger and much more polished?
Speaker 2:I'd say it's a use by use case basis there.
Speaker 2:Um, polished content has its place and it has a really certain market that it needs to be utilized for.
Speaker 2:But if you know, if we're talking general terms of content, the latest iphone has more megapixels than some professional cameras, so they're really quite good and depending on your market and where you're publishing your platform, the platform you're publishing your content onto, you might even find that unpolished iPhone content will get you far greater reach and greater goal hitting than a professional, polished piece of content.
Speaker 2:But say, if you you know, if you really wanted to have like a really good, frequently asked questions videos or how to use a product or how to engage with us, like that's a use case where a professional filmed, really high quality video will really stand out and really help the business. In that point and I think that's another thing as well is a lot of people condense video into a marketing tool, but it can also be a general business tool as well. If you can send a video that's a how to use your product with every purchase, you'll probably find that you reduce support tickets greatly across board. So you know that one small investment on a video will actually save you a lot of money over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a really interesting point, because it's not just for marketing, right, it's also about customer support and helping people use your product and all the rest of it. And you know, the classic people, I think, who need to be using this sort of stuff are those people who produce flat-pack furniture and have these little drawn um uh diagrams that are impossible to to understand, um, because they're not. They're not photos or videos. That's a great use, right yeah, it's an amazing use.
Speaker 2:I put together a greenhouse um for my 30th a fair few years ago, and there was so many times that we would get 15 steps in and then have to go nine steps back because we either misread something or they didn't actually tell you you needed to put an extra screw there, and so having a video of that whole process would have made it so much easier excellent.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope, um, some of the greenhouse manufacturers and flat pack furniture people are listening to this now. You talked about tiktok earlier and there's other. There's other sort of emerging platforms out there. Um there, snapchat's been around for a while. Discord seems to be increasingly popular as a social media channel, but there'll be people listening to this who've kind of grown at these newer platforms and think I don't really need to be there. But if your customers are there, you need to be there too, right?
Speaker 2:Yep, if you ever get overwhelmed with platform choice because there is there's so many and you know there's always new ones coming and going and they're constantly changing how they, you know, do their their content displays and what they need to feed them the main thing is going if I've got a product or a service that I'm selling, who I'm selling it to is my general customer. Where do they spend their time? And then that's the platform you need to be on and that can just be as simple as you know. You can ask around. Most people know their customers. If they're a business, already they go. We've got a pretty good idea of who our customer is, and then it's just about tailoring the content and the platform towards what they would use customer is, and then it's just about tailoring the content and the platform towards what they would use.
Speaker 1:Now. Social media can be a little bit scary in terms of the algorithms that sit in behind it and how content actually gets served up. Um, it's not necessarily as straightforward as um putting a post up and suddenly having it spread across all your customers here in Canberra or indeed nationally. So what are the tricks you need to be thinking about to get better penetration of your content?
Speaker 2:Currently, with most of the algorithms, it's the creative of the piece of content is key. And when we say creative, that means the bare bones of what the content is, means the the bare bones of what the content is. So, focus on something that's really engaging. Um, it can either be really educational, really engaging you know, those sort of platforms in within your business and what you want to put forward. But, yeah, creative is king.
Speaker 2:It's no longer the previous thing where you would, you know, you'd post a photo or video and it would get shown to all of your audience that follows you, you know. It's now suggested content based on what their interests are, even if they do follow you, so you might not get shown across. And we see it with advertisement, we see it with organic posts. If you have a really, really good creative with you within your content piece, it will have a hundred times more opportunity to go viral or a hundred more opportunity times to get shown to your organic network. And then those two sections go such hand-in-hand together where it's, you know, paid advertisement and organic. And if you're feeding just really good pieces of content with good creative into them, they'll work together and you'll find, like a really excellent. X exponential increase in reach and growth so that's easy to say, but possibly hard to do, like how do?
Speaker 1:you? How do you know that your contents engaging?
Speaker 2:so there's a few really good tricks that you can use. One is just have a look at other people and other businesses that are similar to yours that are doing really well and see what kind of content they're posting and see what kind of content is trending. There's so much content being fed into these platforms that there's so much inspiration. You don't have to sit there in a dark room and try and think of stuff yourself. You know you can get out there and see what's working and what's not working for other people in your industry and then that will hopefully inspire some ideas for yourself.
Speaker 1:And how do businesses keep on top of this? Because the algorithms change right. So that must keep you on your toes. But how is anyone supposed to sort of keep on top of what's going on?
Speaker 2:It's basically a full-time job. They keep on top of trends, different things. Again, in some of these tools you can look at what's trending on the platform and see from there. They normally have like a trending bar, so you can kind of quickly get a bird's-eye view of what is currently happening. The harder part is predicting the trends, and that's when you do the forward prediction of like okay, we think that in three months time something similar to this will be all the rage, and that's that's even more daunting than just trying to, you know, predict what's going good now.
Speaker 2:But I think as a business it's. You don't always have to lean into what's trending to have good content. If you come up with really creative ideas based within your own platform or your own business, then People will enjoy that piece of content because it is a good, creative, it does have a good idea, it's enjoyable. They'll consume it, they'll watch it, they'll engage and interact. So don't try and always hit the trending things. You don't have to Try and come up with some fresh ideas based around what you're doing and you can use other people as inspiration.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how often should you be trying to drop content? I mean, I guess it depends on the business that you're representing, but, as a rule of thumb, what are you recommending to customers?
Speaker 2:Rule of thumb.
Speaker 2:It changes between each sort of business and what their goals are, but I think at the end of the day it's what's realistic for you.
Speaker 2:Don't over commit, because if you over commit to posting, if you set yourself a goal that you can't reach, you're more likely to not post at all. So if you go, oh it's really hard for me to post two times a week, then go, well, maybe just do one post a week to start with, and once you sort of get into that comfortable swing of things you can ramp it up to two and see how that goes. And a lot of larger businesses that are more sort of B2C, say if they're in the commerce space they'll be posting once a day or a couple of times a day and more across multiple platforms, but generally they've got full-time people that their whole job is to post that much. So for the much smaller businesses it's about actually just getting it done and getting stuff up there, and so set a realistic goal and make sure that it's attainable, because if you set an unrealistic goal you're more likely to not actually post at all.
Speaker 1:And make sure that you've got good content that's engaging and interesting along the way.
Speaker 2:And good content that's engaging and interesting along the way. And good content that's engaging, interesting and you will also find that, like, over time, you get better at that as well, like the more you post and you can try different ideas. Like you, you know, spend a month posting different things and then have a look at the analytics and see which posts got the most traction and then go great. And so the next month, instead of throwing you know random darts at a dartboard, again post more of that type of content that got the most traction.
Speaker 1:So that's all very well, but how do you then try and introduce new content, new ideas and do something differently? Because the algorithms work on you know what's worked in the past, but then you're suggesting you base your future activity based on what's worked in the past. But how does that help innovation?
Speaker 2:I think you always set it as a base. It's a baseline In that regard. I'm not saying only ever post that type of content going forward, but if you say, all right, well, for the next month we're going to make sure that we do four posts of this particular style of content that we know worked and then we'll throw in some new ones to kind of break that up. What we kind of do in terms of if we were working for a client, we have a spread of content across the classic top, middle and bottom funnels and we also kind of track a spread of content against different, I guess, genre types or engagement types. So for us, for example, if I look at our own company, you know we would want to be doing a certain spread of behind the scenes, a spread of case studies, engaging content. That also, you know, is more of like a how to, and they kind of fall into these three top, middle, bottom funnel categories, where the top is, you know, that awareness kind of tool, and so that's the things that you have social currency and things that'll get you a little bit of attention.
Speaker 2:And then there's sort of the middle section. There is the content that builds trust with your audience. So that's the sort of stuff where we will do here's how, to you know, set up email marketing or here's how to produce your own interview style content for your business and that essentially when people land and watch that content, they build trust with us to say, okay, these guys know what they're talking about, so if they do want to come and purchase from us later, they've built that trust already in their head. They're more likely to buy. And then the bottom funnel is more of the sales and the call to action content. So that would be posting something and saying, hey, we've got a discount deal happening or, you know, we offer this particular type of service, get in touch with us now. And a really like a super general spread rule for that is 50% top, you know, 30% middle and 20% bottom, if you want to kind of make it really just easy.
Speaker 1:Which, of course, is completely the opposite to what you might expect if you had a more traditional marketing background and retail, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, totally different. And you might find that when you start posting how much content that actually you can post 80 sales stuff and it works way better. And so it's about you know, just sort of getting that ball rolling and then reassessing from there and you know, every month or so you can just sit in and look at the stats and go, all right, well, what's worked, what hasn't, how much of this particular type of content is actually driven as sales. I think that's the big thing is, um, is just track everything, because it always helps you make the most informed decision going forward.
Speaker 1:So if there was one place and I guess it depends you're going to tell me it depends on the, on the, on the business that you're operating. I'm trying to say that, but but like if there was one, one channel that you needed to be thinking about as a business. What is it?
Speaker 2:I'd say I'll go service-based industries. If you're B2B, linkedin is a gold mine for you. If you are a direct-to-consumer in e-commerce, you should be thinking about Instagram and TikTok, um. And if you're a B2B sorry, a B2C service, then I would also probably think about Instagram and Facebook, um as a, as a big platforms for you, and even TikTok at times as well, because you can really hit a lot of engagement there and audience demographics too. You know, if you really are more of a youth culture focused business, then you know the platforms where the youth culture is sort of happening and developing and growing, like TikTok is a really good platform.
Speaker 1:Now I notice you're not mentioning the traditional media. So newspapers, radio, television, they still obviously have a place. But what's your view of those?
Speaker 2:I actually think they can be extremely useful. I guess I would sort of lump them not so much into the social category but more into that traditional media kind of platform. I think it's all about doing it in a clever way because, just like if you were to put up a whole bunch of Facebook ads that don't have a very good creative or content idea behind them and you target a wrong audience and you put the wrong lead or traffic selections in there, there you're going to get not very good results. It's the same kind of thing with the. The media and traditional sort of avenues is really honing in on what's going to push the needle forward for you, and maybe a small banner ad, um, isn't going to be the best push. Or maybe putting a small banner ad isn't going to be the best push, or maybe putting a small banner ad without an offer to a customer is not a very good idea. And so if you do those things, it's like having a real big think about what is your lead magnet, what's the idea behind this?
Speaker 2:Much larger companies can spend a lot of money on awareness so they can just plaster themselves everywhere, and so when people think of a product, they think of them, much smaller businesses, have to be a lot more targeted because they don't have the same kind of spends, and so, generally, if you can have a really good, clear picture of what your lead magnet is and it's a good lead magnet then that's something you should definitely ship to these, you know, to the traditional media, um, and I think same things with you know, like television networks, you know the, the bvods, the broadcast video on demand. That's a really good platform, um, especially if you're targeting people that still watch, uh, free-to-air television via, you know, via the app downloads, because they will now just constantly pump those videos into those sections and so you actually get a lot better um results and and viewership than you would have previously, because you can pick your spots a bit better and it's like more accessible well, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:So still a place for for traditional media and and direct mail. Um, you know, does that help you cut through the clutter? Obviously more expensive to produce and, uh, drop out there, but is, is there value in that?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, um 100. I think anything physical is always great for people. And in terms of also talking about direct mail, I will pull us back into email, which I love. I think email marketing is a fantastic tool because you own the audience and you can pick and choose when you send content to that audience and you generally have a much higher chance of directly talking to someone. I know what you know. Whenever I get a, an email from one of my favorite stores, I'm like, oh, what's, what have they just released? Um? So I think, yeah, email marketing is such a powerful tool that a lot of people miss, and there's a lot of people miss and there's a lot of platforms out there that make it really easy with a lot of automations. You know that can really push the needle forward there. So I think that's a really good revenue stream that a lot of people miss and also just like a good solid base of content just to keep people engaged with your business. And that ties back into that sort of, yeah, physical kind of marketing.
Speaker 2:You know bus advertisements. It does work a lot of people, especially with you in the service industry. If people just need to get something, they will go with the person they know and if they see you around they feel like they know you because they've seen your stuff and so they're more likely to purchase the product. They don't really want to get up on Google and start searching for things. And then I mean some people love it, but most people just will go for the top hit and then call that person. If the price is right they'll buy the product.
Speaker 1:So traditional marketing still has still has place, but obviously it's a whole whole bright new world of often more, more modern marketing as well yeah, well, I mean, the best thing about digital marketing is that it's in the grand scheme of marketing.
Speaker 2:It's really cheap. You know you can set your price. A lot of physical traditional marketing is quite expensive to get into. It's effective but it is expensive. So if you're just starting out, you can really hone in on that digital stuff, choose your own spends and then, if you find that something is working, don't then try and do other things, just put more money into that what is working until you exhaust all of the opportunities within that area. And once you've exhausted that, then you can start to think about like okay, what else can we do?
Speaker 1:Some really useful advice there. Ty Ridgway, Managing Director of Shoelace Creative, thank you so much for joining us here on the Canberra Business Podcast. It's been great having a chat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. Well, thank you so much for having me on on the Canberra Business Podcast.
Speaker 1:It's been great having a chat. Yeah well, thank you so much for having me on. It was lovely to talk and if people do want to, know more about Shoelace.
Speaker 2:Your website is it's shoelacecreativecom. We're also across all the social platforms, as you should be, as it should be, so you can find us on Instagram, facebook, tiktok, linkedin, the whole kicky-boodle. Instagram, facebook, tiktok, linkedin, the whole kicky-boodle. We've also got an email list. If you want to sign up to that one as well, you can do that via the website or on any of the other social platforms.
Speaker 1:Excellent, ty. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been great hearing about your business and to learn about some of the advice you've got around digital marketing. Now, just a reminder that this episode of the Canberra Business Podcast has been brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber with the support of Care Super, an industry super fund with competitive fees, returns, exceptional service and a focus on real care. You can learn more at caresupercomau and don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform for future episodes of the Canberra Business Podcast. We'll catch you next time.