Agency copywriting with Roland Gurney

Hey, gang. Welcome to the latest episode of the Agency Accelerator. Now, I had a really great discussion with Roland Gurney from Treacle Copywriters. And we talked about not only copywriting and some of the importance of how to get your copyright, whether that be on your website or on in your blogs or other copy. But we also talked about the importance of niching. Now, you know I am a big fan of niching and I would encourage all of you to find your niche. But Roland talks about how when you find your niche, it becomes much easier to write really engaging copy because you really intimately understand the needs and challenges of your audience. So today's episode is a bit of a two for the price of one. We talk about copywriting, we talk about some of our bugbears with website copy and some tips around how you can improve your website copy as well as blogging and other content. But we also talk about the power of niching as well. So come on in and join me for the latest episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast. Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob Da Costa. So welcome back to the Agency Accelerator. I'm really super excited to have Roland Gurney with me today. Now Roland runs Treacle, a copywriting agency that helps creative and digital agencies clarify their positioning and messaging. Treacle started out as general brand copywriters, but Roland quickly realized that two thirds of his clients were agencies themselves, so he niched down to focus on working exclusively with agencies. Roland believes that there is too much vague, waffly agency messaging out there, and much of that comes because of unclear positioning. And I could not agree more. It's a real bugbear of mine, which is why I was keen to have Roland on the Agency Accelerator podcast today. Treacle helps agencies define their ideal clients and craft the right words to really speak to that audience. Since making the move to being niche, Treacle has grown to a team of seven with agency clients of all shapes and sizes. So I hope that was a decent introduction, Roland, and welcome aboard the Agency Accelerator.

Thank you very much. I'm honored to be here.

And I don't know if there's any other background that you want to share, but one of the things I was really interested to talk to you about before we jump into the discussion around content and copy copywriting is just to speak a little bit more about that journey that you took to niching your agency, the impact it's had, and also perhaps how you felt when you were making that decision to be more Niched?

Absolutely. Well, like you pointed out, so we originally launched as general brand copywriters, working on all kinds of projects across all kinds of industries. And originally the business model was to reach out to creative and digital agencies and build a partnership so that we could work on their client work. And for a few years, that was great. And we, you know, we met some great agencies and we did some great work. But after a while, I started to realize that the kind of projects we were getting were very reactive and we weren't very in control of the pipeline. So we would get a call on a Monday and be asked to turn around some copy by the Wednesday. And that was fine for a while, but then it started to dawn on me that the problem with that model was we weren't able to do our best work. We weren't able to control the process in any way. We were always reacting. And in all honesty, we weren't kind of commanding the fees that we thought that we were able to. So it took a bit of. It took a bit of a leap of faith, I suppose. And like you said, you know, we. We started by looking through the client list and realized that two thirds were actually the agencies themselves who were using us to do their own website copy or content. And it was kind of a bit of a eureka moment, but also slightly scary where we decided to go all in on the agencies. And it was scary. And there was, in all honesty, a bit of a dip temporarily. And at that point, that was when I was worried that I'd completely ruined the business that I just built. But I stuck with it, and I was certain that niching was the right thing to do. I'd read lots of stuff and I'd heard from influential people and people in the industry like yourself, and it was clear that niching was the right thing to do. And so, yeah, I took the leap of faith and we went all in. And since then, business growth has been absolutely exponential in comparison. And the biggest difference, I feel, is that the relationship that we have with our clients is much more on an equal footing. I felt like we were slightly commoditized before, and it was hard to explain to agencies why they should choose us over freelancers. There wasn't really a point of difference. And they were just saying to us, you know, you're effectively just remote freelancers, so we're not willing to pay extra.

Yeah.

And now when we enter the room with the clients, you know, they come to us as the experts, and that's. That's redefined that relationship.

Yes. So you're really good advert I think for why agencies should all be thinking about finding their their niche and why they shouldn't fear. I think the reason why I asked you how did it feel when you were making that decision is because I know a lot of people run this sort of story in their heads that says, yeah, but if I niche down to particular area, what about all these other opportunities? And I always say, well, how many of those other opportunities you're actually winning? And the answer is usually not a lot of them. Because as you said that it's really difficult to differentiate yourself when you are a generalist and of course you're fighting in the same place that everybody else is. And so how do you differentiate yourself? Well, you often differentiate yourself by pricing or by service levels. And neither of those are good reasons to differentiate, are they?

Exactly. You're exactly right. And it gives you an edge. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because you start to be in the world that your ideal clients are in. You move in the same circles. It's much easier to recommend a specialist agency than a generalist agency. And as you've alluded to, it's kind of an upward spiral rather than a downward spiral. And lots of agencies become commoditized and start trading on price, which isn't the right footing for any kind of relationship. But yeah, it is a bit scary. One thing that certainly we hear a lot is that a lot of agencies are quite worried because they come from creative backgrounds. They're going to end up being bored of doing the same work all the time. And we had that worry as well, I suppose to start with. The reality is we've actually had more variety and more interest even from outside the niche since niching because we just have such a confident message that I think brands and other clients are kind of attracted to it. You know, the variety of work we get now comes from the scope of work that we do and the depth of the work we do. Not just bits of stuff for lots of different industries. And it's more fulfilling.

Yeah. So I think, you know, to sort of reinforce that point. The point I was going to say is that what we should all be doing is starting niche and broadening out. Because if we start niche and broaden out that whatever that broaden out might look like is actually a natural logical evolution. And I think the other point I would make about niching is because you niche doesn't stop you taking on other pieces of work. It's just you take a really considered decision if you want to take on a piece of work that is outside of your core niche speciality. So I think sometimes people think, oh my God, if I niche, I'm going to get bored, as you say, I'm going to have to turn down work, we're going to do the same work and it's not big enough. Well, that's not true at all. I just think, and I think it kind of leads us on to the whole writing piece. Because of course, when you have a clear niche, you can also much more clearly identify who your target customer is, what their pains are and what they're.

Looking for, and so on. Absolutely. So this is kind of the first step in getting really effective agency copy or messaging is to really know exactly who you're talking to. And for a long time I think agencies relied on kind of made up, sort of vague Personas and avatars. But I think the beauty of having a niche is not only will you know more about that person, you'll actually know that person because they'll be in your network or they'll be on your client list already. And so you can always sense, check things with them specifically and you'll get a real good sense of whether it's landing or not, rather than guessing it's based on.

Yeah, I mean, just to blow my own trumpet, to reinforce that a bit, I wrote a blog this week which was, or published a blog this week which was all about getting your second tier of leaders in an agency to step up and how often there's this big gulf between the owners or the leaders of the agency in that next tier of managers. And someone contacted me and I ended up talking to them as a prospect and hopefully they'll turn into a client. And he said to me, every single point you wrote in your blog just referred to me as though it was describing exactly what's going on for me. And I said to him, that is the power of understanding your ideal target customer.

Exactly. Yes, exactly. And I read that and it was fantastic and would totally agree. And I mean, just to mirror the trumpet blowing, so we get people every so often who will contact us and say, oh, we really, really like the copy on your website. That's what we want. And then I have to explain to these people from agencies that the reason it isn't actually the copywriting on our website that works, it's the fact that it's speaking about your specific problems and your specific issues that makes it feel like it's written really well. But actually there's no real huge copy trickery. Or techniques in there. It's just, it resonates. And that's the power of clear positioning. And once they understand that, then they see it all with brand new eyes. Yeah.

So everybody will share a link to Treacle's website at the end of in the show notes. But it is worth having a look around because I had a good read of it before we got on the call and I agree with you. So let's talk more about content and writing and copywriting, how this is a stupid question, but it's one that's worth asking because it's a bit of a loaded question in a way, but how important do you feel good content is for an agency's overall marketing and especially their website?

Well, I'm totally biased, but I'd say it's pivotal, really. And the reason for that, and we speak to a lot of agencies, is with clearer positioning, you know, positioning is understanding how you want to be seen and the messaging is the way of reinforcing that. But the benefit of both of those is that you're saving time on going to endless pitches, pitching for the wrong kind of work. It's all about filtering and finding the right people so that once they've contacted you, they're already 50, 60% of the way towards wanting to work with you. You're not starting from point zero. They've already understood everything about who you are, what you do, what the benefits of working with that with you are. It's really hopefully just a kind of chemistry meeting to make sure that you're able to back it all up and that they trust you. And so, I mean, it's a way to win work. It's more easily.

So why do you. I mean, I completely agree with you. I mean, when we, when we have a pool of ideal prospects, they're so much easier to talk to because we're talking the same language than when we have a prospect that doesn't fit in our wheelhouse and we're trying to sort of dovetail what we do, but they don't really get it and then our chances of winning that business are much lower. So, yeah, I completely concur. But why do you think that so many agencies don't have good copy and don't have good websites? I mean, that's a bit of a. Bit of a sort of a carte blanche sort of statement, but I feel like it's true.

I think it is true. I think, I mean, you know, as agency people ourselves, I think the reality partly is that we're all busy Trying to make our clients look good and that our own copy and messaging and new business can sometimes slip to the back burner when it shouldn't do. We should always be our own best, you know, the first and most important client. But the reality of the day to day is partly that. Secondly, I just, I think that there's often a lot of creatives and people with big ideas in agencies and sometimes it needs some kind of unifying force to bring it all together because people can end up pulling in slightly different directions with slightly different ideas. And the result of that is something that doesn't really appeal to anybody by trying to appeal to everybody. So sometimes having somebody external who doesn't know the business and doesn't know the agency and doesn't do the day to day delivery can see the wood for the trees a little bit more. And then thirdly, I suppose, you know, just with all kinds of websites and copiers, there's a kind of trend and sort of fashion element, I suppose, which is when one agency has a style that's worked and they've won some pictures off the back of it, it tends to be sort of assumed and copied and becomes the industry standard for a little while and people sort of follow suit. And so it then takes somebody to come and break the mold again to set the industry in a new direction.

Yeah, I think, I think you're right. And you probably get a lot of what I get, which is, I mean, I'm not a copywriter or I'm, you know, not doing any of that for my clients, but I am often advising them around their positioning and around how they show up in the world to their marketplace. And it always seems to me like they get all of this stuff because they do it for their clients, but they don't do it for themselves.

Yes, totally. And you know, and it's the cobbler's children analogy, and I understand that. And you know, even to a certain extent we have that, it's always harder to see, to see what's really going on and it's a lot easier to do it for somebody else. But I think in terms of scaling an agency and growing it and, you know, building a legacy, it really is a vital part of the piece in terms of being able to control who you reach, how you reach them, rather than waiting for the phone to ring. You can be proactive rather than reactive. And I feel like that's what the best agencies are doing at the minute, is taking control and navigating the landscape themselves.

So when you look at an agency's website or typical agency's website, what would be your sort of top bugbears about them that frustrate you?

Sure, yeah, I see a lot of agency websites, I mean, just answering some of the basic questions. So what kind of agency is this? What does it do? You know, where is it sometimes? And even, you know, and then beyond that, the big one really is, you know, why would I choose this agency? Sometimes those fundamentals get hidden lower down or they get hidden or they're just assumed by the agency and so they're not put front and center. They assume that everybody knows who they are and doesn't come to them cold. So yeah, my biggest bugbear is not answering the simple who you are for who, what you do kind of questions nice and early so that you can then take me into the detail after.

Yeah, I always feel like the thing that frustrates me is that too many people make their websites about them and not about the client. And I kind of say, well, no one cares about you until you've demonstrated to your potential client that you understand them. And then when you've demonstrated that you understand them in the situation that they're in and what they're looking for and how you can solve their pain points, only then do they want to know more about who you are.

Exactly. You're such a kindred spirit. This is fantastic. We work with a lot of agencies and the big flip and I suppose the kind of big takeaway that we give them is that exactly that we ask them or we analyze the website and see how many of their sentences start with we or are. And it tends to be anywhere up to about 90% sometimes of their. And so the fundamental flip is literally could you reframe all of this to open more sentences with you and your. And to use that you and your far more throughout the copy and you can still get the same sentiment across but it feels so much more persuasive and inviting and compelling. When a potential client's reading a site and you're painting the picture of how their life's going to be better as a result, otherwise it comes off just as a, you know, as a monologue, as a sales pitch. It's just, it's hard to read and it's off putting and it feels self centered. And that isn't how most of these agencies are in reality, they're very, very client centric. It's just, it's an easy way to write a website and not the best way.

Yes, I completely agree. And from A personal experience of not. Not in terms of website copy. But I've struggled over the years to find really good copywriters that can, you know, write some of my content, my blogs or my ebooks or whatever, as well as the website. And I think I surmised that the reason was because they struggle to capture my tone of voice. So when you go and work for a client and you're working on some content for them, how do you. How important is tone of voice in your view? And how do you go about understanding what that should be?

Tone of voice is huge because it's especially for a people business and agencies and, you know, most businesses are people business. The tone gives a real sense of what it's going to be like when they meet you in the room. And that's really important. And so we work with some huge agencies that have a slightly more corporate tone and some very small agencies that really play on being very approachable and down to earth and fun. And finding that tone of voice is a process that involves some slightly deeper discovery than a lot of copywriters are willing to do. So we see a lot of tone of voice guidelines that kind of roll out that you should be human and warm and conversational and friendly. But really nowadays, that's kind of just how to Write for the 21st century. It takes a kind of workshop or a discovery session, and it takes digging a bit deeper to actually think, what is it that's going to set us apart if everybody writes in a nice, warm, friendly, approachable, conversational tone? How are people going to recognize that it's us if they didn't see our brand name at the top? And so, I mean, we take clients through processes. There's a lot of digging. We have this great thing which is a set of playing cards called a brand deck that has lots of different kind of tone of voice options on each side, a black side and a white side. And so there's some card sorting, there's personalities, there's kind of questioning and quizzes and a whole kind of process. And hopefully we get to a point where we find something that's going to make them stand out and that mirrors how their ideal client talks as well. Because that's a big part of it. That if you're a big corporate agency and you're appealing to huge global brands, you probably need to strike some kind of chord with them in the way you use language. So there's a few ways to do it and a few considerations, but there's also quite a lot of Emperor's New Clothes around tone of voice we see.

Yeah, and I suppose it's kind of refers back to what you were saying earlier, that there's certain trends that everybody seems to, you know, follow. I remember way back when, you know, in flash was the big trend on websites and then the sort of carousel design and, you know, and, and I suppose when everyone follows those trends, everyone starts looking the same. And I guess that's the same with copy as well.

Absolutely. So, yeah, we always cite this and. But I think there was a. There was the effect of a few things, certainly like the innocent smoothies effect that we always talk about where copywriters were kind of just kind of rolling out a new version of innocent smoothies tone of voice guidelines for brands. But no, I think to do it well, it needs to be done a lot deeper than that and takes a bit more soul searching.

So do you see any trends in website copy and website layouts at the moment coming and going? What's the kind of latest thing?

Yeah, we do. So there was, I suppose a few years back there was a move towards everybody wanting very, very concise, punchy, statementy copy. So there was a lot of like bulleted lists of three, a lot of alliterations. You know, there would be like imagination, influence, impact, that kind of thing. There's been a kind of move away from that more recently, which is, which is good in, you know, in some ways where agencies seem to be a bit more open to a slightly more relaxed, flowing style, slightly longer sentences, a bit more in line with how they would actually say it, not so marketing focused and a bit more human. So the tone seems to be relaxing generally, which is nicer to write in some ways because there's a limit to how many of those lists of three you can do before they start, you know, being recycled. Yeah.

And also people, I can't help but feel that people aren't stupid. People see through a lot of that sort of trendy stuff and they kind of want to understand what the hell it means and they, you know, I don't know how long you got a few seconds to grab someone's attention. And if someone doesn't understand what you do and who you are within those few seconds, they're going to go on to the next website that they found in Google.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. There's a good move away to just putting. I think it's come off the back partly of the rise in user experience and customer experience as a sort of general guiding light across Website and across sales and marketing generally, which is putting the user first a bit more and making it just a bit easier to understand and not selling at them, but inviting them into a bit more of a conversation. And that's a move generally, I think, which is positive.

Yeah, definitely. So now a lot of the agency accelerator podcast listeners are sort of solopreneurs or small agencies, so they may not be able to immediately afford to outsource their content to someone like you guys. So what would be your sort of top three or four tips for writing good website copy if someone was going to have a bash at doing it themselves?

Sure, absolutely. Well, I think it definitely can be done by agencies and we see it done really well by agencies of all sizes. So I think the main thing to start with is a value proposition to open with some reason to choose you. So as well as getting some information across about what kind of agency you are and what you do, I think it's important to then give people a big reason to choose you. So you have to imagine that from a potential client's point of view, an agency is one of four or five tabs open on a client's browser and to them the agencies will look and say similar things. So I suppose to us the value proposition is trying to give them that big reason why they should choose you, that kind of big outcome of working with you. So that's a big starting point. I think if you can draw them in with a big value proposition, you'll get them to read on through the rest of the site. Secondly, something we see quite a lot is agencies are very good at listing what they do. So lists of services or features or processes that they go through, what they're not so good at doing and they could do better, is to link all of those to a benefit for the client. So not just saying we do strategy sessions on site, but explaining what that is going to give the client as a result, why that's useful for. For them. And that's something. It's a very quick fix that you can do that will make the copy more persuasive.

Completely agree.

Other things you can do, I mean, we've mentioned the flip to trying to use you and your more and that can be, you know, just more compelling and more inviting to read and paints a picture. And I think part of that as well, that I see a lot of agencies fail to do, is they talk in quite grand overarching terms. But actually I think when it's most effective, the copy is very specific about what's going to happen. And it paints a very vivid picture for the, for the client reading it. So rather than just talking about things like outcomes or results which are good but quite intangible or impossible to imagine, it's talking about specific things that are going to happen as a result. And that, that's a lot easier for clients to imagine in their, in their mind. I think so.

I think I always say to people, you know, a potential client is reading your website and they, when you're listing that list of things that you do, what they really care about is what does it mean to me? Or can you solve the problem? The pain point that I have. And it's funny, isn't it, because really this kind of goes back to the features, advantages, benefits, sort of. I don't know when even that kind of terminology came around, but it was a long time ago. It's that sort of the oldies and the goodies really, because it still applies, doesn't it? Too many people focus on the features of what they do, that is the list of services, and they don't focus on the benefit to the customer and therefore they wonder why their messaging isn't resonating with their audience.

Exactly. Because ultimately it's human nature to care about ourselves. And that's exactly it. We're always either consciously or subconsciously thinking, well, so what, what do I get out of it? And so I think having that process, and this is something we go through in our process, is to really put yourself in the client's mind and, and ask, so what? To most of the sentences that you're writing and if you get to a point where you can't answer, so what, you probably found a fundamental benefit for the client.

Yeah, that's true. I was with a client yesterday and we were looking at a proposal that they were submitting for a piece of work and they, for me, they were committing the cardinal sin, which kind of relates to what we're just saying, which is their start of their proposal was all about them.

Yes.

And you know, this is what we do and this is who we've done it for. And only sort of several pages in did they start outlining exactly what the brief from the client was demonstrating. They understood the client and their landscape and then proposing their solution. So I basically said, look, you need to take the first six pages and put them at the back of your document. You could have a little one paragraph introduction about who you are, but then you need to demonstrate to the client that you understand the brief and the pain that they're in and the market, the landscape, because that will make them want to read on. Whereas if we see six pages of who you are at the beginning before we get into the client, they may not ever get to that point in the document.

Absolutely, yeah, you've probably lost them at the beginning. And it's the same, it's the same with nearly, you know, from websites to any kind of written assets really. The quicker you can hook them in and make it about them, the more they're going to read on. So I think that's a smart move to flip that and make it all about them at the front and make it all about the agency at the back. Perfect.

Yeah. So can I just move on to talk about business blogs and your view on where they fit and how valuable they are and also, you know, actually creating the content.

So yeah, I think blogs and articles are underused by agencies and then we often see them gathering digital dust and not really having much of a focus. But we treat them as part of a new business kind of strategy, I suppose really, so that when they're done well, they can be leveraged to open up new relationships and provide real value and provide talking points and kind of cement your expertise in a certain world. And this goes back to the positioning piece, which is so fundamental. And the more you're willing to niche or have a specialism in some way, the more your articles and blogs can be laser targeted to solve specific problems. And yeah, we just don't see agencies using them to their maximum. There's a lot of vague blogs around design as a process or kind of experiential marketing as an industry. But that's not what's really keeping their ideal clients up at night. They have specific problems that they want specific answers to. And so yeah, we work with clients to help them come up with ideas that would be interesting for them.

Yeah, I'm always amazed when I see someone's website and I go and check out their blog page and I see that the last blog they posted was in May 2019. And so the first thought is you're thinking, do they still exist? Have they gone bust or why? So what's your view on sort of frequency of posting and length of those posts?

I think frequency is important. It's vital because. Exactly, you see it all the time, which is things you can see from the dates that things have happened in fits and starts. Obviously somebody's, you know, had a, had a fit of inspiration and arranged for seven blogs to be released in 10 days and then nothing for four months. And we see it all the time. And I think it doesn't need to be quantity. That isn't the point. And I think that's what puts a lot of agencies off, is thinking that they need to be writing 1000, 2000 word thought leadership articles day in, day out. And I don't think that's the case. What we do quite a lot is we will write a slightly longer blog post and we'll repurpose it into socials and into other forms, or break it down and release it as a set of smaller pieces that then build up into a longer piece. So it's not always about how much, but I think frequency and quality are the things that get you an audience.

Yeah. So listeners, if you want to make sure you're not that person that goes in those fits and starts, then I know for me personally, and I would tell anybody this, that if you sit down and create a content calendar for yourself, so that when you have allocated some time to write your blog, you're not sitting there wondering what the hell to write about, which means if you do that, you're probably going to write about something that's not relevant. Whereas if you've actually sat down and invested some time to work out what you're going to write about in February, March, April, May, June, then when you come to do that, you will know what you're going to write about. And that's half the battle. And that's one of the big roadblocks removed that stops a lot of people writing.

Absolutely. And you do this really well, Rob, actually, which is you have themes that run across the blog and then feed into your social as well. And something else that you do that I think agencies could do, which is great, which is you distribute it really well. So, you know, I'm on your mailing list and you will send through an email that introduces the topic and the blog. And that's really engaging because you're not waiting for me to go to the website and stumble across the blog. You're putting it in front of me and I read them and they're great. And that's something agencies need to be proactive about in terms of putting. Just putting it up on the website isn't an end in itself. It still needs distribution.

Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, the way I view it is that if I've got an audience of 100 agency owners, who is my target audience, how many of those people at this point in time are ready to buy from me? I. E. How many of those people have got enough pain that I can solve. And the answer is probably one of them. So I need to keep being in, in that hundred people's face until a point where each one of them actually has a need. And that is, and that's the best way of doing your marketing, your business development, because then those, that one out of a hundred comes to you rather than you having to go to them. So you're putting your content out there and then they reach out to you because they've read something and they said, that's what's going on for me, let's have a chat. And of course, when you've done that, you've immediately already built some credibility with that person. So you're not starting from kind of completely cold. In terms of blog copy, how do you balance the needs for creating engaging copy with SEO needs as well?

Yeah, so we will work with agencies when they want their content to rank. And so we, I mean, generally they will supply us with the SEO keywords and we'll weave those through naturally. The good thing is in terms of SEO and content, that Google is getting smarter and the days of trying to game Google are over. So, you know, with the latest kind of BERT update, it's getting smarter at just understanding what your site's about. But yeah, so we'll happily weave keywords through and if the agency don't know the keywords, then we have somebody that will work with them to identify what they want to rank for. And just going back to the power of the niche again, which is this does tie in is, you know, we rank now on Google for Copywriting Agency London, despite never really having an SEO strategy just because we're niched, we just naturally mention the words copywriting and agency over and over, naturally in the writing, and it just never feels so forced. But the result of that is we've started to creep up the SEO rankings and it's a natural byproduct of having a niche, which is obviously you're going to be talking about things that are in that niche and that's what people will be searching for.

Yeah, that's really good. And that's good to hear that it's working well for you. And it's also good to know that you can't. You know, I've seen badly written content before where you can see that keywords are just being forced in. And like you say, Google is sort of seeing through that now, so it doesn't work anymore, which has got to be great because it means people are going to have to write better copy. Yes.

And the thing we say about SEO is there's no point spending time and money driving people to your website if they just hate it when they get there. It's almost better and cheaper and more efficient to have less people go there, but they'd be the right people who are really interested.

So again, if I'm a sort of solopreneur one or two man agency, and I know there's all these different marketing things, there's all those different content I could produce, what would your advice be in terms of the two or three things I should really focus on?

So the main thing just to labour the point even more is I suppose if you really know who your ideal client is, is to really think through what are their day to day problems or their big problems or the things that keep them up at night and then put out some content that helps them is to really add value. I think the industry wide topics and the opinion pieces definitely have a place and they're definitely valid and they definitely cement your expertise. But I think in the most immediate way is to put out things like how to guides, checklists, Anything that's industry specific, that can solve a specific problem will find somebody who finds it really useful and then they'll see you as a problem solver for them.

Brilliant. Okay, good. So I ask all of my guests on the agency Accelerator podcast if they could go back and give their younger business self some advice, what would it be? So let me ask you the same question.

Been thinking on this. Is it? I mean the reality is I would go back and tell myself to commit to a niche immediately because although we had lots of fun, doing lots of jobs and meeting lots of people and there being lots of variety, we actually were probably more stressed and more underpaid for the work that we were capable of at the time. So I know it feels like I'm slightly labouring the point, but we would have definitely just gone in at the point where I had an inkling that I wanted it to be an agency for agencies to just have gone in then and saved the 12 months of umming and ahhing.

Okay, that's good advice and you know, I suppose also be brave and commit to that niche because like I say, at that point when you're trying to decide whether you should niche or not, it feels like a risk and it feels like a big brave stop step. I think in hindsight it probably isn't. But it feels like it at the time, doesn't it?

Yes, it was definitely scary and it was worrying that I'd made the wrong decision for a month or two. But we stuck to our guns and we had a plan and it totally paid off in the end, or it has done so far. I better not count my chickens too much.

I'm sure. I'm sure it will. I. I can give you so many examples, including my own, of where you have started out as a generalist and struggled and then the agency has niched and they started to flourish. So I think that this isn't a fancy trend that's going to come and go. It's just a smart way of running a business, I think.

Sure. Yeah. And it's something that we, you know, when we do work with agencies, this is what we recommend for quite a lot of them now is that if they want their copy to really resonate and the message to hit home, they really need to put a flag in the ground and commit to being someone who stands for something.

So, yes, this podcast, guys, is sort of two for the price of one, really, because we sort of started out with a focus on copywriting and the importance of copywriting, but we've also reinforced the need to be a niche player, especially for smaller agencies. So, Roland, if people want to contact you, what is their best way of reaching you?

Just to head to the website, which is treacle copy.com or to just find me on LinkedIn and drop me a message if they've got any questions. Always happy to chat to people about their agency and their messaging. So feel free. Absolutely brilliant stuff.

And I notice on your website that you offer a free video audit of people's websites. So that is a really great benefit to people. So we'll put your website and your LinkedIn profile into the show notes so that people can find them easily. And Roland, I really appreciate your time today. That's been really interesting. I feel like we could have probably carried on talking on lots of other different topics as well. So we'll need to get you back again in the future and talk more.

It's been fantastic. Yeah, really enjoyed it. Thanks, Rob.

So, guys, there you have it. We have talked about the importance of niching today. We've talked about the importance of making your website all about your client, not about you focusing what's in it for them rather than just the list of things that you can do for them. There's a few other things that we talked about, how creating consistent blogs and content for your website will be made a lot easier if you create a content calendar. Now, I want to help you with that. So I have a tool called a content Twister which will help you come up with different variations on a theme for a of piece of content. So you can grab that in the show notes. I'll put a link in. And also, we've talked about the importance of really understanding your ideal target customer. So I have a popular ebook on creating your customer Personas or customer avatars. Again, I'll put a link into those show notes too. And as ever, if you enjoy this podcast, then please think about leaving a review. They really help in terms of getting this podcast out to more people. And of course, make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you're always the first to know about the latest podcast. Until next time, have a great few weeks. Over and out. For now.