Dave Cain: Welcome to unsuitable on Rea Radio, the award-winning financial services and business advisory podcast that challenges your old school business practices and their traditional business suit culture. Our guests are industry professionals and experts who will challenge you to think beyond the suit and tie, while offering you meaningful modern solutions to help enhance your company’s growth and marketing strategies. I’m your host, Dave Cain.
Dave: If you are a regular listener of the show, I’m willing to bet you already know quite a bit about Rea & Associates. And you might have already checked out some of our articles and videos to learn a little bit more about the topics we covered on unsuitable. Well, it might not sound like a lot at first when you sit and think about it. And it’s pretty cool that one podcast, unsuitable on Rea Radio, has done so much for Rea. Especially when you think about how it has tied together our firm’s marketing effort.
Dave: Thousands of companies and not-for-profits are turning to content strategies to get the word out about their organizations. Today’s guest is going to tell us why that is. Since Abbey Kanellakis joined the firm in 2014, she’s been responsible for Rea’s content, production, and strategy. Today she’s gonna explain what exactly that means and how businesses, non-profits, and even individuals can use this strategy effectively.
Dave: Welcome back to unsuitable, Abbey.
Abbey Kanellakis: Well, thank you, Dave. Nice to be here again.
Dave: It’s great. We’re gonna talk a little bit about content marketing 101 and some things you do.
Abbey: My favorite because I cannot talk numbers. I … Keep me away from the taxes, they give me hives.
Dave: You know, maybe we start out with this content marketing and what you’ve done for unsuitable on Rea Radio. You’re the person behind the scenes to get everything up and running on the podcast. So you’re studying content day in an day out.
Abbey: Yeah, well, and I think it’s important to take a step back and kind of realize where my love of content kind of began. You know, I started out in mass communications at Tiffin University getting my bachelor’s. From there, you know, it’s … It led me into journalism. And I think that was really the hub of what got me started in my love of writing and how I could take that to the next level. I think the most important part was, you know, when I got into journalism, that was when everything started switching with the newspaper industry and they started tanking. I needed a Plan B and …
Dave: And so you went to Plan B.
Abbey: I went to Plan B and so I decided to take up marketing. And that took me to The Toledo Blade where I was in their Marketing Department. So I was kind of taking the best of both worlds. And, I mean, if anyone has enough content, it’s the newspaper. So it’s really was taking their content and learning how to market it better. And that led me here, ultimately.
Dave: So it’s interesting. You kind of changed professions in midstream. Went from the communications business to the CPA business, which has become a communications business.
Abbey: Oh, dear God, I never thought I’d be in … Working for a CPA firm. I … In my wildest dreams you couldn’t have told me … If someone would have said that I would have laughed at them …
Dave: Well, how does it feel to be the content manager strategy-
Abbey: They call me the Content Queen.
Dave: The Content Queen?
Abbey: Yes.
Dave: For a regional CPA firm with 12 offices and over 300 employees, that cannot be an easy task.
Abbey: Ah, I love it. I love it so much. Every day I wake up and I seriously … I know this sounds really … Like I’m faking it … But I’m not. It is the greatest thing to be able to get to know every one of these 300 employees that we have here. And be able to find out what makes them tick and tell their stories. Because that’s really what we’re doing. That’s what we do every time we produce a podcast. We are giving them the opportunity to tell their stories and why they’re passionate about what they do. And I love being able to help put that together and be that champion for them.
Dave: Right. And listeners, if you take a look on our website, you’ll … And you drill down to see Abbey, you’ll see quite a few articles and blogs she’s written on this topic. Take a look at ’em. They’re pretty good. One is entitled No Time? No Problem! Produce More Content. And the other one is This Accounting Podcast Is Booming! And some pretty good stuff as far as content that give you an overall view.
Abbey: Well, and I really love the one about the No Time? No Problem! Because I hear, especially here, so many times people will complain about not having any time to produce content ’cause, “Oh my God, it’s so time-consuming. And, you know, these are accountants and they are more interested in dealing with numbers than putting together a blog post, a 500-word blog post.” But, you know, they don’t have to. That’s why people like me are there so I can get on the phone with them and I can talk to them about what makes them tick. And then I can go and polish it up, make it sound great, get their final approval on it, and push it out. And this is something anybody can do.
Dave: So you are, you know, by design, by your training, a professional storyteller, writer-
Abbey: I suppose so.
Dave: You can help just about anyone write a blog.
Abbey: I can help anyone write a blog, email, you know, video script.
Dave: Yes. So I’ve got a blog due next week. I wonder if you can help me? I’m having a little trouble authoring it and-
Abbey: Sure.
Dave: And maybe you can help?
Abbey: Always happy-
Dave: Offer a little advice? Free advice?
Abbey: Always happy to help. Just for you, though.
Dave: So content marketing 101 is really where it all starts for businesses. And let’s step back for a minute. We hear of our clients do a lot of strategic planning. A lot of succession planning. A lot of IT strategy planning. But we don’t hear a lot about marketing strategic planning or content strategic planning. Have you run across any businesses out there that are diving into that side of planning?
Abbey: You know, I belong to the Association for Accounting Marketing and I can tell you especially for accounting firms, law firms, this is something that they are paying attention to. And, you know, and even like going back to newspapers, I know of grocery stores that have all kind of embraced this content strategy. They know marketing is important. They want to get their word out. They need to get their brand out. They need to be able to tell their story. And this is a way that, you know, you can do it without spending gobs of money that sounds more authentic.
Abbey: It is, you know, people trust the words … Your words. The words of their friends and family. They don’t trust an advertisement that’s yelling something at them. “Buy me, buy me!” They trust honest, transparent recommendations. They trust, you know, when a business owner is getting up in front of people and able to have a meaningful conversation with them about the business. And it makes them passionate about the brand. And that’s why I have paid more attention maybe than a lot of other people. And I’ve actually seen more companies doing this. Any business that you see online with a blog, they’re engaging in content marketing.
Dave: So, you just have to pay attention, attention, attention to what’s going on in your surroundings. So I think that kind of defines what is it. And you also talked about who can use it. And it’s just not one of these events that professional services like Rea & Associates or a legal firm or a medical clinic can use, but yeah, every business.
Abbey: Every business. Actually going on this week, the week that we’re recording this, is Content Marketing World. And that’s up in Cleveland. And, I mean, if you want to see content marketers from all over the globe, we get together and talk about content. I mean, that’s my Disneyland right there.
Dave: And why would … Maybe this is a double question here, we kind of touched on it … But why would anybody want to use content marketing?
Abbey: Yeah. We … You know, and we did touch on this a little bit. It is a great way to get to know the people behind the company. To know why you’re even in existence. To be able to tell portions of your story that maybe not many people will hear. It’s not something that you would necessarily write an advertisement about. This is something that happens in your day-to-day that, you know … It’s those little magic moments that you’re able to touch on and generate that following. So whether you’re telling the story in the form of a blog, a podcast, even creating a website, that graphic journey can tell a story in its own.
Dave: You know, we have a lot of folks contact us about wanting to start a podcast. And of course, we are in about 150-ish of these, so we have a little bit of experience and plus we are-
Abbey: Yeah, a little bit.
Dave: Professionally produced, which is always nice. But-
Abbey: Absolutely.
Dave: But it starts with the content. And if we don’t have the content, we can’t do this podcast. And so my question back to you would be, you know, to get ready for a recording, how long does it take you to put the content together for a 20-minute, 30-minute podcast? You got a feel for that?
Abbey: Well, I mean, are you talking about me putting the content … Like-
Dave: Yes,
Abbey: For example, putting the scripting together and everything?
Dave: Studying the content, deciding what content to use-
Abbey: For me-
Dave: How to bring it to the show?
Abbey: That doesn’t take as … Excuse me … As much time as you might necessarily think. Because I’m leaving that on the subject matter experts, your guests. Those are the ones who, I would say, are preparing. But they shouldn’t be preparing too much because their experts in this area. So as long as I have a chance to talk to them and to, you know, really pick their brain and find out what they’re passionate about, I can come up with a script to kind of inlay their story and then they can take it from there. And I mean, it really helps when you have a tremendous host like you, Dave.
Dave: Well, gee, thank you. Than you.
Abbey: You are most welcome, sir.
Dave: Thanks. But again, the … You know, you have to have your ear to the ground on this because what’s out there? Is it the South Dakota v. Wayfair? Is it a not-for-profit seminar? Is it the new tax reform? And then you plug in where you see it’s best fit.
Abbey: This is the-
Dave: That’s your magic.
Abbey: Absolutely. And this is a bigger thing. And I would like to attribute to my love of journalism. Because I am a journalist still, and I am still researching and I still want to get the truth out there. And I still want to be able to have those conversations with I guess it would be my clients. Which would be you and everyone else in the firm. Find out from them what matters most to the clients that they’re working with right now. And then I’m able to use that knowledge. I can do a little bit of research on my own terms. You know, go to some of the other credible sources. Whether it’s IRS, Ohio Society, try to find other sources to help validate their information.
Abbey: And we can … Together, we can really put a really solid piece of content together that helps them show their credibility in the area. Which ultimately is what content marketing is about. And, you know, that’s my … Ultimately my job at the end of the day is to show that you guys know what you’re talking about. Because this is … You know, I might be helping write it, but I’m not writing it. I am not the expert. So anything that I can do to help you soar …
Dave: You got it.
Abbey: I’m happy to do it.
Dave: But you certainly identify the areas and you go. And that’s the thing that you do very, very well as a content marketing strategist.
Abbey: Well, and from a strategy stance there are other things that we also need to be aware of. You know, different times of the year there’s different trends as you know. So in the early spring you’d have a lot of tax questions. We want to be there to answer those tax questions before they even have questions. Like, we want to be their first source for any answer. And, you know, that’s something that’s always going on that we’re always looking at from a strategy stance. We’re always doing … Analyzing key words. Trying to keep our ear to the ground to find out, you know, how to form this.
Dave: A good example of this on the South Dakota v. Wayfair case, you guys were way out in front of this way before it happened. You had the content ready to go. So timeliness was very critical.
Abbey: Absolutely. And I can’t take all the credit for that. We have a tremendous SALT team here, State and Local Tax Team. And they are … They know what they want to say. They just aren’t really sure in how to say it or how to say it in a way that relates to the business owners that they’re trying to reach. So they’re gonna come to me and very proactively. And I’m going to kind of give them the vehicles to put that content out there.
Dave: I’m gonna explore a little bit of comments you made a few minutes ago regarding content.
Abbey: Oh, was it a bad one? Sorry.
Dave: No, it was right on point and you used the word truth. And as I read about that and thought about that and looked at your articles, you know, fair and truthful content is probably way more important now than it’s ever been.
Abbey: Absolutely. And, you know, the last time I was here with you, Dave, we talked about the importance of truthful content because that was when the term fake news started to get a lot of buzz. And that’s something that’s ongoing still because anybody with a computer, anyone with, you know, Microsoft Word, they can type up an article and release it on the internet and it can circulate to anybody and everybody. And, you know, even though it might be complete BS, you know, you …
Dave: Sure. You … gotta research it-
Abbey: So-
Dave: You gotta be ready to roll and-
Abbey: And that-
Dave: You gotta recognize.
Abbey: Absolutely. And that’s why when you have people like me who do content marketing as their career, you know, truth and holding ourselves to a higher standard takes priority. Absolutely.
Dave: Is content marketing and content managing a form of advertising?
Abbey: Not blatantly at all. I mean, it can be … I have seen, again, tying into my newspaper background-
Dave: You’re going back to into that pretty heavily.
Abbey: Oh, we’re going back in the day. Honestly, it shapes everything that I do today. But you will see a newspaper sometime … What they call advertorials … And this is, you know, ad copy. This is somebody who has paid to put their piece in the paper. It might be valid, but it also might be blatant advertising that’s just trying to puff up their product. But that’s kind of imitating as content marketing. It’s not truthful. It’s … They’re still … You still have to be wary of those things. And that’s … I mean, that’s true with everything you do today.
Dave: You know, you use the term dialogue builds credibility. Tell me a little bit about that.
Abbey: Yeah. So if … I mean, every time that I have a conversation, you get to see a little bit more of who I am personally. But also you are able to see that I practice what I preach. That I mean what I say. That I believe in what I’m doing. It’s the same with everybody in the firm who I work with. They … You know, the clients that they work with, they get to see the expertise that they bring to the table. They get to see that they know what they’re doing. They have years of experience to back up their claims that this is … You know, we want to be the trust advisors. Well, they’re able to demonstrate it on the field … Or in the field, rather. But they’re not able to do that for everybody. So I’m giving them a platform where they can demonstrate their expertise and their credibility to a wider market.
Dave: So the content is built to identify individual credibility, organizational credibility?
Abbey: Right.
Dave: Am I on the right track there?
Abbey: Absolutely, you are. You know, because these individuals are part of a greater whole … And so every time that an individual is able to … Here at Rea we like to call it “You famous”. You know, “What’s your famous person? What are you famous for?” Well, every time that we make one individual famous, it reflects on the organization. And that helps strengthen our brand credibility as an organization.
Dave: Sure. You know, as a CPA you know this question’s coming your way. And it involves return on investment.
Abbey: Oh, hell no.
Dave: As a business owner … And business owners, a lot of business owners listen to this podcast … You know, content marketing and strategy in the infrastructure, you know, that’s not a minor investment. You’ve gotta be willing to jump in and do it. How do you measure rate of return?
Abbey: You know, that is … It is tough. You’re right, it’s a huge investment. But it does pay off. And when a client comes in and they mention it, when they have a relationship with you, when they want to learn a little bit more of what they heard in a newsletter that you put out, when they are subscribing to your podcast, when they continue to engage with you on social media, I know you want to put a number to it. At this point, the way we have done it here at the firm, there’s a lot of trust that the firm has to put in us. And they have seen the results. And they’re not always, you know, data-drive. However, that’s gonna change. And I’ll let you know why.
Abbey: So we are not only investing in CRM, but we are also investing in marketing automation. And that is one way that we’re gonna be able to track and put numbers and dollar figures to everything that we’re doing because we’re gonna be able to see who is clicking. How we are able to generate additional content that serves their purposes, that answers their questions. And you’ll be able to see that on the bottom line.
Dave: It’ll be different metrics other than, you know, the traditional return on investments is, you know, what I’d put on a bottom line. What’s the EBITA impact? How did it change that? But the metrics are gonna be different.
Abbey: I’m itchy again. You’re making me itchy again with all these words.
Dave: It’s gonna be touches I believe or the folks that are looking at the content-
Abbey: But those touches have to mean something.
Dave: That’s correct. So again, hats off to you and your team of putting the content together. This doesn’t just happen overnight. I see you guys reading, writing, looking at articles. Researching. This is not something that happens at every Wednesday at 3:30 to five. We’re gonna do content marketing.
Abbey: You know, and you see us doing those things and we see you running away from us because we are looking for you to pick your brain and to volunteer you for things like podcasting and videos. And, “Hey, I need you to write that blog post.”
Dave: Yes. How much research do you do that goes into content?
Abbey: Oh, so much. So much.
Dave: Percentage of your day. Give me how much when you sit down to do-
Abbey: On an average day … On an average day, I can say easily 20% is probably spent researching.
Dave: So you’re saying 20?
Abbey: Absolutely. And that’s as I’m writing an article, as I’m trying to look for inspiration, as I’m meeting with people, as I’m talking to people. And then, you know, the rest is spent producing.
Dave: So give us … As we wind down … Give us some ideas or recommendations that you have for a company that wants to let’s say start content marketing.
Abbey: First commit to it. You know, if this is-
Dave: Commitment?
Abbey: Commitment. If this is something that you want to do, then, you know, you gotta put the tools and the resources in place. That includes the people. Get the experts who are out there. I recommend somebody with a journalist background. Just, you know, I like to talk about how amazing I am, of course. But it really does help when you want to learn more and you want to ask questions and you want to be able to provide your readers with meaningful answers.
Abbey: The other thing that you’re gonna wanna do is take … Set aside the appropriate time for, like you said, for the research. But also to produce. Identify what types of content you want to put out there. Don’t try to boil the ocean. Start out with a blog. Start out with, you know, something to enhance your website, your web presence. Because if you’re not online, then you’re invisible to so many people. Online is so critical to who you are as a company. So my I guess first course of action for you would be to put … Create an online presence for yourself. Whether that is a blog, social media, your having great content on your website through your services pages. Make sure it’s shareable.
Dave: So hire professional I guess I hear you saying. Not, you know, two computers and a phone line-
Abbey: Absolutely-
Dave: Doesn’t get it.
Abbey: Absolutely. But you know, even if you don’t have a professional, if you are just a business owner and you want to put aside two hours a week to just put a 500-word blog post and just publish it online, that is enough. That is enough to at least get your brand online and make sure that it’s shareable so that other people can engage with you.
Dave: Do you have a feel for what percentage of my top line I should set aside for budgeting on this? Is it maybe 1%? 2%? 3%? Somewhere in there?
Abbey: Unfortunately I can’t answer that, especially across the board. Because different industries are different. Marketing strategies are different. You know, even though we do a lot of content marketing, our … We’re not exclusively content marketing. There’s so much else that goes into it. So it really depends on your commitment. How much you want to be committed to it.
Dave: So your point there, it fits within the overall strategy of the company within their marketing team-
Abbey: Their-
Dave: And their strategic plan. Set aside some time.
Abbey: Right, absolutely.
Dave: That kind of where we want to be?
Abbey: I think you nailed it.
Dave: Good. Our guest today has been Abbey Kanellakis, Marketing Content Director, Rea & Associates. Located in Dublin, Ohio. Which is really not a fair representation of where she sits, ’cause she goes all over the State of Ohio. Thanks again for joining us, Abbey.
Abbey: You are welcome.
Dave: We enjoyed it. Lot of stuff going on.
Abbey: I love being here with you, Dave.
Dave: Listeners, I hope you enjoyed today’s content about content. And if you’re looking to learn more about content or you want to see more of our topic, check out our website at reacpa.com or reach out to Abbey directly. Her contact info is also located on our website. Take a look. In the meantime, if you enjoyed today’s episode, let us know. Like it, comment it, or share it with a colleague. That’s how we identify some of our rate of returns. And don’t forget to check out videos of our podcast on YouTube. Until next time, I’m Dave Cain, encouraging you to loosen up your tie and think outside the box.
Disclaimer: The views expressed on unsuitable on Rea Radio are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Rea & Associates. The podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the professional advice you would receive elsewhere. Consult with a trusted advisor about your unique situation so they can expertly guide you to the best solution for your specific circumstance.