Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with entrepreneur Paola Campo, on repurposing content and more:

Shaheen Samavati 0:12
Hi everyone, I’m Shaheen from The Content Mix, and I’m excited to be here with Paola Campo, Belgium-based content strategist and creator of the upcoming Unstoppable Content Machine course. Thanks so much for being with us, Paola.

Paola Campo 0:24
Thank you so much, Shaheen. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Shaheen Samavati 0:28
So, to start off, maybe you can just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about what you do and your background.

Paola Campo 0:34
Well, I’m a content strategist. I consider myself what you call a communicator and knowledge enthusiast. I’m that kind of person that really enjoys, you know, learning new things all the time, I’m a fan of Wikipedia, I can spend hours there, reading books, and just learning a little random facts. Professionally speaking, of course, content is my thing. I have been helping a variety of organizations to attract new customers using content. And this is primarily in online sources. I have been working already for about 15 years in various industries, the majority of my time is spent working with the logistics industry, actually. But for the past few years, I’ve been working primarily on my own business, helping entrepreneurs, usually anywhere between solopreneurs who are just starting out, and they are really trying to get their message out there and connect with people to scaleups, startup-scaleups, that that already have, you know, some resources, and they really, really want to fast track their growth.

Shaheen Samavati 1:44
So why did you decide to leave the corporate world and pursue entrepreneurship?

Paola Campo 1:50
Well, it was one of those things that at some point, you realize, you know, something’s missing, and I really want to do this—I really, really want to do this, and it’s now or never! So it was pretty much a, you know, jump—take a leap. I think a big part of it was I began many, many, many years ago—and that was the first dabbling that I had in the digital marketing world, as a blogger. So I was doing a lot of very fun things, you know, writing about entertainment, about beauty, about a bunch of random things, nobody really in particular, and that already sort of started triggering the interest. And at some point, I just had an opportunity to start writing for a company. And I said, “Okay, that’s a sign. Let’s start with this!” So I started working and specializing in the content marketing and strategy side of things.

Shaheen Samavati 2:44
I see. So, can you tell us kind of about the change from working in the corporate world to now working with entrepreneurs and startups? Like, how is it different? I mean, I imagine the, the marketing activities, from one to the other would be, there’d be some contrast there. So…

Paola Campo 2:59
Well, of course, I think the most obvious part of it is that when you’re working in a big company, in a corporation, you have a lot of resources. And you know, being such a big organization, and having so many people that you have to liaise with, decision making takes a longer time, you have a lot of meetings. Working with the entrepreneurial world is very different in that things need to happen now, immediately. And you really gonna have to wear many hats. And decisions usually take faster. And it’s, there’s a lot more room for trial and error, I would call it I wouldn’t call it trial and error, perhaps it’s just prototyping, rapid prototyping. So that’s one of the advantages is that you do tend to see the turnaround, or the results of whatever it is you’re implementing much faster when you’re working with entrepreneurs. But going back to that part about wearing many hats, I think that’s something very curious, that’s something that the corporate world and intrapreneurs have in common, because resources are becoming tighter. Sometimes organizations want to do you know, the same amount of things with less people, the bigger ones, and so you do end up in a position where sometimes you have to be the jack of all trades. So that’s something that I do recognize from both sides. But definitely, things happen much faster. We’re working with entrepreneurs. And there’s a lot of a lot more conscious effort of where you put your resources because, you know, money sometimes is not, you know, in abundance, like it will be in a corporation. So you really have to think about “Okay, do I really want to put my eggs in one basket? Or do we want to spread it out? How do we want to do it?” So I think that’s also big, a big part of being an entrepreneur as well that you really have to be conscious about those things more.

Shaheen Samavati 4:47
So when it comes to creating a content strategy for for a young company, I mean, how do you…Do you advise them I guess, on like, where to invest because? When it comes to content, there’s just like so many things you can do and there’s so many different platforms you can publish on. So how do you kind of choose where to prioritize when, when you are working with a limited budget?

Paola Campo 5:06
Well, I think one of the first things that I try to convey to the customers that I work with, or the people that I’m coaching, when it comes to content is I think, understand yourself, what your message is, and how you’re servicing your customers or your clients. So have that sort of your brand story solid, understand it very well, before you even think about, “I need to pay for ads, I need to, you know, get our WordPress website,”—a lot of these things which are in the technicalities—get the brand message clear, get that story straight, because that is going to make a huge difference, the moment you start communicating with your potential clients. So that’s the first thing that I will say— you really have to focus on that. And then the second thing that I would say is, don’t try to run before you crawl. Sometimes you really need to start small, take smaller steps that are more significant, not just in your in your own professional growth, but also for the audience to really get to know you, and really trust you into becoming a partner. So I think that’s very important, because I see that a lot of people really want to “Oh, no, I really need to do SEO right now.” I don’t know why it’s it’s one of those things that a lot of entrepreneurs think, “Oh, my God, I really have to start doing SEO!” I said, Yes, of course, it makes a lot of sense. But if you don’t have any content, no one knows who you are. I think of course, it depends on the industry and the business, but I don’t think SEO is going to make a lot of sense to start doing that now. Present yourself to the world first, and then you start optimizing as you go. So that’s probably a good compromise, or thinking that they have to pay a lot of money into ads already, if they haven’t even published a single piece of content that sort of introduces them to their market. So I think it’s very, very important. take it one step at a time.

Shaheen Samavati 7:05
Yeah, actually, that’s really interesting what you say about SEO, because I think so many entrepreneurs just know, like, SEO is important, and they want to, and they know that it like takes time to like build up authority. And so they want to like start putting out high quantities of content, like ASAP. But it’s true, like if you put out lots of quantity on search terms or whatever, but you don’t have the strategy clear, you might end up with spent investing a lot right on something that’s not an end, that doesn’t end up having results for you.

Paola Campo 7:32
Right! And I think something that’s even more important about that is, is you know, SEO is one of those things, you really have to commit to it. And you have to commit to a longer term. So you can’t just say, I’m going to start it and then halfway through you realize, “Oh, no, I shouldn’t be doing this, I’m not gonna do this!” And you drop it—all the efforts are going to go to waste. So I think it’s sort of important to take it one step at a time, and sort of prioritize where you need to focus on.

Shaheen Samavati 7:55
Definitely. And it sounds like you’re also saying to focus on kind of quality over quantity.

Paola Campo 8:02
Yes.

Shaheen Samavati 8:03
So getting the storytelling right, and maybe not publishing every day. But publishing more strategically, right?

Paola Campo 8:11
Well, I think quality, I say quality, but there’s a caveat to it, and that is and there’s a beautiful quote that I love about it, and that is: “Don’t let the perfect get in the way of done.” Because I think a lot of people confuse quality with something that needs to be perfect, flawless. Or, you know, is the most beautiful presentation. Yes, of course, you want to focus on that, you want to make sure that things look great. But you also have to put it out there and see how people respond. Because sometimes you’re going to spend a lot of time trying to get that perfection and maybe it doesn’t resonate. And I think it takes an emotional toll sometimes when you really put in that effort, and you say, “Oh, no, this doesn’t really work. Why am I doing this?” And so it’s very important that yes, indeed, make an effort in making sure that the quality is there, but not too much that it becomes an excuse to put yourself out there. I think that’s important.

Shaheen Samavati 9:05
Yeah, very important. And, so let’s talk about this course that you have upcoming, the “Unstoppable Content Machine,” because from the name it sounds like it’s kind of in this vein of, you know, creating a system for, you know, consistently putting out content. So could you tell us a little bit about like, what, what the idea is behind it and kind of what people would get out of the course?

Paola Campo 9:28
I think the the main motivation that I had when it came to this course was I wanted to start working with with some clients and consulting and doing some coaching in some business groups. It was clear that a lot of people feel about content from a scarcity perspective, like there’s not enough content, like what would I talk about? Why…I created a blog post about this and how can I make that, you know, expand to months and months and months of content? And I think it’s about changing a little bit of the perception and saying, “No, there is an abundance of content, you just have to think about it in a smarter way, you just have to think about it, you know, there’s a bigger piece of content, and then there are the small parts that come out of that big piece of content, for example.” And it’s also understanding that not every single strategy is going to work the same way. Sometimes you want to focus on getting more leads, therefore, you have to take a slightly different approach. Sometimes you just want to bring awareness. So you take another approach. So the idea of the course is to give those actionable step-by-step guides that really take you through that process. How do you build a campaign if you just want to create more awareness? How do you build a campaign if you really want to do more lead generation, for example, and get more customers in your pipeline that you can have sales conversations with? So it’s sort of guiding entrepreneur through that process, about, “Okay, where do you focus those efforts?” So it’s coming back to what I said at the beginning, take it one step at a time. So this one sort of demystifies that whole process, because sometimes it does feel like content marketing is rocket science, because there’s so much out there. And there are so many schools of thought about where you need to go. It’s more bringing the focus, you know, wait a minute—it’s one step at a time, start at the beginning, and then just work your way through the process. And that’s the whole idea of the content. And it does touch touches a little bit on the on the power of technology, because I do find that a lot of the clients that I work with, they tend to be really overwhelmed by anything related to marketing automation, any technology somehow scares them, you know: “It’s just too difficult! Why am I doing that?” So it’s: “No! Don’t let the technology overwhelm you.! It’s there to help yo. It’s going to be adapting to your process and not the other way around. So that’s the idea.

Shaheen Samavati 11:56
That’s a very good point. Yeah. I mean, you can start out without any technology and then find the tool that’s right for you, right?

Paola Campo 12:01
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Shaheen Samavati 12:03
Yeah. Good point. What I was curious about is how did you end up in Belgium? And how long have you been working? And where are you from?

Paola Campo 12:13
I’m originally from Colombia. So I was born in the coast of Colombia. I grew up there most of my life. I also lived in Canada for a little bit. I ended up in Belgium for a job. So I had this job in a in a global youth led organization. And I was supposed to come here for one year. That was the idea, that was the plan. I was going to stay here for one year, finish my assignment then go somewhere else. And, you know, destiny happened, I met someone. So that was the decision, I decided to stay. It also helped us one of my clients at the time, one of my accounts that I was managing, one of the big accounts that I was managing in that job that I had here—one of my first assignment here in Belgium—they really liked me and they decided to hire me. So I was like “Okay, I’ll stay a little bit longer!” So one year became 16. So I’ve been living here already for 16 years.

Shaheen Samavati 13:06
Okay, nice. I have a similar story, ending up staying in Spain, so…

Paola Campo 13:11
That’s how a lot of us end up somewhere else, I think.

Shaheen Samavati 13:15
Absolutely. So, okay, well, going into your recommendations. I wanted to ask you about your favorite app at the moment.

Paola Campo 13:25
Oh, my God, that is that is a very, very, very hard question. It’s like asking a mother who their favorite child is, because I’m a bit of a nerd and I love technology. I really—the moment that there’s something new, I want to try it. So talking very specifically about content, I have this you know, I call it my Swiss Army Knife of tools—one of my favorite ones is Grammarly, and Grammarly is this amazing app that you can use for all your writing. It helps with the grammar, with spelling, but it also gives you a little bit of sort of context and helps you fine-tune your tone, your voice. So it’s really really nice—I love it. And one of the nice things about that app that I enjoy tremendously is how it saves me a lot of time. I think those who are writers will relate to this that sometimes you want to have, you will have that moment where you don’t want to have any interruptions—you just want to get all the words out there. But then afterwards, you really have to edit and look at the spelling and make sure that those sentences connect and Grammarly for me, it saves me a lot of time there. It’s amazing for that. And then the other tool that I use a lot that I really, really, really really love is Canva because it just made it easier for everyone to be a designer. Of course it doesn’t replace graphic designers—I think graphic designers still provide an invaluable service—but Canva especially for an entrepreneur who doesn’t have the resources to have a graphic designer, you know on staff, making sure that you’re creating all this beautiful marketing collateral all the time, can buy something that is absolutely fantastic. And then when I am very, very stressed, and I’m very, “I don’t know what to do!” I have this very silly app on my phone called Happy Color, which is a thing that you do color by numbers. So I highly recommend it for those people who really like little, little visual things that just want to relax and not think about anything and just color by numbers. That’s another one that I would recommend because I really, really love it.

Shaheen Samavati 15:30
Yeah, awesome, great recommendations. And I totally agree with the Canva recommendation. I’m a big Canva Canva user as well. And so do you recommend any books or influencers that you follow?

Paola Campo 15:43
Well, I think I have a little bit of a very peculiar approach when it comes to content because I’m not necessarily following the usual subjects. Sometimes yes, for example, Seth Godin. I mean, he’s someone that—the newsletter from Seth Godin is fabulous. It’s amazing. It’s always little tidbits of food for thought about marketing, which I love. I think it’s great. But I find a lot of inspiration in the most unlikely sources. I follow, I listen to a lot of TED Talks, for example, and Ted Talks, even when they have nothing to do with marketing or sales or business development, none of it, not even in the industries where I work—there’s always something interesting that I find around that. Malcolm Gladwell is another author that I really, really like, because he tells amazing stories. So anything that has to do with Malcolm Gladwell, I really, really love. I love a lot of storytellers, a lot of authors like Neil Gaiman, for example. He’s one of my favorites as well as a completely different topic—fiction—but the way that he writes is so engaging and so entertaining that it brings a lot of ideas. Like I said, I read a lot of different books about a lot of different things and they always bring ideas. One of the last ideas I have, which is a piece that I’m working on now is from a book called ‘Factfulness.’ And it’s from Hans Rosling. And it’s all about, you know, data visualizations, and he’s talking about, in fact, about how the world is not as bad as we think it is and the data is there to prove it. And there were a lot of interesting points. So that’s nothing to do with content. But somehow, I found something that makes a very interesting connection with some of the trends in marketing and some of the data that he’s talking about, talking about the the part of urgency, which is with marketing, we also always want to create this, the scarcity and the urgency, so people really buy. And he really talks about how urgency, you know, if we create this urgency for every single issue in the world, and then it becomes not that urgent anymore, the more you tend to use that mechanism. And it’s the same with marketers. You see, sometimes you have really interesting connections from very, very random sources that have nothing to do with the topic. So I really like to be very…that’s why I say I’m a knowledge enthusiast because I really enjoy just getting my hands on a bunch of random facts and I never know where the inspiration is going to hit.

Shaheen Samavati 18:10
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That’s a really good point. And then well, I also wanted to ask if you recommend any industry groups or resources?

Paola Campo 18:20
Well, I think that’s, of course, a little bit, depending on what people’s interests are, and where they want to go. For example, for anyone who is in Belgium, any of the listeners that are in Belgium, and have their own business, I strongly recommend to join the Freelancers in Belgium community. I think that’s probably one of the best communities that I’ve seen around for independent freelancers. They have even subgroups, very concrete for specific industries, like you know, freelance marketing writers, creatives, IT. So I think it’s a really, really good community and it’s a very helpful one. There’s another community that I’m a part of that I think is great it’s called the HeartPowered Global Nation. I think it is a wonderful community also for entrepreneur like minded people who really want to make a difference in the world. So that is touching a little bit of a more emotional spot because it’s really about having purpose and sometimes getting that encouragement and the hope that you know, everything you’re doing is for a reason—sometimes you need a little bit of that. So I think that’s also a recommendation or recommended group that I will say. Both of them are on Facebook, by the way. So, great groups!

Shaheen Samavati 19:36
Awesome. Yeah, I love Facebook groups.

Paola Campo 19:40
They’re great. That is true. They are very nice, indeed.

Shaheen Samavati 19:43
As I was telling you earlier, The Content Mix started as a Facebook group as well, so you will have to join ours! But well we’re reaching the end of the time for the interview, but I just wanted to ask you for any final parting advice you have for other content marketers in Europe?

Paola Campo 20:00
Well, I think if you’re a content marketer, stay true to yourself. Find your unique voice and just get out there. Get out there—get the message out there! That’s it. At the end of the day, that’s all you have to do.

Shaheen Samavati 20:14
Awesome. Great final thoughts. So thank you so much Paola for joining us on the podcast today.

Paola Campo 20:20
Thank you Shaheen.

Shaheen Samavati 20:22
And thanks everybody for listening in. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out The Content Mix and keep tuning in for daily interviews with content marketers here on the podcast. See you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai