303: Storytelling content in an AI world with David Ebner

Do you want to connect deeper with your audience through content? 

And with AI, our trust levels are dropping… 

We have David Ebner on ep 303 of The Content Queen Podcast to help you tell better stories in your content, especially in an AI-driven world where trust and human connection matter more than ever.

If you’re ready to create content that’s remembered (not just scrolled past), this is the episode for you!

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah and @⁠the_content_workshop⁠.

⁠⁠LEARN THE DETAILS OF A CONTENT STRATEGY WITH MY FREE AUDIO GUIDE⁠⁠⁠  ⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ Why storytelling will always be powerful, even in an AI world

✨ How to use AI as a tool without losing your human touch

✨ The secret to making your content stand out online

✨ Why content should be treated like corporate philanthropy

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

ABOUT THE GUEST 👇

David J Ebner is the President and Founder of Content Workshop, a story-first content marketing agency. While in graduate school, he assembled a collective of storytellers whose sole purpose was to use their storytelling skills to help brands create and convert an audience. That idea became Content Workshop in 2013. After graduating from the University of Tampa with an MFA in Creative Writing, he authored the Amazon Best Seller: Kingmakers: A Content Marketing Story. In 2025, Content Workshop acquired Lush Concepts, a web and technology studio, to heighten storytelling through every aspect of a brand's digital and physical footprint. Today, David runs Content Workshop and Lush Concepts from their headquarters in Clearwater, Florida. He also serves as the treasurer for a national non-profit and roasts his own coffee.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 303, and we are talking about storytelling content in an AI driven world. Welcome to the Content Queen podcast. I'm your host Mariah, entrepreneur storyteller, digital nomad, creator of Content Bootcamp, founder of Content Queen. I'm here to teach you how to share your unique story, create content, and market your business with strategy through the channels that work for you.

Each week, I'll deliver a story to help you connect to a powerful strategy around marketing, business and content creation. I'll also be joined by amazing souls and entrepreneurs who are here to share their own journey, along with actual steps, helping you take your business to a whole new level. Do amazing storytelling, powerful, aligned to marketing and content strategy.

Let's do it. Hello? Game. All right. AI storytelling, all of things. You know, I legit watch videos on TikTok and they're like animal saving children, and they're all AI generated and it's. Really not helping us with the faith in the world in content. So we've [00:01:00] got David to come, give us some faith in how things are going and how we can leverage storytelling to really stand out when there is a lot of content out there.

There's like, I would love to know a study on how much more content there is out there since ai. So yeah, we're gonna be talking about how to create captivating content and we have David. Edna, who's the president and founder of Content Workshop, a Storytelling first content marketing agency. I love this.

Whilst graduating school, he assembled a collective of storytellers whose sole purpose was to use storytelling skills to help brands create and convert an audience, and that idea became Content Workshop in 2013. Ooh, I love that. He's a former creative writer turned strategist. David leads a team of classically trained storytellers who produce over 30,000 assets for clients across North America.

That's nuts. He's the author of King [00:02:00] Makers, a content marketing story and sought after speaker on brand voice, narrative, content strategy, and the evolving intersection of AI and storytelling. So we have the perfect person to come on and chi chat. So let's get to it, chat with David and then we'll come back and have more of a chi chat.

Let's kick off. Welcome David to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Let's kick off with your story because everyone likes to hear a business owner entrepreneurial story. So how did you find your way into the world of like, content storytelling and yeah, how did you get to where you are now? 

David: So, well, thank you for having me.

Uh, Mariah, I, you know, I, I think my story starts when I was very, very young. Uh, maybe a, a toddler and. I don't know even if I was in kindergarten or grade one, but you know, we, I would come home from school. Um, and my mom, uh, we lived in the Midwest of the US so like, you know, it's corn country. It's a lot of, um, home cooking as it were.

And, uh, you know, she's shucking corn or. Snapping green beans as we do as you're preparing for dinner. And I [00:03:00] have, I have four other siblings, so like fighting for attention was always an issue. Um, not that we didn't all feel loved all the time, of course we did. But you know, I would sit there while my mom was like prepping dinner and I would start telling her about my day and I'd start like, fabricating these stories.

They would start. Truths, like this is what actually happened. Then I'd start to like, go off the rails and it's just all I was trying to do is to see if I could get her to like break or smile or, or have some sort of reaction and I would keep going until I got that reaction. Um, and uh, that was kind of the, the, I guess the ethos of, of where my, my storytelling started was this idea of like.

Telling a story to get an emotional reaction. Um, and that grew of course, over many years and many, uh, student loan dollars later, I, I went to school to study, uh, creative writing. Um, I, uh, I got a, a bachelor's in creative writing. Then I went and got a master in fine fine arts degree in, in creative writing as well.

And while I was studying, uh, as, as a graduate student, I started to realize that a lot of the. The skills that they were teaching us and techniques were, were completely [00:04:00] transferrable from the creative endeavors, the artistic endeavors we were doing to the commercial endeavors that we could be doing. So this is about 13 years ago.

Um, so at the time, brain storytelling was, it certainly was a thing, but it wasn't talked about. Like it is today. And we just decided, you know, let's start, uh, let's start a company where we sell this, sell these skills that we've learned on an artistic side, creatively or um, commercially. And that became content workshop.

And again, that was 13 years ago. I've written a book since then. I've had many jobs since then. We've grown massively since then, but we're still, today we're just, you know, um, we're brand storytellers. We tell people we're, we're artists. Disguised as marketers. Um, you know, we tell people we do marketing, but we're really, we're just artists trying to like, make a living with our art.

That's really all we're trying to do. Um, and that's my story and that's how I got to where I am now. 

Mariah: I love that we're, we're artists, disguises marketers. I, I really resonate with that because I didn't naturally go into, I was a journalist, journalism. Mm-hmm. Pr so, and like more of that creative [00:05:00] side and then, you know, but I think that's what they always say.

You know, people that do creative outlets always make really great marketers because I think the storytelling element. Is really hard for a lot of people to kind of grasp, even though it's nothing new. And we know how storytelling connects and we're 22 times more likely to remember a story of facts and figures.

But I always find it's something that people go, yeah, I get it, but I don't get it. Right. Yeah. Like, I'm not, like, I'm just, I'm not, I, my story's boring or what, what could we share? Or why does people, you know, all those things. Or they go down the other route and they just like tell all their stories and they're not kind of connecting 'cause they haven't really worked out.

What formulates, quote unquote, a good story. So I'm excited to have you today, especially with AI now in chat, pt, where we, you know, uh, chat, p t's fa, famous lines of, you know, in the world of marketing or, you know, all these stories. And sometimes I find chat PT gets a little bit too creative. It starts making up things that didn't even happen a little bit like you when you were a child.[00:06:00] 

Yeah. Right. So, I'm excited to chat about that, but I sort of, you know, you, you've been doing this a long time. What makes storytelling just like such a timeless, powerful tool in business? 

David: Well, it's, it's been a powerful tool since the beginning of our existence as a, as a a people, right? And I, I think that's why it's really a powerful tool in business is that it, it connects us to something that is like innate and foundational to the human experience, which is this, this idea of like emotional connection.

Um, buying something is an emotional experience, period. It doesn't really matter what you're buying. You buy something and you feel something. Um, usually you buy something because it makes you feel something, and then later you'll like justify that purchase with logic. So when we buy things as businesses, we buy first on emotion and then we justify with logic.

Um, and that might, we may choose to not purchase the final item because the logic doesn't line up. The first attraction is always emotional to the item, and it, it can make our life better. It can make us look great at [00:07:00] work, it can save us time, it can save us money, it can help us reach aspirational goals.

All of that is like emotional connection. So that's why it plays so well in business is that, uh, you know, it's, it's always been a part of the buying process. And really when we talk about business, all we're talking about is relationships, right? It's just people interacting with people. People like to buy things from people they like, they like to, to patronize the, the brands that resonate with them.

It's pretty simple actually. Um, and that's, that's why it's always been true. It's why it will always be true no matter what. New tool, shiny thing comes across a marketer's desk, uh, that foundation of, of, um, storytelling, building emotional connections. You displaying value to people and asking for nothing in return is very commonly the way that people, people interact commercially, right?

Mariah: I love that you said that. 'cause it's so true, right? Like the foundations of marketing come down to just really understanding the person on the other end. And I think a lot of the times we get so caught up in algorithms and, you [00:08:00] know, all the, the new platforms and what's trending and and, and pop culture and all these things, which is great.

It does send us down a spiral of burnout for sure. But then we sort of lose sight of who we're actually speaking to and you know, every time, and I think as sort of, um, someone in the creative space, that's kind of what you are, you are creating art for the other person to interact with it. Right. And, and with journalism background, for example, I'm was always writing for the person on the other end.

But as business owners we go like, I've got this great product, I'm gonna put it out there. And sometimes we lose sight of like the person actually using it. And I said this recently, like our audience is literally telling us what to create content on. We're just not listening. Like, we're just not. Mm-hmm.

Really listening. But I love what you say, you know, like if you think about the people that you've met or the friend people that you're friends with, a lot of times you've connected on someone sharing some sort of story or some kind of common ground. And it's the same in business. Right. And I think a lot of times we feel like we have to be like, [00:09:00] yeah, of course we wanna stick to our brand and, and, and have a persona.

But a lot of times we forget, like we're just. Humans interacting with humans. We don't have to like, it doesn't have to be any more complex than that. Right. It's 

David: exactly, 

Mariah: totally interesting. So, well, speaking of non-humans then, so we think about, you know, people using chat, GPT and AI to kind of like push out content.

And this is the thing, you see people on social media, you know, you can automate and repurpose and throw things out. And again, I think it then starts becoming more of a machine than a person on the other end. How do you see. Chat, gp, t or ai, any AI tool really, I think we just chat. GP t is sort of the open source of it all.

How do you see it impacting the way that we tell our stories through our content or the way we are marketing?

David: That's such a great question and I, you know, I'm, I'm on hundreds of podcasts at this point in time, and that question always comes up, right? Uh, everybody wants to ask the storyteller what they think about like, AI affecting storytelling, right? Yeah. [00:10:00] Um, and, and I, I, I've been thinking about this a lot. Um, but it wakes me up in the middle of the night, quite literally.

Uh, I've spent my entire career around this concept of, of providing art as a commercial concept with, with our minds and with our hands as people. Um, so what happens when this machine comes in and, and people believe that it can do the work that a person can do? Um, it disrupts everything, obviously. Um, you know, my view is that AI is a tool just like anything else.

AI is a tool just like this pen, I've got this really nice pen that is like an ink pen, right? Uh, before this ink pen, we used something else. Before that we used something else. It's an implement a tool, right? It's one of the first tools or implements that can actually do some. Constructive thinking, um, and take that part of the content creation off of our plate slightly.

But if, if you get out of the, the aspect and just assign it as a, um, as an implement or a, a [00:11:00] tactic, let's say, and, and you still need to do all the same strategic elements that, that we've just talked about. Right. Um, emotion is, is. Shared via empathy, which is a human, it's a human element. It's not, you can try to fake it, but it, the second that's, there's an inauthentic, uh, exchange between a brand and an individual.

You burn that trust that it's really hard to get back. Right. So. There's a lot of question about risking that by putting in a, a, a machine in lieu of a person, but in the end all, push all that aside. Great content is great content. It doesn't really matter how it's created for the most part to the person on the other end.

It probably doesn't matter all that much how it's created. The question is, does it help me? Um, and how can I use this to make my life better? Um, and whether you're doing that by hand or doing that with a Mac machine, it really doesn't matter. Uh. There's a lot of work that goes into doing that both by hand and doing it by machine.

I think that work level, there's an assumption that I think [00:12:00] happens in boardrooms, uh, that you know, Hey, this new. AI tools should make things easier, more efficient, which probably don't need as much staff and one person should be able to do more in practice, it doesn't really work that way 'cause anybody who has known how to deploy AI at scale realizes that there's such a quality assurance mechanism that needs to be put in there.

Um, you have to decide where the human is in the loop In that process, there's uh, issues with obviously hallucinations. Those are getting better, that that's happening less. Um, you know, there's, uh, language as you mentioned before. Uh. AI doesn't really know how to like formulate a sentence. In a good way.

Things that we would train a junior copywriter how to do it doesn't know how to do right. It, it wants to build sentences, uh, in these weird cadences that a human probably wouldn't do. If it did, they would hit the editor's desk and be bounced right back. Right. Um, you know, we don't get a lot of variety.

We get a lot of the same phrases. Let's delve in, right? Like they, it's terrible at segues in between. Like we [00:13:00] don't need a segue in between every paragraph. We can literally just go to the next point. Yeah. Uh, but AI doesn't seem to understand that, right? So, so all of these things though are things you can train an AI model to, to not do every time.

It's a lot of work, and then you still have to QA the heck out of it. Yeah. And usually the spark of creativity still comes what we found and we we're trying to deploy, uh, AI across the board wherever we can. Um, that makes sense, both ethically and from a quality point of view. Uh, and what we're finding is like the spark of creativity is way more powerful from the people that we.

Uh, employ them from these, these tools. So anyway, whole roundabout way of saying like, I, I would just assume put, put AI in the bucket of a tool of an IMP implementation. Um, and then separate yourself, your strategy from that element, from a content creation point of view, and focus on the things that produce the highest quality, which is very still starting with a human, the human imagination.

And I'll, I, I'll add one more piece why I think that is, uh, and maybe this will be, you know. 20 years from now, we'll watch this podcast or whatever, and we'll be like, David was so [00:14:00] wrong or whatever. But, uh, we are good storytellers because of our experiences as humans, right? The human experience means suffering.

It means excitement, it means love, it means sadness. It means a lot of things, right? Um, and we experience those emotions in different spaces and times. We have literally experiences. I was just in Portugal for a trip. It was fantastic, right? So I had a bunch of experiences there. All of that influences everything I create and everything I do.

It formulates, uh, uh, ideas. It deepens emotions. It, it gives me context for whatever happens next in my life. And the next thing that I write or create. These machines don't have that. Right? So maybe that is just something that it'll figure out how to do. Maybe that's part of the reason why when you read this stuff, it feels very like stinted and, and I hate to say robotic, but I'm gonna say robotic, right?

Uh, formulaic. Certainly. You can read it and you're like, [00:15:00] wow, I can tell AI wrote that. Right? Or, or whatever it may be. Um. So I, I think there's, there's the ability to deploy these tools. Certainly we're doing it every day at content workshop that help, uh, help with volume, but, uh, you still need to focus very heavily on quality and that usually happens on the human level.

Mariah: Yeah, yeah, of course. 'cause I mean, there's things, um, that you, that ai, as you say, like the hallucinations and everything like that, but it. Especially a lot of us now esp uh, are creating personal brands, right? Like, you know, we want the founder story, we want to see that person and yeah, you know, now AI can potentially be you and all those different things.

Although I saw a really terrible AI video of a woman and a husband and yeah, definitely was ai and everyone's like, oh my God, why does this video sound so feel so off? And I think it's 'cause like. Some consumers don't experience as much AI as, I guess, like you or I, 'cause we're sort of creating so much content or we're really in it.

And, [00:16:00] um, yeah, I think at the end of the day it is that sort of trust element as well on the other end of like, did this person just like copy and paste from ai or did they actually do something and then there's the risk of like, copyright, right? Or like your ip. Yeah, for sure. Um, going out there and, and being used, I, I, I had it.

Market research call like last year with a woman who said she'd had a va that was just like putting content out there for her. No strategy. Just, you know, putting things like what they were hired to do, just follow the process and using chat g pt, and then she saw her exact caption on someone else's post.

So it was like, yeah, it was just a generic, non-human copied and pasted and that's just like not really a great look. Is it like, it's kind of like. This person isn't taking the time to really, and, and this is a difference between people seeing social media or content as a whole, as a business strategy versus just something that you have to do because someone told you that you need to be on social media, right?

Like, or be, [00:17:00] be creating content or engaging with your audience and you can really tell the people that see the value in it. Um, and it's so interesting. I'm running some workshops. I'm in a local town at the moment and I'm out doing some outreach and asking people if they would like to come. You kind of notice.

That people think that they don't need their help. And I mean, I look at their social media and not that it's bad, but I know they need help. Um, 'cause I know what works and I mean, you can't really say that, right? But it's also at the same time, it's like, I just think some people, I said to my partner, so like.

Maybe people just, some of them don't understand the power of this connection. Right. And the brands that know, I mean, there's a really, um, there's a, there's an entrepreneur in Australia. She started off as a content creator, and then she's created like million dollar brands in Australia. She's very inspirational to a lot of women.

And she's like, people are sitting on content and it's just like, it's wild to me because that's her whole strategy is being content led. She's massive on. Talk. She's created such a [00:18:00] beautiful community. She's now doing, not like influencer brand trips, she's doing customer brand trips where she's taking her customers on trips, not influencer.

Like she's really paving the way for like what this, this online world looks like. And because she never sat on it, she never thought like, oh yeah. It's just there, like, it's just a presence. Like she's actually taken it seriously and she's, she shares her story. She shares her journey. Like she talks about like, people go, oh, you're, you know, you came from money, you probably got investment.

And she's like, no, every, I've had about 10 businesses since I started YouTube and I've done it from the ground up. And people find that super inspiring as well. So I think like there is a, you can clearly tell the difference between people that just. Throw stuff up or get stuff out there and those that go like, oh, this is something I need to invest time and money into.

Um, whether it's, you know, getting help and support or whether it's doing it themselves. So it's very interesting. Um, and this is where this, I guess AI comes in because now with ai people go, oh, well I can mass produce so much 'cause it doesn't matter. And I was saying this the other [00:19:00] day, like, I think what happens with AI and content and, and especially with this sort of like storytelling element, is we go, okay, I haven't put any energy into creating content and I, and it's not working.

So great. Now I have ai, so I know it's still not working. I'm just gonna mass produce and then they never get the results. Right. Right. Rather than working out what works then using ai, I guess, to kind of try and scale that if they can. And right then of the course as you said, having that human element and I, I've got a client that's imp um, deploying like AI things into businesses and one of the things that they've got is like that.

Who's that human that. Know content. 'cause you still need someone that understands it as well. Right. It's just, it's an interesting topic obviously, and, and I think like with this sort of storytelling element, have you noticed, like, and I think you sort of alluded to it, but I think what AI does is it like, saves us that a bit of energy so that we can pull the stories into it.

And I dunno if that's what you mm-hmm. Kind of noticed and because I don't know [00:20:00] that AI really has the capacity to tell amazing stories just yet. 

David: Yeah. It really doesn't. Uh, but yes, we've noticed that I, I keep thinking about ai. You know, we're marketers, so we think about a funnel, right? Yeah. For those of you just listening, like you probably can't see my, my arms are up, right?

But yeah, I'm creating a funnel. But the, the greatest thing about the funnel is that the more you put in the top, the more that has the potential that comes out the bottom. Everything doesn't have to come out the bottom right? So, uh, I think of, uh, AI as, um, feeding the top of the content funnel, right?

Mm-hmm. We can have more ideas at scale, which is great. We can deploy more ideas at scale. That doesn't mean we should really create more content. That means we can focus our time and energy on the best possible pieces that we think are going to, uh, achieve the goal. And we can, we can. The time, the precious time that we have left, let's focus those on the best ideas, right?

So we not, we might not produce more content, but we certainly can produce better content if we can, uh, focus just on those [00:21:00] pieces. So, um, so yeah, it's a funnel, not a hallway, right? Like, people think of AI as a hallway. Like if I just like build this prompt system every time it'll go pull a couple things and make a article and I'll just publish it and it'll be live and I won't have to touch it at all.

That's a hallway, right? Like that's everything going out the front door. That's where you get the sea of sameness. That's where you just e everything looks the same. Uh, you, you, you see these things and they don't stand out at all. And all good marketing is gonna stand out. Yeah. Uh, you don't, you don't wanna be like everybody else.

Mariah: Yeah, that's right. That's, 

David: and AI is, is, is by design, trying to make things like everything that's been created before. Uh, so, uh, it's very important to, to, to have that QA element. 

Mariah: Yeah. Well, I guess it's only got other things that have already been created to go of. Right. Because that's what it's been fed with.

Right. Like it doesn't 

David: Right. 

Mariah: Have, as you said, those experiences like we do where it can create something new. It's very interesting. I saw a, um, a sunscreen brand in Australia and that there. Two, two women that have created this brand. Um, just very small business owner, [00:22:00] entrepreneur, founder journey sort of vibes.

And they, um, put into chat, GBT create me a viral video just as a joke. And they implemented the, like they showed you how they, like, they followed its exact, like what it said. Obviously it went viral, but only because people, because they were explaining that they'd used chat. The chat beat. Yeah. So it wasn't the actual video content itself that went viral.

It was the fact that they were, let's replicate one of like, kind of taking the Mickey, so to speak, out of chat, GPT, like making fun of the fact that they're, that they're, you know, real scripts are a bit. Average. Um, right. You know, some of the things that I find it's really good for, um, and I'll just give everyone a bit of an insight into my creative process with my clients is I work with, yeah, a lot of, like, entrepreneurs that have a personal brand.

So what it helps me do is if I get them to voice note me a lot because I find that really helps me. Like I, when I'm writing for them, I can like envision them talking to me, which sounds really wild, but that's sort of my. Creative process is [00:23:00] I'm like, I'm listening to them reading back the words that I'm creating.

So the more they voice note me, the better. But then what I do is I use, say they send me like a five minute voice note. I use AI to at least like compact what they've said to me. So then it's still taking on their brand, their, their tone, because I'm feeding it that, but I, I'm then taking on that voice to change and edit and, and iterate it.

But at least it takes something that's like 10 minutes. It's like maybe got some ums and some ahs and some side note tangents and all of that, and kind of put, brings it together under one sort of piece of content, which I find is very helpful because back in the day I used to literally listen to my client.

Right as I was, and then I'd have to pause, you know what I mean? Like that's like hard, right? And then obviously trans transcribing came out and all of those things made it a lot easier. But that's just an element of like, okay, well if, how am I feed, like speaking what [00:24:00] I wanna say out or sharing my stories?

Because a lot of the times they come out as like complete mess. And then you go, okay, hang on, I need to. Go back, but at least you can, I guess, use some sort of platform or tool to help you kind of make it a bit more concise, I guess is, is what I've found. Because of course as humans we might like start talking and then we go, oh, actually that's a good point and this is a good point.

And then in the end, every end of the voice cert for my clients is either, do you have enough? Let me know if you need more, or, I'm sure you can turn this ramble into something great

because they're just, you know. Putting stuff out there, which I find scary. Yeah, 

David: right. 

Mariah: Yeah. So, 

David: well, that's a, that's a great use case for ai, I think is, is this idea of like, uh, summarizing, um, or analyzing data sets. Essentially what you're doing is every word is a piece of data, right? And you're kind of like using it to make it concise, which I think is a perfect use case.

Mariah: Yeah. And I think like, obviously then at least it's like, okay, as a, [00:25:00] you know, me listening, I might go, oh. I don't know how that bit's relevant. Is it relevant? And then I can sort of get AI to help me make sure like, is it relevant? How does it fit? You know, all those things. Yeah. Which I think has been a, a game changer for, and, but obviously it's determined by the client giving me.

Great information, which I'm really lucky that my clients do that. So, you know, as someone creating their own content, it's like, how can you bring your ideas to life? And as you said, I love how you like, okay. Well AI, just like a pen is a tool. You know, it's not, it's not a replacement of anything. I mean, you know, the day that AI replaces all of our jobs, the government will just pay us to be ladies of leisure.

And that's fine. We can just roll that, you know. Of course. I'm waiting for my, 

David: I'm waiting for my check. Yes. 

Mariah: Um, so you are done storytelling for such a long time. I know. It's like, aside from ai, 'cause I think we're just like relying like we think AI is going to like change our lives and make it better, but I think it's just like, it doesn't.

[00:26:00] It is like there's no silver bullet in this, this world. I think what we've come to learn, so for anyone listening that's like, okay, like I really would love to get better at my storytelling through my content. What are some of the things that you share that's really helpful for small business owners, entrepreneurs, anyone creating content to do what you do?

Obviously not as amazing, but you know, to at least get their stories out there. 

David: Yeah, we, we actually strongly believe in, um, well, what we do for our clients every day is we help them demonstrate their expertise. Mm-hmm. Right? They're experts at something. We want need to demonstrate that that's what content does so well.

Right? But that also means giving away the secret sauce to a degree. Tell people how you do what you do. Uh, that's the best content. That's the best content. Right. And I know there's so many people who, especially who provide services, who are concerned about. Uh, essentially providing the IP for anybody to take.

But I'll, I'll tell you right now, if anybody out there is on, if you have a client who's only purchasing things from you because of the way you do [00:27:00] it, uh, they're just gonna go down the street when somebody else does it the same way in the future. They're, they're purchasing things from you because of you.

And who you are as an individual, right? Yeah. And they wanna work with you, right? That's all what services is. Uh, so anyway, all that being said, I think the best tactic, um, is to build, uh, to, to, to put storytelling into your, your marketing more, uh, profoundly is to, to go through a message mapping exercise.

Uh, certainly build personas. That's extremely important. Mm-hmm. And I'll, I'll tell you this, even, even people who have personal brands, um, I think this is still true for them. Your brand story is usually not about you. Uh, and I, I know that's, that's hard for a lot of people to, to understand, or even, especially if they're a thought leader in, in a space by themselves, right?

Their bus, they're, they are their, the, the person is the company, right? Mm-hmm. However, uh, when people view content, what they're trying to do is, is see themselves in. In whatever content that they're consuming. Whether that's, I have that same [00:28:00] problem, like how do I solve that this person's living a life that I wish I could live.

How do I live more like them? Uh, you know, I. Need to save money. How do I do that right? Like, whatever it may be, all of it is about them. So when you're creating content, you really need to focus on the audience first and foremost in everything you do. And the brand story is really about how you, who you help and how you help them and not about you.

Uh, so. This exercise, the message mapping and persona is extremely good at that because when you start to look at your persona, your target audience start to dive into their individual elements, you can start to see what their common pain points are and start to think of yourself as just solving problems.

Hmm. Right. And that's. One, uh, one thing I strongly advise a lot of brands to do is, is change the, the nomenclature on their website instead of writing prod, uh, products or offerings. Right, right. Solutions. And start to like change the mindset around what you offer people as something you solve their problems and help them.

Yeah. Um. That's gonna open and broaden your, your, your, your mind quite a bit [00:29:00] to how you can then produce content that helps people in, in a message mapping exercise. What we'd like to do is we build a, it's like a matrix, right? So it's a bunch of different, it's like a table. Mm-hmm. Um, we have every persona is its own row.

And then on the top we have, um, elements for some questions that we need to answer. So for persona A, what's their pain point? Uh, what is our solution? That solves for that pain point. And then what is that equal? When we combine those two things together, what is the outcome? How is their life better, is really what we're asking ourself.

And then we do that for every persona and every solution, right? And we answer the question is, how do we make these per this person's life better? That will, will give you such a wellspring of content ideas. Uh, you will, you'll, uh, be ready for a year or two on content ideas. Um, so anyway, that's, that's a great way just to get started with developing these.

Um, there's plenty of templates online. We literally wrote a blog, I think about message mapping. Um, I'm sure we did 13 years. We've had to have written at least one blog about it. Sure. I'll be able to 

Mariah: find it. [00:30:00] 

David: Yeah, you'll be able to find it for sure. Um, and, uh, I think that's a great tactic to get started, but it really, again, it's a tactic and it really falls down in the strategy.

It all starts with the strategy, which is like helping people essentially. 

Mariah: Mm. Yeah. No, I love that. I really like the idea and I think like, again, yes, we, and, and actually I saw a video on it and it was like, um. What often happens is we become, yeah. So like, okay, yes, I'm the founder, I'm the brand, da dah, dah, dah.

And then we forget that again, there's someone on the other end and someone said, we're in this very like, me, me, me, me society, which makes sense as to why someone consuming the content's. Like, well, what's in this for me? And I'm sure lots of people read, you know, whether you read, um, fiction books. So like whenever I read something, I almost take on.

Like I'm the per the main character. Like, like, and you sort of vision yourself and that's just normal, right? So it's the same. It's the same with um, when you're creating content. Uh, when you're consuming content. And that's the other thing that [00:31:00] like a lot of small business owners, I think we don't do enough of is obviously, yeah, I think we do consume, but I think we often push more out than we do consume sometimes.

I mean, I don't know that I'm, oh yeah. I would push more out than I can chew. 'cause we push out a lot. But almost like consuming as if like, oh yeah, I'm a consumer. What do I like? What? Because it's the same, then you can sort of, I guess, understand where your audience is coming from. And then when you watch back your content or read back your content or whatever, you go, oh, would I read this?

And I think often we don't, we don't ask ourselves that question. 

David: Well, we should be asking that. There's a lot of questions we should be asking. Could 

Mariah: do. 

David: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It puts you in a position where you have like, it's like a paradox. Like, did you just create something that that doesn't actually present enough value?

Um, that's why starting with all of these things in mind on the front end helps to make sure you're creating content that has that value, right? The last thing you wanna do is to get to the end and, and we ask ourselves a, a number of questions when we're building an outline or a creative brief. We spend a lot of time.

[00:32:00] Building our creative briefs on the front end before we start writing the first word. We're like, let's make sure we're on the same page and our first drafts, our goal is to be 90% of the way there. Like that's our goal. Yeah. It's 90% of the way it's done. By the time they see it, the client sees it. Right.

The only way we can get there is by getting consensus early on with them on what the purpose is, the key insights, what we're trying to accomplish together. Hmm. And then we'll ask ourselves like, so what we say at the end of it, so what, all right, I've got this content now and this audience, so what am I supposed to be?

Able to do something new. Now what is that thing? And, and if we can't answer that question, we gotta go back to the drawing board. Hmm. Um, we also like to ask ourselves, and this is a a, I don't wanna say controversial, but, uh, difficult, a difficult question to ask is. Uh, does this content hurt anyone? And the reason why we ask that question is I think we, we don't think enough as marketers about the time and attention of our target audience and how valuable that truly is to those individuals.

It's a limited resource. They will get no more of it, and it's [00:33:00] probably better spent with their family and, and making memories than reading your blog, right? So that being the case, uh, or watching your video. You need to ask yourself, does this present as much value as I'm taking from them? Um, and your content should absolutely present at least as much value as that snippet of their awareness and time and their attention.

Um, so anyway, uh, that it's a little altruistic, but our goals need to be aligned with helping those people as much as possible. If we understand their problems, see ourselves as solving them, we can, we can get there faster, I think. 

Mariah: Yeah, I really like that you say that because I think, um, as you mentioned before.

Whether it's thought leaders or business owners, we are, and service providers we're a little bit mindful of giving away too much. And I've had this conversation recently like, oh, well why would someone buy from me if I give it all away in my content? Especially, you know, like if you are selling some sort of like educational service.

Sure, 

David: of course. Yeah. Um, 

Mariah: things like that. So how do you, [00:34:00] when clients come to you with that sort of objection, I guess, what do you say to say to them? 

David: Yeah. Uh, we don't get that objection a whole lot anymore. 'cause I think, I think as a brand, uh, they see us, that's our ethos a little bit. So like, they probably wouldn't come knocking on our front door or be referred if they, they've already done 

Mariah: their research.

David: Yeah. A little bit. Um, we used to, I mean, I, I'll tell you what, that's not always been the case, right? Yeah. We used to have to like. Explain to people the value of content. You know, 13 years ago people were like, why do I need content? And I was like, oh my God, it's so difficult. It's like so obvious to us today.

We don't ever have to explain that to people. They all get it. Everybody understands the, the place of content and marketing for the most part. Um mm-hmm. So we don't have to explain it as much anymore, but we usually tell them that. That's not why people are buying from you, honestly. Um, people are buying from you.

From a, my, uh, for a, my rate of reasons. One is just how you package and deliver your service. A a lot of it has to do with the fact that they can do it on [00:35:00] their own, but will they? Yeah. Is it easier and better? They won't. It's easier and better for them to, to work with you because you make their life easier.

Not just because you have knowledge that they don't have, but that you have skill that they don't have. Which is the, the deployment of that knowledge. They're, they're paying you to deploy knowledge not to have it because anybody can have it. Right? Yeah. Um, so anyway, that's, that's usually how we have that conversation.

We have to convince them, obviously, that that's probably not the case. Um, that they're not, uh, giving away something that is IP or the reason why people buy from them. And if, if it is the case. And then we probably need to do some deeper analysis into like how fragile our position is in, in the marketplace.

Right. Yeah. Um, easy for me to say as running a company and, and you know, uh, being my own boss, a lot harder for somebody who's like the head of content to like go up to their CEO and be like, Hey, I think you're wrong. I think, you know, we should do this different a lot on a bit of a different dynamic. 

Mariah: Oh, absolutely.

No, it's interesting 'cause obviously there's the, [00:36:00] the concept of people buy you as much as they buy your products and services. Right. So, and it's, you know, the accountability, you know, even I've, I do free workshops, the getting people to come to free workshops versus paid workshops is so much harder, right?

Yeah. Because they pay, they go, oh, well I better go 'cause of paid for it. So like, even if someone listens to every single podcast you have, or every read, every blog or consumer, every bit of your content. They still probably haven't actioned anything until they actually Yeah. Make that commitment of that energy exchange.

Right. Yeah. Because I think a lot of us, accountability is such a massive thing. Um, and even, you know, I've had, I have clients that work with me that, yeah, they do still do parts of their content and I do repurposing bits and pieces, and it's just that they, they know how to do it. They're just not doing it at the, like the scaling level that they want to either.

So, yep. I think there's, yeah, I do, I do agree with you that the misconception of like people [00:37:00] stealing or I don't wanna give too much value has definitely gone, but I do still think sometimes there is that like limiting belief because we wanna give the most value to the people that give their money and their energy to show up.

Um, but also at the same time, it's really hard to sell something if you're not willing to share. In and out demonstrated of it. 

David: Yeah. Somehow. Yeah. Like why would they buy it if they have no idea what it is? Right? Yeah. Like that's not the economy we're in, right? Yeah. 

Mariah: Yeah. And I think we know it so well, so we go like, oh yeah, this is amazing and this is this and this.

But then if you just looked at the content without understanding anything about the person's business, there's so many questions, right? Like, oh, I don't understand this, or I don't understand that. I've got a client at the moment that hasn't physically launched her course yet, and. She's finding it hard to sell it because like, it's not physically there yet, but often, like you kind of gotta sell it before you've got it.

So it's sort of that like concept. It can be quite challenging for people to get their head around, like, how can I sell something that I don't know? Because it doesn't, it's, it's being worked on. The content is there, [00:38:00] but it doesn't actually physically exist. So. It's quite interesting. It's, it's the joys of marketing, isn't it?

David: Yeah. Yeah. 

Mariah: Amazing. Well, before we wrap up, what's a piece of advice that you wanna give the listeners around, you know, sharing their story, showing up, you know, creating a brand that I think, you know, they're gonna go remember and, and sort of implement after this, after they listen to this episode? Sure. 

David: I, I mean, I, I think that definitely.

The message mapping is something that is a tactic you should definitely take away. Go again, search for our blog, search for somebody else's blog, for whatever, right? Like there's plenty of content around the message mapping mechanism and why it's important. So that's, that's one thing. The other thing I, I would challenge people on is to, to consider that part of your content system is a form of corporate philanthropy, right?

Your, your job. Um, you get great access to people. [00:39:00] My gosh, we get so much access to people, like we can email them even if they haven't opted in. People email me all the time, and I haven't opted in, right? Like, they get my attention all the time. I get messages on LinkedIn all the time, and on top of that, I'm on, I'm on all these great free sites called Social Media, and I get content thrown at me constantly, right?

Nobody pays for that access period. We have free access to people's time and attention. That's the economy that's been built, right? If you think of yourself as like the, the gateway, the price of, of entry into that time and attention is I have to provide some value and think of yourself as like the ability just to help people without asking for anything in return, I think you are going to see a shift and, and.

Inbound. Inbound leads, the ability to, to, to take on more clients, people knocking on your door. Um, we've done this as a company. It's been, it's been how we've built our entire engine. We don't run a [00:40:00] single ad. We don't, uh, we get referrals and people find us on through SEO or. LLMs or whatever it is at places that we're at.

Um, and we just constantly try to help people without asking for something in return. Mm-hmm. Um, so anyway, I, I would challenge people to, to try to think of their content a little bit. Like just helping an audience in need. Um, I think it's gonna pay dividends and if you just start to think down the chain a little bit of.

Selling is really helping, helping is really selling that they're one and the same. Yeah. Just sometimes there is an exchange of money and sometimes they're not. Hmm. If you start to think of, of that mechanism as part of your business and that leaks into your content and it leaks into this, this message mapping of where you're just presenting value, um, you're going to not only reap the benefits of.

Of an ROI, but like, you're also gonna feel pretty good at the end of the day, I think. Mm. And I think that's beneficial and that makes you better at whatever it is that you're doing. Yeah. Um, focus a little bit more time and atten [00:41:00] and, and attention on that. And I think you're gonna see good dividends.

Mariah: Yeah. I love that. That's such a, a good parting message because a lot of the times, as I said, we see, you know, I've just gotta push this stuff out there, or, you know, I, people have gotta, I've gotta share about my X, Y, Z, you know, and it's like, rather than, yeah. How can I give something back to the people on the other end of the screen and that, so I love that.

Mm-hmm. And how can people find you and learn more about what you do? 

David: Yeah, you can, uh, you can Google David j Ebner. Feel free to Google me if you put the J in there, you'll find me. If you don't, you might not. There's actually a very famous, uh, furniture artist. Uh oh. Uh, I think he's, I don't know if it's in Denmark, the Nordic area somewhere.

He, uh, his name's David Ebner. Um, and so if you just search David Ebner, you're gonna find him and not me. So put the J in there. LinkedIn is a great place to, uh, actually, if you go to our website content workshop.com, there's a little, uh, chat pan in the bottom right corner. It's got my head on it that literally [00:42:00] comes to my phone.

I answer our chats on our website, so if you wanna talk to me, like go there and just start a conversation, that's fine too. 

Mariah: I love that. We'll put all the links in the show notes and I'll try and I'll, I'll go on a search. Looking for your message mapping blog, I'm sure. There you go. I'll find it. Sure. Your SEO is.

Odd point, so I'll probably just have to Google it. It's just come up straight away. Yep. Thank you so much, David, for giving your time and, and sharing more about, you know, content storytelling and this crazy world that we live in. So thank you so much. 

David: You're welcome. Thanks for having me, Mariah. 

Mariah: What a great conversation.

So refreshing. Right. And it's so interesting because I think now what we're seeing online is this sort of need for people's stories. Like more than ever we're so hooked. That's why like vlogging and days Day in my lives and really that raw, authentic content performs so well. But we're also gonna see like docuseries, and we've seen sort of like TV series content this year perform really well.

We are going to see a rise in docuseries content, so just stay [00:43:00] tuned for that. And it's just again. Telling a story, it's exactly what we want. So give the people what they want. Think about how you can tell more stories to deliver your brand message, but be a content queen or king. And remember that developing your strategy and story develops your business.

Thank you so much for joining me today, and please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends. You can do this by adding it to your SIE stories and tagging me at Content Queen Mariah, or just tell 'em about it. You do rate review on whatever platform you listen's on. It does help me get this podcast out there and get amazing guests on like David, because he found me because it was in the charts and he pitched me.

So if you want more amazing guests like this. You know, you know what to do. Follow us on Instagram and also TikTok and let me know if there are any topics you want me to talk about in the future. I would love to hear from you and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment