351: How I prepared a client for being on a Monopoly board

Got something big coming up and a feeling you’ve left the marketing too late?

One of my clients was chosen to be on a local Monopoly board, and I’m taking you behind the scenes of how I prepared for it.

We’ll go through pre-launch, launch day and post-launch, and what you can borrow for your own launches, events and big moments, no matter your budget.

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

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

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ Be visible now. Opportunities often come from consistently showing up, because organisers and event teams look at your social presence before they choose you

✨ Plan big moments in three stages: pre-launch, launch and post-launch

✨ Get your shot list and content ready ahead of time, so you can be reactive on the day without scrambling

✨ Advocate for yourself and say yes to media and opportunities, even when it feels scary

✨ Use the six-week rule: count back at least six weeks from anything big and plan from there

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 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Mariah: [00:00:00] This is episode 351, and I'm talking all about what I did to prepare one of my clients for being on a Monopoly board. So stay with us. There's lots of explaining to do. Welcome to the Content Queen podcast. I'm your host, Mariah, entrepreneur, storyteller, digital nomad, creator of Content Bootcamp, and founder of Content Queen, with over 10 years experience in marketing.

This podcast is here to help you create your aligned content marketing plan by blending storytelling and strategy. So let's get into it. Hello, gang. Now, if you follow the cadence of my podcast, this should be a guest episode. But unfortunately, we were traveling so much, I'm gonna give some backstory, that, uh, I didn't...

I had to close my calendar for guests. So anyway, I'm recording one as I'm recording this tomorrow. The podcast is out a little bit late, and, um, we- we're doing a solo episode, which makes perfect sense to kind of what's been happening in the last few weeks. So we haven't even documented on social media, 'cause it's just been a bit of a [00:01:00] whirlwind.

But basically, in June of this year, one of my clients, there was, like, a call-out for people on a Monopoly board. They put their name down, they were chosen, and we had the launch event. And the launch event was originally meant to be last week of November, first week of December. That was sort of, like, the rough outline we were given.

So Mitch and I are planning our travels, and obviously, we have been hired to help with the marketing of this, et cetera. So we, by the p- the client that had been chosen, not by the company organizing it. Um, so we had planned our travels to be back in Victoria in December or late November to fly there and in Queensland.

Anyway Because of, you know, things out of our control, the Monopoly got printed earlier, so they decided to make the event early November. So when they contacted us, they said, "Great news, it's gonna be early." I'm like, "I am in Broome." So basically, Mitch and I had to plan [00:02:00] our travels to leave Broome on Sunday the 25- I'm gonna say it was the 25th of October to be in Queensland, in Brisbane area by the date of this launch.

So we were doing something like 700 kilometers per day. The things you do for your job. Uh, we had a few incidences with the bus. It's not in a great way right now. It's getting fixed. You know, chipped windscreens, dents, uh, we got stuck in floods at one point. But anyway, it's fine. We'll document it and I'll share it on social media at some point.

It's still a little raw. So basically, in Australia or in even in the world, Hasbro creates Monopoly. And then what they do is they have companies that create different types of Monopolies. So in Australia, they're really big on creating Mo- Monopolies for tourism hotspots, et cetera. So you may have seen like, if you've ever been to the Gold Coast, there's a Gold Coast Monopoly, et cetera.

They did a call-out for the local area in which one of my [00:03:00] clients is operating, and they wanted to create a Moreton Bay Monopoly. So we saw that, we put our name out, uh, forward to be part of it, and of course, lo and behold, Monopoly. But I wanna take you through first, like, what that looked like to get picked, because it wasn't like, um, an intentional sort of thing.

Like, we didn't plan that. It just kinda come up. So what we were doing before that, so that's why it's like, if you are marketing your business, it's never just turn tap on, turn tap off with social media. Like, you just never know where these opportunity's gonna come up and where people are looking. And just take you through it and, and how I prepared for the launch from a marketing perspective, et cetera.

I did a voice note into my DIY Content Marketing Club the day it happened, like a nine-minute voice note taking them through some of the behind-the-scenes, and I thought it'd make a good podcast So I've explained sort of how the board works, um, but basically when we sort of had this meeting with the team they had flagged that they had searched our social media, and they were really [00:04:00] impressed with what we had done.

Again, as I said, we didn't do social media hoping one day we would be on a Monopoly board. The whole point was building community, building trust, et cetera. This organization or this business has been around for 21 years. Obviously, that does help, so consistency with our business. Obviously, if we're not at that point right now that's okay.

We will get there. That's why it's important to really love what you do and have that level of consistency. They had created 2,000 Google reviews. Of course, reviews are very challenging to get, but they had created that good service that landed those reviews. But having that consistent social media as an organization looking for people to be part of something, when they're looking at your overall marketing, they're also looking at what are you doing to connect with your audience and how would you be a good fit for something based on how you show up?

I've seen this with other clients event organizers looking for speakers, uh, looking for podcast guests all these things. They'll look at social media and go, "Oh, that person's really active." Not only are they really active, they post quality content, but they also share when they've [00:05:00] been to events. So if I'm an event organizer and I see...

I've got one client in particular, we always share after an event, and I'm always encouraging my clients to share post-events, tag people, things on like LinkedIn because when organizas- organizers are looking for things, they are looking at your social media presence. They are looking at how active you are, how you engage with your community, but how you promote things that you're part of.

So that was sort of part one, like having that level of consistency, just showing up for the sake of showing up, not showing up for the intent of getting opportunities, which of course we always are as well. But then, of course, after you've sort of... We've, we were peaked, we can't talk about it. So we can't say, "We're gonna be part of this," because it was a embargo top-secret thing.

Like we can't share who's on it. It gives away. They have a launch event and everything. So what we had to do was think about between knowing this and the launch, what could we do to keep that sort of like momentum? So we worked on marketing activations throughout the time. So we had [00:06:00] engaged influencers we hadn't before.

For context, this is a tourism/hospitality food business, so influencers made sense. So we engaged in influencers. We had sprinkled out some influencers across that time. We also had some giveaway activations, a Father's Day giveaway, um, and as I said, we had those influencers, and then of course, in there our, our business as usual content.

But what I was also looking for was really making sure that we were doing the best that we could with the content that we had. We had gone and done a shoot, so we had some fresh, fresh content, et cetera. So whilst we couldn't talk about it specifically, we were really working on that lead up. There were some other things that the business in- did to invest.

Like, they painted the business. They gave it a bit of a makeover. Just things that they did that meant for the launch everything looked really nice. And also in the la- like in the week of, I had that I could start to tease it. So I didn't start teasing it until [00:07:00] two weeks before kind of when we got the news Because obviously you can't say, like, coming soon in June.

It's just too much of a lead way. I would've liked a little bit more time to tease, but given that they had changed the date, that's okay. So I did some coming soon posts, and I got the audience to guess what was coming. And obviously you can't have too many coming soon posts, 'cause then it gets a bit like, "Okay, we get it."

But countdown posts are really fun, um, and things like that, and you can see brands do this all the time, and you can get really creative with it. We didn't have as much time to get creative with it. We did a few creative things, but, um, we didn't have that time lead way, just not working on our own timeline, working on someone else's.

The other thing I did in the lead-up to the launch of this is I went back through all the top performing types of content that we had, because we have had some viral videos. Um, and I reused them, reformatted them, repackaged them, because I wanted a viral moment before this. Because their business is all about eyeballs.

That is their goal, and I've talked about this before, and I have in my plans to do a video breaking down [00:08:00] viral content. For some businesses, virality is not the goal. You can't keep up with supply and demand, et cetera. But for them, eyeballs is important. So I took some really, you know, kind of, um, not clickbaity, but triggering videos.

Not triggering like it was just people really loved to see certain content and they wanted to have their two cents. So I wasn't rage-baiting anyone. It was just content that seemed to trigger something in people. So I posted those things. Lo and behold, we got a viral moment just before the launch, which was exactly what I had planned for.

But it was just about being smart in that lead up, testing influencers, giveaways, the business, you know, um, investing into the business so it looked, looked nice in that time, and obviously looking at content that worked and having that coming soon content in the lead up. The other thing is also when you are, if you are leading, doing a lead up campaign, your budget is obviously important.

This business did have some budget to play with influencers, you know, working on the shop, et cetera, [00:09:00] to have things ready. If you don't have that budget, it's thinking about, what can I do with the budget that I have? So that was really in the lead up, getting everything prepped. The other things that I did behind the scenes was get my shot list ready.

Um, as part of the launch, we had a launch event, which we were invited to go to, and then we were able to get Mr. Monopoly to come, and we could get some content with Mr. Monopoly. So some of the things that I did was plan out what I wanted in my mind. I also wanted to do, test some content as well, like a, a long form vlog style YouTube video, which was something.

So I just had to make sure that if we filmed things, we got some stuff in landscape as well, um, for YouTube format. But then also thinking about what did I, we want Mr. Monopoly doing when he visited the shop? What do we wanna get from the launch event? And also, I was working on the fact that... We, there were some things we couldn't plan so the launch event was on the Wednesday.

I wanted to have a post on the Wednesday those are the things that we had to film in the moment and edit and get up in the moment. Not [00:10:00] ideal all the time but we did what we could to get everything organized so that as soon as the event had finished we got home, we could edit that and we could get it up.

So we got it up that evening at the normal posting time. Actually, we got it out earlier than the posting time we usually post So in my mind, I was prepping ahead of time to make sure we had that shot list, we had everything we needed. That's where organization is key. Of course, there's some things you're not gonna know, you know, when you're in the moment, et cetera, but at least you can have some sort of list of what you wanted.

I just wanna hijack this episode to tell you about something that is generally helping and changing the game for business owners that I work with. So if you're sitting there at 5:00 PM scrambling, not sure what to do, what to post, you are not alone, and I have in fact been there, along with many other businesses that I've worked with, getting to my laptop, throwing something together, pushing it out there, throwing spaghetti at the wall, and seeing what sticks.

Now, this is not strategy, and it really feels like survival. That is why I created Content Bootcamp. It is my signature program that takes you through the [00:11:00] seven steps to create a really intentional and aligned content strategy for your business, one that is actually documented, is actually for you, and actually gets results.

So there's no more guessing, no more winging it, and no more content hamster wheel. By the end of your journey in Content Bootcamp, you'll have a clear plan on what to post, where to post it, and why, plus the confidence to actually execute it. And you're not doing it alone, because I do live calls all the time, so you'll get access to me.

I can help you with your strategy, and a community of other business owners that are doing the same thing. You'll also get lifetime access, so if your business evolves and grows and changes, it will grow and evolve and change with you. So if you are ready to stop winging it and start being intentional with your marketing, get a strategy behind you, head to contentqueenmariah.com.

Check out bootcamp, Content Bootcamp. I would love to see you there. So then, of course, that kind of leads into the launch day, getting there for the event, having, you know, pre-content, getting excited, [00:12:00] sort of, "Oh, we're working on something exciting," just thinking about different shots that we could use later.

Looking back, of course, you always go, "Oh, I should've got this. I should've got that." You note that down for later, and I'm sure we haven't noticed anything particularly missing, but I'm sure later down the track I'll, "Oh, we should've got this. We should've got that," and there'll be opportunities to get stuff later.

But what we wanted to make sure is we had those key posts, including the launch post, the actual board game itself as, like, a in-store come and buy it, and then Mr. Monopoly, because he is a crowd favorite. So we wanted to create a narrative and a storyline around Mr. Monopoly. So we m- wanted to make sure we had all those shots, and that was in our plan.

So come the launch day, we're ready. We're organized. We had all of our equipment. We got all the content we needed, and as I said, everything was reactive, but that is kind of the point in that moment. Things are gonna be reactive. You just kinda gotta roll with the punches. Everything that you do ahead of time is leading up to that.

And then just give yourself grace, because it's just gonna start to become chaos, and that's okay [00:13:00] because you know it's a short window of chaos. You make it work, you breathe, and then you move forward, and you know you've got stuff. Like, you're doing things That may feel reactive in the moment, that's gonna help you long term.

'Cause now we've got loads of footage of Mr. Monopoly. It was a, a week, it was tiring, it was a lot, but we've got all that stuff now. So that was, like, the launch day. And then also being active online, having our Instagram stories, posting, um, you know, making sure we're there to comment 'cause we did get a lot of comments, so I wanted to make sure we kept that momentum going.

Being in the comments, replying back to every comment, et cetera. Like, doing all those things to make sure that it kept that momentum going, right? Then the, the next part of that was actually at the launch event, they had news outlets there, right? The... It was a big thing. They had, uh, Channel Nine, Channel 10.

They even had a pre-news, which I wish I had've known those things a little bit. Like, I knew bits, but I guess they didn't know because it's media, you can't predict that. But when we were there, I made sure that my client was in front of those [00:14:00] cameras, and that was my job. Because she's not going to go and do that.

It's not part of her... Like, sh- she's really good at her business and the marketing. That's why she hires me, right? So when we were there, um, I made sure as soon as they re- announced the board, I was up there. Obviously we're getting content of everything 'cause you just never know what you're gonna use. And then as soon as the camera started rolling, when there was a break in between, I was hovering around and I said, "Would you like to interview one of the, the board, one of the businesses on the board?"

They're like, "Absolutely." So then I stood in there with her just for support. I asked her, obviously, if she would want me in there or not. She's like, "Yep, I want you there 'cause it's, you know, sometimes it's nice to have that moral support." But that's where it's, like, advocating for yourself, putting yourself out there.

If they say no, fine, no worries. Move on. Like, you have to take and harness those opportunities. Advocate for yourself. Put yourself out there. Put your hand up. Can it be scary? Absolutely. But nothing h- good happens inside the comfort zone. So you gotta go out into the growth zone and put yourself out there.

In the end, [00:15:00] because of that- We were featured in three news stories one of them when they announced the board, they said um, iconic locations like Red Cliff Jetty, which was the green, the blue property and Savage's Seafood out of all the 26 you know, um, squares on the board, they mentioned my client's business and I truly believe it's because we were happy to be in front of the cameras.

I actually didn't see many people apart from the organizers and some of the crowd that were there in front of the camera, and if they were, they, they didn't make it onto the TV. So I, I don't recall any other businesses or any other people representing any of the locations getting interviewed apart from MPs, et cetera.

So like such a good opportunity and in the moment you're nervous, you're like, "Oh my God, what if I stuff up? What if I say something wrong?" But you just have to trust because it's so worth it and you feel uncomfortable and you feel nervous. But we got there and we've now been able to download those snippets from online and we can use those in content like [00:16:00] it's such a good opportunity and you'll never regret doing that.

So you know, obviously if you're at an event, if you're doing... You're launching something and there are opportunities, take 'em. It'll feel scary, it'll feel disorganized, it'll feel chaotic, but trust me, it is worth it So if we look at that, there was pre-launch, launch, and now we're in post-launch. So the pre-launch was really that kind of like teaser.

Of course, I would've loved more time, but time didn't permit that way, so we wanted to tease it, we wanted to get prepared, have everything organized so that when it launched, we weren't like, "Oh, my God, what are we gonna do? W- like, we don't have any ideas. We're not sure what's happening." We knew exactly what to do in the launch period, so we could focus on media opportunities, commenting back to the public, harnessing those opportunities that were there.

And now we're in post-launch, which is gathering all of our content, building momentum, and thinking about activations moving forward so that we can keep this Monopoly topic front of mind. Christmas is coming up, so it's a really good opportunity to keep, you know, that rolling. [00:17:00] I've got plans where we're adding Monopoly content into our content plan as business as usual, at least until the new year, and then we'll think about activations, giveaways, et cetera, that we can do to keep it alive.

But we're harnessing this, like, coattail of the launch. But if it... And really, if we harness that, like if we put that all together, that's no different to anything you're doing in your business. I just wanted to take you through specifically what I did with that client. But what I always like to think about is the six-week rule.

So whenever you are planning something, give yourself six weeks to, of course, nurture people, especially if you're selling something, get people excited, et cetera. It doesn't mean you have to do a coming soon post six weeks before. No, you wanna start that launch period, right? That could be, um, a webinar into your course.

That could be an event. Um, anything, you wanna give yourself enough lead way. I have people that create conferences, and as soon as that conference is over, they're talking about next year's conference. They're booking everything in, and they're starting to talk about it, getting sponsors, [00:18:00] sharing it, getting people to pre-book.

Think about that. Like, I've had people before reach out to me two weeks before their event. W- we, we had a discovery call, say, in the February, and they're like, "Yeah, cool. Sounds really good. I'll just leave it for now 'cause I'm super busy, and I'll come back to you." Then when things get quiet, "Oh, my God, I need marketing," so they'll call me, and like, "I've got an event in two weeks.

Can you help me market it?" And it's like, well, we've gotta onboard, do the strategy. Like, no, I need at least six weeks. We should've been having that conversation earlier. I've had conversations with clients who have engaged me a little bit too late for the launch of something. So thinking about that, always giving yourself enough time to really give something a red-hot go.

Of course, there's gonna be things that come up, and you just wanna launch them, and they don't have to be this big thing. But if you are wanting to launch something, it's a big deal, you wanna give it a lot of time. I've done this with clients with books. You know, we've had... And even well and truly outside of that six weeks, giving people an understanding of the topic in which they want to be known for [00:19:00] with what that book is about.

So, like, giving it space, giving it breathing room. You know, you're gonna have pre-launch, wait lists, et cetera. You really wanna give it enough time and not just go, "Oh, I've got something in two weeks. Let's start talking about it." And that's not to say, like, if you are doing a free event, it's not leading into anything, it's just to build and, and do lead gen.

Of course you can have a two-week lead time. But we just need to be mindful of when we're turning our marketing tap on, off, on, off all the time, and not giving ourselves enough space and energy to really give something our all. Okay, so if you take anything away from all the things I talked about in this episode, 'cause I know it's a lot, if you have any questions about it, like reach out, I'm happy to share more.

But be visible now, because you just never know what opportunity's gonna come up for people to be attracted to what you're doing. And when you have something really big coming up, count back at least six weeks and start planning from there. And get a lot of your content already ready so when the launch happens, as much as you [00:20:00] can, you have time to be reactive, you have time to nurture people, you have time to network, you have time to really give it what you've got.

So we're coming to the end of the year. This may be a little nudge for you to set some time, maybe in December, maybe early Jan, to start looking at your 2027 calendar and map out some things that you might wanna do. You may not know everything, and not all opportunities are gonna be locked in, so that you can at least give yourself time to prepare and feel organized.

I said this in my last episode, about 350 episodes of the podcast, you can't rely on motivation alone, especially when you're launching something and something is big, 'cause you're gonna have lull- lulls. You're gonna have moments where you feel you don't wanna do anything. So at least you could do your future self a favor and get prepared.

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. Do this by adding it to your Insta stories and tagging me @contentqueenmoriah, or just simply tell them about it, share it with them, [00:21:00] et cetera.

If you wanna know any more about my launching with this, please reach out to me on social media, contentqueenmoriah on Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn, TikTok, et cetera. I'm planning 2027. If there's any topics you want me to talk about in the future, I'd love to hear from you. And lastly, if you love episodes like this, please leave a rate and review, and I'll talk to you soon.

Bye.

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