Building Your Clear Marketing Message
“Stop talking to everyone like they’re in the industry. Talk to them in ways that are going to evoke emotions and what’s important to them.”
That line from Laura De Ridder at Sorted Digital Marketing pretty much sums up why so much construction marketing falls flat. Builders know their craft. They care about quality. They’re trying to build better. But the message often gets stuck in technical language that clients do not understand or connect with.
We sat down with Laura to talk digital marketing for builders and trades. Not fluffy “post more on Instagram” advice. Practical stuff that helps you attract the right clients, communicate value, and stop relying on luck and referrals alone.
Start with who you are actually talking to
Laura’s big point was simple. If you don’t understand your audience, your marketing will always feel like guesswork.
And she’s not talking about basic demographics like age and location. She’s talking about proper customer profiles. What are they worried about? What are they confused by? What do they think building will be like, and what are they trying to avoid?
Think of it like diagnosing a problem before you start a build. If you skip this step, everything that follows is harder, slower, and more expensive.
Story beats stats
Builders love facts. Clients love feelings.
Laura made the case for storytelling as the fastest way to build trust. Not hype. Not polished ads. Real stories that show what changes when you do the job properly.
A walkthrough video. A before and after. A client talking about finally having a warm house in winter. A quick explanation of why a detail matters. These are the things people remember. They help potential clients picture themselves on the other side of the project.
Different platforms, different jobs
Laura also talked about matching your content to the platform.
Instagram is great for visuals and quick wins. Reels, site progress, finished details, short explanations. LinkedIn is where you show credibility and leadership. TikTok can work surprisingly well for short, educational content that demystifies what you do.
The point is not to do everything perfectly. It’s to be consistent and to cover different types of content. Educational, story-based, and promotional. People need multiple touchpoints before they reach out.
Authenticity wins in construction
High-budget ads can look impressive, but they can also feel fake. Laura’s take was that raw, self-filmed content often performs better because it feels real.
A day on site. A decision you had to make. A problem you solved. Even a small hiccup and how you handled it. That’s the stuff that builds trust, because building is personal. People are letting you into their home, their budget, and their stress levels.
They want to know who they’re dealing with.
SEO and AI still matter
Laura also reminded us that if people cannot find you, they cannot hire you.
SEO is not optional anymore. Your website, your Google presence, even your social captions all contribute to whether you show up when someone searches. AI can help you spot trends, tighten your messaging, and work faster, but it does not replace the human part. The trust. The clarity. The story.
Marketing in construction is not about going viral. It’s about being understood by the right people.
Laura’s advice was a good reminder that marketing is part of building a sustainable business. If you want better clients, better projects, and fewer tyre-kickers, you need to get clear on your message and show your work in a way people can actually connect with.
So the question is simple. How are you telling your story right now, and is it attracting the kind of work you actually want?
LINKS:
Sorted Digital Marketing:
Sorted Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/_sorted/
Connect with us on Instagram: @themindfulbuilderpod
Connect with Hamish:
Instagram: @sanctumhomes
Website: www.yoursanctum.com.au/
Connect with Matt:
Instagram: @carlandconstructions
Website: www.carlandconstructions.com/
-
[00:01:07] Hamish: Laura, thank you for coming on today. Um, I think you are coming on here to solve the marketing problem around high performance and passive house.
[00:01:15] Laura: Yep.
[00:01:16] Hamish: So go tell us where you're, tell us where you're from first, because we're recording
[00:01:20] Matt: here at Performance Membranes, right? Yes. So, and the connection is
[00:01:24] Laura: I am from Sorted Digital Marketing.
[00:01:25] This is my, uh, company and we've been working with Devon and Justin at Performance Membranes for a good couple of years now. So we help out with all of their social media marketing, um, and yeah, sort of. Marketing this new business, ex expansion for them as well.
[00:01:40] Matt: Who do you enjoy working with more? Devon or Justin?
[00:01:42] Uh, who does the camera love more? Devon. Devon. Devon, I don't think just,
[00:01:49] Laura: I don't know if he's actually gotten in front of the camera like organically. I wanna see
[00:01:53] Hamish: more Justin. We want, yeah, actually he hides
[00:01:55] Laura: down in Tassie. He is a hard man too. He does. Oh no,
[00:01:58] Hamish: I can't make that a hold of 'cause I'm [00:02:00] Tazzie.
[00:02:00] Laura: Yeah. Yep.
[00:02:01] Hamish: I will change that. And then he'll
[00:02:02] Laura: give you like three days notice that he is in Melbourne, Mike. Both,
[00:02:04] Hamish: both are beautiful people.
[00:02:06] Laura: Yes.
[00:02:06] Hamish: So, um, it's great having you on today because, you know, I would say that the more broader industry is probably not as nerdy when it comes to the details and the science and the spreadsheets and all that kind of stuff as what.
[00:02:22] Matt and I were attracted to in the beginning. Mm. And you know, we're sitting here 5, 6, 7 years later from when we first, um, started down that kind of high performance and passive house path and wondering like, why the fuck is not everybody doing it?
[00:02:37] Laura: Yeah.
[00:02:38] Hamish: And there's probably some real, are
[00:02:40] Laura: you talking about consumers going down that path?
[00:02:42] I'm talking, I'm talking about
[00:02:43] Hamish: consumers. I'm talking about what, yeah. Why hasn't it been Yeah. Like more broadly adopted.
[00:02:48] Laura: Yeah.
[00:02:48] Hamish: And I feel like more and more people are getting there, but, um, I mean, I like every, like, everything like marketing plays a massive role in actually telling the story. Mm-hmm. Um, and you're probably
[00:02:58] Matt: also a good example because [00:03:00] you probably came into.
[00:03:01] Performance membranes, working with the Proclama products, having no idea what they were.
[00:03:04] Laura: Absolutely no idea. Actually sound like another language, like extra or something. And I'm like, what the hell is this? Sure. Um, so yeah, it's, it's taken a lot to come in with my marketing knowledge, but understand this whole new industry because it's not easy to understand.
[00:03:20] Yeah. And I think that's what we're gonna sort of Yeah, yeah. Chat through today. So do
[00:03:23] Hamish: you have to maybe talk a little bit about your background, um, and then how you got to be working with, uh, the guys from Performance Membranes?
[00:03:29] Laura: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I've been running the digital marketing business for last nearly eight years.
[00:03:36] Okay. So, straight out of uni. Just notice that there's a lot of awesome small businesses on the Mornington Peninsula that like no one really knew about online. There was a good bit of word of mouth, but just not enough. So I was like, they deserve more. And I was studying business at the time, so. Yeah.
[00:03:51] Business sort of, yeah. Came about. So you didn't
[00:03:53] Matt: go work for it, you just went straight into it From I went
[00:03:55] Laura: straight into it. I have never worked in corporate. I've never really had a boss. [00:04:00] I
[00:04:00] Hamish: love that entrepreneur. It's very, it's a very carpenter thing though, isn't I'm exactly the same. I've never had a boss.
[00:04:04] Yeah. I love it. No
[00:04:05] Laura: one, no. What tells me what to do do. So, so you, so
[00:04:08] Hamish: are you, you big focus on, so you're obviously digital marketing agency. Are you pushing a lot of that stuff through social media? Is it web-based? Yeah, so
[00:04:16] Laura: organic social media has been our bread and butter for the last seven years, and now this last year we're really sort of transitioning into more other digital marketing services that compliment the organic work that we're doing.
[00:04:29] So
[00:04:29] Hamish: for those who don't know what organic social media is, can you maybe just put a little bit of context in that? So
[00:04:35] Laura: when you are scrolling on your phone at night and you see posts on Facebook, um, that is organic, if you are scrolling on Instagram and it comes up with sponsored Yep. That is paid. Yep. So it's everything that a business or a personal account posts on their newsfeed, it appears on their grid.
[00:04:53] It for a business is crucial to actually showcase who you are, what you do. And just [00:05:00] create that almost parasocial relationship with the audience.
[00:05:03] Hamish: And do you think as a, as someone who's worked with a lot of small businesses, um, that you need a nice balance of both sponsored or paid ads? My question, you've stolen it.
[00:05:13] Sorry. Uh, or, or organic. And what do you think works best? I
[00:05:18] Laura: think a combination does, ideally work best, but for the most part of like the last seven years, we have primarily worked with businesses that could only, um, afford in their marketing spend for, you know, creative photo shoots and organic posts.
[00:05:33] Yeah. There wasn't actually the budget there to do, um, paid, paid ads. Yeah. So we actually started with, um, Emerald Building Services. Oh, Tim. Tim. Tim. Tim. Yeah. Um, down in Mount Eliza we met at a networking group. So yeah, it's been really cool. That was sort of my deep dive into like the passive house, high performance industry.
[00:05:52] Obviously coming with like PM. Yeah, it's been a whole new level of detail. Yeah. Um, but yeah, Emerald was really like [00:06:00] the, the, the Guinea pig in terms of social media because Tim is willing to share information. He's great at speaking to the camera. He's got a lot of education and information to deliver.
[00:06:13] Tim's
[00:06:13] Hamish: a great guy. And, and I wanna ask you, for someone who's come outta uni, you're not a builder, you're not a trades person. Not at all. And how, like, did the whole performance construction thing or passive house thing make any sense to you?
[00:06:27] Laura: Um, not for a long time. Can I ask you, can I
[00:06:32] Hamish: ask you now, if you were to build your own home, what would you build?
[00:06:38] Laura: Oh. Um, would
[00:06:39] Hamish: you, would you, would you adopt all of the things that you are seeing here now and put 'em in your home? Or would you just be like, oh, who cares? The code's not telling me to do that. I'll be able a coil
[00:06:47] Laura: if I'm living in there and that's, say in like five, 10 years, I'm building my dream home, which would ideally be down like toy, like the coast.
[00:06:55] Sure. Then yeah, absolutely. Because as well, like those more [00:07:00] coastal areas, they get impacted hugely. Um, so yeah, now understanding the longevity and also doing a couple of renovations myself with, um, investment properties and my partner's property, I can really see the dodgy works and the, the financial, um, situations and the stressful situations.
[00:07:21] It puts you in not doing it properly.
[00:07:23] Hamish: Yep. Yeah, I was just, I was curious to hear for someone who's sort of outside the industry and you know, I guess looking in and now kind of learning about it, um, I. Whether it kind of swayed you to, you know, build more durable and, you know, healthier buildings. Yeah. And it sounds like it has.
[00:07:39] Laura: Yeah. Well I think as I'm sort of growing and learning more as a business owner about numbers, I'm paying more attention to that. And I understand upfront it's more expensive, but if you think about potential renovations and all the works and upkeep because the build's just deteriorating because it's not done well and all of the other [00:08:00] things like electricity costs and all of the other factors that, you know, the more high performance, um, energy efficient homes provide, like long term, it just completely outweighs it.
[00:08:12] Matt: So numbers, numbers, numbers. This is where I think the industry fucks up when we talk about building better because we throw out these numbers that make sense to maybe Hamish and myself. Um, and I always use, my wife, she's, she's a marketing too. I use, always use her as a bit of a test dummy to be like.
[00:08:30] Well, not even her anymore now, because she's sort of immune to my jargon. How do I use my friend who she scrolls and wants to see pre pictures? How do I capture her attention? Because the numbers do not appeal to her.
[00:08:42] Laura: No, absolutely. And it's, um, so the first thing with organic social media is understand who you're wanting to speak to.
[00:08:48] So create your customer avatar. Who are they? Where do they live? How old are they? What are they doing? What are their needs? And really like, almost like psychoanalyze it to the point of like [00:09:00] what really triggers them? What are they needing and wanting for themselves, their family. And then, you know, as you say, the numbers aren't going to appeal to say a 45-year-old.
[00:09:10] Female who is the decision maker of the home. She wants more emotional, she wants to know that her kid with asthma is going to be safe and comfortable in the home. And that those huge energy bills are gonna, you know, decrease and that it's gonna afford them a more comfortable life. So it's really shifting the narrative from, you know, talking, just stuff that makes sense to fellow builders, to speaking to the end consumer at the end of the day.
[00:09:40] Matt: So this is an issue I have with builders and the way they market is that, how do I, how do I say this politely? Well, I won't, but you see, I see you haven't.
[00:09:52] Hamish: No. You haven't ever been polite. No. So, alright.
[00:09:55] Matt: I'm gonna be really honest here. I see builders doing videos [00:10:00] or, and maybe more specifically certain traits, but a video on a side about them whacking a wall together and, uh, this really curated, um, video that they put together
[00:10:10] Hamish: with the, with the slowmo drop saw.
[00:10:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:12] Matt: Who the fuck is that appealing to sword us? Honestly, like the client doesn't give a shit about that.
[00:10:15] Laura: Absolutely not.
[00:10:16] Matt: Like it appeals to other tradies and this is where, and they'll be like, oh, that's sick, good gear. But the reality is that trade doesn't pay the bills.
[00:10:23] Laura: Absolutely not. That
[00:10:23] Matt: follows you.
[00:10:24] Um, it does if you have a huge social following and you can make income from that, that means, but very slim
[00:10:30] Laura: chance that that's the case. But the reality
[00:10:32] Matt: is like, just because Instagram is sexy, and I'll get more into other social media channels in a second, but that doesn't mean it transitions into.
[00:10:40] Purchases because at the end of the day, we only need three or four people to buy a year. That's a client. We don't need the, the trad that constantly follows us and likes us.
[00:10:48] Laura: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:48] Matt: That's not, that doesn't pay the bills. Yeah. And I think that's where we go wrong.
[00:10:52] Laura: And that's where you really need to come back to every single piece of content.
[00:10:55] You should have your core content pillars. So the key things that you are pushing [00:11:00] with your key messaging, and then make sure that every single post relates to a customer avatar. So you could have say 45-year-old, um, Angela and that, and you've got her full customer profile. And then there might be 55-year-old Dave and his full customer profile and one of your, like each post needs to relate to either Angela or it needs to either relate to Dave.
[00:11:25] Otherwise, if you're just putting out stuff that you think is appealing as a builder, I can almost guarantee that like the everyday consumer who you want, you know, engaging you guys is not gonna be interested. And as well, is your content just. Talking to people in the industry, is it just trying to attract new like apprentices?
[00:11:44] If that's, you know, if you are flat chat and you just need staff cool. Go nuts with like the, you know, fun videos and the slowmo and this and that, but like the everyday person does not give a shit.
[00:11:54] Hamish: So I've, I it's interesting we're having this conversation now. So I've, um, my [00:12:00] VA does a lot of our marketing now and we're, every Monday we have a conversation around, um, you know, what we are putting out for the next month.
[00:12:05] And we're actually, we've just developed a report that we're gonna start doing, which is tracking a whole bunch of different metrics. Mm-hmm. And ironically, how we run our social media is probably not as designed as what it might appear from the outside. So we've got kind of three key key posts that we do.
[00:12:25] Uh, Tuesdays are educational. Wednesdays are a collaborative, we do with sustainable Bills Alliance. Um, Sundays are nice pretty pictures and finished posts. Mm-hmm. In between we fill them in with some reels and stories and stuff like that. And it's interesting as we're starting to track all the metrics, um, the reels are getting by far the most views.
[00:12:47] They're, whenever we do a reel and, you know, it's hitting 40, 50, 60,000 views, we're getting a massive uptick in our following.
[00:12:55] Laura: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:56] Hamish: Now, I have a theory on this and I'd love to kind of hear your thoughts [00:13:00] about it. I am very well aware that the 40, 50, 60,000 views that we're getting aren't, I would say such a small percentage of them are gonna be, um, people will actually end up in a transaction relationship with me.
[00:13:13] And I've kind of looked at the numbers. And the metrics, you know, 95% of them are men. Mm-hmm. And 95% of them, or a big percentage of them are 25 to 35 year olds. Mm-hmm. Because they're, you know, looking at the social, um, they're, but that's also the, that's also the tra age. Exactly. However, our, um, educational ones are not getting anywhere near as many views.
[00:13:36] Mm-hmm. Anywhere between five. You mean a sexy photo? No, no, no, no, no. The education one between five and 10,000 views. Mm-hmm. We're getting maybe just under a hundred likes. However, I know that those ones have a higher female
[00:13:50] Laura: Yeah.
[00:13:52] Hamish: Engagement.
[00:13:52] Laura: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:53] Hamish: Uh, and it's really fitting in with that profile with where our sort of target market or demographic sits.
[00:13:58] Yeah. Um, and even [00:14:00] though they're not getting the likes or the views, they're probably resulting in more, um, brand identity, brand building, you know, credibility. Credibility. Um, and then our. Finished pitches are kind of just sort of wrapping a nice bow around the fact that, hey, we can educate, we can do these sort of videos showing that we can put stuff together.
[00:14:22] Yep. And then at the end of the week, we're showing a finished mm-hmm. Project.
[00:14:24] Matt: Are you running like a 30, a 40, 30, 20 split? Sorry. Technical. Uh, like are you, are you working a, like a split between say real post
[00:14:33] Hamish: carousel? Yeah. Well, not, and again, this is not by design, but I guess just from what we are seeing the data we're getting back.
[00:14:39] Laura: Mm.
[00:14:40] Hamish: The reels are getting our followers up. They're getting engagement, which is great. I think I still want do that, but I'm not focusing heavily on five reels a week. Yeah. And getting a hundred thousand followers. Yeah. Um, but in your opinion, do you think it's the finished projects and the educational stuff that's that brand building, brand alignment [00:15:00] kind of piece and the finished projects of, you know, oh hey, they can build what we want 'em to build.
[00:15:05] Yeah. Do you think their. The ones that are actually getting worked through the door.
[00:15:10] Laura: It's hard to tell because the decision making process, there's all these different phases that a consumer will go through. But the reason why everyone, when they talk about organic social media will bring it back to content pillars.
[00:15:24] And the reason it's not just content pillar, it's pillars is having diversity in your content because not everything will appeal to someone and be the checkbox in their brain.
[00:15:37] Matt: But can I jump in as well there? Yeah. Is it's just not diversifying the content. 'cause when most pe if we were to do a, a survey out there, people would say, what?
[00:15:46] What's marketing? I'd say the high proportion people just say Instagram. There are actually other social media channels and other avenues of marketing as well. So I think that's also another thing is people just see Instagram as a marketing tool. There's so many other. Just like, there's [00:16:00] different posts.
[00:16:00] Um, there's carousels, there's a, there's reels, there's stories, whatever. There's other options out there to push us across. And just Facebook, I just hate sitting on Facebook. That is my most hated social media channel because I feel like everyone is an armchair expert. And for some reason you have people listening to John at the pub and Susie from the hairdresser over the builder.
[00:16:20] Hamish: I'm gonna digress just a tiny bit. So the metrics that I'm seeing are on Instagram and Facebook.
[00:16:26] Laura: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:26] Hamish: So in my,
[00:16:27] Laura: yeah.
[00:16:28] Hamish: When I'm kind of going into the stats or whatever Yeah. I get trolled so much more on Facebook Oh yes. Than I do on Instagram.
[00:16:36] Laura: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Hamish: Like. I'm talking like someone will say something and then there is hundreds of comments underneath.
[00:16:42] Laura: Yeah.
[00:16:43] Hamish: Now I don't give a shit. 'cause it's great for the algorithm. Yeah. So I'm just like, Hey, you bite back. Oh, I said to Lucy last night, I'm like, I just, I can't, I don't have the energy be more Matt. Ah. I don't have the energy for it, but, but Instagram on the other hand, much less.
[00:16:56] Laura: Yeah. So one thing that people need to really [00:17:00] understand is each social media platform for every individual and every business account is gonna operate really different.
[00:17:07] We've got builders in the same industry. We've got builders from like, you know, Ballarat way to East Gippsland, a part of the GJ Gardner Homes franchise. And their insights are totally different.
[00:17:21] Hamish: Interesting.
[00:17:21] Laura: So you can't just come in with these preconceived ideas of this is how Facebook interacts, this is how people interact on Instagram, because that's just your experience.
[00:17:31] Matt: I've hit Facebook a lot more recently because it's more of a boomer generation and they're the ones that have the houses and the ones that need to. Thought I have
[00:17:38] Hamish: actually, I have actually thought about that. Our target market's probably spending more time than I'm,
[00:17:42] Matt: I'm, I'm, I'm not moving away from Instagram, but I, there are other, that's why I go to other options.
[00:17:46] Like you've got Facebook's, Facebook is a great tool. Um, and using the backend of the ads management isn't a hard software. It's not like Google Ads where like, I don't even know where the fuck to start with that. Like, that is, like, I try to play around with that. Yeah. Um, [00:18:00] which is something I probably, I'll write that down.
[00:18:03] Yeah. 'cause I also wanna, 'cause I've, I've got so many notes around talking about different social media channels, but where, where are you finding value for money on, on these sort of things in marketing at the moment?
[00:18:12] Laura: So, with organic social media, there is no way to actually showcase the, you know, cost per click.
[00:18:23] With paid ads. You've got that. Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. Just going back to your point with a different type of content, the reason for having content pillars and that diversity is to, if someone needs social proof, you can tick that box. If they need credibility, you can tick that box medication. So what you're, what you are
[00:18:42] Hamish: reeling off now are content pillars.
[00:18:44] Yeah,
[00:18:44] Laura: yeah.
[00:18:45] Hamish: Yep. Correct. Yep.
[00:18:46] Laura: So all of these different things will help with that consumer, um, decision making process to be able to get them feeling confident enough and whatever they need personally, whether it's that social proof [00:19:00] or credibility or, you know, just seeing the, the beautiful homes that you guys create to be able to go and, you know, be like, Nope, I'm going with this builder.
[00:19:10] Matt: Well, Instagram is now I'll, I'm gonna use Instagram specifically here. Um, it's almost like a bit of a Google now that you.
[00:19:19] Laura: 100% people
[00:19:20] Matt: type into cafe what's local and they can find their local cafe. Look at the food. Yeah. The video photos are tagged in
[00:19:24] Laura: with all of the AI integration. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:26] Matt: So I want to talk about specifically alt texts and the SEO through an Instagram.
[00:19:31] Mm-hmm. Say post or social media posts like Yeah. Because the way that you word your posts, the words that you use within that post, and this applies to architects, engineers, building designers. Yep. Um, anyone really Builders tradies. The words that you are using have a really important, um, meaning behind, behind being found.
[00:19:49] Um, how, how have you found that? Because it's still, from what I've read, we're still working out how to navigate that through social media channel. Where if with Google, it's very easy, you type in [00:20:00] sustainable builder and
[00:20:01] Laura: Yeah. It comes
[00:20:01] Matt: up, yeah. Instagram, they're trying to give a fair go to people. That's though someone with five followers also has the same chance of being found as someone with a hundred thousand followers.
[00:20:09] But this space here, I'm trying to work out my brain, like how, how to navigate that section. Does that make sense? What I'm getting at
[00:20:15] Laura: a little bit. So in terms of the actual copy that you're putting with your social media posts, so many people either I feel like there's this big variation, either it's short, sharp and it really is just like, almost like a headline.
[00:20:30] Yeah. And it doesn't give you anything. Or there's this massive essay and that's also not suitable for social media generally. That's more appealing builder to builder on a technical aspect. So it's working out key words that, bringing it back to the customer avatar. What is, uh, 45-year-old Angela from, you know, Mornington searching for her family?
[00:20:53] What's, you know, 65-year-old Dave? Searching and actually working out what they're going to be putting in [00:21:00] and having those keywords float somewhere in the caption, but also talk directly to them like you're having a conversation. And as well, you can use things like chat GPT to help with copywriting, but you really need to put so much information for it to actually sound authentic, because I can spot one a mile away and everyone else is getting, you know, in,
[00:21:25] Matt: in conclusion.
[00:21:27] Or they, the big one that I hate is you see them, they're even like, change their zeds to an S
[00:21:32] Laura: Oh, and the M dash and the, the craftsmanship. And I'm like, oh, that's all that word for me. Even,
[00:21:37] Hamish: even the, even the, uh, emojis. Yeah, like, get rid of the, if you're gonna use chat pizza, get rid of the fucking emojis.
[00:21:44] Laura: The only thing that I will say. Um, is good is um, the, I think his name's Adam, head of Instagram. He's come out recently and said hashtags we're shortening these and we're three. Yeah. So it went from five, now it's going [00:22:00] down to three and this will, it was 30 only a
[00:22:01] Matt: few months ago.
[00:22:02] Laura: Yeah. This will continue to evolve.
[00:22:03] And this why I was gonna, I was gonna ask you about
[00:22:05] Hamish: hashtag, so are hashtags still a thing? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But that's a filing system though. Yeah. Okay.
[00:22:12] Laura: And this comes back to the key words, but it also needs to, you can't now just have a set, you know, slab a 10 that you just copy and paste onto everything it needs to talk to.
[00:22:21] What's in the actual post. So say you are talking, so is that the old text
[00:22:25] Matt: behind it? Are you also, is that the same thing or a bit different?
[00:22:28] Laura: No different.
[00:22:29] Matt: Okay.
[00:22:29] Laura: Yep.
[00:22:31] Hamish: So you are saying your copy that sits underneath your post should talk to. The, with the message that you're trying to get across.
[00:22:38] Laura: Mm.
[00:22:39] Hamish: And then your hashtags need to relate back to that post.
[00:22:41] Laura: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:22:42] Hamish: Yeah. Okay.
[00:22:43] Laura: Because you need to think about things. People consume content in a very, very different way. Some people consume it, literally sitting on the toilet, scrolling with no sound at work. So you've gotta have subtitles. It's every commercial
[00:22:54] Matt: training, isn't it?
[00:22:55] Laura: Yeah. Yeah. So you've gotta have subtitles.
[00:22:58] Then if someone [00:23:00] is maybe reading it, they're not even swiping through the carousel where you've given them the information. You then need to have it in the caption. So there's lots of different ways. So you need to basically assume that people are maybe a little bit silly and they're not going to consume it in the way that you've created it and like, you know, fail proof.
[00:23:20] It
[00:23:20] Matt: do. Do you wanna go onto alt text as well? In the Instagram post behind the scenes? No, no, no. Okay, cool. That's fine. Um, the, I'm curious, I don't wanna know what that is now. So if you go in the back, the old text is practically, you are writing the, this is my understanding could be a little bit wrong, is it's a bit like SEO but you are going into the backend of a photo.
[00:23:42] So when it goes through, 'cause I'm pretty sure now Instagram photos can al will also come from Google image search. Yeah. So you want the right words in your alt your photo. So we could be saying here, three people here sitting in a podcast with a blue membrane in the back talking about passive house.
[00:23:59] [00:24:00] Right. So when that words get brought into the text, so it, it's, think about someone who might be, say, um, uh, blind, but they can click it and it reads out what's happening so they can under understanding. Okay. I think that's what it does. So it's actually categorizing the photo and you're describing the photo in the backend, in your settings before you upload the.
[00:24:20] I could be completely wrong. A lot of work.
[00:24:22] Laura: I think it's over engineering. It just, just, yeah. I've, I've, I've got, I've got copied. Yeah,
[00:24:26] Matt: I copied. But the other thing I found really helpful with, with my social media posts is I went through probably about a year and a half of every single post, copied all the content into a Word doc, and then it took me a long time and then uploaded in, I created my own AI bot that essentially now writes and helps me write in the same tone and format for each post.
[00:24:43] Laura: Yeah.
[00:24:44] Matt: Yeah.
[00:24:44] Laura: I've got, um, one of my, um, AI writing tools. I've put so much information for one of my clients who's also my business coach, and it actually sounds like he's talking to me. Yeah, that's like, it's, it's freaky. So that's how you should use
[00:24:59] Matt: AI [00:25:00] as an assistance tool for social media. Yeah, definitely.
[00:25:01] Yeah.
[00:25:01] Hamish: Yeah. It's all about the information and, and where they're drawing that, that data from. So, um, Matt and I are passive house builders. You know, I would say a lot of our audience are passive house builders. Yep. I wanna know from your outside opinion. And I'm not gonna target and say Australian Passive House Association.
[00:25:21] I'm just gonna say passive house in general.
[00:25:23] Laura: Yeah.
[00:25:24] Hamish: What do you think passive house in general is doing wrong? From a marketing point of view,
[00:25:28] Laura: it's just way too technical. You are talking to people in the industry and they're not your consumers at the end of the day.
[00:25:37] Hamish: Can you give an example?
[00:25:39] Laura: Um, there's just so much content out there that is just way too detailed.
[00:25:47] It's like, here's every little step and.
[00:25:51] Hamish: Here's
[00:25:51] Matt: the number
[00:25:52] Hamish: of this.
[00:25:52] Matt: Here's the heating demand of your house. No one gives a fuck.
[00:25:55] Laura: Yeah. Like even a blower door test, the average person doesn't understand [00:26:00] what the purpose of that is. Yeah. And why this big machine and all the smoke and everything is being done.
[00:26:06] Like, they're like, what, what wizardry are you doing in the home? Like it's, but
[00:26:10] Matt: describe it in a text.
[00:26:12] Laura: Yeah. So
[00:26:12] Matt: you can educate through that platform and be like, Hey,
[00:26:14] Laura: do a voiceover in like a way that
[00:26:17] Hamish: actually relates. Yeah. So this, so this, this is a good one. Let's, let's, let's, let's sit on lower doors for a second because, um, I know you would've experienced with Tim and you would've experienced with Devon as well.
[00:26:26] In my opinion, I think it's a thing that you actually want to be communicating with people
[00:26:30] Laura: 100%.
[00:26:31] Hamish: But how would you sell it? How would you make it engaging? Like if I've got a blower door test, how would you recommend to us and the audience to make
[00:26:39] Laura: that engaging? So
[00:26:40] Hamish: we're gonna get like 300 very similar posts on social media now.
[00:26:45] Laura: So we recently did one for, um, it'll be coming out soon for JJ Gardner Homes in Warragul. And they went through the entire home and we filmed probably 15 little clips. And then we have got, um, the [00:27:00] company that did it for them and the director speaking and doing a voiceover. So basically combining from a building perspective to the homeowner what they're doing, and then adding in the technical information as well.
[00:27:13] But do that later off
[00:27:14] Matt: site. You don't need to do the voiceover as they're doing it. This is the hard part. Yeah. 'cause
[00:27:18] Laura: we, we will go and edit it and then be like, cool. You've got like 35 seconds. Yeah. Like you need to put, you know, this, this, and this into it. So hook body of information and then your conclusion wrap up CTA.
[00:27:29] Cool.
[00:27:30] Matt: Hook. Great word. Are you using negative hooks or are you I love a negative hook. Okay. I feel like the world we live in is so, uh,
[00:27:38] Laura: well, if you think about it, like a new, like an, you know, old school tabloid, like all the negative ones are gonna get the clicks.
[00:27:44] Matt: I'm gonna get something up. Yeah. Keep talking.
[00:27:45] Laura: And all the positive ones are so far down. So, so
[00:27:48] Hamish: I, I, you know what, I know that this is the case, right? And if you look at like, Matt's strategy, right, with some of his social media, lots of negative books. And I think for a long time I was like, that's not me. You know, [00:28:00] I'm not, I don't, I don't, you can
[00:28:01] Laura: have fun with it though.
[00:28:01] I know.
[00:28:02] Hamish: Look, I know you can have fun with it and like, I just want to exist in a world where we don't have to use a negative book. Alright,
[00:28:08] Matt: so words of negative hooks. These are the ones like loophole, unhinged, hidden, like taboo, forbidden, scam, warning, banned. Breakthrough. Like controversial. Yeah. Those words.
[00:28:19] If you start with a post. Yeah. Do you stop yourself? I know, I know. You wouldn't believe what I found on site today. Yeah. So, and like it.
[00:28:28] Laura: If we break it down, I saw something recently and it was like we are actually like almost training the audience to be like little monkeys. Like being like, Ooh, like I need this, like to, it's a massive dopamine hit.
[00:28:39] Yeah. To grab my attention and then like, you know, I need to give them a hook and I need to give them this and this. And it's like if you really break down like our attention span, um, it's like three seconds and how we're, you know, interacting with social media and how we use it in our daily life. It is a little scary that we really need this [00:29:00] very like, curated type of content delivered to actually like alert something in our brain to consume it because we are fed so much that our attention span has just decreased.
[00:29:13] Matt: I had this conversation literally with my wife last week about her grandparents, like 92 and nine three, and they just like, happy as Larry just sitting like, and totally with it too. Like can communicate about anything. But the ability that I'm like, don't they get bored? Like when we're older, we're gonna have Netflix and we can sit on the couch and still scroll on Instagram.
[00:29:32] They're just happy, just sit and watching whatever comes on tv. Yeah. But their attention span is just so much like they happy to sit and read a book all day. And
[00:29:39] Laura: I think technology has, uh, decreased our patience and it's made us want to live in like a frictionless society. Anxiety driven. Yeah. So everything is just smooth.
[00:29:49] And I was listening to a podcast recently and they're like, oh, you know when you're going out for a night out and you're waiting for the taxi to come, like you didn't know when it was gonna come. And like, that was the best like, fun time. [00:30:00] Now if your Uber's like two minutes late, you're freaking out and like, it's ruined you tonight.
[00:30:04] And I think it, it does tie back into social media. Like we want everything like in two seconds. And it's a competitive market. Anyone can open up an account, anyone can post and share their information. So,
[00:30:17] Matt: and it doesn't have to be right either.
[00:30:18] Laura: No. So you've gotta be in it, you've gotta be authentic and deliver it in a way that.
[00:30:23] You know, resonates and you'll sleep well at night. But as well, you've gotta be smart about it. And if you are doing things in a, maybe a slower, long form, it's probably not gonna take off.
[00:30:34] Matt: I, I wanna go back to this whole conversation around why passive house doesn't sell. And I don't even wanna put the word passive house.
[00:30:39] I wanna use like, building better. Yeah. Because you'd think with the words building better, people go, oh, I want to build a better home. But they don't, and I don't, I've been playing this, my wife's in marketing, I've been throwing ideas at her for like two years about like, just why it won't resonate with people.
[00:30:55] And apart from the cost side of things, I, I do. Where do you think we start? Because [00:31:00] I still don't being so see it being solved anytime soon on this conversation. Um, I think we need different platforms other than just Instagram to get this message across. Podcasting a huge one. YouTube massive.
[00:31:12] Laura: I think it's simpler than you think.
[00:31:14] So I'll give you an example. At a networking group, Tim from Emerald building, he, um, he's changed his slogan, so I can't remember what it used to be, but it's your future built better, which I think is really strong. It's focusing on, you know, building a better future for you and your family. Yeah. So he um, he changed his tune recently and he looked at the window and said, you know, 'cause we were at a venue and it was all sort of like condensation and he explained why it shouldn't be like that and how it should be, and gave some like really relatable information with a visual.
[00:31:49] And then the next meeting, the week later, do you know how many conversations he was having? Everyone's like, oh, my home does that. It shouldn't be doing that. Oh yeah. Can we have a conversation? Like it [00:32:00] was just something relatable that everyone could understand. And then he provided the information. Mm. So again, work out who you are talking to.
[00:32:10] Stop talking to everyone. Like they're in the industry, they know what, you know, X designer is and a blower door test and this and that, and this rating. Like you need to talk to them in ways that's going to evoke, you know, emotions within them and what's important to them. And it's generally their family generally these days.
[00:32:29] Cost of living. Um, so cost of
[00:32:32] Hamish: energy. Yep. Yep.
[00:32:33] Laura: Yeah. The thing is, everyone these days. Need. Like, if you run a business, you're also a content creator. Now, most people don't know how to be a content creator, so you need that. Like, so Hamish, she's an
[00:32:44] Matt: influencer.
[00:32:45] Laura: You need that third party to come in. That doesn't, I mean, pro
[00:32:48] Matt: probably fancy boy,
[00:32:52] Laura: how much do you charge for a brand deal?
[00:32:55] Matt: Um, actually well that's another good one. I've got so many questions. Alright. [00:33:00] I can't, can we, can we skip off social media for two seconds?
[00:33:03] Laura: Yeah.
[00:33:03] Matt: Because I wanna go to other main, other ways of marketing. Do you wanna like websites, um, SEO Yeah. Uh, digital marketing, all those, like other edms and stuff like that.
[00:33:13] Laura: Yeah. So with marketing these days, there's so many different options. Um, what everyone needs is a solid website to start with. That is just basics 1 0 1, and then making sure that you've got your Instagram, your Facebook. Um, I'd say these days, TikTok or YouTube as well, depending on, you know, content that you wanna do and how hard you're wanting to push.
[00:33:37] But also service based
[00:33:38] Matt: TikTok is probably more like I would say, or product based is more TikTok, is that right?
[00:33:43] Laura: Um, no, I wouldn't say that. I think services as well because you can share who you are, your knowledge, what you're doing. Yeah. You know, job updates, like it's, and we work predominantly with service-based.
[00:33:54] Yeah. Okay. We need to get really creative 'cause we've got not a physical like product that we can Yeah. You [00:34:00] know, take pretty photos of. Yeah. Um, so. Covering your social media, covering your website, and also these days, you've just gotta remember that your website is still really important, but it's probably not as important as it was five, 10 years ago because we've got AI and it's pulling all of the information from literally everywhere, whether it's an article or a Facebook post, um, or, you know, parts of your website or a review, review where you're mentioned.
[00:34:27] All of that is coming into someone's search. When they're asking a question, it will spit out all these bits and bobs and you'll see the links as and, and
[00:34:35] Matt: people now search through Gemini. I've started doing it.
[00:34:37] Laura: Yeah. So
[00:34:38] Matt: I haven't probably told you this over the last year and a bit. All my marketing has been based on being searched through AI means.
[00:34:44] Laura: Mm.
[00:34:45] Hamish: Actually, another another thing just on ai, um, you know, those like, uh, the things where it says, I'm not a robot.
[00:34:51] Laura: Yeah.
[00:34:51] Hamish: I, from what I understand there, those are probably things that you should not have. On your website anymore, [00:35:00] say someone's filling out a form. 'cause people are gonna generate robots that are gonna go and fill forms out.
[00:35:05] Um, so ticking I'm not a robot is probably something you should potentially remove. I don't know if I've got that. I don't think I have it either. So anyone Yeah. But getting found on a
[00:35:16] Matt: website now, I, and like, so I've done a ton of work over the last five years on SEOs. Mm-hmm. Um, through our backend. I think it just, I, I felt there was a, uh, in the building industry, like from a builder that people would make the website and leave it, but for a certain amount of generation.
[00:35:35] And still, I think to these days, the, I think people still still search website. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. We're seen a massive uptick in the
[00:35:40] Hamish: website since we've started playing around with seo. The last few. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:43] Laura: These people just get naive and they're like, nah, everyone just uses Facebook or they just use Instagram.
[00:35:49] And I'm like. No, they don't like stop pigeonholing yourself. Yeah. You need to just 'cause everyone else is
[00:35:54] Matt: doing it and it looks sexy. 'cause that's what everyone else is doing. Doesn't mean you that that might, yeah. Does that work for your specific business
[00:35:59] Laura: [00:36:00] and the people you are trying to engage and educate?
[00:36:01] So here's,
[00:36:01] Hamish: here's, here's a question for you. What are some of the key things that you would tell every builder to have on their website? Well,
[00:36:08] Matt: architect as well and anyone
[00:36:10] Hamish: really just what are some of the things that you would be putting on your website?
[00:36:12] Laura: Oh, just your basics. Like have an about page that actually showcases your team.
[00:36:16] You've gotta humanize your brand. Um. Have clear outline of your services in like normal, like understandable terms that is not full of jargon. Um, also outline your process and how people work together. And this is something that Emerald have worked really hard on recently, is actually a really smooth process of the flow from start to finish.
[00:36:41] Yep. Everything that they can help with. Um, something that they need to have on every single page is call to action. An inquiry button, something like you need to have at least one of those per page, um, high quality imagery, high quality video content as well.
[00:36:59] Matt: Question on [00:37:00] that. Yeah. Doesn't now social media prioritize phone, like your phone over a curated piece of content?
[00:37:05] Laura: Um, I wouldn't say social media prioritizes it. I think us as consumers associate more high quality content with a paid dad. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we are more likely to go stop selling me stuff, even though we haven't even like read anything. Yeah.
[00:37:19] Hamish: Okay. So it's just you. What about, what about blogs and newsletters?
[00:37:21] Laura: I think blogs and newsletters are fantastic and I think if you're not doing that, like it's Yeah. You're missing out. Something we should do. Yeah, yeah. As well. Newsletter on. Yeah. Collecting that database. Like be smart. Like if you've got, you know, a thousand contacts, do something with, with it. We
[00:37:36] Hamish: actually have three, three newsletters that are rolling out over Christmas.
[00:37:39] So we're starting in December, uh, actually maybe we're starting next month, so we're starting to roll out newsletters.
[00:37:44] Laura: Yeah.
[00:37:44] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:37:45] Laura: Because the best thing that you can do, 'cause especially with builders and architects, like your price point is quite high. You're not selling like a thousand dollars something or a, you know, 50 buck candle.
[00:37:57] You need to really provide value. [00:38:00] Well, Amy a Amy has a candle business
[00:38:01] Hamish: on the side. She really, no, it's really, it's really nurturing that client through that whole process. Hundred percent. So at the end of it, they're happy to spend one, two, $3 million and a half. Yeah. They want
[00:38:12] Laura: information. And as well, especially with the building industry, it has a bad rap, um, the last couple of years because builders have gone under, there's so many dodgy builders out there.
[00:38:24] Yep. Just a quick side note, have you guys seen that building inspector that goes through a Yeah. Oh, okay. We won't mention that. We'll, couple. No, no, no, no. I just, I,
[00:38:33] Matt: I personally like what he's doing, but don't like what he's doing. I think the issue I have with it is also champion the good stuff. I think that like I get what it's selling and stuff.
[00:38:44] Laura: I love that you say that when we spoke about negative hooks, 'cause that was actually an idea for a client is to like, pretend that we're doing like the negative but like point out all the positives.
[00:38:52] Matt: Yeah. I, I also, I wish I hadn't just destroyed my pen then I also write in the, I also have, um, [00:39:00] I be very careful what I say.
[00:39:01] Um,
[00:39:03] Hamish: when have you been careful with No, no, no. I was actually get canceled. But like No, no. But
[00:39:06] Matt: like there's a lot of claims that have been made that are not true and legally not true. And there's court issues. I also have, yeah. Okay. And I, I, I just so much wanna say that I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, are we,
[00:39:21] Hamish: are we talking specifically about this?
[00:39:22] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, yeah. I can't, I don't wanna say it 'cause
[00:39:25] Matt: it's like legally I could get in trouble. I know. Back story. Um, but yeah, so I think like, I, I love what he's doing in the industry to make aware of what's happening using those methods. I don't believe everything you see as well. I think, do you know what, I think that
[00:39:41] Hamish: the positives out of it, it's actually making people more aware Yes.
[00:39:45] Of, yes. Of what a fault looks like. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And where to, because people aren't gonna get up on their roof and look at a box gutter.
[00:39:52] Matt: Oh. If I was a client every single project I'd have it, I'd get an independent inspector. Yeah. Straight out.
[00:39:56] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:39:56] Matt: Like what? Like it's not to like, and hey, work with the builder, [00:40:00] don't work against each other.
[00:40:01] Like, let them know working with them. Um, it's something we've thought about implementing, is actually including one in our build costs, but just building so expensive. Um, anyway, back to marketing. Um, what was my question?
[00:40:13] Hamish: I, I wanna go back to the, the, the high performance thing Yeah. And the passive house stuff for a second.
[00:40:18] Mm-hmm. So give us a couple of tips, maybe just a couple of little, little ideas that kind of gonna get some juices flowing around, some kind of content that's not spreadsheets, that's not number, that's not blow door results. Like mm-hmm. Sell it to who? Who are we selling it to? Dave. Dave and Angela. Dave and Angela.
[00:40:36] Why Dave and Angela?
[00:40:38] Laura: Um, no idea. It just came to my mind. Angela's my mom's name.
[00:40:42] Matt: Yeah. But perfect. Sold to herself to, I like to humanize it because.
[00:40:46] Laura: This becomes less of like this random thing that you are, you know, putting in an office and like you're creating it in an office and it's just going out on the interwebs.
[00:40:54] Like, it really, the inters creates a connection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so it gives,
[00:40:59] Hamish: it [00:41:00] actually focuses your attention on, on, on what you're doing. All right. Well, what's Angela looking for? Exactly. What's Dave looking for?
[00:41:07] Laura: Yeah. Angela's a, you know, mom of four. She's, you know,
[00:41:11] Hamish: yeah. Tell us. In fact, tell us about Angela.
[00:41:13] Let, tell us about Angela. She's single.
[00:41:16] Matt: No,
[00:41:17] Hamish: no, I didn't mean as your
[00:41:18] Matt: mom. I meant it as like the appetite. Angela. Oh no. Sorry, I'm not asking. Fuck. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it that way. Is they single? Like, uh, I was like, I swear you mentioned a wife, but Oh,
[00:41:31] Hamish: no, didn't mean, so Angela, so, so I want to, I want, like, if someone's creating an avatar, like tell me some of the things that they should be doing.
[00:41:38] So Angela, mom of four.
[00:41:40] Laura: Yeah. So she staying home? Uh, no. Or she had a working, working part-time. Yep. So what's income, occupation? Uh, education. Yeah. What her needs are. What her wants are. Mm-hmm. So what does she actually need? Yeah. And then what would she really like?
[00:41:57] Matt: Yeah.
[00:41:57] Laura: And then what is she doing as well?
[00:41:59] How do you know what, [00:42:00]
[00:42:00] Matt: what they need? Because I think that's where the barrier is.
[00:42:03] Laura: You should be talking so much to your consumer that you know what they need.
[00:42:07] Hamish: Yeah.
[00:42:07] Laura: Like, I know exactly what my clients need.
[00:42:10] Hamish: You. You could, so one of the things that we've done recently is gone back and looked at the age, occupation, number of kids, uh, area that I've bought.
[00:42:18] We've done some research on price, house pricing, pricing in the area.
[00:42:24] Laura: But all those stats is great, but the, the best thing is the conversation. Like, pick up the phone and be like, Angela.
[00:42:31] Hamish: Angela,
[00:42:32] Laura: yeah. Angela. Like, what, what do you need? Like, do you, are you all good with this side of things in terms of education?
[00:42:38] Do you need a, you know, closer step through on like, the process in how we do this? Like, you need to work out
[00:42:45] Matt: to your current, but we're trying to hit clients that aren't ours yet.
[00:42:48] Laura: Yeah, so this is why content pillars and actually showcasing a little bit of like the actual service, a little bit of the process, a little bit of like a project update, a little bit [00:43:00] of a, you know, a motive client testimonial, um, an education piece.
[00:43:05] And you're building this, you are almost like building a puzzle. And each, um, puzzle piece is a different content pillar that you are doing to sort of give them an overview of the entire business. Yep.
[00:43:17] Hamish: Making it frictionless.
[00:43:20] Laura: Yes.
[00:43:21] Hamish: Yep. I like that. Yep. Um,
[00:43:24] Laura: so in terms of content ideas, I do have a couple that I was working on earlier.
[00:43:29] Health is a big thing. Yeah. Especially for families. So talking about mold, asthma, um, and if you bring it to kids or pets, like
[00:43:40] Matt: I literally have a whole Grand Designs episode on this. Like, the thing is like, that's what a, B, C obviously saw value in. Yeah. That like, they just didn't want another passive house.
[00:43:48] The whole conversation is on health. Yeah. People like,
[00:43:52] Laura: yeah, exactly. Um, another one is like comfort. So a lot of people live in, you know, they're [00:44:00] wearing puffer jackets inside because it's so cold and it's too expensive to put. You know, the heater on or it's just stinking hot and you've gotta like pull out the fans from the garage every summer.
[00:44:11] So comfort is a big thing. Um, another one is obviously cost of living and running costs. Um, everything's getting more and more expensive, so actually breaking things down. Um, and a real life example is, so we work with a heat pump manufacturer. Um, who's that? Eco Nova.
[00:44:30] Hamish: Yep. I know
[00:44:31] Laura: Econ Nova. Econ Nova. Um, so,
[00:44:34] Hamish: um, by gas use.
[00:44:37] Laura: So my grandparents, they're down in Rosebud and everything, they're on gas for a lot. And my nan has started the conversation with my grandpa saying, I think we should, you know, get on the rebates and, you know, switch over to electric. And he's like, nah, I've heard horror stories. We're gonna be out without, we won't be able to have a warm shower for six months.
[00:44:59] And I'm [00:45:00] like, PA, I could book you in in like three days time. Like.
[00:45:03] Hamish: I, it, it's small, small plug, small plugs. Anyone, anyone wanting to, uh, electrify their home, goodbye gas. Goodbye gas. But,
[00:45:10] Matt: so this is going back to the face. This is probably a little bit of a loop back. One step forward, two steps, uh, one step back, two steps forward that you have the issue with people listening to those negative comments in the Facebook groups around, oh yeah, I'll be out with without power.
[00:45:25] Or, those things don't work, but there's no verification behind the comments that come and we just can't sit there. And
[00:45:31] Laura: No, but that's why social media is important because you have to be active. You need to be posting at least two, three times a week, otherwise you post are own gonna plummet to the bottom.
[00:45:40] Matt: You just gotta own it. Like I've,
[00:45:42] Laura: it's a constant feat of information
[00:45:43] Matt: I've been playing around with that. I actually sort of slowed down my commenting and, and replying in stories and stuff and reached up like hundred K, like just bang, like still. And like it was fluctuating. Yeah, yours is really high for, I was sitting around 1.2, 1.3 [00:46:00] per month and it just, like, I wanted to see if I didn't do something, what would happen and Yeah, you drop down to like 500 K.
[00:46:07] Hamish: Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so getting back to what I was saying before about, um, like, certainly reels are something that we see our engagement, you know, go up.
[00:46:15] Matt: Yeah. It's when you drop them off.
[00:46:17] Hamish: But, but, um, what, what I'm, what I want to say to you is like, having 1.3 million means fuck all views means nothing. If people aren't ringing, you could, yeah.
[00:46:28] Laura: This was what I was wanting to say before. Yeah. Little light bulb moment. But people get so wrapped up in like, just like this, lots and
[00:46:34] Hamish: followers. Yeah. Don't be hit. Like, don't
[00:46:36] Laura: be vain. Don't let like your ego take control. Like if you get a hundred views, think about this room with a hundred people. You would be like stoked that they're hearing what you are saying.
[00:46:47] So if it's the right a hundred people Exactly. And then 10 people come up and have a conversation after, and then two people, you know, engage you. Yep. That's a massive win. Yeah, totally. Do people just get wrapped up in this number and I'm like, you need to [00:47:00] realize, like, those funny, like social media trends, they work for exposure and just more awareness.
[00:47:06] Yeah. They're not all gonna be your ideal clientele.
[00:47:08] Hamish: Well, this is exactly the point I was making earlier on about Yeah. We, do we still do a reel? Yeah. 'cause I know that it increases engagement. Yeah. And I know that it puts us up the top of people's algorithms. Yeah. But, and that's, you know, tens of thousands of views versus a few thousand views.
[00:47:23] But I know which ones they, they, these people here are the ones I wanna be nurturing. Mm. The smaller audience.
[00:47:30] Laura: Yeah.
[00:47:30] Hamish: Because they're actually engaging in things that I believe in.
[00:47:33] Laura: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:33] Hamish: The things that I wanna sell as a business.
[00:47:35] Laura: Yeah. So, and also put something out on your stories where you can ask like, do you enjoy this type of content?
[00:47:41] Do you enjoy this type? And constantly reassess, like minimum, do it quarterly and actually review your stats. Look at what's working, what's performing, who your audience is. Is it who you actually wanna be attracting? Because if you're wanting to attract 40 to 55-year-old females [00:48:00] on the Mornington Peninsula, but you've currently got 25 to 30 5-year-old males that are, you know, city way.
[00:48:07] Matt: Yeah.
[00:48:08] Laura: There's a major disconnect and your content's not actually appealing and engaging the bright audience. Yeah. And
[00:48:13] Matt: like I look at it like if you have a hundred views and you get one person that signs up and I have 1 million views, I don't get anyone. I'd rather be the a hundred. Like what's the, what's the saying here?
[00:48:24] Having a hundred percent of the peas better than having 1% of the watermelon. Mm-hmm.
[00:48:27] Hamish: But this, this was, I guess the question I was asking before, like should we do a spread? All of all of it? Like should, is there a strategy around, um, getting followers and engagement and does that then potentially feed back into opening up, uh, I guess your real fo your real, um, target audience?
[00:48:47] Laura: Yeah. There isn't a clear cut formula. Yeah. Okay. And I think social media, like we don't have complete control. It's the platforms and the algorithms, but then like we obviously can share what we choose to [00:49:00] share. I think diversity is the best. Yeah. And then constantly checking in with like, what's your best performing post?
[00:49:05] Is it engaging the right audience and constantly checking in and tweaking it, but you don't need to overkill it. Like you can have a strategy and stick it through for three months and then check in and see what's happening. Yeah. Obviously if like it's completely plateauing and it's not. You know, having an uptick do something about it.
[00:49:23] But it's like each social media page is so unique. What works for you might not work for me. And play
[00:49:31] Matt: with ideas. Yeah, try something new. Like just do something fun. The other thing I fucking hate is like, we've been copied heaps and that's okay. That means we producing good quality content. The thing is like, don't be afraid to try.
[00:49:41] Try something that hasn't been done before. It might not work. I do it all the time and sometimes like, well that was a flop. Yeah. But sometimes you're like, oh, okay, I've got something. You can build on that idea.
[00:49:50] Laura: And it's often for social media, like the ideas that you really didn't spend much time thinking about.
[00:49:56] I a hundred
[00:49:57] Matt: percent those work, you've got the best idea and you're like, you [00:50:00] curate it and it's like, perfect. Oh my god, this one's gonna go off. And no one likes some.
[00:50:03] Hamish: Some of my best posts have just been an idea that came into my head when I'm working around the get house. You know, the garden. You know, if I sit down and try and think about it.
[00:50:11] Yeah. I can't think of anything. Yeah. But I'll just be like, oh, that's a good idea. I would, in fact, as as we were talking now, I've had an idea of a post that I'm gonna do. What is it? I'm not gonna say,
[00:50:20] Matt: I'll tell you, I'll tell you after this. So I, I wanna ask, what do you think the trends are gonna be in marketing in 2026?
[00:50:27] Laura: I think more authenticity, given how rampant AI is. Yeah. I think more human connection and actually hearing people speak.
[00:50:36] Matt: Yeah.
[00:50:37] Laura: And deliver valuable information. And also like the fuck ups. I hope you don't mind me swearing. No, no. But the fuck ups, like if it's like you're gonna have to edit that out.
[00:50:47] Episode's fucked down. Fuck. But like, people love seeing, like if you're doing like an and sign and then the next sentence you write and like, it almost the things that we used to criticize 10 years [00:51:00] ago, grammatically is almost more attractive because you're like, oh, a real person wrote this. Like it's speaking to me and it feels more personal.
[00:51:07] So I think the personal, more authentic route is definitely where we're going for. So this is 26. This is where I also,
[00:51:14] Matt: I know we've spoken about automation of our processes. Yeah. I've kind of gone back to old school,
[00:51:20] Hamish: so, so this is, so you get, I'm probably digress on. Yeah, I know. So I do have, I do have a kind of theory on that too.
[00:51:25] I think automation is really important and I think AI is a really amazingly powerful tool.
[00:51:30] Laura: 100%. But
[00:51:31] Hamish: you absolutely need to have personal touches. Yeah. So one of the things that Anne's working on is a series of surveys from our QBE stage. Yeah. All the way through to our handover stage. And there's little checkpoints along the way.
[00:51:45] Yeah. Where we are encouraging. Uh, so a person is emailing, please fill out this survey. Give us your feedback. Yeah. And we'll respond. Yeah.
[00:51:54] Laura: And also phone calls, like just giving them a call and seeing how they're going. Yeah. The best ways that I [00:52:00] have exited the wrong people in my business is calling up and actually like, really checking in with clients to see are they feeling the love, are we, you know, over-delivering.
[00:52:10] Mm-hmm. If it's anything short of that and like, I can't train up the person, then I will exit them.
[00:52:17] Hamish: Ruthless.
[00:52:18] Laura: Yeah.
[00:52:18] Hamish: I love it.
[00:52:20] Laura: Um, it's gotta be
[00:52:21] Matt: done. What else? What else do you think that, like, do you see like,
[00:52:24] Hamish: um, can, can I have a question? Yeah. A question. Okay. So video. Yep. So I do a lot of reels where I've, I'm, I'm talking
[00:52:32] Laura: Yep.
[00:52:32] Hamish: And I'm usually doing it in one take. Yep. And I'm showing people some, you know, uh, stuff.
[00:52:38] Laura: Yeah.
[00:52:38] Hamish: And generally they're getting anywhere between 20 to 40, 50,000 views. Right.
[00:52:44] Laura: You wanna know how to increase that?
[00:52:46] Hamish: Well. I mean, yes and no. Do I care? Maybe, I don't know. Is there a bit of an ego thing there? Yeah, it'd be nice.
[00:52:53] Yeah, it'd be nice. But what it, so putting my face there, is that making any difference? Do people wanna see a person? Yeah, 100%. Okay. Yeah, so, [00:53:00] so
[00:53:00] Laura: the thing with filming social media content is you've got your visual hook. So that's what it looks like and what you're doing. Are you jumping into frame is, are you like, you know, putting the mic on the end of a banana or a hammer or something funny and talking.
[00:53:14] Then there's the audio hook. So this again is like, you know, you wouldn't believe what I found on site this morning. And then in terms of like keeping stuff entertaining, you're meant to change the frame every two seconds.
[00:53:28] Matt: Oh wow. The edits app is the best for this. Yeah. Okay. See, so the other thing is, and with the edit app, it's the Instagram app, or you can just go through, you don't know how many videos you've got on your phone.
[00:53:38] Oh, you've got hundreds thou, thousands, you can go past and just edit and add 'em all together. And then you got new content and all you do is do the voiceover. Yeah. A lot of my content is the same shit. I just change the videos. Do you
[00:53:48] Laura: know how much you can actually maximize from certain pieces of content?
[00:53:53] Like there is just so much you can do like a big voiceover, you can do a shortened one where it just features this certain section. What are these [00:54:00] all
[00:54:00] Matt: the same re they just get changed the Yeah. No, no, I've, I mean
[00:54:03] Hamish: I've, I've seen them 'cause I've,
[00:54:04] Matt: yeah, yeah. But you just like, it's like it's making your life easier too, and there's so many tools to actually cut out a lot of the work.
[00:54:09] It's not that
[00:54:09] Laura: hard. You need a strategy and then you need to actually execute it and Yeah, don't change it after a
[00:54:14] Hamish: week. Yeah. Okay, so, so video tick, um, curated videos or. Self filming videos,
[00:54:22] Laura: um, self filming. The only tendency I see in the building industry is people waffle. Yeah. I'm like,
[00:54:29] Matt: 40 seconds max.
[00:54:30] Come on.
[00:54:30] Laura: Like, let, let's make it a bit more punchy. I think it's more authentic, but it needs to be a little bit more punchy. You need to know what you're filming.
[00:54:37] Matt: Yep.
[00:54:38] Laura: Um, don't just go, oh crap, I need to film something for social media and just waffle on about They're
[00:54:42] Matt: the ones that always work. Yeah.
[00:54:44] Hamish: So this is, this is the bit I find challenging, right?
[00:54:47] 'cause I might film something and I, I remember I filmed something a couple of months ago and I'm like, oh fuck, I need to get a reel out. Mm. Because I haven't done one for a week or so. Yeah. And I just filmed a site update and I had like a hundred thousand views.
[00:54:59] Laura: Yeah.
[00:54:59] Hamish: [00:55:00] And I'm like,
[00:55:00] Laura: you've gotta remember there's no simple calculation.
[00:55:03] And
[00:55:03] Hamish: this is kinda what I'm getting at. Like, yeah. Okay. So we had
[00:55:05] Laura: a, we had a video recently. I looked at it this morning for a builder in Ballarat. And the video that's performed 10 times better than all the other content is literally like a sped up as SMR version of this, um, this corner piece of timber being cut out for flooring and a little hack because it was sped up and it was as SMR and it just was like,
[00:55:30] Hamish: so, so this is, this is probably interesting 'cause I don't know if you watched the video that Bambi sent us the other day about the YouTube stuff.
[00:55:38] Um, and, and you might, this might resonate with you and it definitely resonates with me now 'cause I sit down and watch YouTube all the time with my son and it is sped up, like things getting built and we're totally, I dunno, our algorithms like got like log and stone cabins getting built in the middle of the bush.
[00:55:55] Mm-hmm. Right. But it's sped up and Bambi called them hammer taps, [00:56:00] hammer tap content. 'cause you can actually hear the hammer tapping and it's like, yeah. You know, it's like tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Yeah. And things going together. And I'm like, there's something. Mesmerizing about, it's
[00:56:11] Laura: the as smr, like
[00:56:13] Hamish: what's asmr?
[00:56:15] Laura: Oh.
[00:56:15] Matt: Like, you know, when you like do this, like, and some people like love the sound or like the perfect example. Yeah. So it's, you're like chiseling out timber. Like it's the feeling. So it's
[00:56:24] Hamish: the ta So it's ta tap, it's the audio.
[00:56:26] Laura: So it's the audio where it's like dead silent and then you just hear like,
[00:56:29] Hamish: that's what I, that so, so that's exactly what I'm saying.
[00:56:31] It's like someone on the portal and you put a camera, a video. Uh, I find something really mesmerizing about, you know, them why using a saw.
[00:56:40] Laura: Yeah. And
[00:56:40] Hamish: cutting it and the sound of the saw going through. But it's, but it's, uh, or even like
[00:56:43] Laura: the carpet cleaning videos, I don't know if you've seen them, but those filthy rugs getting cleaned.
[00:56:48] Matt: Oh, I love them. Where they just the whole time spit up. Yeah. I'm like, I, I don't even know. I've actually, I've got two rugs in our house, but I would never let my rug get that dirty. But two, I'm like, oh my God, this is so fascinating. Or the mower guy. Will [00:57:00] they just Oh,
[00:57:01] Laura: I love that. Yeah. Will they just
[00:57:02] Matt: fast track mowing?
[00:57:03] Yeah. I've got no
[00:57:03] Hamish: interest in mowing. Fucking love it. Uh, I was about to show my ages something and I, um, I can't remember the name. Like
[00:57:10] Matt: retirement home's getting built. You're wrapping yourself up there. Anyway, we have to start racking this up now. We have a segment on this podcast called The Mindful Moment, sponsored by MEGT, aray leading apprenticeship experts.
[00:57:26] Both Hamish and I have our, um, three now. Yeah, three. I've got two about to have a third signed up with them. Um, I know we've got some conversations in the background about doing better, uh, things for apprentices and changing the system. But this week my, I've been working on, and one of my team come to me, uh, carpenter recently and said, we've gotta give a guide to apprentices.
[00:57:46] And we spoke about this on another podcast about how to guide them to become good tradespeople. Um. So something we've started to develop as a boss is a plan to get them there. Um, it's a bit ruthless, like you are, they're not good. You exit them. [00:58:00] But the whole idea is to provide them a step by step, year by year of their apprenticeship, where they should be at.
[00:58:04] So a first year, by end of a first year, you've gotta have this toolkit. You've gotta be this far into your apprenticeship by studying, we expect you to do 30 minutes of extracurricular learnings per week. Um,
[00:58:15] Hamish: 30 minutes.
[00:58:16] Matt: 30 minutes. Yeah. 30 minutes of extra learning. This, this is nothing. It's not, it's like a car ride.
[00:58:20] It's a podcast. There you go. But we want to get them into the habit in getting better. And then second, you're gonna have these tools. Third year we want you involved. Uh, we want you in, uh, like a cert four fourth year. We just want you completing it and being prepared to be a junior carpenter. So we are creating a pathway with our team to pretty much set a non-negotiables and KPIs for our apprentices to be ready to enter the real world.
[00:58:45] Um, and it's ruthless. This, it, it's very simple that I said to the kid coming on that if you don't tick all these boxes, you won't have a job after the first year. They're not hard. They're, it's spending a certain, we've got like a certain table in there of how much percentage of your [00:59:00] wage. Uh, like, and it might be like 5%, it should be spent on tools and it shows the amount of dollars per e it's like 15 bucks.
[00:59:06] Mm. Uh, it, it was presented to me by one of my team. Um, and I thought it was an awesome idea. Love it. So we kind of got through that. Anyway, to get onto you Laura, how do we contact you? Um, we're gonna dub you into speak at the passive house conference next year and present on why the passive house market can't market, passive house and just, and just really
[00:59:24] Hamish: quickly
[00:59:25] Matt: the
[00:59:25] Hamish: services that you offer.
[00:59:27] Laura: Yeah, of course. So, um, I run sort of digital marketing. We are based in South Melbourne, however, we service clients. All over the country and we have for the last nearly eight years, we do social media marketing. So we do management of that and we also do a DIY package to train up your team, um, or your admin team to get that off the ground.
[00:59:48] We do content creation, so all the raw iPhone, fun content, educational, and then we also do, um, high quality professional content as well.
[00:59:57] Matt: So it's like a wide range of packages that you can [01:00:00] have. Yeah, and
[01:00:00] Laura: everything has various options, so it can appeal to any budget, any requirement. Um, we've got paid support for Google Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok.
[01:00:11] Yeah. Um, email marketing as well, so leveraging those databases. Um, and then we are also doing influencer marketing. And I know some people might, Amy Sheron. Influencer marketing and then PR and events. So really that holistic marketing. And we've got specialized teams in each department. And then I'm sort of the one above trying to manage it, you know, merge everything together and be a part of each project.
[01:00:37] Hamish: Awesome. Thank you for coming on.
[01:00:38] Matt: Yeah, thank you so much. You need to reach out to you sorted.com au
[01:00:42] Laura: sorted digital.com au
[01:00:44] Matt: and Instagram
[01:00:45] Laura: um, at under sorted.
[01:00:47] Matt: Perfect. Thank you for coming. I'm sure we'll have you on. Again.
[01:00:50] Laura: Thank you [01:01:00] much.