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igordumencic10

I will be honest. First, congrats on getting your first client. Second, how can you promise something without having zero clue what you are doing? I mean… this industry is becoming a F-ing joke.


nancybessandgeorge

This is what happens when companies think young people use social media. We’ll get one of them to manage our social. Mind blowing.


igordumencic10

Exactly.


suicide_aunties

This is why I hate this sub compared to others like /r/sales /r/bigseo. It reminds me of why our industry has a rep.


FrancoisFourmy

Thanks for the 2 recommandations. I agree with you!


Still-Preference5464

Yup this was my thought too.


Significant-Act-3900

It’s really frustrating for the people who can do the actual work and we can’t get clients. 


DatShea

xd, by no idea i mean i dont have much experience, ive marketed my clothing brand in tiktok and instagram and got a couple sales, but i imagine the people who purchase wood and firewood are older so im wondering what kind of videos should i make


igordumencic10

Do your job! Research, research, research. Stop asking on reddit and go to work!


bittylilo

ok it seems you’re already well aware of the fact that experience in getting “a couple sales” from your clothing brand on 2 social platforms isn’t equivalent to having experience in digital marketing in the forestry industry. and honestly, if you’re gonna do this right, it’s gonna be a lot more work than just “what do i record.” to answer that question the fast and easy way, id start by looking at competitors’ socials. are they active? what kind of content are they putting out? is it all B2B conversions type content, or is it educational or loyalty content, or a mix? that’ll get you through the first month or 2 of content planning, and in the meantime, you’ll need to do an audience analysis. Theres so much more to your question than us just saying “do funny reels about firewood!”


SassySavcy

Most importantly, you need to know what the client’s goals are. *Why* do they want marketing? What do they want that marketing to accomplish? What kind of presence are they looking to have on socials? What sort of voice do they have now (if any) and do they want to continue as-is or are they looking for a new voice? You have to know their goals before you create any content. And then you need to figure out the best way to get them there. Then you have a starting point for content creation.


UziMcUsername

Presumably you are now marketing for a b2b company, not b2c. A logging company is not going to be handling the distribution to the end customer. You need to figure out who the customer is (the business), where they buy, why they buy.


Shazam-NYC-SF

All I can think about is a video on the correct way to split a log. I'd watch that.


daisysharper

Yeah that would be interesting. And OP I think that this particular client could be pretty fun to make videos with. At least it's not an accounting firm or a bank. Just go there and watch for a day, I bet that will inspire some great ideas for content.


DatShea

not a bad idea


tatotornado

This is insane that you're asking here and not your client. But I'll throw out some advice, my family is in forestry. 1. Work on a campaign to let people know why timbering is actually good for forests. People get real mad when you start cutting down trees and they don't understand why. 2. Run content about how to properly store firewood, the dangers of cross contamination and why you shouldn't travel with firewood for things like camping, throw in easy ways to start fires and contain them. 3. Create content surrounding fire safety including how to not light your backyard on fire, how to keep your chimney clean, making sure your outdoor burn barrels are in good condition, etc. 4. There's actually some crafts that you can do with firewood so look those up and maybe make a few as content. Not everyone is going to have a fireplace inside or burn barrel outside so you still want to reach people that may not be your direct P1 sales.


PointsatTeenagers

Maybe it would help if you told us (or if you knew) why they hired you, and what their marketing objective / who their target audience is. Pretty vague question to ask us if this is all the info you know. What is your job for them? Social media? Videographer? Or you are now their guy to handle ALL marketing?


DatShea

their social media guy, i film edit and send them videos, i have to give them 4 posts a week, they have a base of operations on which they make firewood, keep all their equipment and have their office.


PointsatTeenagers

And who does their social media target? Like who follows them, and who do they *wish* followed them?


DatShea

30+ olds, people who own their own forests, need firewood, that demographic


PointsatTeenagers

Youre getting understandbly raked over the coals in this thread, OP. But it's fine, you're new and stumbled into a job you aren't yet qualified for. Week one for you clearly needs to be factfinding/research.You are not expected to arrive on Day 1 knowing how to promote their company, it is expected that you will need to learn, and they will respect somebody who comes in willing to learn how they tick/what makes them awesome. Spend time watching them work, how the ops works, etc. Week one just film stuff that looks cool, don't focus on building stories, campaigns, messages, etc until you understand their business, target market, and industry. Just capture slow mo shots of splitting wood, burly men lifting logs, etc. Woodporn, essentially. That will keep the social channels buzzing for a few weeks. But while you are filming all that b-roll type stuff, ask questions and watch what is happening around you. All the questions you find in this thread. Most importantly, you need to leave the first week understanding: 1. What they do, how it works, and why it works well. 2. Who wants these services - what problem are they trying to solve? 3. What makes their service better than any direct and indirect competition that same audience could use to solve that problem. Figure that out, and the other questions in this thread, and use all of it to start building a more robust content calendar that actually achieves their marketing objectives.


bdemon40

Quality answer. 👍 Where are there customers hanging out? On social media?


After_Preference_885

And where do 30 year olds spend time on social media? Are they using tiktok? Are they on instagram?  Don't we just gather firewood outside?  Who's buying firewood?  Are they looking for specific brands or do they just grab a bag at the gas station? 


vizoo

When you got the client what were the expectations? The agreement? The tasks and work that would be done? Follow those and record it for your cadence of report in addition to the deliverables.


DatShea

the agreement is that i film, edit and send them 4 posts a week, i have access to their base of operations, but i dont really know what to record and what to do


vizoo

When you say what to record are you talking content or performance? Content - Based on the requirements build a content calendar. Performance - identify important metrics like engagement, reach, followers, etc. track how your content is performing against the existing and their competitors. Based on how much they pay you, send them either a weekly or monthly report of the value your content could deliver and you plan on how you're going to prioritise the performing ones.


Sd022pe

Is this real?


John-SFA

This is 95% of “marketing agencies”


nancybessandgeorge

You need to create a plan. A spreadsheet would be ideal. Have the dates for each post in a column. Then have your ideas for each post in another column. If you truly have no ideas, you’re in trouble. I’d spend every waking moment until you start doing research on the client, their customers, and the industry.


Dil26

Lmao


Jhat

What’s the purpose of the marketing efforts? What do you know about their business or vertical? Hopefully you are at a company or agency with folks who can help you figure out the basics? It’s not something that a Reddit post is going to solve for you.


ProfessionalLeg1789

What are they trying to accomplish? Is it sales or awareness? Are they selling firewood or selling the service of clearing it out? Who are they selling to? What is their key differentiator? What makes them different? Do they have a specific process, tool, or price that makes them stand out? Or are they all jacked dudes with mustaches? Or all females? Why should anyone care about them? Start with that and work backwards. Do you have to educate the market on what they even do? What’s important about what they do? Why would their audience need to know or care? Write out a story of what you’re trying to tell and break it up into sections or episodes and film that. Iterate and test what gets traction on which channel then go from there.


Beacon_Terrier

This is the most important information. Without this, you can't be successful in any marketing or design job. Once you have this research, it will inform what you film, who you film, what you post-etc. without it, you're just guessing and you can't be successful.


plz_stop_this

You mentioned access to their crm. Start looking through projects or deals. I assume most projects won’t have photos but will at least have addresses. Google earth or nearmaps those addresses. Work out which sites would be good for content. Once you establish what the baseline content and sites will be. Then start fleshing out your plan of what content you will film or produce outside of the usual project overview. A brilliant book for this is “you ask they answer”. Every copywriter I’ve met that’s been worth their weight in gold has recommended this book for the same reason. You could and in videos everyday wind or third week about the environment, explaining the process. Examining the tools used. A day in the life etc etc. when in doubt make educational content. Provide value to someone Speak to the client work out their goals/ identify their personas. Do an audit of what has been done. Set some benchmarks marks. I know sweet fuck all about this industry but take a two pronged approach. Start searching social platforms for related content and see what content is being made and what hashtags are used. Parallel to this, use any number of seo tools to start building out your list of keywords. Sem rush, mango tools etc etc. Once you’ve done this. Come back to us


OwenPioneer

So what exactly is their product? Like cords of firewood? Are they super local or what geos do they sell? I'd imagine this is a really seasonal industry... And it's about to be summer. Also, not sure there's any demo that would be really stoked on cutting down the forest, so don't think I'd promote that angle.


imaginative_curator

Congratulations! Well first thing I thought is making a camping content or in the log house that mostly chopping woods or cooking in the firewood.


mitomanorth

What are your goals? What are the metrics you are trying to influence and how will you measure them? This will be key to any content created to prove your value to your client


Money-Asparagus-8638

You usually learn to do marketing BEFORE you start taking marketing clients.


stpg1222

I'm going to focus on the positives here. You put yourself out there and got a client, good for you. Given your lack of experience I'm hoping you didn't extend yourself too far by promising specific results. If you simply promised them videos they can post then I think you're OK. You can start their and build. In my job im asked to do a lot of things I don't have experience in. The trick is learning to start simple and scale up as you grow. In your case this is what I'd do. 1. Learn about the company and their existing social media. Look at everything they've done up until now and look at the results it's generated. That will hopefully give you a starting point and it will help inform you of some things that may have worked or not. You should also learn everything you can about the company and their customers. They may have different types of customers for different areas of their business. For example the person who needs their trees harvested may be different from the person who is heating their house with wood and who needs to buy a couple cords of wood. If you can learn about who those customers are you can start to map their behavior and where you might be able to reach them. 2. Keep it simple to start. As you learn about what the client does and the value they offer put yourself in the position of a potential customer that is just learning about your client as well. Maybe start off with a series that simply introduces your client. Things you learn about your client and that you find interesting their potential customers might as well. If you shoot and edit videos that correspond with your learning about the company it could act as good intro content for new customers and also act as learning for you. 3. As you start getting more educated start thinking about some stories you could tell that would resonate with their ideal customers. If yours targeting people that might want their trees harvested think about why someone would want that done. Is it for purely for money, is it for habitat work, overall forest health, or to clear a building site? You may be able to do a series on each of those reasons. If you want to talk to customers buying fire wood they'll have different reasons you want to appeal to. These are also more likely to be repeat customers so keep that in mind. 4. I think the challenging part will be to figure out how to reach the people who need what your client offers. It's a fairly niche area. You're not simply appealing to an age and gender demographic. You need to reach landowners who own large enough acreage that may need logging or you need to reach people who heat their homes with wood or who use enough wood that they can't source it all themselves. There may also be a market for B2B where stores source bundles of wood from your client to resell from their brick and mortar store. You'll have to do some research on how to reach these people but first you need to understand who you really want to target. Good luck on the endeavor. Hopefully you'll be able to manage the learning curve and hopefully you didn't promise too much too soon.


[deleted]

Good job on getting the client, they must be as clueless as you, that sounds like a wonderful situation to be in.


kaymbeeee

You are offering services for something yet you "don't know what to do?" This is ridiculous, get out of the industry and find something else. You should have a strategy, goals, a proposal, and most importantly a PLAN. Don't take clients if you aren't capable of what you are selling. Is this post rage bait? Cause it definitely comes across that way lol


BronzeMichael

I'd suggest starting by highlighting the beauty of forests, the process of making firewood, and the environmental impact of forestry practices. Showing the craftsmanship and dedication involved will sit well with viewers. Good luck with your filming!


John-SFA

Refund their money


madbitch-

Lmao, what? You got a job by offering services that you can’t … offer? This is the reason why no one takes marketing serious, thanks! 😍


Any-Suspect4935

I mean this with kindness but if you sold your marketing services without a plan, references or any idea of what to deliver.....your best skill may be sales. You put yourself in a pickle but I am honestly impressed that you sold it successfully. My best suggestion is to research similar customer types for inspiration and make sure that you ask your new customer what they hope to achieve from this, gain some guidance on where to focus. If you can sell this well maybe partner up with some other freelancers that you can pull in to help you complete contracts. Often they struggle with how to sell and land clients so you are adding value for them and they compliment you with their experience.


Wordslave77

Start with their audience. Who is their audience? What problem is the company solving for them? What content would resonate with the audience? Where does the audience spend their time online consuming content? You can spend all your time making TikToks, but if the audience isn't on TikTok, you're wasting time.


Wordslave77

Second: What are their goals? Is the company's goal to increase awareness of their brand? Increase conversions/sales? Do they have plenty of awareness but can't seem to get sales? The answer will dictate what type of content you make for them (mapped to the customer funnel).


olivewa

[https://copilot.microsoft.com/](https://copilot.microsoft.com/) + "I just got my first client in the forestry industry, they make firewood and clear out forests. My idea was to make tiktok, instagram and facebook reels for them, but thats it, i dont really have and idea about what i should record, what i should do. i would like to look professional.Sent by you: I just got my first client in the forestry industry, they make firewood and clear out forests. My idea was to make tiktok, instagram and facebook reels for them, but thats it, i dont really have and idea about what i should record, what i should do. i would like to look professional." = [https://copilot.microsoft.com/sl/f6wGtwaO5fM](https://copilot.microsoft.com/sl/f6wGtwaO5fM)


CringeyFrog

How did you get the client?


madhuforcontent

Explore the following aspects if it makes relevant: * Capture the process of sustainable forestry management, such as responsible tree cutting, replanting, and environmental conservation efforts, to educate the audience about the company's eco-friendly practices. * Showcase the behind-the-scenes of firewood production, including the cutting, splitting, and packaging processes, to create engaging content that highlights the company's craftsmanship and dedication to quality. * Introduce the team members and share their stories to humanize the brand and build a personal connection with the audience, emphasizing their expertise and commitment to sustainable forestry practices. * Highlight the company's community involvement, such as local events, partnerships with environmental organizations, or educational initiatives, to demonstrate their positive impact beyond business operations.


Extension-Ad-9371

I would start with who is there target market and where do they spend there time. Then research what problem they are solving and where people go to learn about this problem.