In today's world, business content goes beyond mere blog posts and white papers. The emergence of voice, video, Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and the proliferation of 'smart' devices within the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape are all revolutionizing content search and consumption patterns. In this scenario, it becomes crucial for content to be recognized as a powerful tool in building credibility and driving commerce.
To unravel the significance of content in marketing and business spheres, we had an insightful conversation with Aashutosh Katre, the Director and Founder at Yellow Seed - a leading content agency. Boasting a team of expert content strategists and brand builders, Yellow Seed has successfully helped some of the largest global brands elevate their content strategy to new heights.
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Saikat Pyne: Hi. I'm Sekar marketer, creative and media nerd. Welcome to
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Saikat Pyne: the you incorporated podcast On this show, I catch up
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Saikat Pyne: with some of the most bad ass founders, business leaders
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Saikat Pyne: and content creators in the whole wide world. Whether you're
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Saikat Pyne: a marketer, creative or a budding founder, if you want
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Saikat Pyne: to build your brand your voice your way, you are
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Saikat Pyne: in the right place.
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Saikat Pyne: Join me on the you incorporated podcast and start building
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Saikat Pyne: your empire. Here we go.
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Saikat Pyne: Please join me in welcoming Ashutosh, the director and founder
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Saikat Pyne: at Yellow Seed
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Saikat Pyne: ASOS leads a team of content and brand building experts
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Saikat Pyne: who help brands in crafting and executing created strategies to
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Saikat Pyne: level up their content. Marketing game.
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Saikat Pyne: Welcome to the show.
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Aashutosh Katre: Hey, Sekar. Thanks for having us here. And so glad
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Aashutosh Katre: we are doing this today
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Saikat Pyne: As sure what I'd see a cast agency A content
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Saikat Pyne: as a service agency. I'm a bit of a content
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Saikat Pyne: guy myself. The big issue with content really is it
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Saikat Pyne: still doesn't get its due as a marketing tool. While
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Saikat Pyne: all marketing is technically content. What have your experiences been like?
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Saikat Pyne: I
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Aashutosh Katre: can even around for
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Aashutosh Katre: 10 years now as yellow seed and rightly said, there
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Aashutosh Katre: has been so much that has happened in the last
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Aashutosh Katre: few years that content as a space as a peg
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Aashutosh Katre: in the entire communication mix has literally seen a lot
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Aashutosh Katre: of evolution in the last few years. Uh, earlier, people
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Aashutosh Katre: just considered that to be
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Aashutosh Katre: nothing but of wordplay or some kind of art or
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Aashutosh Katre: some kind of production put together and distributed over different
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Aashutosh Katre: media channels. Right? That was what creative element in the
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Aashutosh Katre: entire communication mix was considered, as it never was labelled
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Aashutosh Katre: as content.
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Aashutosh Katre: But today, as we see with the advent of streaming
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Aashutosh Katre: platforms and the Spotify of the world, and subscription based
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Aashutosh Katre: forms which are engaging with audiences, creating their own communities
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Aashutosh Katre: and fan base content is really coming off as a
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Aashutosh Katre: completely different animal. When a and important pig, I would
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Aashutosh Katre: say for any brand that they make, it's still early.
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Aashutosh Katre: It is and
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Aashutosh Katre: yeah, a fewer number of brands and marketing are realising
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Aashutosh Katre: the importance of investing in content and giving it time
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Aashutosh Katre: to nurture, find its own footing and create extension for
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Aashutosh Katre: the brand's voice. Humanise the brand in different forms and
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Aashutosh Katre: try and build that connect with the audience, and that's
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Aashutosh Katre: what really Today, the entire gameplay for content is become,
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Aashutosh Katre: and more and more people are warming up to it.
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Saikat Pyne: So, as an agency founder, how do you approach content
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Saikat Pyne: and pricing of organic content as an agency
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Aashutosh Katre: founder? Before I come to the pricing part, we answer.
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Aashutosh Katre: The first part of the question, which once asked me,
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Aashutosh Katre: is How do we align our deliverables to a brand
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Aashutosh Katre: or a client when we work with them? Typically, we
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Aashutosh Katre: focus on a three pronged approach. The first thing that
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Aashutosh Katre: we try and
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Aashutosh Katre: understand and be code or at sometimes define. Also along
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Aashutosh Katre: with the client, is what is the purpose of this
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Aashutosh Katre: content that is to be created or this communication that
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Aashutosh Katre: needs to be crafted? The purpose could be different for
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Aashutosh Katre: different facts, right? Someone may want right or prioritise brand awareness.
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Aashutosh Katre: Someone may want to align the campaign or the content
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Aashutosh Katre: to their sale pains. So likewise, unless we are clear
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Aashutosh Katre: in terms of what the purpose of the desired objective is,
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Aashutosh Katre: I think the strategy is on weak footing, so that's
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Aashutosh Katre: the first thing we focus on. Next we climbed.
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Aashutosh Katre: Think of what's the person and voice of the brand.
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Aashutosh Katre: Because today every consumer or audience wants to feel the
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Aashutosh Katre: brand in some form or
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Aashutosh Katre: humanise character, right? Every brand ha tends to have a voice,
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Aashutosh Katre: a kind of a stand, a view, a way of speak.
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Aashutosh Katre: And that's what we try and do
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Aashutosh Katre: crack for the clients so that be.
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Aashutosh Katre: And of course, the third piece that becomes most relevant
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Aashutosh Katre: from the audience perspective is making it relevant and personalised
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Aashutosh Katre: to them. For example, we see this happening a lot
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Aashutosh Katre: in terms of domestic audience, and today we have a
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Aashutosh Katre: lot of audience consuming social media and digital media in
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Aashutosh Katre: non-english languages. So that's that becomes a very key aspect
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Aashutosh Katre: when you work, connect with them
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Aashutosh Katre: and stir up some emotions and touch those chords. So
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Aashutosh Katre: we need to reach out to them in the language
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Aashutosh Katre: of their comfort. So that's one type of personalization that
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Aashutosh Katre: I'm talking about. Likewise, there could be different aspects when
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Aashutosh Katre: you're trying to touch upon various traits, various nuances, any
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Aashutosh Katre: kind of subtle or specific piece of segments. So that's
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Aashutosh Katre: the personalization that we try and pack
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Aashutosh Katre: so that this all together works on the entire content
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Aashutosh Katre: strategy piece that we work on coming to the other
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Aashutosh Katre: part of the question in terms of how do we
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Aashutosh Katre: price it? The pricing models work differently for different, different
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Aashutosh Katre: client engagements. For us, there are certain clients with whom
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Aashutosh Katre: we have a very
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Aashutosh Katre: deep and long duration kind of associations which have been
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Aashutosh Katre: worked out. And then there is a feeling that is
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Aashutosh Katre: put together to work on that account and plan for
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Aashutosh Katre: it and strategize for it. And these kind of, uh,
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Aashutosh Katre: plans move from not just immediate tactical ideas and, uh,
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Aashutosh Katre: campaigns, but also with the medium to long term kind
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Aashutosh Katre: of horizon. And all these tactical ideas that you would
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Aashutosh Katre: plan and execute are linear the aligned to the long
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Aashutosh Katre: term objectives that have been spelled out. So there's a
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Aashutosh Katre: lot of time and thought investment that goes in this
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Aashutosh Katre: kind of an approach. And this typically happens when we
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Aashutosh Katre: are working with clients on the retainer models with a
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Aashutosh Katre: defined team structure and kind of and also that is
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Aashutosh Katre: aligned to that kind of a thought.
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Aashutosh Katre: And then there are, of course, fans with whom we've
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Aashutosh Katre: had the opportunity to create certain content, led IP ideas
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Aashutosh Katre: where we co created some ideas and content and there
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Aashutosh Katre: the commercials or the pricing work in connection to the
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Aashutosh Katre: value that is being created along with it. And so
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Aashutosh Katre: there could be some kind of
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Aashutosh Katre: sharing of the revenue that gets generated. Or it could
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Aashutosh Katre: be a defined fee for the entire conceptualization and creation
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Aashutosh Katre: of VIP. So we've had different occasions for pricing the
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Aashutosh Katre: way we've worked with the clients until now. How
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Saikat Pyne: would you go about creating a content strategy for a brand?
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Aashutosh Katre: First thing first, that we would like to understand from
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Aashutosh Katre: the client or a brand like this is what are
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Aashutosh Katre: they trying to achieve? The outreach that we are trying
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Aashutosh Katre: to plan
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Aashutosh Katre: right now is a generation of leads, Or are we
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Aashutosh Katre: looking at creating awareness and then trying to funnel that inbounds?
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Aashutosh Katre: Or are we looking at positioning ourselves as a as
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Aashutosh Katre: a first mover or a or a leading player in
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Aashutosh Katre: the team and trying to build that credibility through putting
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Aashutosh Katre: out content or bringing in visibilities for us as a
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Aashutosh Katre: brand
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Aashutosh Katre: and sharing our experiences, our expertise and our insights so
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Aashutosh Katre: that more and more people become aware of this service
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Aashutosh Katre: as a form and look up to us as a
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Aashutosh Katre: voice of authority or credibility and start following us in
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Aashutosh Katre: terms of any kind of, uh, knowledge building that they
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Aashutosh Katre: would want to do
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Aashutosh Katre: the space that we are operating. So there could be
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Aashutosh Katre: varied objectives. There could be a mix of this. There
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Aashutosh Katre: could be something very specific. So that's what's the first
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Aashutosh Katre: thing we would try to understand. But depending on the
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Aashutosh Katre: outcome that gets spelled out, let's say we were to
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Aashutosh Katre: decide that our objective is to ourselves as in market.
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Aashutosh Katre: We know as our voice with authority, this kind of
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Aashutosh Katre: service offering.
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Aashutosh Katre: So then, for doing that, we would come up with
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Aashutosh Katre: different kind of recommendations and ideas and define a content
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Aashutosh Katre: canvas in terms of what are the areas or content
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Aashutosh Katre: packets which we should be creating our content pieces and
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Aashutosh Katre: all along with that, defining the different formats that we
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Aashutosh Katre: should be looking at and the kind of platforms where
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Aashutosh Katre: we won
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Aashutosh Katre: want to amplify this content or create visibility for typically
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Aashutosh Katre: we go with an approach of creating a central repository
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Aashutosh Katre: of content, and it would rest on your own website
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Aashutosh Katre: and then it is amplified from there on different platforms
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Aashutosh Katre: and build visibility and traction around. Along with this, whether
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Aashutosh Katre: we are looking at adding any mix of any kind of, uh,
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Aashutosh Katre: visibility and contributions from the top management and your senior
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Aashutosh Katre: leadership or your different kind of vertical heads, who would
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Aashutosh Katre: then delve into certain specifics of the domain like someone
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Aashutosh Katre: from your tech teams would talk about the tech aspects
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Aashutosh Katre: of this or your business Lead would talk about the
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Aashutosh Katre: growing need
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Aashutosh Katre: potential for maybe your strategy team. It could speak about
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Aashutosh Katre: how it is relevant and valuable for different kind of
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Aashutosh Katre: linguistic opportunities. So we create a pool of different narratives,
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Aashutosh Katre: touch points and leverage whatever strengths we have as a brand,
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Aashutosh Katre: maybe from the intern talent pool, or create
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Aashutosh Katre: content as a brand itself and then plan out an
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Aashutosh Katre: entire for dissimulating This content aligning this with other communication
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Aashutosh Katre: activities that you may have planned or social calendars that
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Aashutosh Katre: you may have. Because today what we very commonly realise
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Aashutosh Katre: and experience is that the audience is not con consuming
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Aashutosh Katre: our content or our messaging
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Aashutosh Katre: in silos, right? They could be like connecting with us
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Aashutosh Katre: across touch points and even at one point itself, they
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Aashutosh Katre: could be experiencing us as a brand on two different mediums, right?
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Aashutosh Katre: Like a lateral example. If I were to take, let's
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Aashutosh Katre: say you're watching a football match on your television and
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Aashutosh Katre: you are also active on insta putting out stories and
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Aashutosh Katre: keeping with fans who are
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Aashutosh Katre: equally active while the match is on. But both are
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Aashutosh Katre: experiencing the the zeal of the match going live right.
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Aashutosh Katre: It's still the same zone that you are in so likewise,
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Aashutosh Katre: even when it is consuming our content, whether it is on, say,
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Aashutosh Katre: a LinkedIn from their mobile or they are ring us
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Aashutosh Katre: or to a podcast while they are commuting, they're still
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Aashutosh Katre: consuming narratives in different forms at different touch points. So
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Aashutosh Katre: there needs to be a
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Aashutosh Katre: oh, the
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Aashutosh Katre: a similarity or in what we are speaking or out
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Aashutosh Katre: there in different form factors. So there needs to be
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Aashutosh Katre: an alignment in our messaging that is getting planned out
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Aashutosh Katre: and over a period of time because we can't be
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Aashutosh Katre: shifting what we speak and the way we speak. So
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Aashutosh Katre: we very
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Aashutosh Katre: actively insist on clients sharing their other communication plans with
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Aashutosh Katre: us if we are not managing it for them at
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Aashutosh Katre: a comprehensive level, so that ultimately, let's say whatever the
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Aashutosh Katre: PR team or the PR agency is doing and what
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Aashutosh Katre: your marketing team is doing and what your Social Media
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Aashutosh Katre: team is doing, it always needs to tie up and
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Aashutosh Katre: all fit together in a collaborative manner to work for
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Aashutosh Katre: the benefit of the brand.
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Aashutosh Katre: So that's how we craft out an entire to strategy
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Aashutosh Katre: and then get into the execution part of it, which
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Aashutosh Katre: typically works on a on a scheduled calendar manner. And,
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Aashutosh Katre: of course, uh, being, uh, being in the area of
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Aashutosh Katre: friends and
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Aashutosh Katre: topicals, we always have to be on our toes to
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Aashutosh Katre: spot something that is time sensitive and mind you relevant
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Aashutosh Katre: to us, or we kind of time latch on to
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Aashutosh Katre: it as
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Saikat Pyne: an AN for the benefit of, Let's say, a solo,
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Saikat Pyne: a solo premier or a student founder or somebody who
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Saikat Pyne: might not have the finances to afford the services at
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Saikat Pyne: the moment. What is your advice on how not to
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Saikat Pyne: mess up your content strategy and social media game?
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Aashutosh Katre: So I think the first thing that I would
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Aashutosh Katre: recommend or advise to a solo runner like this is
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Aashutosh Katre: not to be inefficient and in a rush. A lot
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Aashutosh Katre: of times, what happens is folks tend to get out
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Aashutosh Katre: there and try and put something just because they don't
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Aashutosh Katre: want to be out.
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Aashutosh Katre: There's already so much known there are competition, competition who
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Aashutosh Katre: already active. You have 10 other.
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Aashutosh Katre: Yeah,
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Aashutosh Katre: budding runners like you who are already maybe five steps
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Aashutosh Katre: ahead of you. But it's OK. Take your time to first.
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Aashutosh Katre: Be sure of how we want your or your brand
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Aashutosh Katre: or be understood. They have to be clarity. Yes, you can.
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Aashutosh Katre: You can, uh,
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Aashutosh Katre: evolve. You can mature just like an individual does. You
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Aashutosh Katre: can have a slightly different view on things compared to
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Aashutosh Katre: what it was earlier, but
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Aashutosh Katre: it still has to be
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Aashutosh Katre: something which grows on from particular point and not live to,
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Aashutosh Katre: because audiences invest their their trust, their faith, their affinity
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Aashutosh Katre: in a brand. When they start interacting with us and
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Aashutosh Katre: if because of any kind of lack of clarity or
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Aashutosh Katre: jumping around like a brand, we quite naturally tick them off. Right?
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Aashutosh Katre: So my advice would be, don't be in a rush
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Aashutosh Katre: And don't try and spread yourself in in trying to
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Aashutosh Katre: be present everywhere in every form.
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Aashutosh Katre: It's OK to start more kind of. Stabilise yourself in
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Aashutosh Katre: terms of how your brand is coming out there in
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Aashutosh Katre: front of people. And then, as you have more and more,
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Aashutosh Katre: I would say resources you can build on what you started.
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Aashutosh Katre: Um,
00:15:29
Saikat Pyne: and on that insightful note, guys, it's a wrap.
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Saikat Pyne: Thank you so much for being on the podcast with us.
00:15:35
Saikat Pyne: Really appreciate you taking time out.
00:15:38
Aashutosh Katre: Thank you so much. You were lovely chatting up and
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Aashutosh Katre: I hope we can catch a time soon.
00:15:44
Saikat Pyne: Absolutely. We will. And guys on that note, please do
00:15:49
Saikat Pyne: tune in next week for the next episode of the
00:15:52
Saikat Pyne: U Incorporated podcast. See ya.
00:15:59
Saikat Pyne: Thank you for tuning into the U incorporated podcast with me.
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