Content marketing tips from Motion Sickness Studio

(From left to right) Founders of Motion Sickness Studio Sam Stuchbury, Alex McManus and Jono De Alwis.

Sam Stuchbury is creative director and founder of Auckland-based creative, social and content agency Motion Sickness Studio.

What kinds of content marketing do you do for your own business and why?

When we started the business a couple of years ago we focused on developing our social media, so building a following on Facebook and Instagram. First of all that worked as a platform for us to push our business, but also to push our work.

So if we produced content or a campaign for a client our own social media platforms allowed us to show the kind of work we were doing. That meant that more people would see our clients' work, but also the type of stuff we were producing, with the aim that it would generate more work for us. Also, the nature of our work to begin with was a lot of online video and photography and that's spread really easily on Facebook.

As we've grown we've spread more into doing things like EDMs. Every month or so we produce something called the MSS Insider and it gives an update of the kind of work we've been doing at the studio and any new campaigns we've done.

The number of subscribers to that newsletter is growing all the time and they're mainly industry people - so marketing managers, or advertising people or people who are just interested in film and creative and advertising campaigns.

We've found that's really good for generating new work just because of the nature of some of the subscribers we've got. As soon as we release new work we get good feedback and lots of enquiries.

People get lots of things landing in their inboxes though. What do you think has helped you get good traction with that particular content?

Whenever we produce these things we try to make them really personal, with a tone like we're just talking. The nature of our work is also really visual and we let that do most of the talking, so there's not too much text and it's something you can read quickly.

Also the content is always unique - like a short film we did as part of a campaign for a client - so it's trying to show people something different that hasn't been seen before. Another thing is the frequency isn't structured; we just do it when we have enough fresh work to put out there, so we don't force it.

We get approached all the time to do music videos or to help startup businesses with stuff, and we're pretty selective in what we take on but occasionally we do take on work that is not profitable - it's just a creative piece we all enjoy doing. Again the nature of those projects means people will see them through those kinds of channels, and it also keeps things fresh for us. It's often on those projects where you can push the boundaries.

How do you measure the impact of any of your content marketing efforts?

Whenever we put out new work for a client we get enquiries. Our Facebook page is also pretty trackable and we can see what interest we're getting from there. Another thing our Facebook page is really valuable for is recruitment. We're growing pretty quickly and we often need to bring people on for jobs and if we put something on our Facebook page we'll get loads of people sending in their portfolios.

What's some advice you'd give to other small business owners to get the most engagement with any content they're creating?

Make sure there's a strategy behind the content you're producing. So if you're running a Facebook page for a brand you've got to make sure there's a strategy there for the next two months and that all the content you're producing there is cohesive, valuable to consumers and fits your brand well. And social media shouldn't operate in a vacuum, so link everything to your overall marketing strategy.

I think creating original content is also a big thing. There's so much content on the web now that people can share easily, so I think it's important to create your own stuff to stay fresh and capture people's attention.

Also, businesses will sometimes take a piece of content that's meant for elsewhere - so they'll take a print advertisement, or a TV commercial - and just place it on their Facebook page and expect it to work. But it doesn't because it's a completely different platform and people engage with it in a different way. Content needs to be specifically designed and executed for the platform where it's being placed.