When the owner of a company makes an appearance, the content creates a stronger personal connection between brands and their audience.
No matter whether you’re targeting a cold audience or a warm audience, when the founder of a brand addresses their customers, it tends to give them that fuzzy feeling.
You know how people like to be made to feel special!
People think that founder-led content is most likely to be in video format, but that’s missing more opportunities to connect across channels.
The connection you build with your audience is stronger if you produce diverse content across multiple channels, over time.
For example, you could include a personal message to customers with their first purchase.
A follow-up email or message a couple of days later is a simple thing to implement, and shows you really care about them as a valued customer.
In this article, we take a look at how you can use founder-led content to your advantage.
Types of Founder-Led Content
There are several types of founder-led content:
- The story behind the brand
- The background, history and experience of the founder
- Welcome video/message
- Product demos
- Presentations/workshops
- Interviews
- Feedback sessions
- Objection Busting
- Thank You videos
The key to producing founder-led content that engages customers is that it doesn’t always have to focus on you.
You can also focus on the benefits of the product, seen through your eyes.
Having a likeable personality helps, but it’s not just about you: customers want the content to be about them and how your product is beneficial.
LadyBoss’ founder Kaelin Poulin with a product explainer video
Using a spokesperson?
An issue some brand owners face is a lack of time.
Creating a sufficient quantity of content to leverage online visibility can be very time consuming.
Or you might just not feel comfortable being on camera.
You may, therefore, want to consider appointing a “face” of the business to help supplement your own appearances.
For example, an employee/s that fit the persona of your audience. Or even a paid actor.
Chatbooks, for example, has an excellent series of product video explainers starring Lisa Valentine Clark, the “face” of the brand.
You can also use influencers that have a reputation in your field to act as brand ambassadors.
Remember the aim of founder-led content is to humanise your business so you don’t appear like a faceless entity.
Beware placing all your eggs in one basket though, in case the relationship breaks down and you lose that recognisable “face”.
Why Create Founder-Led Content?
With consumer trust in corporate brands at an all-time low, there’s a pressing need for brands to connect with customers.
Today’s consumers aren’t concerned primarily with price and quality alone.
Often they want to be assured your brand is transparent and authentic, and fits their values.
This is the reason people buy into brand stories much more than they buy a product.
They want to know who you are, feel more involved, and be assured your products are right for them and their community.
Where to use Founder-Led Content?
The most powerful content is when a founder follows customers from the first contact, all the way through the funnel through light touch-points (you don’t want them to feel like you are stalking them either!)
The objective is to go on the customer’s journey with them, creating that personal connection.
For example, you could be the first contact they have the brand, via a video ad, explaining the product benefits.
Then they get to your website, and they see a short introduction about the reason behind why you created that product and why you are passionate about it.
Once they purchase the product, they receive a thank-you email with your signature at the bottom, thanking them for their purchase.
A few days later, they will receive an email from you asking for feedback about the product, and asking for a review.
It doesn’t have to be heavy-handed, and you don’t need to show your face all the time either!
Here is an example of newsletter with a signature from the fashion collective founder, Garance Doré.
Creating Founder-Led Content
Founder-led content doesn’t have to be high end production.
Face to camera videos shot with a smartphone will suffice.
Authenticity is key.
If you are struggling to tell your story in a face-to-camera monologue, or even to write it down, there are plenty of solutions!
You could get a local journalist, an influential blogger, a member of your team or even a family member to simply interview you.
They ask the questions, you answer them – much easier than improvising a monologue! You can record the whole exchange, and you have a pretty good basis for a video, once condensed and edited.
With a bit more planning, you could make a mini-documentary, “A Day In The Life”-style.
Using your phone, record mini-videos, take some pictures, write some captions about the activities, arrange this together in a video.
Post it on Facebook, Instagram or in a blog post, and here is a great piece of content showing behind the scenes of your business.
Customers LOVE behind-the-scenes – they feel a connection with the business owner, they feel part of the story.
It doesn’t need to be picture perfect either – show real life moments!
Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin doing a walkthrough of their warehouse. This video has been watched over 12M times and could have been shot on an iPhone!
