I dare you to give it a go and you’ll never be contentless again! It’s really important to have goals for your content before you set off because you want your content efforts to be measurable and provide you with a return on energy.
Content Strategy Goals
Start with setting yourself goals for the next three months let’s say. Get really specific, you want to increase your web traffic by 100%, you want to add 500 subscribers to your email list or you want to make a specific amount of revenue or launch a webinar. Once you have your content goals, you’re ready to get started.
Content Strategy Topics
We’re going to focus on your content topics next. These are cornerstone topics and they come first, you can worry about your primary and secondary content types and your micro content later. This is about creating a content map so you know what you’ll be talking or writing about each week.
Armed with post-it notes and a sharpie, let’s get ready to brainstorm 8 weeks of content topics in 8 minutes. Here’s what you do.
You’re going to use these questions as the framework to brainstorm your content topics, take a screen shot, grab your post-it notes and set your timer for 8 minutes.
Questions to trigger your content topics
Here we go, you can use a different colour post-it note for each question and try to list at least two answers for each. Write it down on a post-it note and pop it on the wall.
What questions do your clients or audience ask you all the time?
If they aren’t, what questions do you think your audience should be asking you.
What topics (that are relevant to your services) are you passionate about or love talking about?
What are some big pain points for your clients?
What are some of their biggest wants or desires?
You really don’t need to make this any more complicated than it needs to be (and post-it notes is about as high tech as it gets). And I always find that while the answer may be really simple to you, they’re not always that obvious to your clients.
I created my next three months worth of content topics this morning which led me to share this process with you. The cool thing is once I started racking my brains thinking about the types of questions people ask me in Power Hours, the types of issues business owners have when we start working together or the conversations I have in coaching calls it really started flowing.
I do this for my business, it’s really effective, fast and you won’t be short on content topic ideas for weeks if not months.
Six Steps to Creating a Content Strategy
Now that you’ve got your content topics nailed, are you ready for my six steps to creating your content strategy?
1. Set your content goal or objective. This could be to add 500 subscribers, double your web traffic, whatever it is set your top level goal for your content. Each piece of content must deliberately support your goals.
2. Decide on your content types. What type of content will you create to support your goal? Select at least three content types. It could be a blog, a podcast, a Facebook live for example.
3. Micro-content. List the platforms and types of micro-content you’ll need. It could be a quote graphic, a testimonial, a slideshow. Think about what assets will you need?
4. Your content campaign. For the month, what is your campaign? This could be focussed on a particular service offering. Every month, you want to be adding value but also making an offer with a clear call to action as your content goals should include revenue goals!
5. Repurpose! I’m a big fan of repurposing content and creating multiple micro posts out of a larger piece of content. Remember, when you post something on social media only about 6% of your audience will see it so don’t be shy to repeat yourself. (See my post 'Get extra mileage out of your content marketing strategy).
6. Schedule. I talk about the 80-20 rule and it applies to content marketing too. When you schedule, you want to be thinking about how 80% of the time you can add value to your audience and then 20% of the time you can ask for the click, the call, the sale. Batch content and schedule in advance to save you loads of time on a daily basis and it'll allow you to show up consistently which is absolutely key.
Every piece of content you create must be deliberate. It must have an intention, an objective and an action.
Remember to review, track what's working and what's not so you can update your goals and your content regularly for maximum impact.
There you have it, a whistle stop tour of coming up with content topics and six super simple steps to creating your content strategy! Give it a try, it'll only take 8 minutes.
Make sure you send me a pic of your post-it note party and tag me on social, I want to see what colourful creation you come up with. And remember to grab your copy of the free Weekly Marketing Checklist to help you out.
