Content Strategy – The WHAT
In plain English, a Content Strategy is a plan for how you’ll produce and publish content for your audience(s).
And let’s be clear – we’re not just talking about written content here.
Content can come in many, many forms. Here’s a basic list of the types of content we see most business publishing:
- Written blog posts
- Written social media captions
- Recorded video
- Live video
- Recorded audio
- Live audio
Content Strategy – The WHY
Why create all this free content?
For plenty of reasons, depending on who you are and what your marketing strategy looks like.
Here are the main reasons we create content in the first place:
- To serve our current prospects with helpful information, moving them closer and closer to become a paying customer
- To improve the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of our websites
- To create and publish now and then package together to sell later
As you might’ve guessed, the most important thing our content can do for us, as business owners, is to move a prospect closer to becoming a paid customer.
Right? At the end of the day, any marketing effort, even those that feel really good to execute, better be leading to a sale.
AKA we’re not creating content for our health, people.
So as we dive deeper into what types of business owners could use a solid content strategy and how to create and implement one, remember the end result we’re ultimately trying to get to with our content:
A sale.
Content Strategy – The WHO
So, who needs a Content Strategy?
In short, anyone creating content. (Of course.)
But it goes deeper than that.
I see many business owners out there getting lost in trying to create content when what they’re really best at is something completely opposite of content creation.
So while your marketing strategy might need to involve a little or a lot of content, remember to outsource content creation if it doesn’t align with who you naturally are.
And on that note, different forms of content will feel better or worse to different Marketing Personality Types.
So for instance, an ESFP might find creating and publishing video content to be SO MUCH FUN, while an INFJ’s stomach turns at the thought of hitting the video record button.
Be aware of not only whether or not you need a Content Strategy to make your best marketing strategy work well, but also what format of content will feel best to you.
Here are some trends I see when it comes to the form of content you’re creating, based on Marketing Personality Type:
- Video often feels good for ENFJs, ESFJs, and ESFPs
- Written content often feels good for INFJs, INFPs, ISFJs, ESTJs
- Podcasting/Audio often feels good for ENTJs, ENTPs, INFJs, ENFJs, ENFPs, ESTJs, ISFPs, and ESFPs
And if you don’t see your Marketing Personality Type listed above, you might consider outsourcing content creation.
So as we identify those trends, answer these two questions:
- Am I the one to be creating content for my business?
- If yes, what form of content might feel best for you to create and publish?
Okay. We know you need a solid content strategy to make sure your best marketing strategy works to earn you paying clients and customers.
We know what form your content will take, based on your Marketing Personality Type.
Now we need to face the things that often keep business owners STUCK when it comes to creating and publishing content regularly.
And also why, even when you’re pumping out regular content to your audience, it doesn’t seem to be WORKING.
Here’s the deal. We can get three key things WRONG when trying to create and publish content that’ll hold us back.
These three crucial pieces of our content strategy are:
- TONE
- TOPIC
- TIMING
First, the tone of your content needs to match your Marketing Personality Type. Otherwise, whatever you say in your content will fall flat and has the chance of coming off as fake and salesy.
For instance, ISFJs are often exceptionally skilled at creating step-by-step educational content, while they’re less skilled at creating entertaining, story-based content. So if an ISFJ tries to create and publish story-based content that’s entertaining, it not only will feel icky to her, but it’ll also feel a bit forced with her audience.
We definitely don’t want our content to feel forced in any way.
Secondly, the topic of your content needs to match the needs of your ideal customer. I think most of us already know this and it’s where most Content Strategy trainings start. I’m not going to take a bunch of time in this blog post to show you how to outline your content topics – I’ll save that for our webinar coming up.
And third, as the content creators, we have to get the timing of our content creation correct.
I see so much business owners getting their tone right and their topics are so on-point, but then when they sit down to actually create content, they freeze. They find other things to do. They check their email inbox 473 times in an hour. They procrastinate. They feel crappy about the whole thing.
So obviously, it’s one thing to have a great Content Strategy. It’s a whole other thing to actually implement it consistently.
But how do you find the way that’s best for YOU to create this content?
Should you batch all your content for the month and create it all in one day?
Should you make an appointment with yourself to create content every Thursday morning and just show up and do it?
Here’s the thing – I’ve figured out one key indicator that’ll tell us what’s best for you, batching or creating a regular routine around content creation.
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