Want a simple and effective content strategy that shows you exactly what to do? A content strategy needs to be easy to execute, without you needing to spend hours a day creating content. You want your content to have an actual real impact on your business.
Effective content has people asking to work with you. You are not left wondering if your content will work, you know it will. An effective content strategy gives you results, so you can continue to get paid in your business and put food on the table!
You don’t just produce content for the sake of it. If you are, then you’re missing opportunities and clients. I often see people posting content with no purpose. It’s kind of hanging there and there is no flow or journey they are taking potential clients on.
When I first started out, I had no plan with my content. I would just show up and throw up. I learned something, then taught it, but I didn’t have a content strategy.
Over the years, I realised that without having a client journey set out in my content plan and implementing that in my content, then I was wasting my time posting content that did not have an end goal.
It’s really nice to have some spontaneous content, and that’s what I love using stories and lifestyle posts for. You also want to make sure that you have solid content that is doing its job of attracting clients to you.
One of the biggest downfalls that I see is people frustrated because they don’t have a strategy and they are not influencing people with their content. Their content is not shifting people’s perspectives. They’re not actually using their content to get qualified leads.
Successful content needs to be of value to your target audience. It answers the questions that your potential clients have at a particular stage in their client journey. This increases the chances of the right people wanting to work with you.
An effective content strategy has a number of essential ingredients and if you miss them, you can miss out on turning your followers into buyers. To get your content strategy doing its job, there are principles you can follow that work consistently. ⠀
Over the last 10+ years creating online content in my business, I’ve discovered there are 5 essential elements that an effective content strategy has, so I’m going to share them with you today.
1. Build Your Content Backwards From Your Signature Offer
I like what Steven Covey says, “Start with the end in mind.” It’s one of his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
The endpoint of your client’s journey is to buy your big premium package offer. So, this is where you have to start from. If you don’t have a premium offer, then that’s something I help people to create.
Your offer has to be irresistible and contain all the components of a great offer. Your offer needs to have things like community, an element of coaching or consulting, and some element of a curriculum. When you’ve built out your offer, then you can start reverse-engineering it.
Successful content answers the questions your potential clients’ have during their client journey.
To reverse engineer your offer, you need to think through the following:
- What do people need to know before they will buy your offer?
- What do people need to know to take them through from Point A to Point B into transformation?
- What do they need to believe? (A lot of times people aren’t buying your offer because they’ve got beliefs that we actually need to shift through our content.)
- What do they need to think about you?
- What do they need to think about the solution you offer?
Your content needs to answer the questions potential clients have at a subconscious level. When most people are surfing the internet or scrolling through their social media feeds, they are often not looking at a logical level. They are looking at a subconscious level.
Everyone has multiple problems and they often sit at an unconscious level. If someone comes across a piece of your content that solves one of their problems, they will probably be interested in what you have to offer.
Your content needs to overcome people’s objections and limiting beliefs. You can’t overcome every objection in one post. You need to aim to overcome one objection in one piece of content.
For example, if you have a three-month health coaching package. People consuming your content may think that they don’t need a coaching package because they can just go on a diet they found in a magazine.
One of your pieces of content might aim to tackle this objection, so you would talk about how magazine diets are written by people who don’t know anything about you. They are created by a random stranger, who does not know your individual lifestyle or unique nutritional needs. You would do one post on that topic only.
People who read your content often don’t know that they need a coach, and they don’t know that they need your specific program. Your content needs to show them how you’re going to solve their problem, so they will be interested.
2. Make Sure Every Piece Of Content Has A Purpose
A common mistake I see is people posting without a purpose. A lot of people post content without really thinking about why. I’ve definitely done this before, and I’ve looked back and asked myself why did I present it? What was the point?
Think about the purpose of your last 3 posts. Was the purpose to:
- Get more engagement?
- Attract more people?
- Overcome a belief?
- Sell something?
- Build connection?
There are so many things you will need to share with someone before they will invest money in you. That’s why you need a strategy to make sure that you’re covering all the points. And you can’t try and change all the areas of someone’s beliefs in one post, or one blog. You can’t tell all your stories in one post.
There are so many things you will need to share with a potential client before they will invest money in you.
What I recommend is that you have one idea, and with that, you may share 3 tips. It’s like an umbrella that the tips hang under. Ask yourself what your point is and if you’ve evoked emotion or invoked curiosity.
If your content does not have a purpose, it won’t draw potential clients to you, so they actually sign up with you. If you haven’t got a purpose and intentional plan about where each piece of content fits in your over-arching strategy, it can’t achieve the goal of attracting clients.
3. Create A Consistent Content Schedule
If you don’t have a schedule, you’ll probably find that you get to the end of the week and haven’t posted much. Or you have posted, but it’s about your walk, your food, or your time in the sun. You’ve not posted purposeful content that actually gets results.
A couple of years ago I decided I was going to commit to every single week doing one main big piece of content. I decided to do one video, and then I was going to leverage that piece of content.
This content is my Facebook Live video. I upload it on my YouTube channel so it’s building my channel, and I’m putting it into a blog every week. My YouTube is growing and my website content is being updated each week.
I actually was interviewed on a podcast and that person found me because I was posting consistently on YouTube. I don’t have a massive reach or a really big following, but people still constantly find me on Google because I’m always updating my website and content.
When you have a consistent content schedule, you know when you’re going to create and when you’re going to post. Wednesday is what I call my cave day. On my cave day I turn my phone off, go out in nature and think through my content. I map things out on paper. I don’t have any clients on a Wednesday. Wednesday is my content creation day.
To create a content schedule, you need to decide on and map out:
- What you’re going to post
- When you’re going to post
- What platforms you’re going to post on
4. Rotate Between Different Types Of Content
Rotating between different types of content is important so you don’t just do the same type of content all the time. There are 5 types of content that I personally rotate between and each has a different purpose. You can have more or less than these.
My 5 content types are:
1. Attraction
2. Educational
3. Belief-shifting
4. Inspirational
5. Promotional
An example of what I do with one of my content types is my belief-shifting content pieces. With these pieces, I think about what someone’s current belief is. Then I think about what I want them to believe instead, to help them overcome their limiting beliefs. This is so they can transform and actually get what they want in life.
People often are giving so much value in their content, yet they never invite people to work with them or make an offer. Then there are other people who are always promoting constantly but never giving much value.
There’s a balance that you have to achieve where you give valuable content but also make an offer.
There’s a balance that you have to achieve where you are giving valuable content, but also making an offer. The scales need to be balanced.
When you’re giving so much value but never inviting people to work with you, you will end up broke. It’s not just about you staying in business and making money, but also about helping people to get transformation.
5. Create A Clear Content Journey
A content journey leads your audience from one step (say a social media post) to the next (maybe giving you their email address). However, many posts on social media, emails or blog posts, exist as a disconnected function rather than an active part of a marketing funnel.
When a connection is formed, you need to nurture those people with more relevant content. If you don’t have a next step planned out, there’s no incentive for those consuming your content to do anything after they’ve consumed it. There’s nowhere for the person to go after they have read your post or watched your video.
Instead, you always want to have an action item for the person at the end of your content which is part of your marketing funnel. For example, with your blog posts or Facebook Live videos, ideally, you want to offer a downloadable freebie or cheat sheet at the end or you may invite them to a Zoom event that you are holding.
The concept of a marketing funnel is you get lots of people coming in at the top of your funnel. This might be from an invite to download a free PDF in which you give some value. The person gives you their email address in exchange for your downloadable.
Email addresses are gold. People who opt-in are a lot warmer because they have said yes to you already. I get hundreds of people open my emails and I’d never be able to get that reach organically just using email.
People who opt-in are a lot warmer because they have already said yes to you.
In the next funnel step, you may offer a strategy session with you, which you can put on the downloadable offer thank you page of your funnel landing page. So the journey is, the person comes in from your social media post, blog, or however they found you, then they take the steps through your marketing funnel.
You cross-pollinate all the way through. It’s like you’ve got all these fishing rods out in the water. It may be on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook posts. Each has different lead generation avenues of drawing traffic. People come in at a high level and they are filtered down to become paid clients right at the bottom.
You want to think of your content pieces as part of your whole over-arching strategy. If you’re finding that you’re not getting the results you want from your content, it’s probably time to rethink your content strategy.
P.S Whenever you’re ready… here are 3 other ways I can help you grow your business:
1. Grab a free copy of my ‘Client Attraction Checklist‘
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2. Join the community and connect with like-minded Coaches & Experts
It’s our Facebook community where ambitious entrepreneurs learn how to increase their income, influence, and impact. — Join Us Here
3. Work with me privately
If you’d like to work directly with me … just send me a Facebook Message with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! — Message Here
