See How Easily You Can Plan a Month of Content in Less Than an Hour
Does content planning fall to the bottom of your to-do list? Or worse, doesn’t happen at all? Here at Trusty Oak, we get it. Our clients often delegate content planning to our top VAs. Content planning can be a daunting task full of questions. Like, what should I post? How do I engage my audience? Look no further than this blog post, where we will answer all your questions.
Are you looking for an efficient way to plan your content marketing strategy and create a month’s worth of content ideas in less than an hour? Remember that it may take longer than an hour to familiarize yourself with the process the first time. However, once you have a handle on the system, it will only take an hour each month to plan your content. This allows you to consistently show up for your audience, which is crucial for social media success. The system provided in this blog post will assist you in engaging your audience and growing your following, ultimately leading to more leads at the top of your sales funnel.
Related: We Need to Talk About the 3 Pillars of Content: It’s a Game Changer
Step One: Pick a Topic + How to Never Run Out of Topic
Gather a pen and paper and make yourself comfortable; you are about to learn the best content planning strategy. On the top page, write down one topic, ideally one that you could discuss extensively. But, if you’re struggling to come up with a topic, here are three methods to ensure you never run out of ideas:
- Keep a note on your phone where you can jot down topic ideas as they come to you. Creativity often strikes when you’re not actively working, so having a quick and easy way to document your ideas can prevent you from losing them.
- Use websites like Quora or Reddit to search for common questions in your niche. By answering these questions, you can demonstrate that you are attentive to your audience and build trust with them.
- Use Google to search for questions related to your niche, then scroll down to the “People also ask” section. Clicking the arrow next to each question. Every time you click the arrow, more topics will appear in the list. If you click to expand each topic, you will have double, if not triple, the questions than when you started—providing you with a wealth of ideas to choose from.
Now that you have your main topic written down, plus a bunch of topic ideas for future months, it’s time to turn that topic into 27 content ideas!
Step Two: Problem, Desire, Solution
To further break down your main topic, divide it into three subtopics: problem, desire, and solution. Using your buyer persona as a reference can aid in this step. For each subtopic, create three subtopics that align with problem, desire, and solution.
For example, if your main topic is “how to grow your audience,” Your subtopic would look like this:
- Problem: Low engagement, not enough time, and imposter syndrome
- Desire: Have an engaged audience, grow my following, and boost my click-through rate
- Solution: Make a good lead magnet, done is better than perfect, how to engage your audience
Most businesses only create solution-based content. But most audience members don’t know they have the problem in the first place. Making content that shows your audience that they have a problem and the desire to fix it will boost your engagement. Plus, boost your click-through rate.
Step Three: Using the Three Pillars of Content Education, Inspirational, and Entertaining
Most businesses post one kind of content; promoting their product as a solution. But as you can tell from earlier, that leads to low engagement. Using the three pillars of content; educational, inspirational, and entertaining, you will be an unstoppable social media presence.
Now take each topic you came up with in the previous step and turn it into three more topics; educational, inspirational, and entertainment. For example, if your main topic is” how to grow your audience.” If one of your problem topics is “low engagement,” your education, inspiration, and entertaining topics would be as follows:
- Educational: How to use the three pillars of content to engage your audience
- Inspirational: Showcase the feeling of sadness due to low engagement and transition to the feeling of joy due to high engagement
- Entertaining: Doing a happy dance because the strategy I learned from Trusty Oak worked
Now, as a bonus, you can turn each topic into different forms of content. One topic could be a short-form video, a long-form video, a blog post, a picture, an email, or even a webinar. Whatever forms of content you use. This method will help align your forms of content to work together. Which will help move your leads through your sales funnel. If people discover your short-form video and you can send them to your blog, that gets your lead on your website!
See how planning your content using this method can drastically improve your content marketing to lead to more sales? If you run into any roadblocks while using this strategy, use the methods in step one to find topic ideas. Or reach out to Trusty Oak to have one of our top U.S.-based VAs do it for you!
I have worked with clients to build marketing strategies and social media calendars. I create and automate content to entice new leads. I implement steps to help nurture your leads through the four stages of the buyer journey; Awareness, interest, desire, and action. Stop questioning where your leads are in the buyer journey and know the exact approach to turn your leads into loyal customers. Add me to your team to gain your lead magnet.
Why do I have a geeky obsession with marketing? I live in California, a state with a fire ban 80% of the year. As a fire dancer, I use marketing and PR skills to ensure my right to showcase my passion. Every time I practice, I am reminded that small steps turn into long-term achievements thanks to my mentors and my favorite book, the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. What would you say to a strategy to achieve your long-term goals while using your short-term goals as benchmarks? Umm, yes, please! Let’s work together and reach our goals!