The next step in creating your content marketing plan is to figure out what you want your content to do, both for you and for your audience. Just like I said in the title – your content needs a purpose!
It’s a big day today. There’s a lot to get through, but don’t give up! You’re halfway done with creating your content marketing plan, and you’ll have far better results with your content creation if you have a clear plan and know where you are going.
One of the reasons a lot of people have trouble creating content is that they don’t understand why they’re creating it. Every piece of content you create needs a reason for being, otherwise, you’re wasting your efforts.
To narrow down the purpose of any type of content you’re creating you want to ask yourself a few questions:
What Are Your Overall Business Goals For Your Content?
You don’t want to waste time creating content for the sake of it, just because you think you should.
While every piece of content should have a purpose, it should also link back to your overall business goals.
Are you creating content to establish your expertise, to enhance your SEO, to build a community, to educate your audience, or perhaps a mix of those things? If so, why? What will your business ultimately gain from your content creation?
Who Are You Creating the Content For?
This is where all that work we did on our target market in the last couple of days pays off.
Use your target market info that you came up with to help you focus on the content you’re creating, the content types your audience prefers and their problems and concerns.
The content you create for people on your list will also depend on how they signed up for the list, which freebie they downloaded, which product they purchased, and what your goals are for that part of your list (known as a segment).
The content you create for the audience you have that has never purchased or converted in any way will be different.
Where is The Content Going?
Where you’re publishing the content makes a big difference too. If you’re publishing it on your blog it will be different than if you’re sending it via email – a blog post can be very long, while an email shouldn’t be.
Also, the page it’s going on your site is important too. Is it a blog post, part of your ‘About me’ page, or another page? What is the purpose of the page it’s going on or the list it’s going to?
What Are You Trying to Communicate?
When you sit down to create the content ask yourself this question and start brainstorming the answers. That way you can keep looking at that as you’re creating the content.
Try to keep it to one topic instead of spreading it too thin. You should have one overarching message you want the viewer to take away from the content you’ve created.
How Does the Content Fit with What You Already Have?
Before creating any new content, you should always go through the content you already have so that you can see what you’ve already published about that topic.
You may be able to take bits and pieces of content you’ve already created to make it into something new (content repurposing) or, if it’s totally new content with a new angle how does it fit in with what you have and make it better?
What is The Goal of the Content?
Every bit of content you publish needs a point. Do you want to educate, inform, inspire or engage your audience, or a combination of these options?
When you think about the goal of the content you will have an easier time creating it so it does what you want it to do.
What Do You Want Viewers to Do?
Finally, you need to decide what you want your viewer to do once they’ve consumed your content.
Remember to put a strong Call To Action (CTA) through your content, and especially at the end, where you tell your audience exactly what you want them to do. Don’t hint, don’t just put a sign-up box at the end, come right out and tell them what you want them to do.
Need some help with writing a strong Call To Action? Check out this brilliant article from Neil Patel to get you started: https://neilpatel.com/blog/write-magnetic-call-to-actions/.
Once these questions are answered, you’ll have a much better idea about the direction to go with every piece of content you create because it’s going to fit in with your overall business goals as well as the goal you have for each individual piece of content.
Action Point!
Okay, there’s quite a lot to do here – Establish why your business is creating content in the first place. Then start to think about where you want to post your content (don’t worry too much about this one right now, as we’ll cover it in more detail in a couple of days).
Look at what content you already have and see where there are any gaps, and how you can improve it. Then, finally, think about what you want your audience to do when they read, watch or listen to your content.
Phew, that’s a lot, isn’t it? But you’re really getting somewhere with your content plan, so keep plugging away. And as always, drop me a comment below if you need any help.
All done for Day 6. Tomorrow, we’re looking at establishing goals for each piece of content you post.
Don’t want to wait? Prefer to get all of the 30-Day Content Marketing Challenge posts in one place, so you can work through at your own pace? Here’s a link to all of the challenge lessons: https://creativeblueberry.com/30-day-content-marketing-challenge-catch-up/
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