The 3 Key Things You Should Do Before Creating Content
“I never know what content to post.”
“Content creation takes too much time.”
“It feels like my content is doing nothing for my business.”
Here’s the thing… you're probably right! 🤷♀️
Let’s face it. Content is a HUGE part of a marketing strategy. However, reaching a level of content mastery comes when you do the work that comes BEFORE the content creation and will evan make the content creation process easy and fun… because guess what? Creating content that shares your expertise and builds trust with your community should be FUN and also drive results for your business!
Let us introduce you to the who/what/how method 📝
🙋♀️Who Is Your Target Audience?
This should not be a vague answer. For example, let’s say you sell trendy collars and leashes for dogs and you discover that your primary audience is women ages 20-40 who live in major cities.
This is a good start, however, the key to closer audience discovery is to ask the questions around this demographic.
Here’s some examples:
Where do they hang out? What stores do they shop at? What brands do they love and follow? What is their design aesthetic? Ect. These can help you truly begin to speak to your audience and know them on a closer level so that your marketing gets more targeted and feels natural to them.
🛒What Is Your Key Offer?
A big mistake many businesses make is spreading themselves too thin and lacking consistency in their product and service offerings. What is the PRIMARY service you offer and the main reason your customers hire you or purchase from you?
Get specific. For instance, if you're a social media agency, look at the similarities between the clients that hire you/that you're prospecting and the main service you provide/would provide for them. What are the main social media platforms you are hired to focus on? What content do you create that performs the best? What part of your process and skillset do clients seem to find the most valuable and positively comment on the most? In a saturated market, what helps you be the final choice for clients? Get really specific and truly think about what sets you apart. This will help you focus your marketing and niche down.
🎯How Do You Engage With Them?
Do you currently have any sales funnels set up to help your prospects inch a step closer to working with you? If not, we've got you! If you read that question and are wondering 'WHAT is a sales funnel?' Cliff notes version: A strategic formula using a free resource to gather contact info from ideal prospects you'd like to eventually invest in working with you that help to build trust and make working with you the next best and most obvious step once you've built trust with them.
📝The 3 Step Process
Here’s a 3-step process you can use to build your funnel: 💫
Step 1️: Create a free resource that ties back to your key offer (that you identified above)
Example: Let's say you're a creative web design agency looking to find more prospects who are small businesses in the eCommerce space in the beauty and skincare industry. You could record a masterclass with the topic being "The 5 Key Elements Every eCommerce Website Needs To Increase Sales + Conversions" because this would appeal to the small business owner trying to sell more for their eCommerce business.
Other types of evergreen offers you could promote: PDF Guides or workbooks, Checklists, Cheat Sheets, Digital Templates
Step 2: Organize + plan your free resource
Whether you choose to pre-record a Masterclass or to create a helpful downloadable PDF guide as your free resource, preparation is key! If you're hosting a masterclass, be sure to create a detailed outline with step by steps, talking points, time blocks, and well thought out examples of each point. Building outlines for any resource is helpful and we highly recommended doing this for optimal preparation.
Example of an outline for a pre-recorded masterclass:
Title: The 5 Key Elements Every eCommerce Website Needs To Increase Sales + Conversions
Time: 30 mins
I. Intro to session where you introduce yourself, your business, why you're qualified to share on this topic, and why you're excited to dive in to the contents. [Time: 5 min.]
A. Key Element #1 [5 min]
Reason this is important
Examples to back proof point
How to implement
Repeat B-E for the rest of the points with time blocks
II. Conclusion + close out session.
A. Give them an opportunity to engage in next steps with you.
For example, 'If you don't want to implement these changes on your own, our agency specializes in bringing eCommerce businesses to life with our approach, etc." and leave them with the offer and a great first impression of course. 😊
Step 3️: It’s time to build your funnel!
Now that you've identified your free resource, planned it, and created it, you're ready to insert it into a funnel that can sell for you on autopilot! 🎉
Here's what your funnel could look like in action:
You create a landing page that contains your free resource with an image, description of the resource, a strong CTA, and a form for them to opt-in with their name and email fields only.
Once a user opts-in, they will be redirected to a secondary 'Thank you' page where you will have your video embedded for them to watch or a download button to download the free resource.
Once your landing page is created, you can decide what social channels would be best to promote your offer. This could be Instagram where you'll lead your audience to the link in bio to download your offer - or - it could be an email marketing campaign to your current list to promote it.
Quick funnel example fro you to plug-and-play into your own business:
[Instagram post created promoting free resource] 📲 ➝
[Visitor goes to landing page at link in bio + opts in to receive the resource] 📘 ➝
[User receives automatic follow up email from you 1 day after download with more valuable information] 📧 ➝
[3 days later user receives another email packed with value + a mention of one of your paid offers] 📧 ➝
[User clicked on the link to paid offer in email so they receive another automatic email with personal follow up seeing if they want to book a free discovery call with you to learn more] 🤝 ➝
[User books call + officially enters the pipeline] 💸
There ya have it… the three key things you should do before creating content! We promise, this process will not only make your life easier but it will elevate the quality of your content. It’s a win-win situation 🎉
Feeling inspired? Eager to chat about how we can transform your approach and scale your business? Reach out, we would love to chat! 👋