7 Steps To Creating A Content Plan
Written by: Christine Hansen, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Before we get started on the 7 steps, remember: You should always communicate what you’re passionate about, not what you think your clients want. Believe me, it’ll make everything so much easier.
You want your business to be a content (CONtent and conTENT) empire.
You’re probably already creating content without knowing it – through Instagram, FB Live. Having a strategy angle to your posts is the differentiator between a strategic content strategy and one that’s more willy nilly. Say what? Don’t worry, I’ll show you what’s what in this chapter. Either way, if you’re in business you’re very likely already creating stuff.
How to leverage content to make money and attract clients.
One of reasons why you might be resisting doing a formal blog post or video, is because you might be trying to write about the wrong thing. Or, of course, you’re being lazy and then you just need to hire someone, duh. (See Chapter…) But seriously, content is the way to clients, so why wouldn’t you want to do it?
Consider your social media content; that’s where you’ll find hints and clues as to what you might want to write about and should be writing about. It all comes down to the right topic. Find that juicy intersection between what your clients are interested in and what you want to write about. Create a business that’s aligned from that point and you’re never going to be stuck for content. And you know what? It’s much more fun to write about stuff you care about.
1. How to strategize? Ask yourself what was easy last month and take that data and use it to strategize the next month.
Celebrate your goals and wins, take a moment to honour them and give them space.
2. Choose a promo focus for the month. A group coaching programme? One-on-one? Make an intentional decision of what you’re going to sell. If you want to sell everything, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Or if you don’t want to sell at all, well, you might want to reconsider being in business!
You can easily prepare for creating fresh content every month. As you reflect on last month, you can make changes to what didn’t work so well. You will see that some products will perform better than others and then you can scrap what isn’t working. Focus on selling one thing a month.
3. Look at your calendar, look at the coming month, add in your business and personal activities. These are things to always consider because you don’t want to be planning a launch when you’re on holiday!
Consider how long it took you to create that blog post / video and dedicate at least the same amount of time to promoting it.
I do bi-weekly posts for my two companies. That’s around 8 pieces of content a month. I batch my content, so I take a day to do it. (Sometimes I’m even wearing the same outfit in my Instagram videos. Oops.)
I’m someone who creates the whole thing in a week and then wants to tell the whole world. I get a flash of creativity paired with momentum of energy – I’m a generator – and I just go and produce. But this is not ideal because I’m not nurturing and priming. Sometimes patience does pay off.
You want to show up consistently. Don’t go straight into a launch, do a pre-launch. Prime people for the offer. People need to anticipate. People need to be nurtured.
4. Topic brainstorm. All content needs to relate to the thing we’re selling that month. Make a mind map with the promo in the centre and then think what themes, questions, topics does this cover. Then come up with specific questions you can base content around. You can also ALWAYS repurpose old material. For Sleep Like a Boss, I use material from 2 years ago, the same questions come up again and again. I polish them up and post.
Top tip: You can also use articles from other publications as springboards for your content.
5. Monthly overview. For each week, I ask the following questions: what is the blog post, the topic? What is the call to action for that? Freebee? The last week of the month is a great time to send out invitations for your offer. How am I selling this week? Here is the freebee, in week four what are the emails, personal outreach, targeted adds? How am I attracting and getting content in front of a new audience? How am I getting it in front of existing audience?
It's a nurture and engage infinity loop.
It’s all about that mindset shift: if you’re thinking about a month ahead, you’re expecting that people will and are following you. It’s much healthier for your stress levels to assume that you have a loving and interested audience. You have to also take responsibility for the people who are willing to give you their email to provide them with content. Don’t be disrespectful.
Don’t let yourself be fooled by a number (i.e., that of your mailing list). I had very small list for Sleep Like a Boss because people just went straight to my website to book a call and don’t make it any further on my website.
If you show up like you already have the number you want, you will work towards that number.
6. Planning. It’s time to put pen to paper, draft notes, outline content.
Draft a plan: Write your topic at top. Choose a working title. Write down answers to two sets of questions:
What is the purpose for my reader?
What are they going to learn, why do they care?What is my purpose for this piece? Call to action?
The consider what are the questions this post has to answer to serve these two purposes? Focus on answering those questions.
Top tip: If you don’t like writing (like me), you can speak your text. I use otter.ai or reve.com to generate a transcript that I can clean up or get an editor to do that.
Interview yourself. Treat it like a podcast interview. You’re a star!
7. Publish! Pull the trigger.
Nothing converted as the moment when I started to implement content regularly. No course, training etc. works like content creation. You do have to be patient; it can take 3-6 months to get the process moving. And then it’s there for eternity. A never-ending, grateful thing.
Last Bonus tip: It helps to have an accountability buddy. Whether that is a friend, a coach or a community.
Don’t hesitate to reach out for any questions or comments. I am always happy to hear from you.
Christine Hansen, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Christine Hansen is an award-winning business coach & consultant for online entrepreneurs who want to embrace their inner lazy, profit like a pro, and add philanthropist to their list of credentials—without ever undercharging or feeling like they have to be anyone but themselves again.
She combines hardcore strategy with lush personal development so that entrepreneurs can build and scale businesses that are still soul-aligned all the way.
With 10+ years as a sought-after TedX France and keynote speaker, Christine’s work is featured in Forbes, Business Insider, National Geographic, and more.
Having built two successful online businesses herself, Christine found out the hard way—like losing money on sketchy business investments and ruined “put your damn laptop away!” vacation moments—that most entrepreneurs are closer to burnout than they are to reaching 6-figures. (And they’re still worrying, “Am I overcharging?!”)
Christine is famous for sharing cautionary tales from the trenches, tell-it-like-it-is tips, her all-time go-to (no-brainer) tech tools she uses to get twice as much done in half the time, and gushing her best secrets to help you bust past your blind spots, be true to yourself, and breakthrough to 6-figures in under a year...all while donating to charity, taking vacations every 6 weeks, and spoiling yourself with something nice on a very regular basis.
