One of the biggest barriers my clients tell me they have to consistently putting out quality marketing content is that they don’t know what to talk about. And, most of the time, this is because they’re either overthinking it or they’ve made it feel like such a humongous job that they get overwhelmed before they can get started.
In this blog, I’m going to share how to simplify your approach to creating content using (what I call) a rinse and repeat model, so that it becomes easier and quicker to fill out your content calendar.
What do I mean by rinse and repeat?
If you’ve heard me give a talk before, you’ve probably heard me use the example of how Magazine Editors don’t sit down before each edition with no idea what they’re going to include. They already know they’ll need a recipe page, a celebrity gossip section and a gardening page (for example!).
And this is the approach I want you to take when planning your marketing content. I’m not suggesting that you post the same things repeatedly. Rather, think about the different types of content you want to publish.
If you know the types of content you want to produce, you can work out how many of each you need to fill your calendar for a month, then you can create a high-level monthly plan that you can reuse over and over again.
It’s a lot less overwhelming to go, ‘Right, I’ve got to create 5 sales posts, 2 behind-the-scenes posts, 4 conversational posts and 3 posts asking people to sign up to my newsletter and 6 posts sharing tips’, than it is to think, ‘I’ve got to write 20 social media posts’.
Approaching your content creation this way removes a huge part of the thought process, and with it the overwhelm that can stop you getting started in the first place.
How do you get started with a rinse and repeat approach?
The first thing I always recommend to my clients is making a blog the centre of your marketing strategy. It’s much easier to create a load of content by deciding on two blog topics and then repurposing those to create further, on-message, social media posts and emails, than it is to think about each item separately.
If you don’t have a blog (first of all read this on why I think you should!) then I’d suggest choosing an overarching theme for the month to base your content on. You could always create two longer social media posts or two emails and repurpose these too.
Then, to create your reusable monthly content plan, decide on what type of content you want to publish each month and how much you need to fill your content calendar. These may include:
Sales content
New blog post announcements
Storytelling content
Tips and advice
Behind the scenes of your day-to-day
Thought-provoking questions to start conversations
Facts and statistics
Infographics
Lives
Interviews
A reminder about a historic blog or post
Testimonials
Calls to join your mailing list or follow you on social media platforms
Once you have an idea of what you want, start to plan out what you would like each month to look like on a week-by-week basis. For example:
Week 1
Email marketing
New blog post announcement
Social media
New blog post announcement
Live
Testimonial
Week 2
Email marketing
Sales or promotion
Social media
Sales or promotion post
Behind the scenes
Tip or advice
And so on!
Once you have this framework, you can use it as a checklist for the content you need to create each month, over and over again. Helping you get it done quicker and without having to put too much thought into it. If only we could do this with all of the tasks we need to do to run our businesses!
If you’d like some help putting your plan together, I’d be happy to help. Email me at laura@nattercomms.com to book a call.