5 Step Guide – Better Content Creation and Planning For Your Business

Is content creation a challenge for you? Do you struggle to come up with ideas of what to put in the content you want to create? Do you want to create content that your audience will love?

In this post, we’ll take a look at 5 steps you can take in order to create better content without getting stuck. Use this guide to create website content, blogs post or any other content you want to create for your target audience. And if you want to further expand your thinking feel free to join the 7-day content repurposing creation challenge here.

Step 1- How to Come Up with Content Creation Ideas to Write About

You need a great deal of content to keep your audience engaged and build a strong relationship with them. Once youíve established this relationship, you can offer products and services and your audience members will buy. But if youíre just getting started, you may be wondering, what exactly should you be writing about?
Here are a few ways to think up great content ideas so youíll never run out of things to write about.

What Can You Teach?

What do you know that you can teach others? You have skills and expertise that most people donít have. Sharing this knowledge through your content will produce a ton of value for your audience. Teach people what you know and make it easy to for them to understand and consume.

How Do You Help People?

How have you helped people in the past? Think back to encounters youíve had with your customers where youíve answered questions or offered other types of help. If you see a common question youíve been asked time and time again, this probably something many more people need help with. This would be a great topic for a piece of content.

What Does Your Audience Want to Know?

Establish points of contact with your audience and listen to them when they express their concerns and needs. Follow people on social media and other places online where you can participate in conversations and read comments. You can also ask your audience members directly what problems they need help with, and then see if you can help them.

Where does Your Audience Hang Out?

Some places to look for ideas on your audienceís needs include:

Social Media. Follow your audience members on social media. See what they post, what comments they make, and what other businesses they follow for help with their problems.

Blog Posts. Check out blogs in your niche and look at their comments. People will often ask questions in the comments related to the topics covered in the post.

Question and Answer Sites. Look at Q&A sites like Quora where youíll find people asking questions for the community to answer. You can answer these questions through blog posts or other types of content.

Other Content Creators. Follow other content creators in your niche to see what theyíre writing about. Donít forget podcasts, YouTube channels, and social media. Donít cover the exact same topics but use their content to get ideas on whatís trending and gaps you can fill.

Keep an Idea File

The above is enough to get you started. Start building an idea file. When you sit down to create content, youíll often have to brainstorm to get you started. Instead of needing to brainstorm a new topic each time you write, you can refer to your idea file to simply pick one and get started.
Find some other good sources of ideas and bookmark them. When you need further ideas, you can refer to these sites.

Remember that marketing is all about trial and error. Try something new and see how your audience responds. Sometimes a totally unique idea will give you a piece of viral content. Keep track of what your audience likes, and youíll be able to find more great ideas for them.

Do you want to learn more about creating content that solves problems and builds relationships? Check out my course, Supercharge your website, which teaches you the A to Z of content creation and helps you achieve your business goals.

Step 2 – Cut Your Content Creation Time in Half with Repurposing

Content marketing requires a great deal of effort and constant content creation. This can easily be the area where you spend the bulk of your time, especially if youíre a slow writer. But thereís a handy shortcut you can take to reduce your content creation time: itís called ìrepurposing.î

What is Repurposing?

Repurposing means taking some content and changing it in some way so that itís unique from the original. Itís not just copying, rewriting, or rearranging, but a deeper change that creates something entirely new.

Switch Up the Format

One way to repurpose your content is to change its format. Take a piece thatís in one format and change it to another. For example, you can adapt a blog post into the script for a video. Alternatively, you can take a video and transcribe and edit it into a blog post.
Other examples include turning video into an audio podcast, turning a press release into a social media post, or cutting up a webinar into a video series.

Expanding and Enlarging

You can also take one section of a piece of content and expand it into its own standalone piece. For instance, if you have a blog post outlining ten tips on a topic, you could turn each tip into its own standalone post. This gives your audience a deeper dive and clearer instructions on how to do something specific. Another idea is to turn a blog post into a full report or digital information product.

Contracting and Summarizing

You can also take a piece of content and do the opposite. For example, take 7 blog posts with advice on how to do something and create one article that gives the reader 7 quick tips. Each post is shortened into 2-3 sentences. Or, take a long video and make a shorter version that just covers the main points. This offers a piece of content thatís shorter and easier to digest.

Change the Angle

Take a piece you created before and offer a different angle. Present it from an entirely new point of view. For example, you can take an article with 4 tips and reverse them into negative ìmistakes to avoid.î Another idea is to take a piece that teaches people how to do something and reframe it as a step-by-step guide so itís easier to understand.

Change the Audience

Rewrite your content for another segment of your audience or for a whole new audience. For example, if you have content creation tips for online entrepreneurs, you can rewrite so that youíre writing to brick-and-mortar businesses just getting started online.

For the best results, mix and match all the ideas from above. Expand while switching the format and rewriting for a new audience. This way, youíll create completely fresh content that will help you get more miles out of your existing material.

Remember that repurposing isnít about cutting corners. Itís not only a shortcut for you to create more valuable content, but a way to offer alternate formats for your audience to consume your content. Focus on delivering value and donít be afraid to get creative.

Do you want to learn more about creating content that solves problems and builds relationships? Check out my course, Supercharge your website, which teaches you the A to Z of content creation and helps you achieve your business goals.

Step 3 – How to Create Stellar Content Your Audience Will Love

The primary purpose of your content is to engage your audience. In order to do this, you have to offer what they want to read, not simply what youíd like to write about. So, how do you continually offer information that your audience will read and love?

Thereís an easy trick and if you keep this in mind, youíll never run out of great ideas: Solve your audience membersí problems.

How Does Your Audience Look for Information?

Put yourself in your audience membersí shoes. You have a difficult problem youíre looking for help with. No matter what you do, you just canít find a solution.

Youíd naturally search online to find answers to this question. If you found a piece of content that offered a simple, easy-to-understand solution you can implement right now and get results, how would you feel? Youíd remember the website where you found the information and see what else they have to offer.

This is the kind of reaction you want to get from your content.

The next step is to keep this person with you and start to build a relationship. Again, think about your audienceís perception. Once they start following you, they come to see you as a go-to source for help with their problems. They know they can find the assistance they need from your content.

Learn About Your Audience and Their Problems

In order to solve your customersí problems, the first step is to get to know them.

Start by creating a target customer profile. This should include demographic information about your ideal customers, but also their attitudes and values. It should include specific problems they seek help with.

The best way to create this profile and keep learning about your audience is to research online. Find out where they hang out and connect with them there. Follow them on social media and read their comments. You can also reach out to them and ask about their goals and challenges.

Pay especially close attention to problems they face and questions they ask. Make a list and see if you can provide solutions through your content.

Building a Relationship with Your Audience

You donít have to solve every problem your audience faces through your free content, and you canít. But if you can provide a bit of help that they can implement and get immediate results, you can then start building a relationship with them. Consistently provide the help they need and somewhere down the line, theyíll buy from you when they need it.

Each piece of content should include a call-to-action where you offer further free content and other types of help. Ask them to connect with you on social media, sign up for your email list, or download your free information product. Keep them engaged through helpful content and youíll develop a strong relationship that will lead to sales.

Step 4 – 10 Ways to Make Your Content Stand Out

The Internet is awash with content in every niche you can imagine. Even small, local brick-and-mortar businesses are blogging, making YouTube videos, and driving traffic to their websites. So how can you possibly break through all this noise?

Here are 10 ways to make your content stand out from all the rest.

  1. Create your own tone and style. With your target audience in mind, create a specific way of writing thatís unique to you.
  2. Get personal. Share details about your life and relate to your audience on a personal level. Donít go overboard talking about nothing but yourself, but pepper the useful information youíre sharing with personal details.
  3. Become a master storyteller. Learn how to tell stories and make them a central part of your content. Each story is unique and will help to make your content engaging and effective.
  4. Get specific. Narrow it down to a very specific segment of your market that others arenít speaking to. Focus on diving deep into sub-topics others havenít covered.
  5. Stay in the know. Subscribe to email newsletters, blogs, podcasts, and other sources of up-to-date information in your niche. Try to be the first to report on news stories and cover up-and-coming topics. Following a variety of content creators will also give you more ideas on how to set your content apart.
  6. Search for ideas in unlikely places. Follow content in other niches. Always be on the lookout for ideas when you read the news, watch TV, talk to friends, or work your regular job. Sometimes youíll get an idea on another topic that you can use in your content.
  7. Create great brainstorming sessions. Set aside time purely for idea generation. Use various brainstorming techniques and get every idea down. Later, you can go through your list and evaluate each.
  8. Take the opposite position. Find something thatís common wisdom in your niche and write from the other position. An example would be to write something like, ìSocial Media is Dead.î What if itís not actually dead? You can use this as a title and angle for the piece to grab readersí attention.
  9. Explore new platforms and marketing channels. Find out what the kids are using these days and see if you can be the first in your niche to be active there. Stake your claim early on new platforms and your content marketing there will be unique.
  10. Try something new. Make it a point to regularly try something new. Your content mix should always include something youíve never done before. You may hit on a novel and unique way of doing things nobody else is doing.

Stay open-minded and always be on the lookout for ways to make yourself unique. Try to gain an understanding of what makes you stand out from others so you can play into this in your content marketing.

Step 5 – What to Put in Your Content Marketing Plan

Before you start diving into content marketing, you need to have a solid plan in place. This plan describes your strategy with a big-picture view so you know exactly where youíre headed, and you can make the right decisions along the way to get you there. It also increases your efficiency by preventing you from wasting time on activities or channels that wonít help you reach your goal.

A content marketing plan is just like any businessís marketing plan, but it relates specifically to your content. Itís a document that succinctly explains what your plan is all about.

Mission Statement

Your plan should include a mission statement. This explains the ìwhyî behind what you do. Another way to think of it is, how does your business seek to make the world a better place? Your mission statement is the ultimate reason why youíre creating this content.

Target Market Profile

A key component of your content marketing plan is a profile of your target market. This is the person, described as a specific individual, who most benefits from your content and products and services. Youíll appeal to others as well, but this is where you want to focus your energy and youíll get the most results.
It should include demographics as well as psychological factors such as values, attitudes, and problems they face.

The Nuts and Bolts of Your Content Marketing

Identify the types of content and topics youíll cover and where you will engage your audience with this content. The target market includes where your audience members spend time online and what help theyíre looking for. This part of the plan describes practically how you will engage your audience and where.

Your Unique Value Proposition

Your plan should explain your unique value proposition, or UVP. The UVP explains how you uniquely meet the needs of your audience. If you havenít thought about what makes you unique, this is a good time to do so. Your UVP demonstrates your position in the market and the reason why people would choose to consume your content rather than a competitorís.

Set Key Performance Indicators

Included in your plan should be KPIs, or key performance indicators. These are the metrics you will use to determine whether or not youíre reaching your goals. Choose only the most important metrics that will help you monitor success.

It could be a sales target, audience size, or number of interactions to show engagement. As you implement your plan, youíll use your KPIs to evaluate whatís working and what isnít.

There is no magic bullet that will make your content marketing a success, but your plan gets down the basic outline and you can always modify it later as your content marketing evolves. Whatís most important is just to have a plan in place to get you started.

Do you want to learn more about creating content that solves problems and builds relationships? Check out my course, Supercharge your website, which teaches you the A to Z of content creation and helps you achieve your business goals. If you would like to expand your coaching, consulting or author business join the authority dojo and build on your skill set – click here to find out more

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