I’m always guilty of running my car until I have just a few miles of gas left. A few times I’ve actually run out of gas and had to get rescued. I’ve found that there are two types of people in the world – those who keep their gas tanks full and those who….well, like to see how far they can go before running out.
How are you currently approaching your content planning? Are you running on empty just praying your content will resonate with someone?
If so, it’s time for a content planning system.
What is a Content Planning System?
If you’re serious about getting results from your content, then you need to get serious about your content planning system.
Ugh, I know – it’s really not sexy. And for a lot of you, it’s like, the last thing you want to be doing. But it’s SO important. So stick with me, kay?
A content planning system is a framework to use when planning and creating content. This is a series of steps that you and your team will take to get content planned, designed, and published with a specific goal in mind.
A system goes beyond just coming up with ideas for topics or themes for your content – it outlines exactly what kind of content to create as well as how to create it.
The Framework to Use When Planning Content
I’ve been blogging for a little over five years now and I’ve learned a few things about planning content in that time. I’ve put my own framework together to use when planning, creating, and publishing content.
Here’s a quick look at my seven-step framework for content planning and creation:
- Be clear and confident about your offers
- Develop goals for the content you’re planning/creating
- Create overarching content pillars
- Brainstorming content topics for each content pillar
- Outline blog content
- Batch create blog content
- Repurpose said blog content for social media
You might be also interested in listening to this podcast episode I did on creating a system to streamline your content creation.
Understand Your Offers
Know your audience and their pain points so that you can create offers that provide value. Your content system starts with your offers because your offers are the reason you’re creating content in the first place. Look at your offers as the ultimate way to serve your audience.
Create Clear Content Goals
Next, establish goals around the offer and the content you’re creating for it. Know that you want to sell 5 1:1 coaching sessions from the next month of content. In order to do that, you’ll need to get as many eyes on your content as possible and provide a clear call to action that will encourage readers to book a discovery call with you.
Develop Your Core Content Pillars
Creating content pillars is something that you’ll likely only have to do one time. Once your pillars are created – you won’t have to keep coming up with content pillars. Use your pillars as the structure for your content themes. If your focus in business changes, then you will want to consider changing your pillars.
Develop a Content Ideation System
What’s great about establishing pillars is that they make coming up with content ideas so much easier. Once you have a broad topic established (your pillar), you keep drilling down deeper and deeper to get more detailed content from it. Your content ideas will quickly begin branching out from one another and soon you’ll have more content ideas than you will know what to do with.
Outline Each Blog Post
This is an important step in my content planning system because it allows me to see the flow of the blog post I am writing before diving into copywriting. During this part of the process, I take some time to research the topic I’m sharing and understand what my readers have questions about when it comes to the topic.
Outlining blog content helps to save time when writing the copy of the blog posts and it makes sure that the content is streamlined and makes sense.
Batch Create Blog Content
Batching content is one of my favorite things to share about. A lot of times before hearing about batching, my clients are creating a single piece of content that is taking upwards of eight hours. When they begin batching their content, they are able to cut their creation time in half and produce more content in less time.
The process of batching is simple. Just group the same tasks together and do them for more than one blog post at a time.
For example, I would write the outlines for four blog posts at once rather than writing one outline, then doing the copywriting, publishing, and promoting. Rather – I would do all four outlines, then write the copy for all four blog posts, and schedule them all to drip out over the course of a few weeks.
You have got to give this a try for your business. Book a free clarity call today and we can come up with a roadmap for getting your content planning system set up for more profitable content.
Why You Need a Content Planning System
As an online business owner, you likely already know the importance of systems in your business. You know that you cannot and should not attempt to be all of the things and do all of the things in your business.
You have systems for onboarding new clients, systems for serving those clients, and other systems for your business – so a content planning system is just as important as the others.
And it’s not just about being organized and able to delegate to others on your team (though, that’s a bonus). There are some great advantages for you as the business owner as well.
A Content Planning System Saves Time
Having a content planning system is going to save you time. When there is a system with clear steps for you or your team to take, there is less time for hemming and hawing over what’s next or how you should move forward. The content planning system outlines that which helps to eliminate the decision fatigue that many of us have as both moms and entrepreneurs.
Planning Content Helps You Target Your Goals
Another reason a content planning system is great for your business is because it allows you to create content that targets your business goals. Without a content planning system, you might just create content for whatever strikes you at the moment. Implementing a system allows you to look ahead and plan for the launches and promotions you have coming up. Not sure what your goals are? Book a free clarity call and we can work through them together.
Streamlines Content Efforts
I talked a little bit about this in my blog post over the three huge content planning mistakes to avoid making. But when you create content with a cohesive goal in mind, it puts all the emphasis and support behind that one goal. Rather than having content all over the place working in different directions – now ALL of your content is focused on helping to achieve the goals you have set for your business and team.
Yields Better Results
It’s no secret, that business owners with a content planning system create content more consistently and with more confidence than those that do not. What happens when you start cranking out content on a regular basis? You begin to build trust with your audience. What happens when you build trust with your audience? They will want to buy from you because they believe in what you do.
And that, my friends, is what gets results.
Are you getting results from your content? This is the number one thing we can address on a free clarity call to help you come up with a clear plan of action for getting the results you want from the content you create.
Fly by the seat of your pants tactics are out. Content planning systems are in. It’s obvious just from the list of benefits I shared above that your business can greatly benefit from having a content planning system.
With a content planning system in place, you can save hours of content development each week. Imagine what you could do with an extra 3 hours a week? What other needle moving tasks could you accomplish?
Save This Post to Pinterest:
