Welcome back boss! In today's video I'm  going to show you how to master your content marketing strategy in a way that helps you meet your bottom line meaning make more money in your business because this ain't a hobby, ya got bills to pay. 

So if you are constantly feeling behind when it comes to producing content or you're frustrated because you're just finding all these generic content ideas online or you're even just wondering if content marketing is worth it because you're spending a lot of time but it's not actually bringing you more clients and customers. 

I'm going to go through five steps that will help you: 

• Never run out of content ideas
• Ensure those content ideas are a perfect fit for your business
• AND That they lead to more sales, and
• Ensure that it's organized and efficient so you can do all this and as little time as possible. 

Because we're running a business it shouldn't be running us so make more money in less time, feel better doing it, sound worth it? Let's dive in. 

Step 1 - List Out Your Needs

All right step one in this content marketing plan or content marketing strategy is to list out your needs. Now when I say needs, what I'm talking about here is where do you need content in your business? 

I want you to list out five or less places that you're going to be producing content so this could be social media platforms, it could be your blog, podcast, a video channel, whatever it might be make that list but I want you to simplify it if you've got a lot of different places you're a business owner you don't have time to create a million pieces of content that's going to waste your time and it's not going to make you any additional money.

Remember that the majority of the people who see your content even if they're subscribed to you they're only going to see about 10% of what you create so what you create can be used and disseminated out into multiple different places. 

So, an example of this is - with this channel what I do with the video is turn that into the blog post and then I spin off of that for social media or for other shorter content, like email. 

So how can you do that same thing in your business? Look for the main platform, the main piece of content that you want to create, and then look at ways that you can disseminate that one piece of content to multiple places and again I want you to narrow it down to less than five because if you have more than five places that you're trying to create content for you don't have a business you you have a very long to-do list but it's not gonna necessarily make you money so simplify, focus on the things that are closest to cash the things that will actually bring you the best results, and then let's get into step number two. 

Step 2 - List 4-5 Categories

Step number two is going to be listing out four to five categories for content ideas. You do not need content ideas to fill the categories just yet. 

Now when I say category what I'm really meaning are what are the things that you really want to be known for or what are the main things that you talk about. You especially want to make sure that you're choosing categories that lead to something that you sell or lead to something that you offer that will lead to something that you sell.

For instance, if you're leading to a free opt-in that's leading to a course otherwise, if you are leading to maybe a blog post that's going to lead to a product offer. You want to make sure that everything is purposeful and meaningful and taking people to that next step. 

You're not just creating content to get likes and shares. That's pointless. You don't need likes and shares in your business, you need revenue in your business and that means making sure that the content has meaning, has purpose, and has direction to point people to what it is that you actually offer. 

Examples of Content Categories

So let me give you some examples of content categories this could be: 

• Particular how-to's that are relevant to your business 
• Tips that are relevant to your business 
• Educational topics, again what do you want to be known for? 

If you're more of a maybe a product-based or service-based business where you don't necessarily have a lot of how-to's or tips or educational topics instead what you can do is: 

• Behind-The-Scenes 
• Testimonials
• Case studies or anything like. 
• Finished products where maybe you're even showing before, during, and after to be able to show the transition from if you're potentially an artist let's say to show the transition from starting the project to finishing the project or for instance my husband is in construction he's a carpenter so he might show before, during, and after photos or topics talking about what he's doing or how he's doing it maybe showing little tips along the way that then lead to that finished product. 

An example of mine as a coach I focus on mindset obviously as a mindset belief breakthrough coach. I talk about money because it's a skill that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with. I talk about habits because it's a big part of what I do in the work that I do. I talk a lot about productivity because all the people that I work with are overwhelmed and they're looking for ways to be more productive. A lot of times they need to be working on their mindset but oftentimes we need to look at the habits and the productivity issues that that mindset has created and then I have a general entrepreneur category that's just sort of my catch-all if I want to talk about different things or lifestyle things self-care that sort of thing. 

So what are those categories for you? I want to challenge you to write down some of your categories in the comments below, let me know what they are, and I can give you some feedback on them if you'd like. 

Step 3 - Organize It

Step number three is to now get organized before you have your content ideas you need to create organization for them and the best way that I can tell you to do this is to either 

1. Start a spreadsheet, something you can access from your computer and your phone, or
2. Create a task in whatever task management system you use, I use ClickUp maybe you use Asana or something like that where you can just brain dump into these categories that you've now created 

Step 4 - Template-ize It

Step number four again before we've even started filling up content ideas is to templatize it for lack of a better word. What I want you to do is put this into a template based on your needs. So for instance, Monday I talk about this category, Tuesdays I talk about this category. Or if you're doing something once a week - the first week of the month I talk about category number one, in the second week of the month I talk about category number two. 

I want you to create a template like this because you don't have time to waste to constantly figure out what you're doing so the more you can turn it into a system the more you're going to be able to get into the flow with it and be able to create content really quickly. 

Now this doesn't mean that when you sit down let's say these videos for instance when I sit down I may or may not create five different pieces of content for five different categories. Perhaps I am in productive mode and so I'm  going to create a bunch of videos for productivity. Will I launch them back to back? Maybe not.

If you're in the mode of creating something for one category maybe you're going to create three or four pieces of content and schedule those in advance because you have this template this system it's going to allow you to get into the flow much easier, it's gonna allow you to batch create easier, it's gonna save you a ton of time, a ton of creative energy and help you get more done so that you can move on to money making things in your business.

Not to say that content creation isn't money making, it is if you're doing it right we're going to be talking about that in the next step but we want to make sure that it's not all our time going into content creation because let's face it you've got other things to do as well. 

Step 5 - Start Filling It

Now we come to step number five. This is where you actually start filling that spreadsheet or that task, those categories, with your content ideas. 

So the first way that you're going to do this this is the most important way you cannot get away from this one you must do this and you must do it on repeat ask your audience for their questions and their needs and again do this on repeat so let's say you've narrowed down to five different content ideas, go into your audience, send an email, reach out to people personally send a text message, post in facebook what are your burning questions around x y or z right. 

Now let's say you've got a general topic I'm  going to use productivity for example let's say you've got a general topic around productivity but you know you've got a really specific topic within that that you want to talk about ask questions ask your audience what questions they have on that topic so you know what burning questions do you have on time blocking? What burning questions do you have about work life balance? Whatever it might be, you want to ask your audience because those are the people that are going to give you the best ideas. 

You always want to be serving your audience we're always serving showing up to serve and so if you're asking them those questions you're getting into their brain you're serving what they need this creates an engaged audience this gets you the likes it gets you the shares but it also gets you an audience that trusts you that understands that you have answers for them so that when one video, or one blog post, or one email, or one social post answers a question and then leads them to something else they want to take that next action because now they trust you they're like oh she's in my brain she knows exactly what I need this totally solves a problem for me this is exactly what I'm  looking for and now they know they can trust you to move on to the next step. 

This is the most important part of step number five make sure that you're asking your audience and you're asking them repeatedly now you don't necessarily just have to ask them you could also just be paying attention and every time you see them asking something or saying something if it gives you an idea for content put that in the right category, this way you have this running list of things that your people need from you. 

Now that's only part one of step five the second part is you need to train your brain to start to look for topics everywhere. This can be in books that you're reading, this could be movies that you're watching, social media posts that you're seeing, if maybe somebody's answering something in a social media post and it just it gets you on a rant or you see something and it just kind of makes you think of what it is that you do it doesn't matter what you do I guarantee you you have probably 10 different content ideas every single week that you don't realize are content ideas and that's the kicker you need to train your brain to realize that just because I know it or I think it or it seems obvious to me doesn't mean it wouldn't be obvious to somebody else doesn't or doesn't mean it would be obvious to somebody else doesn't mean it wouldn't be very helpful to someone else. 

So you have tons and tons and tons of content ideas as you're going through you're training your brain to look for these ideas you want to make sure that you go back and you put it wherever it is you're capturing it wherever if that's a spreadsheet if that's a task and you want to make sure you're putting it under the correct category so that immediately when you go in you're looking at your template and you're like I need topics for x y or z you go under x y or z category and you're like oh yeah that's right last week this happened it gave me that great idea let me go ahead and create that. 

We want to believe that this needs to be harder than it is but if you systemize it and simplify it and then just train your brain to look for those things and get into the routines that are going to support you this is all you need you're not going to run out of ideas, you're not going to run out of time, you're not going to be frustrated trying to figure out what other people need because you've asked them exactly what they need you're going to be able to just jump right into it knock out the content that's going to lead to a sale and then get on with the rest of your business. 

Okay so now you've got your content marketing strategy it's going to help you save time, it's going to help you make money, it's going to help you feel less overwhelmed as you do it, but what if you're struggling to put yourself out there? You've got all these content ideas but you're worried that you're not expert enough or that people won't want to hear from you or what will people say, how do you overcome the internal roadblocks that help you to take the next step? 

I teach a method I developed over 10 years ago called the Breakthrough Formula it's helped countless women to overcome their fears overcome their bad habits overcome their blocks so they can crush their goals not their soul and I have a free training called Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs that will teach you how it works so if you've ever felt stuck but unsure why you couldn't get past your fears or take the massive action that you want to take in your business definitely grab that free training to learn how to master your own mindset and if you're brand new here my name is Tara Wagner I help female entrepreneurs crush their goals not their soul by getting their heads, their hearts, and their habits straightened out if that sounds like your jam be sure to subscribe hit the bell hit the like button and after you grab that free mindset training check out those other videos to help you master your time as well. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you there. 

What if content marketing actually felt easy?

Content marketing can be great for business....and it can be a beast. Learn how to streamline and organize the entire messy process with "A Year In a Day", the content map and toolbox to help you map out 365 days of content in 5 hours or less. You'll also learn how to:

• Create content that attracts your DREAM audience (while repelling the "nightmares"!)
• Organize it all with my spreadsheets, templates, and SOPs, so the chaos no longer overwhelms or distracts you
• Come up with 100s of ideas on autopilot, without burning a single brain cell of your own

Click here to learn more how to save yourself time and energy with A Year In A Day.

WHAT ABOUT YOU, BOSS?

Did this spark any new content ideas for your biz?

Leave me a comment below.