Kristi Brown | She Owns It

by Kristi Brown | Featured Contributor

“Content Marketing.”

“Giving Value.”

“Gaining Visibility.”

Those are all terms we, as business owners, hear all the time, right? But making them happen… well, that is a whole other thing, isn’t it?

If you are one of those business owners who pushes this to the back burner, or who downloads every list of blog post ideas that you see but are still stuck, let me help you.

The best way to gain real traction in content marketing is to develop a system that works for you. A system for generating ideas, for planning out your topics, for coming up with titles, and then actually creating the content.

Let’s get started.

Step 1: Determine Your Purpose

Just like anything else in your business, you have to start with your purpose.

To do that, answer these questions:

What is your goal?
- Get more traffic to your website or blog.
- Get more qualified leads for your business.
- Gain visibility in your industry.
- Build rapport and credibility with potential clients.
Who are you creating this content for?
What problem are you going to solve for these people?
How will your content be unique?
How often do you feel you should publish this content?
Where are you going to promote this content?
What days can you schedule for yourself to create this content?

If you need some more help on this, HubSpot offers a free Goal Planning Template that you can use as well.

Step 2: Identify Your Priorities

Determine what you want your content to do for you:

Get more engagement from your audience.
Teach your audience something.
Tell your story.
Nurture leads.
Create brand awareness.
Upsell or cross-sell.

Step 3: Define the Core Content Approach

Depending on your brand’s identity, you’ll find different ways to intrigue your audience and get them to engage with your content. There are three main ways to add value in your content:

INSPIRE the audience with stories.
EDUCATE the audience with valuable information.
ENTERTAIN the audience by making them laugh or presenting relatable stories or facts.

Choosing your content approach will help you to define your core message and tone.

Step 4: Determine the Types of Content You’ll Produce

As you begin to think about the types of content you’ll create, be sure to keep a few things in mind:

Focus on your strengths. In other words, if you absolutely detest being on video, don’t commit to creating videos. Or find a way that you can create them without being in them, like recording screen shares.
If you hate writing, consider other options such as podcasts, an audio blog, or a vlog.
If you create content in a format that you hate, not only will it be a drudgery to make, but it will come through in the final product as well.
Just because the “whole world” is doing something, that does NOT make it right for you and your business.

Keep your ideal audience in mind. When you come up with your format and topics, you always want to keep your ideal client and audience in mind. Think about questions like:

What problem are they looking to solve?
What is holding them back from doing business with you?
What do they want and/or need from you?

Once you’ve got a good grasp on those things, you’ll have a clearer picture of the kinds of content you should start creating.

Here are some additional ideas in regards to the types of content that people often forget about:

Tutorials— Teach people something new with easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions. (They’re searching Google and YouTube for this information every day!) For example, my tutorial: 6 Reasons Social Media is Not Working for You and How to Fix Them is still the most viewed post on our website.
Guides— A guide doesn’t have to be a 40-page eBook. In fact, people love short content that helps them solve a problem quickly. Just be certain that it provides real value to your audience.
Interviews— People love to learn from industry leaders about their work processes and routines, their secrets to success, or how they have overcome setbacks. If you decide to do interviews, be sure to develop your own style and structure your interviews around a common theme. Lifehacker’s How I Work and John Lee Dumas’ Entrepreneur On Fire are great examples of this.
Infographics— Infographics turn ordinary facts and figures into creative visualizations, and they’re highly-shareable online. Visually and Infogram offer free templates for creating beautiful infographics.
Curated Content— Most of what you produce should be original, but curated content can provide a great resource for your audience and drive big traffic to your site.

In fact, people love simple curated lists that help them solve issues. Here is an example: 11 of the Top Productivity Tools for Business Owners.

Step 5: Commit to a Publishing Schedule

The quality of your content matters. But in the online world, the more consistently you publish, the more traction you will get.

Consistency is absolutely key.

Decide on a schedule you can stick to, and then actually stick to it, even if it’s just once a month.

Step 6: Build Your Content Calendar

After you have done all of the above, schedule yourself two hours of time to build your content calendar.

Here is what works best for us:

Our team does a brainstorming session to create monthly themes. These themes are broad in scope, allowing us some flexibility to be creative around predetermined topics.

Since our audience is other business owners, we choose themes like:
July: Play More
August: How to Educate Your Audience
September: How to Prepare for the Holiday Season With Your Business.

To brainstorm these themes in an efficient way, we use a free tool call Savvyroo.com. We keep a running list of all our theme ideas, and then we talk about the best ones to use each month.

From there, we narrow down our topics.

Then, we start talking about titles and social media posts.

Here is what the finished product looks like:

The hardest part is finding the time to do this, but it’s worth it.

The future of your business will thank you for taking the time to plan – and put that plan in place – in order to maximize your visibility!

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Kristi Brown

Kristi Brown, Small BBalcony Coral Kristi- editiedusiness Growth Strategist and Co-Founder of Significantly Successful.

Social Media Aficionado. Fluent in #Hashtag. Netflix Junkie. Red Wine & Chocolate Connoisseur. Master of assuring client delight.

significantlysuccessful.com/

by Kristi Brown | Featured Contributor

No.

No thank you.

Nope, but thanks for asking.

Not doing it.

Most women I know struggle saying it. They want to be the best.

In everything.

To everybody.

If you are also a business owner, especially one that works from home, saying it becomes even more daunting. So instead of politely, graciously, firmly saying “no,” we just make it all fit.

We tell ourselves that sending this email only takes a second. Being on that charity board that meets for 2 hours. Every week. You’ve got time for that.

Or sure, I can make the cupcakes for my daughter’s little league team between client meetings and getting the dry cleaning for my husband.

But the truth is that setting and respecting personal and business boundaries is an important strategy for any business owner who works with clients, and even more so for those who work from home.

Learning to say no to the things that aren’t the RIGHT things is a skill that all business owners need to develop.

Boundaries are vital to our success, and when they are lacking, we often don’t think through the long-term consequences until we are stressed out, burnt out, or a combination of both.

So, here are few key boundaries to consider:

1.) Set Business Hours

Just because we live in an uber-connected world where people can reach out to you 24/7 doesn’t mean you should be available 24/7.

You need to protect your personal time from a constant onslaught of people wanting your attention. Your family, spouse, and friends deserve your attention, too. And for your own clarity and sanity, you can’t make yourself available non-stop.

We tell our clients what our hours are and the best way to contact us. Even in an online world, or an online business, you should have posted hours and well-documented and followed processes for communication with you or your business.

Set regular business hours for yourself, too, and stick to them!

Let’s be honest, no one can work 24/7 and live a happy, balanced, fulfilling life.

2.) Take Responsibility

If people are contacting you all hours of the day or night, it’s your fault. Start fresh and create processes that will end that.

Maybe start a new policy of not putting your cell phone on your website. There are plenty of apps that give you a new phone number to use, then send people to voicemail if they call during off hours.

Don’t guilt trip yourself into feeling like you have to answer emails immediately, either. Some of the most successful people around today only open their email twice a day.

Let’s face it, email is the biggest disruption to productivity in the modern world, which means that being productive hinges on minimizing it.

3.) Quit Giving Away Your Services

If clients pay you for your experience and expertise, but a mooching email from a friend causes you to just give away your services, this is a new boundary you need to create.

It is unprofessional to give your services away.

In my opinion, too many business owners give away their time and expertise, then wonder why people won’t pay them their service fees.

You paid to get to your professional skill and knowledge level, so stop getting sucked into two-hour ‘let me pick your brain’ meetings. This isn’t good prospecting. It’s rooted in guilt and fear.

Those who respect your work – and will pay you for it – will not be the ones who want to pick your brain for free.

4.) Schedule Everything

Learn the art of time blocking to keep your day on track. Even if time blocking isn’t for you, schedule the important tasks that you know need to get done.

Need to write a blog post every week? Put it on your calendar.

Want to have a date night once a month? Put it on your calendar.

And if you need to connect with people on social media, schedule it. (And limit it to the assigned time slot!)

5.) Consider the Possibilities

Have you ever considered what happens when you say no to something? You open up new possibilities. Things will fall into place. New things will be created. Ideas will come.

If you set and adhere to your boundaries, you will become a better person and a more successful business owner. You will feel more creative and less tired. If you don’t believe me, try it for 60 days and tell me how you feel afterward.

I promise you will love it. 🙂