Effective content generates leads and sales for your business. That’s one of the biggest benefits of content marketing. But, how do you guarantee that you’ll create effective content every time?
Today we’re talking about how you can improve your content’s effectiveness by following a few simple guidelines. As a result, you’re going to create content that’s much better for your audience—and your bottom line!
TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:
[01:15] The Role of Planning and Strategy in Effective Content Creation
[04:58] What Happens When You Don’t Create Effective Content
[10:06] How to Make Your Content More Effective
[17:07] Final Thoughts About Effective Content
[18:18] Bloopers
The Role of Planning and Strategy in Effective Content Creation
[Meghan] Today I’m going to share some content marketing wisdom. Are you ready to get this party started?
[Theresa] I’m always ready to party, so yeah, let’s do this! I’m excited to hear what you have in store for us today.
[Meghan] Often it isn’t obvious, but there’s a correlation between the content you publish, the people it attracts and whether or not they buy from you. You’ve got to plan your content if you want it to be effective at generating leads and sales.
[Theresa] Oh! You had me at planning. You know I’m on board with that!
In the past, I struggled with my content creation. It was a big hairy spider, and I really don’t like spiders! Everything seemed hard. I was spending lots of time making random content for the sake of making it. I certainly didn’t think about how it would lead to sales.
You helped me understand the true purpose of having content. And you helped me streamline my topics. Once I could see how it all fit together, I was able to be much more methodical. Now I have a system and a plan and things are so much easier.
[Meghan] You mentioned that you spent time creating random content without much strategy in terms of relating that content to your offers. In other words, how does your content relate to your products and services? You’ve got to think about the relationship between your content, your audience, and your offers.
Planning is the missing step in content creation. You either don’t make time for it or you don’t consider it.
The day-to-day stuff in your business consumes your time, but you feel pressured to put something out there to stay relevant. So, then you decide to go live on Facebook suddenly or publish a random blog post because some content is better than no content, right?
[Theresa] Right! There is constant pressure to produce content. Your community expects you to be consistent in what you share online. Being consistent with your content builds trust. You feel like if you skip content then you’ll be hurting your brand.
[Meghan] Content marketing does require consistency. That puts even more pressure on you to produce content regularly. But that’s because your content has a big role in your business. It can impact your sales, either positively or negatively.
The most effective content attracts your target customer AND aligns with your offers. Your content must appeal to your target market, and your content must correlate in some way to your products and services. It has to do both. Because if you have one without the other, you won’t generate leads and sales.
That’s why planning your content is so important. Planning makes you consider what you’re talking about and why you’re talking about it.
The most effective content attracts your target customer AND aligns with your offers. Your content must appeal to your target market, and your content must correlate in some way to your products and services. It has to do both. Because if you have one without the other, you won’t generate leads and sales.
[Theresa] Okay, that was insightful! Let me repeat that back: your content topics need to align with your offerings as well as your audience’s interests and challenges. This makes your content more likely to attract leads and buyers.
[Meghan] Yes! That’s right! That’s the strategy. Planning your content topics around your specific audience and your offers makes the difference. That’s how you can make your content more effective.
When you don’t pay attention to your audience and your offers, your content becomes way less effective. And by less effective, I mean that you don’t generate leads and you don’t increase your sales.
What Happens When You Don’t Create Effective Content
[Theresa] Will you elaborate on that a little bit? I’m curious what it looks like when you don’t follow this strategy. Do you have a concrete example?
[Meghan] Sure! I have the perfect example of what happens when your content topics don’t align with the right audience and the services you offer.
There was a time when I didn’t plan my content. About five years ago, I randomly chose a blog post topic that didn’t align with my services or my desired audience. The post was about how to create an eBook cover.
Back then I was offering social media and content creation services. In my mind, I thought eBook covers were a topic small business owners would be interested in and that’s as far as I went in strategizing.
[Theresa] What happened with the post? I’m curious because I have a feeling something went wrong!
[Meghan] You guessed it! Something went very wrong. The eBook cover topic appealed to people, but all of the wrong people! The topic was not specific enough to small business owners who needed marketing help.
Tons of people NOT in my ideal audience were looking for information on eBook covers, like authors for instance. Authors were not my target market.
[Theresa] Authors make sense. I mean, authors write books and books need covers.
[Meghan] Exactly, it seems obvious now, doesn’t it? Authors and book covers go hand in hand! Small business owners and book covers—not so much. LOL But I hadn’t really considered the topic in context of both my specific audience and my services, and that’s the point.
[Theresa] Like they say, hindsight is 20/20! What were the consequences of not planning your content?
[Meghan] As it turned out, the eBook cover topic was super popular. I ranked on page one for eBook cover makers. And, that particular blog post ranked in my top ten pages. So there I was, ranking well and generating loads of traffic—neither of which were helpful since I chose the wrong topic to discuss.
Do you know that that dang eBook cover blog post is still in the top ten pages for that website? The impact of that one content topic has lasted YEARS!
Five years later, that blog post is still biting me in the butt! It’s a good lesson, though, and it’s one of the reasons why I urge people to consider what content topics they’re using.
You Give the Wrong Signals to Visitors and Search Engines
eBook covers had nothing to do with my business. I should have focused on topics to build my authority in the social media and content marketing area. A post about eBook cover makers didn’t make me look like a marketing expert. So, I gave the wrong signals to website visitors and to Google about my area of expertise.
You Attract the Wrong Audience
Then, there’s the whole problem of who was coming to my website. They were the wrong people. They weren’t interested in social media and content marketing, so that post generated no leads. It attracted people who were never going to be clients.
You Hurt Your SEO
Also, the post attracted people who left quickly because all they cared about was the eBook cover topic and not my other content. When people arrive at your website and quickly leave, that can signal to Google that your site doesn’t have good content. And you don’t want that to happen. That’s not good for SEO.
[Theresa] Oh that hurts! I know you were kicking yourself for not getting it right. But the mistake really did give you some knowledge and insight that you won’t forget!
Effective Content Maximizes Your Leads, Sales, and SEO
[Meghan] That blog post missed the mark in multiple ways. I didn’t choose a topic specific to my core target audience. So, I attracted the wrong audience.
And, I didn’t align the topic with my services, so I didn’t generate any leads or sales. You see, your content primes your audience for the solutions that you offer.
Now, had I thought about the eBook cover topic in relation to my services and to my ideal client, I wouldn’t have chosen that topic, you know? Had I done any planning and strategy, I wouldn’t have made this mistake.
That’s why you plan and consider your target market and your offers when you’re selecting content topics.
[Theresa] Yikes! I see how one poorly planned topic had a ripple effect of other negative results. People don’t realize the impact of their content topics on their lead generation efforts, sales, and SEO.
[Meghan] I agree. Hopefully this helps you better understand that the topics you choose may seem like an insignificant thing, but they matter quite a bit.
How to Make Your Content More Effective
[Theresa] Your content topics do matter! In fact, in SEMRush’s content marketing survey, I read that marketers reported their biggest challenges were:
- creating content that generates quality leads,
- creating content that attracts more traffic, and
- developing content that resonates with their target audience.
So, effective content is something many struggle with. Do you have tips for us on how to make our content more effective?
[Meghan] Yes, I do! In general, effective content starts with planning and strategy, so I’m going to give you three tips focused on those two areas.
#1 Research Content Ideas
[Meghan] Research content ideas to find out what your target audience wants and the format they want to consume it.
- What does your target customer want to know?
- What are they searching for online?
- Do they prefer videos or blog posts?
We’ll talk more about how to identify content topics in an upcoming episode. But what you need to know now is that randomly choosing your content topics isn’t effective.
Check out your competitors, social media, reviews, and the most and least popular content in your industry. Research will give you content ideas and point you in a much better direction than simply winging it.
[Theresa] You started with research and that’s no surprise!
I suggest you have a plan in place for when you research. Having a process will help you save time, stay on task and avoid overwhelm.
Here are some things to consider:
- Block off a specific amount of time (e.g. Tuesday from 10am-11am)
- Know what you’re looking for in advance (what’s the goal of your research)
- Take good notes (so you remember what you find)
- Don’t keep too many tabs open (to avoid overwhelm)
- Focus (to avoid going off on tangents)
- Use a timer (so you control your time)
#2 Create a Content Calendar
[Meghan] After you’ve researched content ideas, what are you going to do with them? Now it’s time to create a content calendar.
Capture your content ideas and other pertinent information in a calendar. A content calendar offers many benefits. For instance, it helps you plan your topics so that you know what you’re publishing and when. You can also use a calendar to keep track of your work.
I create my content calendars in Google Sheets. It’s free, and this format is easily shared and makes collaboration simple.
Make sure to include three important columns:
1) content ideas or keyword topics
2) why your target customer cares about that topic or what problem it solves, and
3) which product or offer the topic aligns with.
At a glance, you see what your content is about and why. Why for your audience and why for your business.
[Theresa] The content calendar is awesome! You helped create a content strategy and calendar for me and I love it! There’s no more guesswork because I know exactly what content I need to create. I know I’m being purposeful with the information I’m putting out there. It also ensures that I stay on brand.
[Meghan] I love the content calendar! Before I’ve even written a word, I know what I’m writing and why. It’s like a mini goal setting exercise for each and every content topic. And that makes your content more effective.
And—this is important—if I can’t come up with why the topic matters to my customer AND which offer it correlates to in my business, then I don’t create content for that topic. I delete it and move on.
[Theresa] That is an important step! Before moving forward with a topic, make sure it meets the goals you have for your audience and for your business. So smart.
Another great aspect of a content calendar is that it’s a plan! Which, of course, I love. That makes it the perfect productivity tool. It helps you save time, stay organized and keeps you on brand—delivering content that resonates with your audience.
Start by choosing a location for your calendar. As Meghan mentioned, we use Google Sheets. It’s the best tool if you need to share your calendar or if you plan to in the future. But you could use Excel or Numbers (for Mac users).
Add the three columns Meghan suggested and also a column for your headline and one for your categories. For example, my categories are:
- Productivity
- Time Management
- Organization
- Goal Setting & Achievement
- Outsourcing
- Business Mindset
Every piece of content I produce falls into one of those categories. I always indicate the category for each headline I list on my calendar.
This is all sooooo good! What else ‘ya got?
#3 Analyze and Adjust
[Meghan] Okay, the last tip is inspired from my dad who always says “What isn’t inspected isn’t respected.” Always analyze your results and adjust your strategy if necessary.
After you’ve published content, analyze how well it performed.
- Did it generate leads?
- How many times was it shared?
- Did people engage with it?
- How did your email subscribers react to it?
You will learn so much from what you’ve done—but only if you pause long enough to analyze it.
If your content isn’t working, adjust your strategy and your content topics. You may need to research some more. There is a lot of trial and error in marketing, so don’t give up! It’s normal to have to make adjustments.
[Theresa] I believe that a lot of entrepreneurs skip the step of analyzing and adjusting. When you’re focused on the most important tasks in your business, this one may fall off the radar. So, block off an hour each month to review your metrics.
[Meghan] You definitely must make time for your metrics. Analyzing your efforts may not be fun, but it teaches you so much and guides your future marketing. So don’t skip it!
Final Thoughts About Effective Content
[Theresa] We hope that today’s episode made you think about your own content creation. Creating content takes a lot of time, which is why you want to make it as effective as possible. Any last thoughts you want to leave with us Meghan?
[Meghan] The biggest takeaway today is that planning and strategy are the first steps in creating effective content. In doing so, you’ll create effective content that attracts your ideal customer AND primes them for your offerings. The end result is more leads and sales.
[Theresa] Alright, that’s it for today! If you enjoyed this discussion, please subscribe to the podcast and share this post with a friend!
