You have to write a blog, then an eBook and then another blog. Oh, and, you still have to somehow get the day job done. For modern marketers it can feel like content production is a furnace that constantly needs more coal to feed it – you’ve only just shovelled one piece in, before you have to start another.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no reason why your content has to rule you. In fact, with one simple switch, you can take back control of your content. So what is this switch?
Stop what you are doing, down tools and start again with a clear idea.
I repeat, stop what you are doing, down tools and start again with a clear idea.
What does this really mean? Well for many marketers, there is a real pressure to keep on churning out content because of the perception that more = better. More content means more opportunities for people to engage with your content. More content means more opportunities for people to convert to leads. More content means more opportunities to rank in search and be shared in social.
But, as a result of this pressure, it means that many marketers are in the situation where they are producing content to feed this furnace, without any clear plan or structure to guide the overall content production strategy.
To put it another way, you feel like you’re lurching from one piece of content to another without any plan on what you’re going to write until you start and no strategy for sharing and amplifying this content after it’s completed.
If this is the situation that you find yourself in, just stop. Without taking time out from this cycle, it’s going to be a real challenge to take charge of your content production.
After you’ve paused, it’s time to work on your idea. Use your persona research to choose a specific idea or topic that is pertinent to them. For example, you might decide that your persona is increasingly concerned about the pace of change in digital marketing.
This is now your idea
Now I realise this sounds obvious. So lets break it down further. When it comes to content production, you need to have a very clear focus on what you want to communicate and how you are going to be helpful, useful and interesting to your persona.
Start with the idea (in this case the pace of change in digital marketing). Now decide the primary pieces of content that you want to produce as part of this idea. These could be:
- An eBook: ‘101 Amazing Resources to Keep Up with the World of Digital Marketing
- A webinar, which has a panel interview of 3 digital marketing experts all sharing their predictions for the next
- A checklist: ‘How to Keep on Top of Changing Digital Marketing Trends: The Daily Checklist’
Now that you have the primary content for this idea, it’s time to break this down further. This means taking each piece of key content and metaphorically throwing it one the floor, to break it up into different sections. Each one of these smaller sections then becomes a blog idea, which sets your blogging calendar for the next few months. Aim to get at least 5 blog posts from each piece of key content.
Are you seeing where this is going for your content production?
Now you have you key content set and your blog calendar set for the next campaign, so you don’t need to rush from piece to piece wondering what you’re supposed to be writing. Instead of creating content to feed that content furnace, you now have structure and a clear plan.