Do you struggle to create content consistently? Have a habit of getting bursts of inspiration, and then fall off the hamster wheel entirely? Do you wonder how OTHERS manage to keep up with a consistent weekly content system when they’re juggling a million competing business and life priorities? Do you wish someone would just give you a simple damn system that works?

In today’s podcast episode, I share the simple system we use inside of our business to create consistent, content that helps to sell our offers — and the best thing is? It works EVEN if you’re a one (wo)man band.

Step #1 — Choose a Planning Timeframe

Planning doesn’t need to be a whole thing, but we DO recommend setting aside 1 – 2 hours every month or so to plan out your content themes for you the upcoming 30 days. If you’re feeling really ambitious, you could do this every 90 days and plan three months ahead, but I do find that 30 days is a good sweet spot. It gives you enough runway to plan and create content in advance, but its not so long that changing business priorities won’t derail all of your good work.

Step #2 — Pick a Content Theme That Aligns With Your Sales Goal For That Period

Sales and revenue planning is a topic for a different podcast episode; but, for the purposes of this exercise we’re going to assume that you have a revenue goal in mind, and a sales focus for each quarter. For example, course creators should be focused on different campaigns throughout the year — these are dedicated periods of focus on promoting and selling one product in their suite.

When creating content, it’s so critically important that you align it with your sales focus. One of the biggest mistakes out there is creating content for the sake of it and with no ‘end goal’ in mind. If that’s you, scrolling Reels for the latest audio trend to jump onto and then randomly coming up with an idea to match it — rather than starting with the content THEME and objective FIRST – it’s no wonder that you’re feeling unaligned with your marketing. It’s messy and unaligned, and likely isn’t moving you closer to your big goals.

So, pick a theme related to your sales goal. For example, if you have a course on how to get more clients using Instagram marketing, your theme for the month might relate to crafting a content strategy that draws in qualified leads, and the focus of all of your content for that period is that theme.

Step #3 — Align Content Theme With Your Campaigns

The other piece of the puzzle here is to ensure that you are focused on the right TYPE of content for the stage of the selling system you are currently in.

For example, if you are leading up to launching something, there are a few defined ‘phases’ that you will move through as you get closer to your cart open period. 60 days out, you will be creating relevant, related content related to your theme that strategically primes your audience for your offer and you’ll be focused on a strong list building call to action. A couple of weeks out, your content focus will shift to lead generation for your launch event, and then during your cart open period you will be focused on strategic content that overcomes all of the objections and hesitations someone might have to purchasing from you.

So, there is nuance here too. In addition to clarity on the content theme, you need to ensure that you know what the clear call to action and objective for your content is, related to the campaign period you are in. For example, if you are outside of a launch, as a course creator your focus should be list building so your content should have a call to action focus on that.

Step #4 — Use Your Content Theme Across ALL of Your Content

Inside of our flagship group coaching program, Launchpad, we recommend having a core content channel (for example, a podcast) and a core social channel. And then, of course, an email strategy. You are going to keep the same consistent content theme across all of your content, so that there is consistent, aligned messaging across your platforms that also aligns with the sales focus you have for that period.

Step #5 — The Planning Session

There are going to be TWO sessions that you will have set up in each planning timeframe.

So, for us, every 4 – 6 weeks, there is a time in the diary to plan out all content for the next month/6 weeks. This is no longer than an hour or two of time.

Start by making a list of ALL of the CORE content topics you are going to cover over that time. For example, we have one podcast a week and so we devise the topic and headline for each episode, and then maybe three or four bullet points on the content of that episode. I also generally write the intro paragraph – the hook, and two to three lines to introduce the content piece – at this time too, and this becomes a little snippet of copy that I use everywhere.

The BIGGEST hack for doing this quickly and easily is to ensure that you are not sitting down to a blinking cursor and a blank page when you go to do this session. Instead, we recommend that you have an ‘ideas dump’ somewhere easily accessible (it could simply be a note on your phone; we have an ‘ideas’ board in ClickUp that I can easily access via the mobile app on my phone), so that when you are listening to podcasts, or going for a walk, or talking with a client when a random idea strikes, you are able to capture it. This becomes the perfect jumping off point for coming up with your ideas during this planning session.

Once you have your core content pieces, you also have your emails done! These will simply be taken from your core content.

The final step is to plan out your social content from your core content. The way we presently do it is that we create one Reel and one post from each piece of core content. So, this is also the time when you plan out EXACTLY what this is going to be.

For Reels for example, this is where you will jump onto the app and scroll through for trending audio and any inspiration and dump it into your planning doc so it’s all ready when you go to create it.

Step #6 — The Creation Session

At a completely DIFFERENT time to the planning session, you are going to set aside half a day to a day for content creation. The MOST important thing is that there should be NO planning done by this point. You should make sure you look and feel great on this day; pick a Friday and I like to make sure I am dressed well and in a nice environment to make it fun.

You will have your planning list in front of you, and this is when you CREATE.

For example, if you have four – six podcast episodes on your list, you record them all in one go. We usually then will have four – six posts to create, and four – six Reels. You can batch stories content here too, just bring a change of clothes.

Step #7 — Amplify the Best Performing Content With Engagement Ads

This is a final optional step, but it’s really powerful if you want to get maximum mileage from your content strategy. We recommend choosing an EPIC piece of content from the previous month – the BEST, most EPIC piece you created and the content that had the most impact – and amplifying it out with $5 – $10 a day engagement/visibility ads to cold audiences to grow your visibility to new audiences.

Step #8 — Rinse and Repeat

Each 4 – 6 weeks, rinse and repeat this whole process with non negotiable time blocked out in your calendar for your planning session and creation session. Each period, check in on what worked well, and what didn’t. Don’t keep creating the same content if it’s bombing, use these regular intervals to assess what worked BEST and incorporate more of that so that you are always improving.

And that’s it! Our system for creating consistent content — even if you’re currently in content paralysis, keep falling off the bandwagon and wonder if it’s all worth it.

If you want to build your thought leadership, authority and visibility in your space, valuable content is an essential element of your marketing strategy and this is the system that is working for us to do just that. Enjoy!

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Are you a current or aspiring digital course creator wanting to create, launch and scale your flagship digital course in 2022? Head to thecoursecartel.com/launchpad to apply for our 12 month, high touch group coaching program.

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