Content is KING!

How often do you hear this while navigating the entrepreneurial world? 

All. The. Time. 

For good reason, too. 

The content that you share with the world has the powerful ability to create and nurture an audience of people who will provide your business with the life force that keeps it alive: clients. Unfortunately, not all content is created equal, and not all methods of content distribution are suited for every business owner. The strategy that you adopt for yourself will have a significant effect on how successful your content is in stimulating that vital top tier of your sales funnel. 

Your content strategy should motivate your audience to know, like, and trust you without ever even meeting you in person. When you are able to show up consistently, your fans will want to engage with you, promote you, and even invest in your services; but how do you get to a place where your content strategy is doing all of this for you? 

When creating your own custom content strategy, you need to have 5 elements in place and flushed out for it to be successful: Your business fundamentals, content ideas, audience & delivery, technical strategy, and marketing plan. For you to be able to confidently and consistently show up in this process, each of these parts needs to be in alignment with you in life and business. 

1. Business fundamentals

Your business foundations are at the core of everything you do as an entrepreneur. In order to show up authentically, your values and structures must be in alignment with who you are as a person. This affects all elements of your business development, branding, and marketing; from emotions and problems solved to colours and public perception. 

While developing your business foundations, you will have also invested a good deal of time and market researching to thoroughly understand the needs of your ideal client. This will include not only their general demographic, pain points, and struggles that you hope to solve but also their dreams, goals, and desires. All aspects of a successful business rely upon this preliminary foundation so take the time to reflect and make sure that everything is in place and feels aligned with who you are in life and business. 

2. Content Ideas

Coming up with what to write can be a real struggle. Many entrepreneurs don’t even know where to start. Then there’s the overthinking: you don’t want to confuse your audience but you also don’t want to over-share about one topic or another and become boring. Worse yet, what if you run out of ideas altogether?!

Without a steady stream of content topics and ideas, you risk having your strategy fall flat before you even get started. Having a place where you steadily deposit and draw ideas will help you keep the ball rolling. When you are confident in the abundance of value you have to provide your audience with, you can put together a solid schedule for creating the actual content that you need. Whether you batch create or go with the flow will depend on your personality, core values, and end goals. 

3. Audience & Delivery

You will have already established your ideal client but now you need to figure out how they relate to you in your ability to create and provide meaningful content to them where they are. What platform are they using? LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, etc. What medium do they prefer? Video, graphics, the written word, etc.

Different audiences will prefer consuming different styles; you will prefer creating different styles. Where those two overlaps are the sweet spot. That’s where you will see the most engagement by the types of people who love what you have to offer AND where you will be best able to consistently, confidently, and comfortably show up for those who you serve. This is an ever-evolving space that will take time to lean into and develop fully within your content strategy.

4. Technical strategy

You’ve heard it a million and one times: Consistency is KEY! Not only do you need to be able to show up when and where you plan to but it is equally important to be able to be consistent in HOW you show up. There is something to be said about the balance between rigorous conversion strategy and the ability to keep it up. Not to mention the importance of having fun along the way. 

Content repurposing is one of many ways in which you can maintain consistency without burning out. Take a piece of evergreen content and spread the word. That way you’re not reinventing the wheel every time you show up, thereby conserving your - oh so precious - brain bandwidth and energy levels. 

5. Marketing plan

Simple: how are you driving traffic to the content you’ve created? This directly ties into your overall sales strategy and how other business cogs fit in to support this main vein. Looking at your content strategy as a stand-alone investment in the success of your business will ultimately lead to stagnation. You need to look at the big picture and get everything to work together in order to see consistent, meaningful progress in your bottom line. 

Are you talking to people? Do you have a central hub of communication? A community space where you are easily reachable and people can receive amazing, value-rich interactions with you in-person as well as through your content? What about the back-end systems and processes? Launch strategies? Time management, idea development, CEO days, and self-care? It’s all connected; all of this and more. 

To make your content strategy robust yet always ready for growth and flexible enough to handle pivots and inspiration it needs to be rooted in your core, foundational values for life and business. 

• It’s personal, passionate, and a little scary at times. 
• It’s professional, strategic, and ambitious.
• It’s smart, practical, and ever-evolving. 

Your custom content growth strategy will motivate your audience to know, like, and trust you without ever even meeting you in person. Following through with this type of strategy feels good because it’s catered to your level of comfort and confidence while staying consistent and authentic. With these 5 elements in place, you will be able to use content to boost the top-tier efficiency of your sales funnel and ultimately your bottom line.