IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!
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In this episode of the courageous content podcast, I'll show you how to create a business book strategy, and also why you need to I'm Janet Murray, I'm a content and online business strategist, and the creator of a whole host of content kits that will save you time and hassle with your content pushing cleared the business basics care, which I'll talk about in this episode.
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So if you want your blogs to generate more leads and sales for your business, you need to plan ahead and probably much further than you imagined. And the first decision you need to make is how often are you going to publish your blog? And by the way, when I'm talking about blogs, I'm talking about any content you're publishing on your website with the intention of attracting your ideal customers or clients.
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And by the way, when I'm talking about a blog, I'm talking about any content that you might publish on your website with that aim of attracting your ideal customers or clients. So it could be a podcast, it could be a YouTube channel or even repurposed Facebook lives. That's still a blog. So at the first decision you need to make is how often you're going to publish that content.
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And this does need to be realistic in an ideal world, particularly when you're building an audience for what a specific product or service I would recommend aiming for once a week. Once you've built a body of work, once you've started to develop clusters of blog content on specific topics, you can often start to ease off and you can also start to repurpose content you've already created.
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So for example, you can create Roundup posts of your most popular blogs or podcasts or YouTube videos. And not only is that a great way to save time on content creation, you're also giving your audience something new, a new way to experience your content. Even if it doesn't feel new to you, it will almost certainly feel new to your audience. But if this feels impossible,
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if your current commitments mean that showing up once a week with a blog or podcast or YouTube video, it feels too much. It is better to commit to less than that. So twice a month or once a month even, and actually do it, then say, you're going to show up once a week, manage it for a month and run out of steam,
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which is what happens to lots of people. So do be realistic. Do look at what else you've got going on in your life, your business, maybe you are building your business up alongside a day job, and maybe it is too much to do that. So make sure that you're setting yourself realistic targets. If you have microwave's content planner, you'll be familiar with my approach to concept planning already,
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if not, here's a quick overview. So I typically recommend planning in quarters and planning at least two to three months ahead, wherever you can. And I'd always recommend starting by looking across the upcoming quarter and first off looking at what you're going to be selling. So what products or services are you going to be focusing on? Do you have any new launches,
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any new features launching on products or services that you already have does the upcoming course that include a season where you know that your products or services are typically going to be in more demand like Christmas or Easter or January when people have got new year's resolutions. When you start by looking at your sales focus, you can start to think about what blog content you need to create and when will be best to publish it.
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And also to create what I generally refer to as warmup content. So for example, when I'm promoting microwave's content planner, I do schedule a number of relevant podcast episodes to go out around the time that the panic is on sale, but I'm also very intentional in the content I create in the months and weeks leading up to that launch, I will typically do a lot more episodes on planning content on coming up with ideas on using awareness days to spark ideas,
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because they link really nicely into my planner. What I don't want to do is just to rock up and tell everybody that my plan is on sale without laying the foundations as it were in my content, they might be listening to this and thinking, well, I don't know what I'm going to be doing in the next quarter. I don't know what products or services I'm going to be focusing on.
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If this is the case, a bit of tough love for you. That's easy a business problem, not a content problem. And it means that you're going to have to go back to the drawing board and see plan out what's happening in your business in the next quarter, but also ideally at the next year, otherwise you will be missing out on opportunities to promote your products or services.
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And it's going to impact on your sales. You may be thinking, well, I can't do this because I sell the same product or service all year round. And if that's the case, here's another bit of tough love for you. You can't sell the same product or service the same way the whole year round. Well you can, but your sales will almost certainly suffer if you do.
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So if this is the case, you need to create what I generally refer to as peak points. So these are times in the year that allow you to create fat excitement about your products or services. The obvious choice for many businesses is hosting some kind of sale or special offer. But if that doesn't feel right for your business, there are still many other things that you can do.
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For example, launching a new feature and you color a new style or hosting some kind of special VIP event, or just thinking about the times of year, people are most likely to be interested in your product or service and upping your marketing activity around that time. So for example, really obvious one, if you are in the fitness industry, people are typically keen to get started with new fitness programs in January and also,
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and this is actually true for lots of services. September can be another peak time because people take holidays over the summer. They take breaks from hobbies. They take breaks from fitness or nutrition regimes, and they're often keen to get back on it in September. So I hope you found this useful. If you want to know more about blogging for your business,
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it have eight number of episodes on this topic. What should you blog about for your business? Is it still worth blinking for business in 2022? How to write blog posts fast and Should you invest in my Courageous blog content kit. I’ll link to all those in the show notes.
