I want to talk to you about how to make a master plan for your content so that it’s not random, so that it drives results for your business and gets you what you want.
What is a Content Plan?
What does that mean? Well, let me break it down for you.
When you are there creating podcasts and blogs and videos, the goal is to be consistent. And when you create once or twice a week, coming up with content can be daunting.
One of the most common questions asked in this space is how to create more content. How do you come up with content ideas?
When we try to fill that content bucket with ideas every week, it’s pretty easy to lose focus. To avoid this, you should be designing your content from the start. One of the best ways to do that is with a content plan.
Now, what is a content plan?
A plan provides direction. A content plan is the direction you take your content over time with purpose.
There are a few ingredients you’ll need to create plan:
- Connective Tissue – Create an idea, concept, or theme that ties your content together.
- Content Map – Know where your content is going episode-to-episode.
- Binge Trigger – Serve your audience irresistible previews of related and relevant content.
The Connective Tissue of a Content Plan
Let’s dive into connective tissue first. Connective tissue is a concept I learned when I was working on the branding for Coca-Cola. There is this idea of connective tissue in their creative.
Whenever you see a piece of content, such as a commercial, a billboard, a radio ad, or a Facebook post, there should be a common thread.
The common thread is going to connect those different pieces of creative together. You can do the same thing with your content. Determine the common thread.
You can design your content to connect from one piece to the next. They should all make sense as one body of work. They don’t need the flow in sequence, but they do need to connect.
To determine that connective tissue, you may need to think back to the beginning of your business. What was the mission for the show that you’ve created? What is the goal of each particular episode?
Review your content and your goals and identify the part of your message that is most consistent. That connective tissue becomes your voice
If you can articulate that clearly, and share it consistently, your content will have more focus.
There are tools out there to help you identify what themes to focus on when creating content. You can figure out what words people are when searching for your information.
Tools like SEMrush and WordTracker allow you to identify key search terms. UberSuggest has some tools you can play with as well. And as you type in words, you can start to see search volume trends and keyword alternatives. Then you choose where you’d like to compete.
And as you find those keywords and phrases, you can hone your message for the season. You start to design your show themes for a longer period of time. And you avoid content topics that are not trending or interesting.
What is a Content Map
The second is this idea of a content map. I like to think of it as an attention funnel.
The content map clearly illustrates where your show is going, step-by-step. Each show should lead somewhere. You can create these maps ahead of time to keep you on track.
For some of you with lots of old content, you can look back at the shows you’ve already created and map that as well. You can group old content into categories. And then within the category, determine where each show leads.
If you’re creating random content every week, your audience will be inconsistent. The audience doesn’t know why they should stay or what they should do next.
Even a sequential show like a podcast, needs a content map. Don’t make your audience wait for your next weekly show. Send them backward to find something that you’ve created already. Let them continue their journey through your content.
If you map out your content journey, you can include the links and the calls to action that tell people where to go. If you don’t help them find more of your content, you’ve lost them.
They went through the trouble of finding you. It’s your job to keep them and reward them.
RELATED: If you’re reading this, the best thing I can offer you next is my Content Marketing Strategy Starter Guide. It defines content marketing strategy. You learn how to do it for yourself and why it’s beneficial.
When you design this content map of where people should go, everybody wins. At the end of the map, you get to mark the final destination. You get to serve up your freebie or your product offering.
If they provide contact information, you can build them into your content system. You can send them consistent content. They are on a channel that you control, like your email.
With a content map, you’re leading them to consume more content and stay in your world. You’re getting them more and more useful content exactly on the journey that they’re on. You can lead them to somewhere that gives them a quick win. And they may be ready to keep reading or even to buy what you sell.
So that’s the content map.
Building a Content Map
In terms of building it, start with your old episodes. Look back, group them into buckets, and prioritize them. Determine where each episode should lead.
Every piece of content should filter up to a few main pieces of pillar content. Start at the bottom. And build up from there.
Identify what content works better as feeder content vs pillar content.
The feeder content should be more tactical or more specific. The pillar content should be more all encompassing.
The Binge Triggers of a Content Plan
So that’s the content map and the third step of this is what I’m calling a binge trigger. We’ve all heard of binge-worthy content. We are the generation that binges back-to-back content on Netflix, and Youtube, and podcasts.
As a podcaster, it is easy to let my audience binge-listen backward. It’s easy to listen to all my podcast episodes in reverse order.
But we can also send people somewhere that they wouldn’t naturally go on their own. You can leverage your content map to design it.
How do you build a trigger for your audience to jump to old episodes?
How do you let them know that they need to keep listening?
There are ways to call attention to old shows. You get to highlight the next logical steps. It’s more than just creating a call to action. It is creating some kind of enticing reason that they should jump to the next thing and leading them down a path.
Part of creating a binge trigger is shouting out specific audience members. And also disqualifying the wrong people.
You can tell them that if they liked something specific about that show, then they would love the next thing. That statement qualifies them. It’s up to you to identify the triggers.
You can ask questions like:
- What is it about the person listening to the show that is true?
- What are they looking for?
- Why would they be listening?
- Why would they continue to listen to the entire show?
If someone finishes a whole show, what does that say about them?
It says that whatever you were talking about, they are interested in. There’s a next obvious thing that they could be listening to. So say that to them.
Content Plan Review
How can you design your content in a way that keeps people listening for more? That’s what building a content plan is about.
You start with the connective tissue. You start with the thing that ties all the episodes together so that your show isn’t random.
Even if it was random, you can go back into time and group them together. Go back into your blogs and shows, and categorize them so that they work together as a theme.
If someone listens to an old show, they should find things that logically go together. You can help them with that.
And if they’re listening to a new show, do the same thing. And as you are producing a new season, be more aware of creating logical themes for your audience.
The second was building your content map. Help people know where to go. The content map helps you understand where you’re sending people. If you’re creating a lot of content, you need to have a good understanding of what leads to what.
When you are creating a binge trigger, which is part three, you need to know what to create. Figure out what’s going to excite people to stay in your world.
Those are the three key steps in making a master plan for your content. It’s designing something that makes sense that helps people listen to more of your content.
When someone feels like they were given value in a show, you have their attention. And then more and more value from the next shows, and you’ve really got someone’s attention.
On top of that, you are getting the benefit from the media channels. If Google sees that someone searched for something, and chose your show, they reward you. If someone binges your content after searching, that tells Google you are relevant for this person.
And they’ll send you more people! They’re going to reward you by sending you more traffic because they want people to stay on their channel. And it’s mutually beneficial.
So if you can build your content to do that, if you can create it with that in mind, it’s going to help you. You will have a more loyal audience. You will be rewarded by the channels with that stronger following and stronger reach.
And you are helping your listeners and audience move quicker to their end goal because they don’t have to keep searching every day.
Every time, they have a new question. You’re leading them to what the next natural question should be. That’s a ton of value.
MORE ADVICE AND INTERVIEWS
If you’d like my full plan for how to build your content marketing strategy, check out my free Content Marketing Starter Guide.
And here are some more of my most popular thought leader interviews!
- What Business to Start with John Lee Dumas
- Personal Branding Masterclass with Chris Ducker
- Built to Serve with Evan Carmichael
Don’t want to miss the next thought leader interview? Subscribe to the free B-team Insider Newsletter! And don’t forget to leave a rating and review on iTunes.
Talk soon!