Content Planning Strategies 101: It All Comes Down to Execution

Why Taking Action on Your Content Planning Strategies is The Most Important Part

In an earlier video, we talked about content planning and about how 40% of businesses don’t take the time to have any sort of documented content plan.

To me, that’s a differentiator.

That’s an edge that you can get in the marketplace regardless of your industry, have a simple plan, write a few things down, know your goals at the end of it, then all that content and hard work begins to pay off.

So what comes next?

What if you’ve written down your ideas, maybe formulated it into some sort of plan around a number of clicks or potential customers that you bring in, or even land new customers, or maybe it’s something else maybe it’s about growing a following or it could be anything, right?

So let’s say you set up all those goals and now it comes down to getting the job done.

And you may feel a little apprehensive like you might be saying “Jen, it’s nice that you can do videos, but I don’t really feel comfortable in front of the camera.” So let’s talk a little bit about some of that stuff.

One of the things that you’re going to want to do is take a look at what your competitors are doing, not so that you can copy them, but so you can take a look at how they’re reaching out to people.

And it’s also going to look at people who are maybe aspirationally a little ahead of you somebody that you want to be.

And then you have to have that real talk with yourself there, real conversation around what is it that I like to do?

What is it that I’m actually going to follow through on?

Because goals don’t really work if you don’t follow through on it, if you have no intention of taking that next step into action, because really the magic happens in the action.

So what happens if you go out there and you see everybody has videos and you’re like, I don’t want to have a video that makes me super nervous. I don’t even know about looking in the camera.

What do I have to do?

And the truth is just get started. You’ll probably have to include some video in your content plan if it’s common in your industry. So when I first started doing videos, I was like looking in the wrong place doing all kinds of talking.

It didn’t make a lot of sense.

So what I did is admittedly, I got a little discouraged, but then, after that, what I would do at that point, I was doing a lot of Facebook Lives and I would do a Facebook Live and set it to private.

Then I felt like I was actually doing a Facebook Live, but nobody could see it.

And it was like making that deal with myself of, okay, I’m doing it. And if I really mess this up, nobody can see it. And over time I would do that.

And then I would go, live for real. I would just let ‘er rip and I would do the same thing on the podcast. I don’t do a lot of scripting.

I get the ideas roughed out and I figured out what I want to talk about, but I don’t like to read off of a teleprompter or anything like that.

I think the key here is to do whatever it’s going to take for you to take action and be comfortable doing it. For example, you can do things like record yourself using QuickTime or at any sort of program (e.g., Camtasia, Loom), even Zoom, you can record yourself and then take a lot of takes, take your time doing that.

And that’s what you can do with your videos.

If you don’t like to create Canva images and all of that kind of stuff, it’s really good to get somebody to help you. If you don’t like to write your social media posts, find somebody to help you with that.

I think the key is to create a content plan and then find that comfort zone for what it’s going to take for you to take the next step.

A lot of people don’t like social media, a lot of people don’t even like marketing at all. I, I don’t know how many people I’ve talked to, who don’t like to write.

They don’t like writing blogs and I love writing. I love talking. I love all of it. I think it’s super fun. And I have to acknowledge that not everybody is like me.

What you need to do is work on the things that really make you shine that make you happy.

If it’s being a guest on podcasts, where you can talk about things and people are asking you questions in a conversational way, do that.

The point is to take action in ways that you feel comfortable. And if that means breaking out of your comfort zone a little, then you might have to do that.

So you can be on social media at all, and then get the help that you need to work out all of the other marketing tools and bits.

If you do a video because you don’t like to blog, then make sure that you have captions and include the transcript on your blog or on your website, if you have one, because those kinds of things, not only help with accessibility, which is really important but they also including the text.

Some people like to read transcripts and the text, let’s face it, also it helps with search engine optimization (SEO), getting found on Google. So I hope these things are all helpful in telling you that the best thing that you can do is just get started, plan it out, but don’t get stuck in that planning mode.

Make sure that you take it to the next step, which is action. And if you need any help, feel free to reach out.

Thanks.