On today’s episode, we’re focusing on helping you find the best way to create content to attract customers. And it starts with having a plan. We have a simple strategy for mapping out your long-term goals to keep you organized and productive .

Episode Transcript 

Jeff Lambert:                00:01                On today's episode, we're focusing on helping you find the best way to create content to attract customers. And it starts with having a plan. We have a simple strategy for mapping out your long-term goals to keep you organized and productive. Div.

Jeff Lambert:                00:27                Hello and welcome to Inbound Academy brought to you by Rizen. I'm your host, Jeff Lambert. So you have some content ideas to attract customers to your business. That's great, But it's not enough just to publish some items once and then put more out on an inconsistent basis. You need a roadmap so you can plan what, when and where you're going to be publishing your content. So to talk more about that, I'm joined in the studio today by the COO of Rizen Corp., Will Avila. He's going to share some simple plans for how you can lay out a content strategy. Will thanks for joining me today.

William Avila:                01:04                Thanks for having me.

Jeff Lambert:                01:06                So why is it important for me as a business owner, or as a content leader in my business, to actually plan out my content?

William Avila:                01:15                Well, you wouldn't plan a road trip without a destination, hotels, or sites that you want to see. So it's probably a good analogy. And I would also say that I think it's about 86% of highly-effective organizations have someone solely directing their content strategy. So it's very important to have a quarterback. And you know, we've also covered this before in the buyer's journey. You know, content pulls people from one stage to another. So if you have somebody who has a question, they're going to be in the awareness stage. But then when they start considering their different options, consideration. And when they're going to make a decision, if you're a service company or you have a product, you know, hopefully they decide to purchase your product in the decision stage through your content.

Jeff Lambert:                02:07                And that comes back to what I had mentioned in the introduction. Consistency is really important when it comes to publishing content, right?

William Avila:                02:14                Absolutely. You can kind of think of it like a savings account or a retirement plan. You know, if you deposit sporadically or you know, and you don't pay attention to it, you probably are not going to hit your goal. So you really need to have a long-term plan and a regular schedule to help you reach your goals.

Jeff Lambert:                02:34                So why don't we lay out some steps for our listeners if they want to plan a long-term content strategy. Let's start off with with where do I begin if I want to do that?

William Avila:                02:45                Sure. So the first thing is you want to map it to the persona. So if you're talking to a doctor versus talking to a homeowner, that's a totally different messaging that you're going to have for the content, right? The next thing you need to do is have a goal for that content. So if, let's say you're trying to get 10 new customers, you need to have a measurable plan to think about when choosing the actual content that you create and where and what pieces, awareness, consideration, decisions will you be creating when you do this?

Jeff Lambert:                03:21                Okay. So I've created a buyer persona, which we talked about in a previous episode. For our listeners, you can go back to that and learn how to do that and we even have a downloadable template that you can use to make your first one. I've created that persona and like you said, I'm catering to doctors so I know exactly what I'm looking for in terms of my content. And then I'm setting a goal for what I want my content to do. What would be the next step after that?

William Avila:                03:44                I'd say audit and assess your content on a regular basis. See if it's actually performing well for you. Are people going to the content? And if they're not filling out a form are they downloading your offer? So it's important to see the performance of each individual piece of content.

Jeff Lambert:                04:04                Now, is there a way for me to really keep track of my content and what I'm doing? Because I may publish something or create something in January and then forget about that come November. What would you suggest to make sure that I'm not putting out duplicate pieces of content?

William Avila:                04:18                Yeah, you definitely want an identifying catalog, everything you have. You could do that in Excel. There's, there's different programs that allow you to monitor that. However it is, you want to stay organized and following a system. Like we use internally Hubspot and Excel. It will help you from creating duplicate content. It'll help you see where the gaps in your content are. Maybe you're writing too much to the doctors, but you should be writing to the patients as well. Or maybe you have too much awareness and no consideration, and a lot of the decision-level content. So that'll help you identify gaps. By having a system in place.

Jeff Lambert:                05:01                Okay. So those are good steps to really think about putting together a long-term process. How important is it for me to pay attention to the buyer's journey when I'm going through and creating content?

William Avila:                05:12                It's very important. If your content only caters to the awareness stage, you're not informing them, but you're educating them, and you're not necessarily giving them the different solutions; the different options that they have for their problems. So I guess you can say a general rule of thumb is, for a problem, the awareness stage. If you're discussing a solution or the options for a solution, it would be the consideration stage. And if you're discussing next steps, that would be more of the decision stage.

Jeff Lambert:                05:52                So I really want to make sure that the content I'm putting out is hitting different points in the buyer's journey. Correct?

William Avila:                05:57                Absolutely. You know, you'll find that some people who come in during the decision stage, they may be in the consideration stage. In the perfect world, they'll follow your content from awareness, consideration, to decision. But does it normally happen that way? And you want to make sure that you have content for every piece of the journey. Of the buyer's journey.

Jeff Lambert:                06:21                And just to recap the steps that you've put together, we've talked about the importance of setting marketing goals. We've talked about the importance of auditing or assessing what you're putting out. And then of course, what we just talked about, making sure that you followed the buyer's journey. So you're catering to every single step that people take? Those potential customers?

William Avila:                06:39                Correct. Yes.

Jeff Lambert:                06:41                And would you say that in your own experience in doing this with your company, when you're planning out long-term content, do you follow a specific pattern like this and do you see success with you then using this strategy?

William Avila:                06:52                Absolutely. Whatever we cook, we eat. So, you know, we follow this exact formula and it's been very, very helpful for us and for our clients.

Jeff Lambert:                07:06                Well Will, thank you for coming to talk about this topic and giving people a basic overview of the importance of planning a long-term strategy. And I'm sure we'll have to the opportunity to get more into the details here in the future.

William Avila:                07:17                Absolutely.

Jeff Lambert:                07:18                And to our listeners, thank you so much for joining us for today's episode. You can expect a new one every weekday, always no longer than 10 minutes and always filled with advice that's going to help you grow your business. And remember, if you're looking for an experienced, friendly and results-driven team to help you, check out, Rizen by going to go www.rizeninbound.com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin by searching for the username Rizen_Inbound. That's one word, Rizen_Inbound. Remember, you can also help us out and reach new people by leaving a review on your podcast app of choice. Thanks again for your support and we'll see you on the next episode.