Can you really create one month of content in an hour?
If you read that and you’re like, huh? That’s not possible. Let me tell you, my friends, it is possible. I’m going to show you that yes, you really can create a month’s worth of content in an hour.
I get your doubt – especially if you’re one of those people who struggle to figure out what to post this week.
Maybe you think it’s just writer’s block. Or you feel like, “I’ve just written on this topic and I’ve talked about this stuff so many times, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be saying anymore.”
With over 20 years of working with clients on their marketing, I get it. It’s so tough to even think about what to write next, so how are you supposed to think about what you’re going to be creating for the whole month?
Let me get right to the secret to creating your content in an hour. The really important thing that you’re going to be focused on when it comes to planning your content is answering this one important question:
What kind of transformation do you want your customers to experience when they’re engaging with your content?
If you think about it from the perspective of the transformation and you look at your content plan with your end goal in mind then you’ll be able to come up with a month’s worth of content ideas in an hour.
It’s about understanding that once you know where you want to take the viewers of your videos, the people in your social media community or the people who are following your Facebook page. It’s about understanding where you want to take them to every single month is the key to your content creation.
Because when you know that answer to that one question, the whole idea of planning out a month’s worth of content is actually a whole lot easier than you think it’s going to be. Because what you’re going to do is you just work backwards from the end goal of your content to give your community the steps and the process that they need to do about the transformation thing you want them to do.
Let me show you how this works …. let’s say, you’re a food blogger.
Your content transformation is to help busy parents learn how to cook more home cooked meals every single week. That is the transformation: helping busy parents learn how to start serving healthier home cooked meals every week.
So let’s work backwards and look at the things you need to do to transform these busy parents by showing them they can prepare home cooked meals.
The content you’ll want to think through are:
- What healthy and easy to make recipes can you share with them?
- How can you share some content with them to understand how to do low-cost meal planning?
- How to go to the grocery store and be more productive with your time to make sure that you do have the ingredients at home so you can cook healthy meals for your family.
Just thinking through those answers you can see that there are content pieces and parts that need to come into place to have that end goal of helping busy parents start serving home cooked meals every single week.
It’s the same process with your business and what you’re working on to grow your business. I want you to think about the questions you would ask to get you to that end goal of the transformation that you are trying to help your customers go through by engaging with your content.
Now that you understand what is the transformation that you’re doing with your content, how do you start this content development process?
The first thing that you’ll do is to start using a content tool called Content Buckets.
At its core, content buckets are categories, topics or monthly themes. It’s a brainstorming step to help you sort through the topics you could be sharing with your marketing posts that you hope will resonate with your community.
So, if we look at the food blogger and the transformation to get them to start serving healthy home cooked meals as a busy parent, let’s look at what the content buckets would be.
Content bucket ideas could be: how to shop better, 30 minute recipes, meal preparation, Insta Pot meals. These would be a good place to start to think about the content you can create that would fall under those categories.
For you to take this step, I want you to think about the categories and topics that resonate with your customers. And you want to have at least 4 – 6 content buckets that you’ll use for your content creation.
Here’s some ideas to get you thinking about which of these content buckets make sense for your business and your marketing:
- Behind the scenes
- Resources and tools
- Pain points and challenges
- FAQ
- Motivation and inspiration
As you can see, these categories are very general. We always start general, then go to the sub-categories { where you can get more specific with your topic } and THEN we create post specific content with the idea of creating content for each of the different content buckets.
Take a look at this graphic to see how to set up your content buckets and you’ll see that once you get your 4 – 6 content buckets set up, it will make everything flow and will help you create a month’s worth of content ideas in an hour.
Let’s talk about your Content Calendar
Yes, my friends, let’s talk about your content calendar because this content tool is really super, super important and you want to make sure that your content calendar works for you and the way you work.
I’m very clear whenever I say, “There’s no right way. There’s no wrong way. There’s just your way.”
Which means that if you are a digital person, use a productivity type app that syncs with your computer so you can see your work whether you’re on your phone or your laptop.
If you are a person who likes to write out things by hand, go find a calendar on Pinterest that you can download. You can create your own content calendar using a Google doc and put it into a three ring binder that you keep by your desk.
The calendar itself isn’t as important as the steps to setting this up. It should be based on how you work so it’s something that you’ll be able to stick with and keep using it.
So let’s talk about your content calendar.
The main idea with using a content calendar is to fill it like a content matrix.
You’ll write in the calendar days when you plan to post on social media, when your email newsletters go out and what days you’ll do the tasks to create your content. Anything and everything involved in your content creation should be included in those daily squares in the calendar.
The first thing you’ll do is to take the topics you worked out in your content buckets and put them into the calendar.
You’ll fill in the content matrix either digitally or by hand – however you choose to set up your calendar! – and you’re going to fill in all of it.
As you’re filling in the spaces, I want you to do it without judging your ideas, without second guessing your ideas. Because the goal when you first do this and if you’re going to do this in under an hour, it’s not that it has to be perfect. You want to make sure that all of the spaces of the calendar are filled in.
Here’s an example of how this works:
Remember my goal as a food blogger is to find ways to help busy parents serve home cooked meals every single week.
My content buckets could include:
- Planning healthy meals
- Shopping for healthy food items
- Prep time and batching
- Easy healthy recipes
In my content calendar, I could create an ongoing series every Wednesday where I share healthy recipes that can be made in under 30 minutes.
I would write on my calendar every Wednesday – Healthy recipe day and then for each Wednesday, I would add in more details about the recipe. For instance, week #1 the recipe is about chicken, week #2 the recipe is about vegan meals and then keep going to fill in those Wednesday calendar squares to give you more details about the recipe you’ll share that week.
And then in that Wednesday recipe space, I would include more details like the content’s format. The content’s format is text, video, image or audio.
You’ll also include the content’s type – like a blog post, Instagram image, podcast episode or TikTok video.
The idea with the details in the matrix squares in your calendar is to make sure that you know what content you’ll be creating. You can add time on the calendar when you’d research those healthy recipes. You’ll add in days into the calendar when you’ll write the blog post that posts on Wednesdays.
You should also include content creation steps like producing your TikTok videos. What days are you recording the videos? Put that into the calendar.
Will you be repurposing those recipes and turn them into Instagram posts? Mark those days in the calendar when you’ll repurpose the recipes and turn them into post copy and create the images or reels. Add into the calendar when you’ll post them on the social platform.
Your goal with your content calendar is to fill in every square in that calendar matrix with posting dates, content creation dates and all the steps you’ll take with developing that content for the month.
You’ll go into the month and every week knowing what is your end goal and what is the transformation that you are trying to take your customers through by engaging with your content. You’ll know what you’re working towards with developing your marketing and that, you can, my friend, actually create your entire month’s content plan in an hour.
Because the purpose of doing these steps is to take action. It’s not just about brainstorming all these amazing ideas and then they’re just going to sit in a Google Doc.
You now have your content all planned for the month, which means you can say goodbye to the headache of figuring out what to post on a whim or the “Oh, crap!” moment of realizing you’ve forgotten to post in a few days.
These steps will help you to take action. You’ll see the path to implement your ideas and give you a timeline to start sharing these marketing messages with your community.
And trust me when I say, that when you know what your content buckets are, what format and type of content that you’ll create to develop that transformation that your content is going to take your customers through, it really will just take you an hour to plan out your content ideas for a full month.
Want dig deeper into this process and learn how to create content that FINALLY converts more sales?
Get The Path to Purchase: How to use the Customer Buyer’s Journey
The Path to Purchase is the content development tool that will help you stop feeling stuck when it comes to creating content that actually converts.
If the whole customer buyer’s journey sounds like a cryptic map you can’t decipher, I’ve created this 3-step program to help you create compelling content for every stage of the customer buyer’s journey – from Awareness to Consideration to Decision.
When you start moving through this process by watching the exclusive training workshop and answer the questions in the workbooks, you’ll see your marketing content come to life.
You’ll uncover phrases and keywords that will resonate to make more sales. You’ll be able to develop your marketing content based on what people are thinking, what people are feeling, what people are saying, along with the keywords they are using for online searches.
Your journey to move your community into loyal customers begins with a single click to get access to the Path to Purchase.
