How do you move your brainstorm list into growth action items?
I love when my clients ask me this question. I love seeing this question in a Facebook group.
When I see or hear this question, it helps to see that the person who asked it is ready for more than just a checklist of stuff they need to do. They’re ready to see what they need to do to finally grow their business.
So let me share my answer to this question with this blog post:
This post will do more than just explain how to make a better list, but will give you the steps to expand your ideas in a way that not only will help you create even more engaging content. This post will uncover a process to stay consistent with your content strategy plan.
I’ll take you through the steps to see how to take your brainstorm list and turn it into an implementation plan. I’m talking about real growth steps that’s going to help you develop your content strategy that allows you to consistently show up online.
Because doing a brainstorm list is more than just writing out a bunch of ideas.
It’s more about having a process in place that you can access to help you move your brainstorm list into remarkable content that you’ll be sharing online in your social posts.
A brainstorm list dump is not just moving through this — ‘here’s all this stuff in my head, I’ll write it out in a list but now what do I do with it?’
It’s about turning all these ideas swirling around in your head into an actionable roadmap to give you a path to follow to take your ideas off a list and out into your marketing messages.
For most of us, writing out a brain dump list is just taking everything out of your head and writing it out on a piece of paper or putting it in a Google Doc or a productivity app. And then you’ve got this whole big list and it just kind of sits there because you’re not really sure what to do with it.
Every now and then you go back to the list. You’re like, “oh, yeah, that was a really good idea. Let me see if I could write a blog post on that or I could do some Instagram video series.”
But here’s what’s happening with that brain dump list… it’s just you reacting because you’re looking for something that you need to work on next. You’re not looking at the purpose of this piece of content or how that blog post fits into your launch plans for your new product.
You’re looking at this list of content ideas and trying to find a way to use them. It’s like you’re a hammer and everything on your list looks like a nail.
I want you to turn your brainstorm list into something called an Idea File.
Because when your content ideas are the foundation of how you’re going to develop your marketing strategy, it’s more than just taking everything out of your head and putting it into a Google Doc.
The steps that I’ll share with you will help you stay organized and give you a plan to take action. These steps will help you stop being reactive and will give you the path to be proactive with your content plan.
These steps will support your marketing efforts when you sit down at your desk on Monday morning and you know what you’re working on that week. You know what marketing elements you need to create that week, what you’ll be sharing and where you’ll be posting online.
How does an Idea File work? How do you set this up?
Let’s start with the first piece of creating an Idea File. You start by making a list, but it’s not a brain dump kind of list. This is a list that’s directly connected with your marketing goals.
Your list will definitely include your content marketing ideas like blog post topics, social media image ideas and videos that you want to record. What separates your Idea File from a basic brainstorm list is that this list includes the intention of these content marketing ideas.
The biggest thing that your Idea File will answer is ‘how is all of this content connected to your marketing?’
It’ll answer things like, “What’s the purpose of that video?” or “What’s the intent behind that blog topic?” and then you’ll make sure you determine, “What’s this piece of content’s call to action?”
Developing an Idea File is to make sure that you have more than just a bunch of ideas swirling around in your head. It’s about ensuring that you’re not just posting for the sake of posting but you’re sharing content with intention.
Let’s walk through an example of an Idea File
So let’s say the topic you want to share online is about how to be more productive as a small business owner.
The Idea File is called Productivity. And the initial list looks like this:
- Write a blog post about five work hacks to make you more productive
- Turn those five work hacks into images that I’ll post on Instagram
- Create a video based on the blog post copy and share it on LinkedIn
In your Idea File, you’ll see everything written out together and then you can add in notes about how to repurpose that video into smaller pieces that you can share in Instagram reels and turn into a TikTok video.
The Idea File is keeping you organized and keeping you on point with your marketing goals. You can look at the Idea File and see the whole picture about what you’re working on and how every piece and part is connected to have potential customers take action.
Another important piece of creating an Idea File is that it gives you a space to write out your crazy big ideas. I want you to write it all down. Write down every single bit of your thoughts on how this big thing could happen and put that in your Idea File with your monthly action items.
Because here’s the thing about those crazy big ideas — You just never know when there’s a tiny piece of that idea that jumps out at you and you can see how it could expand on the topics in your Idea File.
So your Idea File on productivity could include things like:
- Write the marketing hacks blog post
- Create Instagram images and repurpose the blog post copy into an Insta reel – here’s my image ideas
- Take that content and use it for copy to record a video – here’s where I’ll cut the longer form video into smaller chunks I can use on TikTok
- Big Idea: I was going to sell this productivity product and do a special offer at the end of the month, but maybe what I could do is do a free workshop based on this video idea to grow my exposure on this topic
- Which leads me to these thoughts: Do I need to put a landing page together? Is there an email sequence that I need to create?
Get it all together in one place in your Idea File.
And when you put all the content together, it becomes more tangible in the way that you can actually see how all of these pieces and parts get together as opposed to just thinking about doing one post on Facebook.
After you’ve completed your list of content ideas in your Idea File, it’s time to organize it where you can view how you’ll create this content and when you’ll work on the content creation.
Your Idea File is something that you should be reviewing frequently, like several times a week. It’s your secret sauce to move your ideas into action steps and implement your marketing plans. It becomes an important part of your ongoing strategy.
So during the time that you’re reviewing the content in your Idea File, you’ll start to organize the items in your list. You’ll figure out what post goes first, what video creation comes next and even what program should I be using?
During the review time, not only will you be organizing the timeline of the items on your list but you’ll also be adding in more notes about how you can expand upon these ideas.
And it’s super important during this review stage that you make sure that you suspend your judgment.
Remember when I asked you to include those crazy big ideas? The things that you think you can’t do but you might not have time for or you don’t have the money for or you don’t know how to do … those crazy big ideas.
I want you to make sure that you suspend your judgment when you look at these big ideas. Don’t look at it and go, ‘oh, that’s not me. I don’t like my face on camera.’ When you start judging things like this, you completely shut everything down before you have time to even truly flesh this thing out. Is there a piece of this idea that you can turn into an opportunity for your content strategy?
Don’t allow your fears to dominate and make sure that you suspend your judgment when you’re reviewing your Idea File. What would happen if you tried out one piece of the idea? You did just one step or spent 15 minutes testing out something like an app on your phone.
Because most of the time, those initial big ideas came to you in what I refer to as raw form and they need the time to grow and develop. And this big idea could possibly turn into one of your best marketing ideas to promote your business.
How do you set up an Idea File?
As we say in the Create Your Business program, there’s no right way, there’s no wrong way, it’s just your way to set up your Idea File.
That’s why there’s no template for you to download. Because there’s no right way, there’s no wrong way to write up these lists and to do your Idea Files. It’s just your way.
You can do this in a productivity app. You can create this in a Google doc. You can use a checklist printable from Pinterest.
I want you to do it your way. Because the main purpose of this is to help you stay more organized with all of that stuff that’s swirling around in your head And it’s going to turn that list into a more structured form to give you a roadmap of how to implement your marketing strategy.
Developing an Idea File like this will not only help you stay organized but also give you a path to stay consistent. It gives you the place to do something other than just sitting there in front of your laptop and wondering what you’re going to post that day.
So when you’re feeling stuck and not sure what to do with all those ideas in your head, start making a list and turn it into an Idea File. Doing something like this is really keeping you in motion. And any form of motion beats sitting there forcing yourself to come up with an Instagram post.
And any inspiration will be drawn to you when you take action.
So when you find yourself getting stuck on what to post or what you need to write for your next sales page copy, go create an Idea File. Do something other than just sitting there staring at your laptop.
And trust that when you engage with your ideas in a more structured format, inspiration will always find its way to you.
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