Well, it’s a new year. Let’s get that marketing content plan in place right now, so you know exactly what type of marketing content you need to create so you can promote your services and your products, hit those sales goal numbers, and rest.
In this post, I’m walking you through an exact piece of what I teach thousands of students inside my Primed to Launch: Content for Creatives program. Let’s organize and create a realistic marketing content plan, no matter what your publication outlets are. How’s that sound?
Let’s get into the tips.
Don’t forget to click here or down below to grab your freebie: The Ultimate Launch Copy Checklist!
No. 1| Planning
I posted last week on Instagram that I’m going through the week I do every year, the week I plan out the NEXT year—I’m obsessed with doing this process. I’ve done it for years now in my business. The Amazon calendar I use is GREAT for this and it’s also relatively inexpensive, which is great.
Because I get it: the content creation game can feel like a treadmill you never get off of … Content buckets rotating through, themes of the month—none of that worked for me as I built my business and tried to create a marketing plan that drove to revenue. I needed to make my business work and be profitable! But this did.
Here’s the secret—I call it my Quarterly Champagne Campaign system which is a cheesy way to say, I do 4 massive, go-big-or-go-home marketing campaigns a year—that’s all.
You can absolutely do some spotlights during the other months or affiliate campaigns. BUT I’m talking about 4 BIG everybody-knows-you’re-launching moments every year. If you’ve ever felt overloaded when you’re creating an actual marketing content plan for your business, then I would suggest starting here. 🙂
Perhaps this part goes without saying, start with the end in mind. Start by knowing your numbers, know how much you need to hit, know what brings in money, know what products and services actually bring in some income. Those are the ones we’re gonna start with and put in your calendar first.
What I like about picking those four is you really get to do what copywriters know and love and call the rule of one: one reader, one offer, one idea and go BIG on that one concept.
Again, it’s why I like the champagne analogy. You can’t drink it every time, well, you could, but it’s kinda for special occasions, not every night. You get to have the runway up to it, enjoy it, and then step away for a while.
Let me say this, even if you don’t have any products or services, don’t forget your one-on-one service offerings. Before I ever had products or digital products in my business, I would launch my services—this is definitely something you can do. I’ve had many students launch their services.
If you’re in Primed to Launch™, maybe this is a little bit of a refresher. I’m also gonna show you a couple of things in a moment that I’ve never shown before. I’m excited about that. But comment below if this is starting to make sense. Does it feel a little less stressful to plot out your annual marketing content plan around four big quarterly launches?
Action Step: Look at the next year 2021 coming up and go ahead and outline those four weeks out of the year that you’re gonna be at your desk working hard and in your launch campaign season.
Related:Planning to Launch Soon? Here’s What You NEED to Know
No. 2| Organize
Inside Primed to Launch™, I break this down in-depth. As a refresher, I teach primarily that there are three types of content you’re creating all the time.
Hero content, hub content, and hygiene content—I’m focusing on hero content in this post.
Each week, I have one piece of hero content.
The hero piece of content is the meat-and-potatoes blog post (or YouTube video). The hero piece of content is what the email newsletter drives to. It’s what I’m talking about if I do a Facebook or Instagram live. It’s what has a freebie download is for (if creating one helps). It’s what at least 2 Instagram posts and Facebook posts will “sell.” It’s what’s been keyword researched and optimized for SEO, Pinterest, etc. If it’s a really big promotional period, then the hero content that week is like a challenge or webinar series.
What I’m going to do is look at the calendar… I see a big week where I’m in launch mode and I count back a set number of weeks. That is up to you and I’ve made recommendations for students based off what they’re doing somewhere in the vein of 4-8 weeks back is where you’re gonna start. This is why our friend, the calendar from Amazon, is so great cause I can visually see what’s going on in the world, what holidays are going on. I’ve already put our personal family calendar on there, of any vacay time that we’re out.
What I’m doing, is seeing that launch week backing up a set number of weeks, and then I’m mixing and matching content both that I know I need to cover, blogs that people have asked for, YouTubes people have asked for, and I’m trying to fit it in based on that. I talk more in detail about this in this week’s episode on my YouTube channel, you can see watch it here.
Next up, I’m going to take you behind the scenes real quick and show you a spreadsheet that I use in my business and it really helps me visually see what piece of hero content is showing up each week.
Let me show you how I would build that in a spreadsheet ⬇️
I’ve been creating marketing campaigns like this since 2009. I love this process because it doesn’t make me feel so burnt out. I don’t have to worry and stress out about being all the places, because I know that hero piece of content has got to get out every single week. If nothing else, if the sky is falling down, that piece has to get out. That is the piece that’s helping us inch towards bit by bit our revenue goals, our profitability goals.
Other stuff falls to the wayside, that’s okay. But let me explain to you and I’ll do this more in step three, how I’m spider webbing off of the hero piece of content to build out multiple pieces in my marketing content plan. It all stems from the hero piece. When I am planning and organizing, I know that I have to get it right. I have to get the concept right, the topic right, because from these, come everything else. To organize this, I’m leaning on a few tech tools, primarily Google Drive, Asana, and that spreadsheet.
So again, let me show you how I set this up ⬇️
Related: 5 Editorial Calendar Strategies to Repurpose Your Content
No. 3| Creating
This is the fun part. You, the content creator, this is your paintbrush. You get to now make your art. The creation really comes alive inside the workflows that you are hammering out.
You’ve heard me say this before— my love language is systems. I loooove processes and rhythms, because then I get more room to be creative. I know if I can just check off the boxes as I go through, I can have all the crazy ideas and come up with all sorts of fun things to try because the rhythms are set and in place—I’ve got the blueprint to follow.
This is going to be dependent on the publication platform that you’re going with. I highly recommend, like I mentioned earlier, nailing down that hero creation process—everything spiderwebs from that.
Then, towards the end of that workflow, you can start to figure out what’s next.
- Do you want to build off five pins from this?
- Do you want to create a reel off of this?
- Do you want to create three images to post on stories on this?
I have talked in the past about loving a Marketing Monday, where I tackle as much content creation as possible on that one day. One thing I’m starting next year is planning three days. I’ve already got them blocked out, my calendar’s up here for next year, 2-3 days at the top of every single month where I’m batch filming and creating content. I have done this where I’ve spent one day every month, building all the content, I’ve done multiple days, I’ve done one day a week. Find what works for YOU.
If you want even more ideas about how you can create a marketing content plan that has people salivating for your offers, I would encourage you to check out my Primed to Launch™ program. This is my answer for how to strategize, organize and craft marketing content that power glides into your upcoming launch. Inside you’re gonna find launch calendar templates,weekly content planners, and more.
Related:How to Batch Work & Organize with Themed Days
This is ONE out of a million ways that you can create a marketing plan for your business.
I’ve been doing this long enough to say there’s no one right way. It’s figuring out what works for you, the size of your business, the size of your team, etc. But this is my system and it’s been profitable, yes, but probably more importantly it’s enabled me to have fun and hopefully get to serve with content that actually moves the needle for people.
And then at the end of the day, it is profitable, which enables me to do what I love and then go rest and be with my family.
Now that you know all about how to craft this plan, if you want to see a little more about how I would repurpose and take one piece of content and stretch it, be sure to watch the video next.
Reading Time: 7 Minutes Reading time: 7 min. Well, it’s a new year. Let’s get that marketing content plan in place right now, so you know exactly what type of marketing content you need to create so you can promote your services and your products, hit those sales goal numbers, and rest. In this post, I’m walking you through […]
Hi Ashlyn! My love language is also checklists, structure and workflows and I absolutely love what you show here on your blog. Would you please be so kind and tell me who is the person you have learnt the file structure and content plan in a spreadsheet from? I have trouble catching that even though you repeated it in both videos.
Weronika! Thanks for your kind words friend—I’m glad I’m not the only one with a love for checklists! 😉 Absolutely, in fact I think my free Google Docs Template would be really helpful for you—you can grab that here: https://ashlynwrites.lpages.co/aw-cfc-spring-18-google-docs-template/ ! I hope this helps!