*Video version of this blog, content strategy for beginners in a 20 minute mini training for you!

You know you need to create content for your business – it’s the shop window to your business, after all. Great content has the power to build trust with your audience, showcase your incredible expertise and skills and turn followers into paying clients. 

But, sometimes, it can feel like an overwhelming task. Coming up with ideas for what to post, finding the time to create it, creating graphics to go with it, knowing where to post it and how frequently… the list goes on! You’ll be lucky if you get a couple of posts out a week, let alone have a plan or strategy behind what you create.

But unfortunately, if you want to make your content work for you (and make your content creation time worthwhile!), posting sporadically across a handful of platforms just isn’t going to cut it.  If you want your content to start doing some of the heavy lifting in your business, you need to start thinking about your content more strategically. You need a content strategy!

I know you might think that having a content strategy sounds difficult and like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be hard!  A content strategy for beginners can be as simple as having a plan for your content and using it to help you achieve your goals.

If you’re new to content strategy but want to make your content start earning its keep, then you’re in the right place! Below are my three top tips for content strategy for beginners.

content marketing strategy

Know your goals.

The whole point of creating content is so that it helps you achieve your goals, but unfortunately, unless you know what your goals and intentions are – how can you create content that’s going to help you get there?

So the first and most crucial step when starting to think about content strategy is to know your goals. These could be your goals for the week, the month or even the quarter. The types of plans you might have include creating content that will help you:

  • Build your audience
  • Encourage more engagement
  • Sell a particular service or product or sell spots on your coaching or courses
  • To pivot your audience and start attracting a different type of person to your content
  • To be more visible as an authority in your field because you want to secure collaborations

You need to know your goal because it will influence the type of content that you will create!

content marketing strategy

Planning Your Content

Remember, you don’t have to be on all the platforms all of the time.  You should focus your time and energy on being on the platforms your ideal clients are hanging out on. With this and your goals in mind, you can now start planning out your content.

When planning your content, think about the different types of content you can share and the different formats you can use. 

I recommend sharing a variety of these four types of key content:

  • Value and education-based content to showcase your depth of knowledge and skills
  • Storytelling and personal content to build trust and relationships
  • Motivation and Inspirational content to encourage action
  • Promotional and direct selling content to highlight your offers and services. 

(You can read more about these four types of content in my blog here).

Also, think about the different formats of content you can create:

Static feed posts (picture and caption)

  • Carousels 
  • Infographics
  • Stories
  • Reels
  • IGTV
  • Blogs
  • Lead magnets, freebies and guides
  • Mini training videos 

Using a variety of content will help break up your feed, make your content more exciting and interactive and make it more appealing to a broader range of people. Remember, everyone likes to consume content in different ways. For example, I love watching mini-training and infographics but don’t get anything from reels. Some people love the fun of reels but don’t enjoy long-form content like blogs or long captions. 

When it comes to planning your content think about your goals. For example, if you are a service-based provider and currently at capacity unless you are starting a waitlist, you may not want to promote your services or offers.  Instead, you could have a goal of using that time to improve your engagement or gain more followers. Therefore, you would focus on creating more engaging content and perhaps using interactive content such as polls, quizzes, and stories.  You may spend your time creating a lead magnet to promote that and build your email list.

If your focus is to sell, you would be creating topical content aligned with the product or service you are selling. You would focus on creating value-based content to showcase your expertise and your depth of knowledge. You could share reviews and testimonials to build trust. You would be sharing more directly promotional content sharing details of your service with a strong call to action.

Your content should always be adapted so that it helps you achieve your goals.  If you are focused on selling a new package that includes Canva design, for example, you wouldn’t want to keep talking about diary management tips! Keep it intentional, keep it focused, keep it topical!

When planning your content, you can use a content scheduler to help you space your content out and automate when this is posted. There are loads of schedulers available, including Planoly, Hootsuite, and even Canva now has a brilliant scheduler.  If you use Canva to create your graphics, this is a huge time saver! You can see my training video on the scheduler here!)

content marketing strategyConnecting the dots in your content

Now that you’ve planned all this amazing content that’s going to help you reach your goals, there’s one final step! Making sure you connect the dots! By this, I mean always ensure your reader has the next step.

For example, if you are directing your readers to a blog, where can they go from there?

  • Can you connect them to another blog they may find helpful?  
  • Could you include a content upgrade with a link to a freebie or lead magnet to help them find out more on the topic? 
  • Perhaps you could invite them to book a discovery call?
  • Maybe you could showcase a product or service aligned with this topic?

Another way you can be strategic about your content is by thinking about how you can leverage this for maximum impact and how you can draw your audience to it. Remember that your content on social media platforms moves quickly, so you want to ensure you are getting it seen as widely as possible. 

  • If you regularly blog, could you start a Pinterest account and direct people to it this way?
  • Could you offer to guest blog on someone else’s website to leverage their audience and include a link to your blog or download?
  • How can you repurpose your content across multiple platforms to get the most out of it and get more eyes on it?
  • How can you expand on the content you already have to create a customer journey?
  • How can you utilise your content in email so you can reach more people?

The thing to remember is that content strategy is an ever-evolving thing, it has no finish point! You should continue to build on your content and create customer journeys over time,

The key thing to do is to start! Just start creating content and sharing it; you can be more strategic as your confidence builds – just start with setting some goals and go from there. As your business builds, so can your strategy! See what works and learn from it. If it’s working, do more of it! If it’s not – don’t continue with it and try something new. Content is all about trial and error, so don’t get hung up on it.

Just have fun with it, be yourself, showcase your amazing skills and talents and get your content out there into the world. You can do it!