Episode 449: 4 Content templates for more strategic marketing
In this episode, Fiona dives into how to effectively strategise and simplify content creation. Learn how to use content templates to streamline your process and ensure your content aligns with your business goals. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Importance of strategic content aligned with business goals
Creating content pillars and themes
Using content templates for easy execution
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Welcome to episode 449 of the My Daily Business podcast. If you have ever struggled with your content, whether it's coming up with ideas or not even just the ideas, but how to execute them and execute them quickly, then today's quick tip episode is for you. Before we get stuck into that, I want to let you know that Marketing for Your Small Business is available anytime. It is a course that goes through everything that I've learned about marketing over the last 20 years, and this is a perfect time of year to jump into that because one, it's the perfect time to start planning it all out for 2025, you stop with the scattergun and just get very strategic about your marketing. But two, we have the online coaching part of it kicking off soon. That means that you complete the course because you go through the course in your own time and then you come to nine live weeks of coaching.
If you are at a time zone that doesn't work, don't worry, because we always have people from overseas who then watch the replays and submit their questions. You can do that or you can come to the live coaching and we do try and make it at a time that works for Europe and the US as well as Australia. If you're interested in that, check out marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com, or you can go to mydailybusiness.com/courses to find out how to enrol in that. If you already have access to our marketing course, look out for an email that gives you a very cheap, easy way to upgrade so that you can do the coaching component. We do have people who do that as a refresher every year as well. That's great. Before we get stuck in, I want to of course acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of these beautiful lands. And for me in North Warrandyte, that's the Wurrung and Wurundjeri through people of the Kulin Nation, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
As I said at the start, if you're someone who struggles with content, one of the best things I think you can do is try to figure out a system or a process for coming up with the content while making sure that the content is strategic and is leading back to your goals as a business and your goals as a brand. One of the ways you can do this is to come up with content pillars or content themes, things that you want to be the go-to brand for. This allows you to put parameters or restrictions around what you talk about. It's not to say you can't talk about other things, but that the bulk of your content is around the things you want to be known for. Sometimes we fall in love with a brand or we meet somebody and we're like, I'll go and follow you on Instagram.
They were like, I didn't realise your brand is about that. Or, that's weird that you're talking about that, or that doesn't seem on brand. And I think people can get very scattergun sometimes in their content, which leads to the person who's looking at that content thinking like, why am I following? What am I getting here? What's the value? And you might have your content pillars, right, and your content themes or content buckets, but even if you have those things, and I've talked about them at length previously, they're also the stuff that we go through in detail in the Marketing for Your Small Business course. But even if you have them, sometimes it can be difficult to then go, I've got these ideas. For example, maybe one of my content pillars is around money and some of my content buckets.
Buckets are like how-tos or tips or news information or AI apps for money tracking, whatever it is. But sometimes it can be hard to then go, I've got this content pillar, I've got the content bucket, but like how do I bring it to life? Or how do I bring it to life in a podcast? Or how do I bring it to life in a book, an ebook, a video or whatever the medium is that you've chosen? One of the ways you can do this is to come up with templates that allow you to express things in a new way, but that they're templated. If you were to batch-create content, you could do it pretty easily even to come up with that idea and bring it to life. You can put it through this template and create it easily.
Let's say, for example, one of those templates, I've got four that generally I suggest to people and one of them is the discovery template. The objective here is for your audience, whether they're following you on social media, signing up to your email, or listening to a podcast to discover something that they may not have known. This is usually something that's of value to them. It could be just purely entertainment, but often it's educational and it's a reason for them to go, that was so interesting, or I did not know that I was going to go and follow that person. Or this came up on my explore page and now I'm going to go and check out their profile and see what other content they have that is allowing me to discover something. In the discovering template, you have the objective.
That's to uncover something they don't know. Then you're going to think about what's the synopsis. What's like a quick overview of what I'm about to teach? Then what is your opinion on that? And then the pros and cons. Let's say you are talking about a new AI tool. You might have a synopsis, which is if you're like me, sometimes you might struggle to get your video content working well. You're going to have a synopsis that allows them to connect with you and go, that's me too. I also have that problem. Then you're going to have your opinion. You may have an opinion about the cost of videography or setting up a camera or doing it all in your office and so that can be stressful or time-consuming or whatever your opinion is. You have your synopsis of the situation, then your opinion.
The pros and cons of what you're about to tell them, which in this case might be a new AI tool that allows them to do video easily. You're saying this is the synopsis, here's my opinion, and then here's the pros and cons of this tool. That's it. That's just the template. It's the discovery template. I'm going to tell people about this thing that they don't know about that could help them in my industry. In that case, I've chosen an example AI tool for videos for small business owners, but you might go, one of the things I'm going to show them is a sleep tool for toddlers, and this is specifically for new parents. Then you're going to have a synopsis, why is it important, and your opinion on sleep tools. Then there is the sleep tool I'm suggesting, here are the pros, and here are the cons, follow for more information.
It's not that you need to say follow for more information, but that is ultimately what you're trying to get them to do. That's the discovery template. The second one is the storytelling template. Now this is used forever. It has been used for millennia, it's been used since time began. And the storytelling template is you start with a story. Often when I was young, when I was new to business, when I was a first-time mother, when I got through a divorce, whatever it is, you are sharing something that is beginning with your story. You want to identify what the crisis or problem was. I just got divorced. I felt at the absolute lowest I'd ever felt. I felt alone. I felt on the outer from my other friends. You're going to talk about the crisis problem, then you're going to go into some climax.
It got to the worst possible point where I no longer wanted to do X, Y, Z. Then you're going to talk about the solution. Then you're going to talk about takeaways for them. And often this is coming back to something that you sell. Something that you are offering. Again, you have the storytelling template, which starts with a story about when I was in your situation. Then crisis problem, the climax of that crisis or problem, the solution, and then the takeaway for them. That is a basic easy storytelling template. We've gone through the discovery template and the storytelling template. The other two that I like to use a lot and work with clients on is the stats or facts template. Start with a fact or a stat. For example, 80% of the workforce will be Gen Z by this date.
That is a fact, and it may be something that you need to look up these facts. I don't know if that's a fact, I've just put that there. But let's say that's a fact. And you're like, did you know that the Australian Bureau of Statistics recently put out this? Or this was recently done by a study or whatever. You can find facts all over the internet. You can also find lots of facts. You start with a fact. Then you can ask when is this happening. Why is this happening? What can you do in response? Let's say you are a coach or a HR consultant and you work with big corporates. You might say, start with the fact that 80% of the workforce will be Gen Z by this time when will this be happening?
It's going to be happening by this time. Why is this happening? It's happening because maybe the retirement age is getting earlier. Then what can you do? What are you doing in response? Then three takeaway points, one of which leads them to connect with you. One of those takeaway points might be, I've got an AI tool or I work with clients on this all the time. You can book a session with me and we'll work out X, Y, Z. What you're doing is presenting, here's the problem, here's a solution and here's how I'm going to help. The last one is tips and tricks and this is what you're reading right now. It's a tip episode. Our quick tip episodes are some of our best-performing of all of these podcasts. The tips or tricks template is problem link the problem to an emotion.
Often it is we are led by emotional drivers. It is confusion, it's individuality, it's ambition, it's all of these things. What is the emotion that is linked to that problem? Then this is what you thought versus reality. This is what I thought would fix it, but what fixed it is. Then here's a tip tool or tactic to help. Those are the four templates that I think work so well with the content discovery template, storytelling template, stats and facts template and tips and tricks template. Again, if you want to go through this stuff in detail and understand how to create marketing that is aligned to your values, aligned to your beliefs, also massively aligned to your goals as a business, then sign up for marketing for your small business. You can find all the information at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. You can do that course any time of year, but twice a year. We do offer a live coaching component and that is what we're offering very soon. Go on over to marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com and check it out. I'll leave it there. Thanks for reading. Bye.
