Good content is one of the most powerful tools you have in the marketing of your business. However, when it comes to content creation, there’s nothing worse than staring at a blank sheet of paper and wondering what to write.
So if you’re feeling flat, uninspired or you’re just short on ideas on how to stay relevant, I hope the following tips come in helpful when it comes to creating high quality and engaging content for your audience.
Firstly – speaking from experience, I can honestly say that the most difficult thing about content creation is knowing what to write about, and once you’ve decided that, the actual writing becomes much easier.
So how do we decide what to write about? Where do we get our ideas from?
That’s easy. We get them from our customers. And we do that by thinking of the main questions our customers ask.
So instead of staring at that forbidding blank sheet of paper and wondering how you’re ever going to fill it with words, simply write down the top ten or twelve questions your patients ask. If you can think of even more, all the better, because the more questions you have the more content you can create, and the better your long term results will be.
When you’ve done that, think of the things your patients really need to know but often don’t ask. Again, write down as many questions as you can. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to create the content.
And this is where it gets interesting, because you can answer those questions by creating and publishing content in multiple formats – it’s called re-purposing.
Firstly, the written content itself can form the basis of one or more blogs, published articles, emails or physical newsletters. You can then bring them all together to form a downloadable or printed guide – which can be the ultimate lead generator in itself because it positions you as an expert in your field.
Your written content can also be used as a script to produce a short educational video or series of short videos using your smartphone. Simply make a video of yourself answering the questions – and don’t forget to smile as you’re talking 🙂
Each video doesn’t need to be much more than 2-3 minutes long. If you have, say, forty questions in total – that will give you about two hours worth of video, which in itself can be a great marketing tool.
These videos can be used as content on your website. They can also be published on your social media channels and added to video sites like YouTube to drive more traffic to your website.
Next, strip the soundtrack from your videos (there are apps you can use to do this) and instantly you have audio content which can be used to create podcasts – another popular vehicle for connecting with and engaging your audience.
Once you begin to think how much mileage you can get out of just a little content, you’ll be amazed at what you can use it for. Each piece of content can be put into various formats and used as lead generators, whether it be videos, podcasts, articles and guides.
It takes a little work, but the rewards of having a number of lead generators out there working for your business can be huge. And in fact the initial work is minimal, probably amounting to no more than a few days work in order to create pages and pages of written content and hours of video and audio.
And if you need help with the technical / IT side of things when it comes to editing, publishing, uploading and sharing your content online, you’ll find lots of highly capable freelancers available for hire on Fiverr.com at very reasonable rates, including virtual assistants, graphic designers, copywriting experts and professional audio / video / photo editors.
So – there really is no excuse not to do it. And the great news is your competitors will be terrified of that blank page and probably never get around to doing a thing. But you know better – and can reap the rewards accordingly.