worksheet / CREATE YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY Once you’ve decided on what to include as the different pieces of your sales funnel, the next step is to create your launch plan and plug in those pieces to see when each step needs to happen. Similar to the process of creating your lead generation offering, to create your content marketing plan, you first need to think about what your target market needs to know/learn/do before they sign up for your offering. For example, for the Irresistible Offerings launch, I knew that most people who were going to sign up struggled with the same problem as me - having too many problems that it’s hard to just choose one. So, I wrote a post called “How to choose which idea to pursue when you have so many” and invited them to join the Irresistible Offerings VIP list if they were interested in turing that idea into an irresistible offering. Easy peasy. I was giving valuable content AND inviting them to sign up for my offering. I made the content related to what I was launching so that I could start getting my prospect’s brain prepped for what I was about to launch. On the next few pages are questions to help you brainstorm what sorts of topics and content you can include in your launch plan. Then, download your Launch Plan Calendar template to plug in the pieces. Print it out, fill it out digitally, whatever you need to do to get your content prepped before you launched. Better yet, this will help you actually WRITE and schedule your content before you launch so it’s one less thing you need to worry about.
Note: This content marketing plan works best when you are launching something that is time sensitive and is only open for registration during certain times of the year. However, you can use the same concepts in this plan to continually promote your evergreen programs (home study courses, always available for purchase) and your main signature offerings and services.
BRAINSTORM YOUR CONTENT TOPICS First, let’s brainstorm what content and topics you could talk about that would naturally lead into your new offering. 1. What does your client need to know/do/achieve before they buy your signature offering? ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________
2. Look at the signature offering you’re creating right now. What’s the most important piece/module/chapter of the offering? Can you turn pieces of that into a few blog posts? ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________
4. What can you share with prospects to show them how important your offering is for their business/life/etc? Do you have examples of how your offering or what you’re teaching in your offering has changed someone’s business or life? Do you have examples of how what you’re teaching has changed your own business or life? List those examples below. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________
5. Can you paint a picture for your client that shows them where they are now, compared to where they could be after working with you? ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________
RECOMMENDED CONTENT MARKETING SCHEDULE Use this example content marketing plan to fill in your own marketing plan (printable template at the end of this worksheet). Remember, not each step will relate to your exact offering, but this is a general sequence to release content at.
TWO WEEKS BEFORE LAUNCH DATE ➡ Publish a related blog post and invite people to sign up to the I'm Interested list ➡ Start dropping hints on social media about your launch and telling people they can sign up to the I’m Interested list ➡ Send clients and friends a private email to sign up at a discounted VIP rate
ONE WEEK BEFORE LAUNCH DATE ➡ Publish a related blog post and invite people to sign up to the I'm Interested list ➡ Tell people on social media about your launch and invite them to sign up to the I'm Interested list and get any early-bird bonus offers like free trainings, free downloads, etc. ➡ Start your free training series (if you have one) so that by the end of the free training series, they can purchase the offering as soon as it launches
ONE DAY BEFORE EARLY-BIRD BONUS OFFER ENDS (IF YOU HAVE ONE) ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on the I’m Interested list so they know the early-bird bonus offer ends tomorrow
THE MORNING/AFTERNOON THE EARLY-BIRD BONUS OFFER ENDS (IF YOU HAVE ONE) ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on the I’m Interested list so they know the early-bird bonus offer ends today/tonight
ONE WEEK AFTER LAUNCH DAY* ➡ Publish a related blog post* and invite people to check out the course * Do this each week leading up until registration ends.
TWO DAYS BEFORE REGISTRATION ENDS ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on the I’m Interested list so they know the registration ends in a couple days ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on your main email list so they know the registration ends in a few days (in case they didn’t happen to see you mention that you had opened registration for something in the first place... they might be a new subscriber or something)
ONE DAY BEFORE REGISTRATION ENDS ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on the I’m Interested list so they know registration ends tomorrow
THE MORNING THAT REGISTRATION ENDS ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on the I’m Interested list so they know registration ends tonight
THE NIGHT THAT REGISTRATION ENDS ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on the I’m Interested list so they know registration ends tonight
1-2 HOURS BEFORE REGISTRATION ENDS ➡ Send out a reminder email to everyone on the I’m Interested list so they know registration ends in 1-2 hours
The best part about all this is, you can schedule every single one of these emails and blog posts before you actually launch. Your entire launch strategy is put on autopilot and now you just need to start engaging with people and get the word out on social media and within your own community.