5 Key Components of a Content Strategy

Are you a solo entrepreneur who’s finding it hard to figure out *exactly* what kind of content strategy you need for your business?

• Do you find yourself struggling with what kind of content to post to get clients? 
• Are you unsure of which advice to follow?
• Do you feel overwhelmed by the thought of it all?

Sometimes the term “content strategy” can be SO confusing. In the marketing world, it often gets thrown around a lot as a buzzword, but there are still a ton of business owners who couldn’t really tell you what it means!

In simple terms, a content strategy is the development, planning, creation, delivery, and management of content. And the purpose of a strategy is to create meaningful, cohesive, engaging content to connect you to your target audience. 

In this blog, I'm going to lay down my 5-step signature process I use with all of my clients so you can create a strategy that works for YOU. These are the key questions YOU need to ask to create a stellar content strategy! 

Are you ready to get started? Keep reading. 👇🏻 

1. Who Is Your Audience?

You’ve probably heard terms like your *ideal customer* or your *target audience* thrown around, but what do they really mean?

First, I want you to go ahead and give a fictional name to the person you’re wanting to attract to your business. 

🧡 What’s their gender?
🧡 What’s their age?
🧡 What do they do for a living?

Instead of talking to the masses, I want you to talk to THEM.

Yep, that ONE specific person. 

Often, as a small business owner, you’re grateful for ANY follower that comes your way. Am I right? You just want your brand to be seen.

So you start talking to everybody. 

But, you know what? That's NOT going to help you attract the people that are going to actually purchase from you.

When you get clear on your ideal client’s specific traits, it will help you speak that type of person on a deeper level. That way, you can create content that truly resonates with them, and convert them from a follower to a customer.

Start to define who this person is so that you can begin to address their problems.

• How are you going to provide a solution?
• How are you going to instill them with confidence? 
• How are you going to provide value? 

For example, at Creative Content Lab, I'm speaking to that career-driven single female.

They feel overworked. 

They don't have a work-life balance. 

They’re consistently hustling hard, without seeing results.

You need to start thinking about the problems your people are experiencing. Start brainstorming about how your content can provide solutions to their struggles and serve up TONS of value. 💪🏼

2. How Are You Going To Stand Out? 

Let’s be real. There are SO many other people in this world that do the same thing as you. 

But YOU are your uniqueness. 💃

You as a person bring a different perspective and a different story. Your experiences, what you do, and how you do it work together to form your special sauce. 

Somebody could sell the exact same product as you, but you have a different approach. 

For example, with my business, I started in corporate America and was always a freelancer side hustler. While maybe another person has come straight from college and started their business right away. 

This unique perspective helps me stand out, and I weave it into my content strategy. 

When I talk about Creative Content Lab I tell my ideal customer that I've been where they are.

I've worked the 9 to 5 and done freelancing on the side, working all hours of the day. I tell them that the strategies I teach are what helped me grow my business from side hustler to full-time CEO and beyond!

Because I’ve been in their shoes, I’m able to provide a unique perspective over my competitors. 

Now, let’s get into the more nitty-gritty details of developing a content strategy. 👇🏻

3. What Kind of Content Are You Going to Produce?

Content marketing is SO MUCH MORE than just social media. 

It’s blogs, newsletters, ads, podcasts and more. 

I want you to start thinking about the formats and the mediums that you're going to be creating content for. 🤔

You're ALWAYS going to have a visual component to your content. Either a photo, a video, or a graphic. And a written component, no matter what you're doing.

For my business, I start with my YouTube videos as my main piece of content. These are more long-form, and I find it easier to crank a bunch of them out in one sitting. 

My team then takes these videos and breaks them down into a blog post, a newsletter, and social media captions. Then, we can even take the actual video and create clips for social media. This is my preferred method of content marketing - you know your girl is all about batching and efficiency! ✨

When I first started on my content marketing journey, I didn't have a blog, I didn't have a newsletter. I simply didn’t have the resources or time!

So if you’re in the same boat, your content strategy might not look exactly like mine. But you have to start somewhere. 

Figure out:  

• Do you prefer taking photos of yourself? 
• Do you prefer video format? 
• Do you prefer more behind the scenes?
• Do you want to have more graphics? 

Start thinking about the TYPE of content that you want to be producing, and that comes most naturally to you!

Once you’ve figured out which content medium you like best, you’ll be well set up to move on to step number four. 👇🏼

4. What Channels Are You Going To Publish On? 

In the beginning stages of starting your business, I recommend starting with 1 to 3 channels. 

Often, people start with Instagram, Facebook, and maybe a blog. So that might be a great place for you to start! Think about what works for you, your industry, and your business.

If you're a writer, Twitter might be your preferred platform.

If you're a photographer, you may be drawn to the visual nature of Instagram. 

And if you’re an influencer who LOVES hopping on the latest trends, TikTok might totally be your jam. 

It’s about what makes sense for YOU  and is going to gel with your business. 

For me, I produce robust, evergreen weekly content on my YouTube channel and blog, as well as a weekly newsletter. This is my main content strategy and workflow that gets executed with the help of my team.

Because I’m able to batch and outsource a lot of that content creation, my time is freed up to make more “in the moment” content for platforms like TikTok and Instagram. 

Maybe, for you, you decide that your primary content strategy is weekly blogging. You LOVE to write, and so this content type comes naturally to you!

You establish a blogging workflow where you gather keywords, optimize your post for SEO and make sure all of the behind-the-scenes technical details are handled. 

Then, maybe as a secondary content platform, you decide that IG is where you like to hang out. You use this platform to show up daily on stories, share your day with your community and engage with your followers!

When you strategically pick out a few channels, you’ll have WAY more success and actually executing your content strategy. 

So take the time to assess how long things are really going to take you and how much time you can realistically dedicate to each channel.

Consistency is key. 💪

5. How Are You Going To Manage Your Content Strategy? 

When it comes to content strategy, the system and the organization that you put in place to manage this content is SO SO SO important. 

Your content hierarchy will come into play here.

Think about how you’re going to get from point A to point B. How are you going to get ALL of your content published? 

What happens for me is I sit down and I batch my YouTube videos each month. Then, those videos get broken down into:  

• 4 newsletters
• 4 blog posts 
• 16 social media captions 

I manage this inside of Asana (a project management tool) with my team to make sure we're staying on track with each piece of content. 

Once this is done and we have my content hierarchy in place, I can see where my holes are for the rest of the month for social media. Then, I can fill them appropriately by throwing in an Instagram reel or two.

You might want to work a week in advance, a month in advance, or even further.

You might want to organize in a different project management tool, like Trello, or Google Sheets.

Or maybe you want to keep things simple and write your captions and organize your photos directly into a social media scheduler, such as Later. That wouldn’t be my jam, but hey, it’s all about finding what works for YOU...and then sticking to it! 💪🏼

If you're a social media manager and you want to see the EXACT way that I plan, create and organize content for my clients, I teach this more in-depth inside of the Creative Content Lab. This is my membership for Social Media Managers and Freelancers in the social media industry - join us HERE for just $49.

And if you’re a small business owner, find out how you can work 1:1 with me to create your content strategy HERE. 

Thanks for reading, friends! 💃

Xo,

Amber

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