10 Steps to Save Time with your Content Marketing

Get ready to learn what to include in a content marketing plan to save time with all of your online marketing.

It is that time of year when we begin to reflect on this past year and look forward to the New Year.   I remember 20 years ago when we were all panicking in 1999 at work about Y2K – awaiting the computer crashing of devices all over the world because of the big error in years on computers.

The big crash that would happen because no one had the forethought to use 4-digit years when computers came about, and everything started going online. Who could predict the chaos that would ensue because computers would be confused at the year 2000 not meaning 1900! It’s funny when you think about this today and all the changes that have happened since.

Today I want to help you save yourself some time when it comes to your online marketing. Read on to learn some tips that will make it a little easier and in a way that just might get you improved results.

Let’s dive in and discover 10 Steps to Saving Time with your Online Marketing.

If you want to save time with your online marketing – you need to have a plan. And as boring as it sounds, this plan will be the critical tool to saving you time.

Now, being efficient and getting results is not always sexy, so stick with me on what to include in your plan to ensure you include all the pieces and elements needed to make it all work.

When you create a content marketing plan it involves a lot of different moving parts, parts that actually have to happen BEFORE you start planning and creating the content. You always want to start with the pre-work. Never skip it.

This pre-work will help you be more effective when it comes to the actual content.

Here are the 10 steps that will help you SAVE time with your Online Marketing:

Step 1. Know your Goals. Yep Boring, I told you, but Jeez Louise, if you have no idea what you want to achieve then how will you know if it worked? You want to set your goals and include specific goals in these. I like Michael Hyatt’s way of defining SMARTER Goals vs. Smart Goals because it adds the elements of excitement and relevance. Your goals have to hit home with you and excite you or why would you want to try and achieve them otherwise? They need to make you WANT to reach them as well as being relevant to you and your business or life.

Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Realistic
Time-Bound
Exciting
Relevant

Step 2. Know Your Client. Still boring, I know, but this sh!t works. Trust me. Back in my banking days, they started with a new campaign at the Royal Bank of Canada one year called KYC – Know your Client and now, 30 years later this still rings true for many businesses. The banks make billions of dollars, generally their ideas work. Knowing your Ideal Client and what makes them tick, is critical to knowing what to include in your marketing content to reach these specific people.

Step 3. Take Stock of your Current Assets. We all have marketing content already posted online – blogs, newsletters, social media posts, images on social media, videos, audios and more. Review what you have and determine if it is still relevant and can be reused in one way or another. This alone can help save a lot of time.

Step 4. Determine what Social Media Channels you will use. Typically, you want to focus on the ones where your Ideal Client hangs out. This is why Step 2 is so important. There is no point in spending a lot of time on a network where your ideal client is not spending their time. Figure out where they are, what networks you like to use and match them up to make it all work.

Step 5. Identify the type of Content you will use. I like to categorize my content into 3 main categories and then subcategories after that. The 3 main ones are: Business, Sales and Persona. Having a mix of content will help you remain authentic with your marketing. You won’t be all sales or no sales, make sure you have a nice mix – just like you do when talking face to face with people.

Step 6. Create and Use a Marketing Content Planning Calendar. Using a planner will help keep the content organized and this will be the biggest time saver for you. Keeping your content in all categories organized and knowing when and where it will all go out online will help make sure you are not wasting time with last minute content creation and posting. Think of it like having an assembly line of content and knowing where everything is and where it goes. Click here to check out the Content  Marketing Planner we have for only $67

Step 7. Create your Content. Now that you know what content you need; you can start creating it. Some you may use from the items you identified in Step 3 which may save time by not having to create everything from scratch, and some will be new content you create. For example, when you have a lead magnet to promote and market, the content you need to create is a sales post online (one that entices people to click the link and sign up). These will not change much over time, you can reuse what you have and maybe edit a couple words, New content, less time.

Step 8. Schedule and Post your Content Online. Never do I recommend that ALL content on your social media channels should be posted in the moment. This would put people online all the time and the goal of online and social media marketing in 30 minutes a day or less would not be possible. You would be held hostage by your social media, and it is not pretty. I have seen it happen and people burn out fast. You want to pre-plan and pre-schedule about 75-80% of your marketing content. This allows you to go live and be YOU in the moment with the remainder. Use a system like Hootsuite, Buffer, Planoly and even Facebook’s Creator Studio to schedule content. I like to do this in batches of work, so I do about 10 days at a time. This means you sit down and schedule a few times a month. When doing it this way you will take less time than posting every day, every item that needs to go out.

Step 9. Review Results and Redo or Renew. You truly have to block time every month to look at the stats. Track your numbers, especially the ones you have in your goals. Check them out, analyze them, interpret them and make changes where you think you can tweak and optimize them. You may need to redo things, update them, and make changes. Then track the numbers again next month.

Step 10. Keep at it and be Consistent. Okay, so marketing like anything is done best and gets better results when you are consistent with it. You really do need to make time to keep at it. Set yourself a schedule for all the pieces and put it in your calendar. This is the ONLY way – well, the best way, to get it done. If you never make time for it, then you will let other things take priority and next thing you know you haven’t seen a new post go out online in weeks and your goals will take the hit.

When you put these 10 steps together and work at it all. Take the time to work ON your business, ON your marketing, that is when you will see several things happen:

1. Your plan comes together and makes sense.
2. You get consistent with your marketing.
3. You save time by having all the pieces that need to be included.
4. You save even more time by reusing items that you can.
5. You save even more time by having a marketing plan that you can implement in an efficient way and get it DONE.

Remember … “DONE is Better than Perfect.”

That is what your plan will help you do – save time and get the marketing done, so that you can achieve those goals you set – or at least make good headway toward them. Get Results!

I hope this helps get you started on your new year plans and if you want to get a kickstart on this, I have an Ultimate Marketing Content Planner and Training with ideas and prompts of the type of content you can include in your online marketing content for the entire year!

This comes complete with a worksheet to help you focus on your plans and goals, and learn how to use this calendar for your own business.

Click here to buy your copy of this  Content Marketing Planner and Calendar right now and get a kickstart on your Online Marketing Plans.

Stop struggling with ideas of content to post online. Follow these easy steps and use the planner and you will have content ready to go every day of the year! Simple, easy and the best part is it will save you time and frustration!

Purchase your copy of the Pepper It Marketing Ultimate Marketing Content Planner and Training with marketing content ideas and prompts and almost 500 actual posts to copy paste and use! Social media posts ready for you to copy, paste and post PLUS hours of training to help you learn this system to make your marketing consistent with a plan to follow. A great investment to help you kickstart your online marketing and content creation for an entire year!