You may be familiar with different variations of the “Ps” of marketing. They all share similar points which should be considered in business. A lot of them are too vague and aren’t going to specifically help YOU, a busy and hard-working entrepreneur. That’s why I have come up with my own 5 Ps of Content Marketing which are not only practical and specific to you, but also totally DOABLE. 

Listen, I get it. We are all busy. Content can feel like a weight upon your shoulders. It can be overwhelming to continually be pumping out value to your audiences every month. Follow these 5 Ps every time and you will quicken your processes, be more organised and have a clearer idea of what you need to do.

Planning Your Content in Advance

I’ve seen it so many times, busy and overworked business owners scrambling to get content out each week. Having so many other important tasks to complete every day, every week and every month will either mean a) you are stressing and spending too much time getting content ready to post that same day and in turn, other areas are being neglected or 2) you aren’t getting around to putting out the content at all which is having an impact on the growth and retention of your audience. 

Do either of these sound good to you? No, I didn’t think so.  

Taking the time to plan out your content in advance is going to do so much for you. I’ve listed below some of the biggest benefits of doing this here: 

1. It gives you a bigger picture of your content. It will become more cohesive if you can map out, for example, a month at a time. You can see the progression of your content almost like a story.

2. You will learn to be more diligent about your content now that you have a set time to plan. 

3. You will be more focused which will decrease the amount of time on planning.

4. Other aspects of your business can now have more of your attention. 

I’ve seen the power of planning content in advance not only with my clients and biz owner friends but MYSELF too! I promise that once you get in the habit of doing it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner.

Take Time to Produce Your Content

This one might sound so obvious and almost like it shouldn’t be included in this list. Duh, we have to write the content, right? 

However,  I don’t just mean “go and write the stuff now”. It is about setting that time aside to sit down and produce content. I don’t mean that five minutes you have between calls that you try to get a quick caption written. This just isn’t productive or worthwhile. Set aside the time just like you did with your plan to write your content. What works best for me is that I will write about two weeks of content in one sitting (one week if things are CRAZY).

 I find that producing content in a chunk like this gives my brain time to get into the flow of things. If you are finding you are getting tired, brain scrambled and the words are starting to lose all meaning (trust me I’ve been there), then STOP. Do as much as you can, any more and the quality of your work is going to take a hit. 

Does Your Content Have a Purpose?

Now, this one goes hand on hand with “Produce”. They have to be done and considered at the same time. So, what do I mean by “Purpose”. Let me throw a question to you; “ Do you have time each day to do tasks that are not going to help your business in some way?

I’m going to assume the answer is NO. 

We do not have the time to be putting our energy into ANYTHING that isn’t going to impact our business today or in a year. That is why every single picture, caption, post or video we create has to have meaning and reason. 

This is something that I try to help my busy business owner clients understand and ask them regularly. Does this piece of content have a purpose? Does this story or anecdote help my audience understand something or give them the information they need to make a purchasing decision? If the answer is no, we are getting rid of it. It is so important to understand that your content needs to serve BOTH your audience and YOU. This will also help us stay on track and refine the process.
Lastly, we need to ensure that all of our content is optimised. This is one of the main purposes of creating content. Use SEO on all of your blog content to help drive traffic to your website. SEO doesn’t have to be a scary thing. I have a great freebie for beginners of SEO. You can find it on the homepage and contact page of my site!

Polish and Refine Your Content

You have all your content written and you are feeling pretty good about it. Now what? We need to refine and perfect our content but before we dive into that, ask yourself this question: Have you ever had a negative impression of a website or social media account because it was full of errors or perhaps their branding was confusing? I certainly have.

It’s such a shame too. Many business owners have such value to provide but are held back by the delivery of their message.

After you have finished writing your content, you need to now go through it with a fine-tooth comb. Here are some things that you need to make sure are SPOT ON: 

1. Spelling and grammar 
2. Layout and headings 
3. Brand elements are included ( fonts and colours) 
4. Read it from your audience’s point of view. Is it aligned with you and your business? 

If you are not confident as a writer, I would strongly recommend a writing tool such as Grammarly. Like most apps, there is a free and a paid version. The free version should suffice for blog writing. 

If you think you’ve read over your content enough, read it one more time. It isn’t worth the regret afterwards to spot a mistake once your audience has viewed it (eek). 

Promote Your Content

It is important to understand that people vary in the ways that they consume content. Some people prefer reading captions instead of IG stories and videos. We can easily limit our reach by only catering to one of these types of consumers. 

When thinking about promoting, don’t forget to have your target audience or ideal clients in mind. Posting content across a variety of different platforms is also going to improve your “findability”. If you ever want to feel inspired to post content across multiple platforms, check out this blog by Gary Vee. It’s pretty amazing. He explains “ How to create SIXTY-FOUR pieces of content in ONE day”. It sounds extreme, I know. I am, however, trying to prove a point that content can be so versatile and used in SO many different ways. 

Gary Vee’s article had me thinking a lot about the benefits of repurposing and how it can help deliver a message across multiple platforms easily and efficiently. 

You can try it yourself. Write one blog post and see how many ways that you promote yourself through the repurposing of that content. Some ways you can repurpose are: 

• Turn your blog into a week’s worth of captions 
• Use your blog as a script for an IG story or Youtube video 
• Turn your blog into an infographic

There are TONNES more, but that should get you started.

I am passionate about making the lives of my fellow business owners a lot easier. It is about working smarter and not harder. I hope that my 5 Ps of Content Marketing was at least a little helpful!

I would love to know if you tried it! Let me know how you are doing with your content marketing strategies!