Map Out 12-Months of Content in 28-Minutes (or Less)

Content marketing is one of those things most people want to do, but don’t have the time to invest in actually doing it. This article covers how you can come up with 52-weeks of content in 28-minutes or less. Read on to “get the beef”…

It goes without saying that if you’re not filling your pipeline from a bunch of different sources, you’re taking on a huge amount of risk in your business. 

I’ve learned that the hard way several times… 

And with Facebook going dark for a whole day, I think that was a wake-up call to anybody who depends on Zuckerburg to feed leads to their pipeline. 

All that being said, there are a million ways to generate revenue for your business. My favorite is to simply find your best prospect, show them how your product or service benefits them, and give them a direct way to buy. 

The challenge is that one-to-one selling is slow, and expensive to scale. 

A Scalable Way to Diversify Your Pipeline 

A less direct (but scalable) way to generate leads for your pipeline is via content marketing. 

“Yeah, yeah, Brian… You’ve said that before… And so have 3,713 other people in my news feed last week.” 

I get it, but I have two questions for you… 

1. Are you actually creating content? 
2. Is the amount of time it takes to make the content killing you inside? 

When I ask most people how they get their message out there, they’re doing a bunch of random stuff. 

• Social media for a little bit… 
• Blogs here and there… 
• A video when they find the time… 
• And the book they’ve been working on is almost outlined. Well, the Table of Contents is almost outlined. 

Yeah… 

And when we dig into why their content is all over the place it’s because of the answer to Question 2 above—the amount of time it takes for them to plan, create, and publish the content is a deal-breaker. 

I get it, but it’s a shame. Content marketing can build a platform that grows a list that no Facebook outage or Google slap can ever touch. 

What’s the Solution to the Content Marketing Time-Suck? 

Well, my friend, I’ve got a way to map out your next 12 months of content that’ll take you no more than 28-minutes if you focus. 

If that sounds better than twisting your insides to come up with your next blog post, podcast episode, video topic, or whatever flavor of content you (and your audience prefers)–then read on… 

I’ve talked about my content marketing machine in the past, and I’m asked how I came up with the ideas to write about those topics. 

If you’re not familiar with the machine, it was a system I created when I was director of content marketing for a media company. This machine enabled my team to turn out 90 or more long-form pieces of content per week. 

The process that made the machine is a conversation for a different day. 

For what you’re doing, you probably don’t need that much content, but I still get the question of how to come up with ideas from folks you find all of this content marketing stuff overwhelming. 

A Year’s Worth of Content Ideas in 28-Minutes (or Less) 

You’re gonna love this method, but before we get into it you might be wondering why you’d want to do create this content in the first place… 

There are a few reasons: 

1. Pre-framing your audience to see you as a leader and a guide 
2. Breaking down sales resistance 
3. Keeping you front-and-center so you’re top of mind when a prospect decides to buy 

The 3rd reason is self-evident so I won’t go into that. 

Reasons 1 and 2 are critical and related. 

When your audience sees you as a guide, leader, or teacher, sales resistance naturally goes down. 

Think about it… 

Do you think someone trusts a hunter when they feel like they’re the prey? Or do they trust the teacher when they are the student? 

Positioning yourself as a leader, an expert, a teacher, or a guide, lowers barriers—your prospects are there to learn. 

The by-product of seeing you as an expert is trust, and when they’re ready to buy you’re the first person that comes to mind. 

Figuring Out What to Say 

Okay, so now you know why you should create, but what do you talk about? 

Well… 

• What’s your expertise? 
• What questions do your prospects or best clients ask you over and over? 

If you’re stumped, go to YouTube or Google and start typing questions related to the problems your product or service solves… 

For example, if you’re a real estate agent you might ask questions like this: 

• How do I sell a house?  
• How do I stage a house?  
• How much commission do I pay when I use a real estate agent?  
• Should I sell a house myself?  
• Why do I need a real estate agent? 

The Simple Content Idea Machine 

Four “Tent Pole” Topics 

First, you’re going to start by coming up with 4 big topics. 

If we stick with the real estate example that might be: 

1. Selling your home 
2. Buying a home 
3. Finding an agent 
4. Financial real estate tips 

Three Sub-Topics 

Next, you need to come up with 3 sub-topics related to each tent-pole topic. 

For example: With the Selling Your Home tent-pole, 3 sub-topics might be: 

1. Staging 
2. Updating 
3. Pricing 

Now that you have 3 sub-topics, you come up with 4 more detailed topics that can nest under each sub-topic. 

Four Detailed Topics 

Let’s come up with 4 detailed topics that can nest underneath the “Updating” sub-topic: 

1. The only updates you should make when getting ready to sell 
2. 7 money pits to avoid when listing your home 
3. How to find a contractor to make updating easy 
4. DIY updating tips 

Rinse and repeat for the other tent-poles and sub-topics. 

And by now you can see what we did. 

Each tent-pole gives you a quarterly theme, while the sub-topics are the monthly themes, and the detailed topics give you weekly subjects to cover throughout the year. 

This process gives you everything you need to create a content calendar most marketing agencies would envy, and it sets you up to batch create an entire year’s worth of content over a 3 or 4 day period. 

Sound like a lot? 

Well, would you trade 3 or 4 days to never have to touch your content again? 

(I’m going to say, ‘yes’.) 

In the meantime, spend the next 28 minutes drafting your tent-pole ideas, your sub-topics, and the detailed subjects, and I’ll see you next time. 

If you’re trying to find the right messaging for your company, or need help with your sales copy, reach out to [email protected]. We can set up a 15-minute call to see what you need help with and if there’s a way I can help.