Content is Queen: How One Hour of Focus Will Help Consumers Lean into Your Brand

Content is Queen:
How One Hour of Focus Will Help Consumers Lean into Your Brand

The Content Marketing catchphrase has many wondering what exactly it means. Honestly, I get asked the question a lot.

Content Marketing is about consistent messaging across all mediums – website, social, email, traditional, OTT, and digital. All the things. All the ways. All the places.

Why should that matter to you as a business?

Consistency has been and always will be key. I am a firm believer that you cannot communicate enough.

Consumers need to find the information they need quickly. And when they don’t, they abandon carts, leave poor reviews, and carry a grudge.

Those messages that you need to get out, the questions you are constantly answering, and the 24-hour consumption of information can make it feel damn near impossible to keep up.

It can be overwhelming, right? Especially if you don’t know where to begin.

I’m going to outline for you how one hour of focus can change your message consistency, save you time in the long run, and better inform your consumers.

Here’s How: Five Content Pillars Every Business Should Have

Creating content begins with knowing what buckets of information you need to share with your consumer. Here are some examples:

Every business should have a branding bucket. It includes details about your business and your mission, vision, and values. It’s who you are as a business, the people that work for you, and the people you serve.

It is your business story, and you cannot tell it enough.

Every business should have a frequently asked questions bucket. If I asked you about this, you could rattle them off lickety-split-like.

You cannot communicate this information enough.

Every business should have a product/service bucket. Sharing about the products and/or services you offer includes/service captivating images and compelling calls to action.

Keep building your product/service messaging. You can’t talk about it enough.

Every business should have a sales/events bucket. Here you are driving the business to your front door – brick and mortar, website, eBay/Etsy, or other social platforms that allow for sales – with offers or events that instill desire for more.

Everyone is looking for this information. You cannot share it enough.

Every business should have a shared content bucket. Manufacturer information, collaborations with other businesses, chamber of commerce events, community activities, expert opinions, or timely articles from subject matter experts could all be options for shared content, if it makes sense for your brand.

You cannot connect with others enough. Business is about building community, sharing community, and supporting community.

Here’s an Exercise: Creating Evergreen Content You Can Build Upon

These buckets of information become the content pillars upon which every piece of content you create can be developed.

Every business can create evergreen content – timeless information that can be used over and over again. These key messages can be pulled from each of your content pillars.

My recommendation is to create messages for each content pillar. Put a note on your phone or write it down on a Post-it or keep a notebook that you can refer back to but start the list.

If you create four messages for each content pillar, you now have the basis for building out your website content, 20 social media posts, elements for a monthly newsletter, content for a blog, and ideas for your traditional and digital marketing.

Within an hour you will have everything you need to develop your content and build upon it for months to come.

The Why: Saving time. Building Connection. Growing Sales.

Remember, you cannot communicate the same information enough. Long after you become tired of saying it someone is seeing it for the first time.

By taking one hour to focus on this one action step, you will save time later because you already figured it out. You don’t have to rethink it again.

You pull out your content pillars, review your messages for each one, and build out the one you need to focus on today. Whether it is creating a video, going live on social media, or designing a graphic for a social media post, etc., you have the very foundation you need to efficiently move forward.

You’re focused. You’re saving time. You’re building consistency for your brand.

It makes it easier for your consumers to follow, builds trust and loyalty, and drives business.

When this happens, the full carts convert to sales, great reviews follow, and the now loyal consumers really lean into your brand.

That’s a pretty good case for focus, consistency, and one hour of time.