Being able to have a company that runs itself so you can be out doing the things you love all comes down to having a website that generates information and interest to your potential customers.
So that means you’ve got to create content; content can be written, it can be videos, it could be podcast like this, audio, it can be anything, like images, infographics, as well as social media, as long as that points back to your website.
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But most people, me included, get a bit stuck with “Oh, what do we write next? What can I do now? How can I think of something else to write about fire extinguishers (Which is what I sell) or any other stuff?.
But don’t you worry, I’ve got you covered.
Now, normally, this would be a weekend challenge; oh well, it is the weekend challenge, but I want you to write down these and I want you to think about them and think as you start to develop a content calendar, this is going to give you some easy ways to develop it without having to over think.
So get your pad, get your pen, or just a piece of paper, I don’t mind, you can even use a pencil, you know, we roll with it.
Weekend Challenge
#1 Easy Curated Content: And let me explain what that means. It is where you use other people’s content.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! We’re not talking plagiarism, bear with me.
So we use other people’s content and we discuss it with our readers. You have seen interview shows, discussion shows in the UK, Sunday morning politics shows, they’ll discuss what is being shared in the news? You are doing this in print, you know, virtual print on a website.
For example, last night, I went to see the new movie, “The Big Short”, which is about how a bunch of money that people made a fortune on when the world economy collapsed, or the American housing mortgage market collapsed and then the word economy collapsed.
Now, for example, if you wanted to discuss that, you are a Financial Broker or some sort, or give financial advice, you may wish to discuss the movie, but you can’t just steal the information.
You may go to the BBC website in the UK and you may say, “On the BBC website, so and so discussed the movie ‘The Big Short’ and in her opinion, she thought ‘Da da da’. Here’s a link to the article, where she also says ‘Da da da’”, and you discuss it.
Then you could say something like, “However, in the New York Times, a different perspective, written by “so and so man”, gives this perspective, where he contradicts and says this and that. In my personal opinion, I think…”
You can see where you’re discussing an article, you refer to the article, you don’t plagiarize it, you link very directly to their articles, which gives you the reason for discussing them.
This is not stealing, this is common. How do you think, if a story has come up in the news, how do you think any other newspaper is allowed to talk about it? They can’t all discover it by accident.
Someone publishes it then everyone else can go on to discuss this story in a different way. They may refer it to their friends and family.
When it comes to sports, TV, ESPN, etc — they may refer to Sky, in the UK, Sky’s coverage of a soccer match for instance, but discuss it on ESPN because they didn’t have the rights, that kind of thing, they are curating Sky’s content, they probably paid them some money.
So that’s curated content, that gives you no end of things to talk about.
#2 Listicles: These are list articles, and yes, it’s a funny word. In Buzzsumo’s recent commentary on, the track articles and what is the most popular, they pointed out what works the best.
And as with every other year, I’m pretty sure list articles, ones with numbers in the title, for example, “The 23 Content Marketing Blogs You Must Be Reading” or “The 7 Free Image Sites Nobody Else Knows About”, that kind of thing.
You’ve seen them everywhere, they’re very popular. Everyone loves a list, in fact BuzzSumo also pointed out that the magic number is 10, by the way, so there’s a little hint.
But there are any number of lists in your business that you can write about.
#3 Transcripts: If you make videos, and you should be making videos, you should be teaching, you don’t have to be doing podcasts like this, but you should be making videos, how about getting it transcribed?
Go to fiverr.com, or lots of others, like transcriptionpuppy.com and get it transcribed, just give them a link to the video, they’ll transcribe it.
It might sound odd, but all you have to do is edit it a bit, and there’s an article for you to use. This podcast will be a video, it will be transcribed, it makes an entire post.
It’s easy, and I don’t have to write it, I just said it. Yeah. Honestly, easy.
#4 How To’s: When BuzzSumo printed that article that I mentioned above, I’m pretty sure the second-most common one was how to’s.
Everyone wants to know how to set up, how to change the headlamp in your Ford Focus, how to create the best birthday cake ever, that kind of stuff.
That’s never going to go out of fashion and if you have a product or service, you can create lots about how to use your products, how to use your service, how to make the most of things.
See how easy this can be, dead simple.
#5 Strategies: Now these may seem like, how to’s, but what I mean by strategies is plans. People want to be told exactly how to do something.
For example, at Marketing for Owners, we promote a marketing system that involves actually seven P’s of the perpetual sales cycle.
It’s a system so we will explain to you how that works. If you ever want to know, just e-mail me at jon@marketingforowners.com and like other people who ask, I will e-mail back and explain how it can work for your business, no charge, no obligation if you’re just interested, ask me.
Then strategies such as social media, for instance, social media is overwhelming, how about a plan on how to get all your social media processes done in 15 minutes per day, or 5 minutes a day, or 10 minutes a day, easy, that’s a strategy.
People love that. And you know how to do it if you know how to do something, you can write about it. Don’t worry about giving away your secrets.
#6 Case Studies: Someone who’s done this applied your process, your system, your products and their results, which generally are going to be good ones aren’t they?
Everyone likes to know that someone else used it and it worked. They are not the first, they are not the pioneer, and they’re not Christopher Columbus.
They want to know that Christopher Columbus already discovered the place, and they want to pop along.
How long have you been in business? You must have a case study, you must have a customer. How about ringing them up?
Because they will get the publicity as well from linking to them and their name, or their social media in your article; they’re going to love it; and who would not want to be interviewed?
Okay — there are some easy peasy, lemon squeezy strategies to create content. If you are going to write one thing a week, that’s six, do you not think that can keep you going and keep everything you develop going for the whole year?
Just rotate it around, mix it up a bit, easy.
If you want to know more about our weekend the challenges , go to marketingforowners.com/challenge, or if you look in the top menu, there are some great tools and tips and drop downs and guides and books, podcasts, Twitter handles, everything we’ve ever recommended.
Go see it. But more importantly, make sure you have a fantastic weekend, have time with family or with friends, or both, just a little bit of work and then gets back to it next week where I will be waiting for you.
See you then.
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How much content can you create from this list?
