Content Queen Mariah

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224: How to be more strategic as the content marketer of your business

Mariah MacInnes

This is for those who create content and hope for the best...

Let's be more strategic with how we plan and execute the content.

And no it isn't about creating a plan we never look at or don't use.

It is about creating a process that allows us the time to think strategically.

It is time to become a better marketer for your business.

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah. ⁠⁠

✨ ⁠⁠LEARN ABOUT THE I AM/WE ARE CONTENT QUEEN CAMPAIGN⁠⁠✨⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

  • How to be a strategic planner 

  • The 6-month process to help you be a strategic marketer for your business 

  • Why you need to think strategically and not just plan

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 224. And I'm talking all about what makes a great marketer for strategic thinking with your content. Welcome to the content Queen podcast.

I'm your host Mariah entrepreneur, storyteller, creator of content bootcamp, and founder of content queen. I'm here to teach you how to share your unique message, create content and market your business with strategy through the channels that work for you. Each week, I'll deliver a story to help you connect to a powerful strategy around marketing, business and content creation.

I'll also be joined by amazing souls and entrepreneurs who are here to share their own journey, along with actionable steps to help you take your business to a whole new level through amazing storytelling, powerful lines marketing and content strategy. Let's do it. Hello, gang.

Welcome to week two of I am we are content to Queen the campaign here to just help you with your content marketing, and find someone that you can trust to support that journey. So last week, we talked about repurposing and that was the queen bee. And this week, we're talking about the queen of chess and we're being a little bit more strategic.

So if you're new here, you don't know what I'm talking about. We have a campaign that we run called I am/We are Content Queen. And basically we're taking you through the four queens of content marketing to help you be your own content queen or king but also find someone that you can trust to help support your journey of being a small business owner entrepreneur, creating content online, which is not what you signed up for but who you are.

And you might like the journey you might like content but you really want it to work a little bit. For you. You want to execute it more you just want to learn and you might resonate with an area that you need to focus on more than others.

So we talked about Queen Bee and repurposing and how to kind of work smarter not harder. Now we're talking about the Queen of Chess, which is about being more strategic now. Basically I started talking more about strategy a long time ago when I basically worked out my own strategy and how to create content in a way that was more strategic and aligned with my sales goals, my business goals and all the things after kind of just doing things and not really knowing what was working and not really knowing what was as well.

And I did a poll, I do many polls on my Instagram stories. And there was one in 2023 I remember I was in Marrakech in Morocco for a month and I just remember doing this poll really clearly because it was what do you want to learn from me and I had these about storytelling things about systems and I had one how to be more strategic and that was the key answer. So I really knew that a lot of you guys were struggling just to have that strategic brain with your content marketing, and I understand it and also, you know, it's interesting how we learn on this journey.

And I met a client I did a strategy for them and they do strategy for big strategies in nonprofits and government and they do it from a business level and the the owner of his business created a book called that was really it is about working and thinking strategically, not just planning strategically, because what happens in corporate is basically and you would know this, if you've worked in corporate or worked in any workplace, they bring everyone together like maybe every quarter or every year and they create, like a strategic plan for that department. And then the big leaders do it for the whole business. And basically, like I used to do these and you'd sit down and you'd think of all things that you want to do and obviously I worked in marketing and communications and PR so all of our stuff was very marketing based and we'd have this like you know, those big butcher paper and your writing and your breakout and teams and it's great strategic planning, but what I guess this client of mine discovered in his own work, is a lot of businesses then do that.

Go off and do what they've got to do, but they're not always thinking strategically, throughout the whole year. They're just kind of you know, they do that. And then that's it.

They kind of tick the box, maybe have like a lunch together. You know, it's a bit of team bonding, but then that's kind of it and I see this happens with entrepreneurs. I see this happen in business owners, and from a marketing and content marketing perspective.

I see this, you know, they might attend one of my workshops or do content bootcamp. They implement the strategy, and then that's kind of it and then nothing else is done. So that's why sometimes we have to outsource things to get them done, but I really want to help you on this journey.

So I'm going to take you through kind of in a two month block what you could do to be thinking more strategic, not just doing the planning, and then that's it. Because when you have the time for strategic planning, it's great but then when you're always thinking strategically, you can, you know, do this throughout the whole of your, I guess content marketing efforts and and content creation, not just in the moment in that quarterly planning or whatever it looks like but you can do it long term because yeah, I can I support people you know, if you ever joined boot camp or you're in my membership, we do like a quarterly workshop where we go through and look at the market numbers but as I said, like, we need to be doing things actively as we're going through it.

So I also in my own business was like, Okay, well, how can I also support my clients moving forward, and then I sat with my business coach, shout out to the TCR and I, we come up with this sort of six month plan that I can implement with my clients. And I want to share it with you, because I think this is going to help you think think strategically, always, rather than just having that plan. So when we're sort of I want to kind of paint the picture for you when we sat down and had our session.

She's like, well, you kind of have four different people that you outsource to. You've got the new people that are like, I don't want to do this. I've just started a business.

I don't want to touch content marketing. So that's it. I'm outsourcing and I wonder which one is you or I'm getting help with it straightaway.

So the newbie I've got the hustler that's doing it creating their own content, but they kind of burning out they're doing all the things and creating content is one of them and they feel like that's all they do. There's the person that's outsourced before but they've been burned by someone that probably hasn't delivered what they wanted. Or we have the experts who really are good with their content.

They know what their audience loves, but they've kind of got a full plate and they need to expand on other channels, but they create on certain platforms. They do it really well and they just need help with the repurposing so there's the newbie, the hustler, the burnt and the expert, so I would love to know which one you are if you're on Spotify. I'm gonna do a poll.

But if you aren't, and you're on my mailing list, or you talk to me in any way, like let me know which one you are because it does really help me tailor my content as well. But basically, from this, these four people, there's the same pain points, there's time energy knowledge, you know, there's all these pain points that I can really support them with with a one on one service. But if you're not ready to do that outsourcing yet, but you still fit into this category.

I want to help you be a little bit more strategic think more strategic. Now of course, I have my content bootcamp. I've got many of touch points, but from this episode, you'll be able to really identify these three areas and you can work on this six month plan that I'm going to be doing with my clients because what I really identified is Rome wasn't built in a day content marketing takes time and through this six month process, we're able to continue to expand without getting stuck in this everyday tasks without getting stuck in.

We post something on Instagram, we post a blog, we post an email like we're always thinking, something I implemented this year was having a day for each client where I think strategically and I want you to do the same thing. So once you've got your your strategy, and if you don't have one, I've got my free workshop or content bootcamp linked in the show notes so you can have a think about what that looks like. So the first thing that we do is we connect and this is phase one and this is sort of the research phase of content.

So once that strategy is there, I want to keep implementing things as we go on in the journey. I don't want to just have the strategy review it every three months have a meeting every month I want to be actively doing something so once a week I have that for my client where I have a think about things and I have a chat with them on WhatsApp. I try to think of things that we could do.

So we're not just waiting every month of course, once we look at the stats, it is a lot, you know gives us something but it's just trying to implement some things so that when we have our catch up, we're doing something. So the first thing is to connect with this to connect so to research to do the things like we're we're actively looking at the audience, the goals, the channel, now we're always doing these things. But when I broke it up into these two months slots, that means we're really focusing on these elements.

So this is a two month to month to month. So the first few months were connecting. So if I and once I've gone through this six month process with a client, I want to go again, because we're always learning and developing now doesn't mean that Oh, I can't think about my audience in month.

Four or month five or six I can, but that's when I'm going to actively think about things with those areas. So we're connecting, connecting with our strategy, connecting with the audience, connecting with the goal connecting as a team because we're working together and connecting with the right channels. So we're really going to be focusing on who is the audience, what are our goals?

What are the channels that we're going to operate on. And this is a really research phase of a content marketing plan, strategy, whatever you want to call it. So spend the first two months from now until two months from now, connecting with your strategy connecting with your audience.

Maybe you're doing some market research, maybe you're you're just talking with them a little bit more like obviously I want you to always talk with them, but this just really helps you I guess. Yeah, think about the audience. From a more strategic way rather than just a connection way.

And then, of course really connecting with your goals and it doesn't mean that you can't change them, look at them again. But we just want to connect with what the goals are and what the channels are again, doesn't mean that you can't go on other channels or whatever, but in this two month period, start building that out and connecting with that on a deeper level. Start thinking about ways you can optimize your goals look at the audience, you know, plan out who they are really get to know them and also Yeah, just connect with that connect with goals, audience and channel.

That's the research phase of a content marketing strategy. So every week if you're going to sit down and think about your business from a content marketing or a marketing perspective, it can be like literally half an hour or 15 minutes. I want you to connect with strategy, audience goals and the channels for the next two months.

Then after that we're going to create so we're going to be thinking about more of the strategy, more of the story, the types of content that you're going to be creating. Now, as I said with when I was building this out, it's not that I'm not creating content in these these periods of time, because I am, but I wanted to focus on those phases. And in those two month blocks when I was going to sit down and think strategically, I was thinking about those elements.

So in the Create phase, we're going to create the authentic voice. We're going to create more stories and a story bank, we're going to create and think about more of the marketing funnel, the marketing campaigns. So this is a phase of creation, thinking about voice stories, marketing funnel and marketing campaigns.

And this is you know, what we want to be known for and really optimizing the creation of the content. So when I sit down and think about that client, I'm in the creation phase. Now when I was going to talk about the project management thing of it in the end, when I was sort of mapping this out, I was like, Okay, this is really cool because I can, you know, jot things down note things down or we can really be in there.

So when we get to the end of the six months we have something that we can perfect because content marketing and while we Nothing's ever perfect, but we can really start to optimize is the right word then a bad we're not like oh my god, we have to have it all figured out as soon as the strategy is started, because we're really learning how to work with each other. But we're learning how to work with this strategy. So even if you're doing it on your own, you're learning to work with this.

So I don't You don't have to know it all. So that strategies ended and that's what I think is the what's what happens in corporates, when we're doing the strategic planning. We go on our way and we never see it again.

And we implement it but we don't think about it. We're just implementing, so I want you to be thinking about it as you're adapting it, but it doesn't mean that as soon as that strategic session is finished, everything has to be done in perfect. No.

And that allows you to schedule time to think about different things. So I'll never forget when I listen to this podcast, and she had this concept this is called happier by Gretchen Rubin. She had this thing in her life where it was scheduled worry.

So if something come up, she didn't have to worry about it. Then she could schedule time to worry about it. And I think that is genius and also funny.

Mother's Day is coming up. And I text my brother because my brother is a father so he has a mother to his child that he has to think about the Mother's Day. And I said to him look, it's only fair that I think a little bit more about Mother's mom's Mother's Day because you know, I'm not a mother at MAMA mother to my business, but I don't have to think about you know, no one has to pamper me for Mother's Day.

Let me think about Mother's Day. But and he goes Okay, sounds good. Yeah, I'm trying to organize stuff for his partner.

And yes, from his son to his mother. And I thought I said to him, I'll have to schedule time to think about this and he laughed because we always laugh about how Moraes life is a bit chaotic. But literally, I'm like, no, no, like I actually have to so that's when you can schedule time to worry about say you're in the first two months of connection with your audience and goals and like I really want to get better at storytelling, but I just don't have time.

Okay, that comes up in month three and four. It doesn't mean you can't experiment with stories or the marketing funnel or marketing campaigns. But there's no point putting on your to do list if you're not going to think about it right now.

So let's think about it in month three and four. And think more about our audience our goals and our channels. So that's month, one and two.

So three and four. Phase two is you know, our authentic voice, our stories, our marketing campaigns, our funnels now. We have a transcript for this podcast, but I also have this in an infographic that I'm posting on social media.

So if you're on trying to scribble it all down, no stress, so months wanting to connect months two and three create months 3543 And four months, five and six is cultivate. So this is when we're collecting everything. This is about building the process.

So we cultivate our existing content and we repurpose and expand. We cultivate a new audience with new channels. So again, that repurposing building on different channels, we're cultivating new ideas, and really this idea that content is everything.

Everything around us is content. This is when you start to get this level of confidence that you start to understand that content comes from anything and you're building these skill sets as you're going along. We're cultivating by measuring and reviewing and thinking of what content is working, what isn't and slowly expanding.

And then we're cultivating by creating systems that help us work effectively. So we do this through you know, creating a process, okay, when I create social media content, this is I do this, this, this and this. Now, content bootcamp essentially is a really shorter version of this across.

We do it live across six weeks, but this is basically breaking it down across six months. If you were to purchase content boot camp, you'll get taught all these things, how to do them, how to implement them, and you could do the course across six months if you wanted to. I mean, it's totally up to you make it digestible, but this is what I'm going to do with my clients.

So I'm always strategically thinking, it's not just think about here's the plan. I'm executing it, but I'm not sitting down to strategically think about these elements, the research the strategy, the process, and that's what we just went through, connect, create, cultivate. So this is how we not just act strategically, in one moment, we're consistently being strategic with our marketing and our content marketing.

So this is something new that I'm going to be implementing in my retainer clients, but I wanted to share it with you so that you could potentially do it as well. And rather than thinking you have to have it all figured out. So obviously when you create a strategy, you go through these elements, you build it, you plan it, but then this is how you can consistently think about it.

So months 123456 At the end of the six months, we go around again, and we're always optimizing because nothing is ever done. You know, it's like, not for the gym. I'm not finished at the gym.

I have to keep going to the gym as much as I'd like to finish the gym. It's something that we're always doing so we if we want to map something out, so we know Okay, when I sit down to think about my content marketing to do a little weekly review or strategic plan. I'm thinking about these things.

Now basically for me how I visualize this is a board Trello clickup Asana notion, board, whatever works for you. And I'll have every column I'll have, connect, create, cultivate, and then I'll have those elements I mentioned which is in the graphic that's getting posted on social media. Tonight if you listen to this live on the Tuesday, otherwise you'll see it under this week.

So the week of May 6, it'll be on the Tuesday, which is May 7 2024. If you are listening to this way beyond this time, message me, I'll send it to you, I'll send you the post. So basically, I see this board and I see all these little things under it, you know CONNECT WITH AUDIENCE create story bank, and then I can assign the task for a week.

So basically, I know we've got like four to five weeks, but some aren't going to take that long to think about. So then I can assign myself the task of that week. So with each client, I'm like, Okay, this is what I'm thinking about.

And I'll schedule 15 minutes half an hour like it doesn't like things might just flow naturally. But every week I'm thinking about that. Then I might watch out my client I might notice for our monthly catch up that these are like the action items I think we should do based off our audience based off of our goals or I might just be collecting more information about that.

So that we're coming up with little tactics and little things that come with that strategy. So basically, we've got this high end strategy, we've got connect, create, cultivate, and under that we have these little tactics and strategies that we want to implement, that can help us understand our content marketing, understand our marketing more. And then when we catch up with them, we can go over those action items.

So basically, you could just do that with yourself. You could have this board, you can assign the tasks and you can implement this. The number one thing first is to have a documented content marketing strategy.

So then you can start thinking strategically after it if you don't have one. I've got a workshop sort of taking you through it. That is free.

You can sign up or you can jump straight into boot camp get started. And you'll see that sort of laid out. But it was just really nice to put this into something into some kind of frankly, I could take my my clients through and I just really wanted to share it with you.

Because I know a lot of you are like how can we be more strategic and being more strategic isn't about just creating this content marketing strategy and leaving it there. It's about implementing it, but it's about consistently thinking about it. It doesn't mean it has to take over your brain.

It's just a tiny moment in your week, where you can just think about it. And think about things that you can do. sessions with people.

You know, if you've got a business coach, you can bounce ideas off them. If you've got people in your team, you can go hey, I was thinking about this. How can we implement that?

So have a think, think about how you can think more strategically around your content and your marketing could be literally like 30 minutes a week. But it means that you're not just creating this strategy and leaving it and not doing anything with it. It's about implementing and learning.

So I am we are content queen, check out the landing page that we've created for this if you want to be a little bit more into or learning about your content, marketing plans, strategies, stories. We have a landing page with all the episodes associated with this campaign. You can sign up to our email list where we'll be giving you a free resource resource associated with each episode so that you can take away something and implement it.

But be a content queen or king yourself. And remember developing your strategy and story develops your business along with your repurposing strategies and your systems which we're going to be talking about systems and we're going to be talking about storytelling as the last two queens of this campaign. But thank you so much for joining me today.

And please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends. could do this by sharing your Instagram Stories tagging us at content Queen Mariah, what does that mean conversation about it maybe it's part of your strategic planning. If you rate and review on whatever platform you're listening to this on, please don't forget to rate if you rate and review on whatever platform you listen to us on it will help me get this message out there.

And yeah, share more with our audience. What we that if you rate and review on whatever platform you're listening to this on, it does help me get this message out there but it also helps me get seen so we get more amazing guests and it allows me to continue to create amazing content to help and support you. So follow us on Instagram or Tiktok and let me know any topic you want me to talk about in the future.

I am there for that and I can't wait to talk about the next queen. Queen the band in next week's episode I'll talk to you then.

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