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What Are Content Categories?

Content Marketing / By / September 6, 2022

Want to publish a diverse amount of valuable content?

Or do you want to make sure that relevant content is published at the right time?

As a business owner, it can feel overwhelming to come up with a content plan. But it doesn’t have to!

In fact, successful marketers create content categories, also known as content buckets, to organize and schedule the right content at the right time.

Everything You Need To Know About Content Categories

Creating a backlog of content is a great way to ensure you always have something to publish, send, or post. This helps to keep your audience engaged. 

Moreover, consistently publishing blogs is a great way to boost your SEO ranking. And here’s the sometimes surprising part…It doesn’t necessarily matter how often you publish, as long as it’s consistent. 

Choose what schedule you can sustainably do, whether that be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Whatever you choose, simply stick to it. 

However, creating blogs, email newsletters, and social media posts ahead of time can result in a hodge-podge of mixed content. That’s why grouping your content into categories is so helpful. 

For instance, the FocusCopy blog page has a list of tags that describe the various blogs we’ve published. This makes it much easier for our readers to find valuable information quickly rather than sifting through a dozen pages full of blogs.

But this organization starts way before we hit publish. If you’ve been following along, you know we use and love ClickUp. As a versatile task manager, I’m able to create content labels for each of our FocusCopy blogs as I assign them. 

This process allows my copywriters to look through assigned blogs on our editorial calendar and know exactly what category each task falls under. Some of our content categories include:

  • Business
  • Content Marketing
  • Marketing
  • Processes & Procedures
  • Copywriting
  • Lead Generation

With these category labels in place, I’m able to publish blogs easily without reading through the dozens that have been written. Furthermore, this helps to publish blogs in theme with any specific campaigns we’re promoting at the time. 

Want to learn how FocusCopy can build your business’s brand awareness through compelling copy? Find some time to chat here.

How to Create Content Categories For Your Business’s Marketing

When creating tasks in ClickUp, we include the “Category” column. I have the different categories we write about for FocusCopy pre-filled on a drop down menu. This makes it easy to simply select the appropriate category. 

However, being such a versatile task manager, there are several ways to go about this in ClickUp. You can instead opt for tags that appear next to the title of each task. Plus, several other options to view your content categories at a high level. 

Since FocusCopy’s blogs are (mostly) all about copywriting in marketing, our categories branch from our main topic. 

Content Categories Streamline Your Production Calendar

As mentioned above, publishing content consistently is important to keep your audience engaged and to rank higher in Google searches. However, it’s important to remember planning is key to keeping your production calendar on track. 

Need a refresher on creating a system to manage content creation and publication? Check out my previous blog, How To Build An Editorial Calendar With ClickUp That You Can Actually Stick To.

An effective editorial calendar will be your best friend when it comes to publishing your business’s content. However, for it to be successful, make sure to incorporate content categories from the very beginning.

Already have an editorial calendar but missed the content category memo upon construction? That’s okay! Just pencil in some time on your calendar to create your content categories and adjust accordingly. Moving forward, you’ll be able to assign tasks into content categories as they’re created. 

Going through these steps will help streamline your production calendar, save time, and prevent unnecessary stress.

Ready to publish copy that really converts? Get in touch with me here and let’s get to work!

Identify Your Business’s Ideal Content Categories

Now it’s time to make content categories work for you!

First, think about your brand messaging and what it represents. Next, search Google, Reddit, your social media platforms, and other channels to see what exactly your ideal audience is searching for. There are also other helpful websites like DemandJump that will help you choose the best terms and keywords. 

Knowing what terms your audience searches is important as you define your content categories. Because, in case you haven’t heard me say it before, what you publish needs to be about your audience – not you.

For example, an IT expert may also refer to themselves as a Managed Service Provider (MSP). While the term fits their offerings, a successful marketing campaign would take into account that not all potential customers know the term MSP. 

Keep this in mind when defining your content categories and overall strategy. Because, while many people love an opportunity to learn, even more people will simply move to the next article in their search results if they’re unfamiliar with the terms being used. 

How FocusCopy Utilizes Content Categories

You may not know this about me, but my former mentor and boss unexpectedly passed away several years ago. Because of the aftermath, I make sure my company documents everything. You see, while I have the utmost respect for this person, the order of operations lived in his brain and his brain alone.

Needless to say, content categories are one of FocusCopy’s many standard operating procedures (SOPs). These SOPs are great for several reasons. One being that my team can access specific how-tos in regard to any and every process. The second reason is that if I get hit by a bus (or win the next big lottery and take off to my very own private island), my business can continue without missing a beat.

We utilize content categories to streamline our to-do lists efficiently. For instance, if I want to make sure to publish 3 different types of blogs in one month, I just have to filter through the categories of unpublished blogs. 

By prioritizing planning in our editorial calendar management, I have created a system that saves time and allows me to publish quality copy consistently.

Develop Content Categories & More With The Copywriting Experts

FocusCopy works with small and medium-sized, women-owned businesses to produce concise, focused, and converting copy. Our proven processes allow for timely production schedules so our clients can always count on us to produce quality copy on time. 

Whether you need help with blogging, email campaigns, engaging your audience on social media, building a credible and converting website, or anything else – we’re here and ready to help. We’d love nothing more than to grab a coffee and discuss your business’s copywriting needs. Schedule a time to meet here.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words
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Editorial Calendar With ClickUp

How To Build An Editorial Calendar With ClickUp That You Can Actually Stick To

Content Marketing, Processes & Procedures / By / August 31, 2022

Do you ever wonder how content creators find the time?

Especially businesses with heavy workloads, they somehow still have quality blogs, social media posts, newsletters, and updated web pages that get lots of traction. 

Want to know the secret behind the folks who always have something to post?

It’s all about the editorial calendar. 

But effectively planning out your editorial calendar can make the difference between publishing quality content and letting your greatest ideas fall through the cracks. 

What Is An Editorial Calendar? 

Essentially, an editorial calendar is a multi-functional calendar creators use to manage content creation and publication.

With the right software, you can schedule campaigns with the themes and tasks included. Plus, you can look at your content to-do list at a high level. But you can also take it to a granular level to input inspiration, references, and data for each small task. 

Have you ever thought about your 5 or 10-year plan, and then worked backward to list the work and milestones required to meet your goals? 

That’s pretty much the gist of an editorial calendar but with your short and long-term marketing goals in mind. 

Need someone to take over the reins of your editorial calendar? Contact us today and start sharing quality, high-converting copy.

Why Create An Editorial Calendar On ClickUp?

Personally, ClickUp is the software that we use. It also helps that it’s very effective at storing ideas, planning content, and getting it published efficiently. 

Plus, ClickUp allows users to view tasks in lists, boards, and in a calendar setting. This means that while planning, I can look at our to-do’s at a high level. Meanwhile, my employees can filter through tasks assigned to them with access to the notes and objectives for each piece.

Process To Build An Editorial Blogging Calendar With ClickUp

One of the best things about ClickUp is its versatility. You can customize it to fit your exact needs. However, this also means that coming at it as a blank slate can be overwhelming. There is an abundance of free tutorials available. But if you want to get straight to creating your editorial calendar, I’ve made it easy with a step-by-step guide. 

1. Do The Prep Work

One thing I’ve learned is you can’t count on inspiration to always hit at the right time. With so many different ongoing projects for my own business and my clients, the prep work is non-negotiable. 

Identify Content Pillars

After research comes the strategic part of the prep work: the content pillars. This is where we identify several topics that will tie into each other. For example, we’ve written several FocusCopy blogs about copywriting – because that’s what we do.  Within these blogs, we include backlinks to our other blogs relating to copywriting. 

If you check out our blog page, you’ll find blogs with topics centered around writing copy, including:

While that’s just a teaser because we have loads more blogs about copywriting, the goal is to answer as many readers’ questions as possible. But how do we know what readers are asking? Research.

Not only does grouping similar topics into content pillars provide value in the form of educating readers, this method also helps to increase our Google ranking. 

For example, FocusCopy’s content pillars are Copywriting, Content Writing, and General Marketing, Systems, and Entrepreneurship. If there is something we are considering, we always run it through our pillars. If it doesn’t fit, it’s thrown out or we rework it to give it a different angle. 

Pro Tip: Do not select more than 3-5 content pillars. The key is to focus. 

Identify Calls To Action

This is where the objective comes into play. Ask yourself, what do you want readers to do? It could be…

  • Subscribe to your newsletter
  • Download a lead magnet
  • Follow your business on social media
  • Schedule a time to grab a coffee and discuss your business goals

You may think that a reader will automatically know to contact you if they are interested in your product or service. However, you are giving readers too much credit. Not because they are lazy or unable to find your contact info on your website, but because we all have fish brains when it comes to searching the web. It’s too easy to close out and go on to the next blog or website if we’re not finding immediate answers to our questions. That’s why we need calls to action to tell readers exactly what steps to take next.

We live in a digital world with more data than we can even begin to comprehend and it’s literally all at our fingertips. According to Portent, “Website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time.”

If the goal of your marketing efforts is to convert readers into paying customers, time is of the essence. You need a quick-loading website and linked calls to action to tell your readers exactly what to do. 

Now that you have your calls to action listed (and understand their importance), it’s on to the next step!

Not sure what calls to action you need to include? FocusCopy can help! Get in touch with us here.

2. Create The List In Your ClickUp

Managing your editorial calendar is simple when it’s all in one place. Create a list and name it “Editorial Calendar”. You’ll be able to track and organize your upcoming blogs at high and granular levels with ease.

Editorial Calendar With ClickUp

It should look something like this when you’ve created it. 

Editorial Calendar With ClickUp

3. Create Fields

Let’s get into the details! This step is all about getting the nitty gritty specific subtasks, data, and labels down. 

Rather than going through this process for each blog topic, create one blog task with all the fields below. You’ll be able to use this as a template to easily duplicate.

We suggest creating the following fields in this order: 

  • Content Pillar using the Dropdown field
  • Call To Action using the Dropdown field
  • Type of Blog using the Dropdown field
  • In Progress using the Website field
  • Published Link using the Website field

If you want to go all out, you can include the following fields: 

  • Author
  • Target Keywords
  • SOP

This is what it looks like inside a given task. 

Editorial Calendar With ClickUp

4. Brain Dump All Your Topics As Tasks

Input all of your topics as separate blog tasks. Over time, you will learn what parts to tweak. But for now, this will be a functional home for your editorial calendar to-do list.

Now that you have your template blog task with the appropriate fields, right-click and select “duplicate”. ClickUp will prompt you to adjust the name and what elements to copy over. If you’re using an open blog template (not a completed task), then I suggest simply changing the name and including all fields. 

You can also create a template inside of ClickUp so there’s no need for duplicating. 

5. Fill Out As Much Information In The Fields

After you input blog topics as tasks, it’s time to fill out those fields. This is much easier with the dropdown fields mentioned above.

The great thing about ClickUp is you don’t have to cover all the details. So if there’s something you’re unsure about – like the due date or which employee to assign to said task, just leave it blank for now. 

However, it’s best to fill out as much information as possible at this point. Go through the bullet points above under “Create Fields” and watch your editorial calendar come to life!

But remember, if you’re unsure about something, don’t let it create a bottleneck in your workflow. Simply move on and fill out what you can. Make sure to schedule time in your calendar to go back to complete these fields. Sometimes making appointments with yourself is necessary to make sure everything gets done!

6. Schedule Your Blogs

While it would be great to complete all tasks as they are created, that may be edging on wishful thinking. To ensure that nothing falls through the cracks, it’s time to schedule the blogs with due dates.

But it’s not just the final due date. Instead, schedule dates to start and complete each subtask. For instance, say you want to publish a Halloween-themed blog on October 31st. To ensure that you or your employees have enough time to make the deadline, schedule the outlining portion of the blog for 3 weeks ahead of time. Then, schedule the drafting to take place over a couple of days, 2 weeks ahead of time. Next, you’ll want to make sure to schedule the process of checking SEO, editing, addressing edits, finalizing, and finally…publishing!

With enough lead time, and a little cushion (can’t forget about clients!), you’ll be able to post your spooky Halloween post with timely relevance to the holiday season. 

Bonus Tips

As I said before, ClickUp has a ton of features! So many, in fact, I can’t imagine one business needing to utilize every single one. But that also makes ClickUp a versatile tool that can be used throughout many industries. Here are some additional tips to help expand your ClickUp experience.

Use “Whiteboard” To Generate Content Ideas

More of a visual brainstormer? Me, too!

What’s cool here is you can create tasks directly out of Whiteboard. This means that you can arrange your pillar content and branch off into more niche topics from a high level. Being able to create tasks this way takes collaboration and creating your editorial calendar to a whole new level!

Editorial Calendar With ClickUp

Look Via “Schedule” To View It On Calendar View

Need to get a view of your overall calendar?

Again, ClickUp’s versatility comes in clutch. Select the calendar view to see how all your tasks appear over the course of a week, month, or year. You can filter down the dates for your exact needs.

Want To Skip The How-To & Publish Quality Blogs For Your Business?

You can always skip the tutorials and go straight to the experts. At FocusCopy, we work with small female-owned businesses to produce high-converting copy.

And the best part? While we do what we do best (writing copy), you can focus on running your business. You can confidently get through your to-do list knowing that quality copy is on its way to boost your brand’s reputation, SEO, and overall growth.

Want to learn more about how FocusCopy can position your business for success? Reach out and let’s start the conversation.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words
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How We Use ClickUp to Manage Our Content Production Calendar

How We Use ClickUp To Manage Our Content Production Calendar

Processes & Procedures / By / August 15, 2022

If there is one thing we do better than other copywriting firms, it is managing our content production calendars. It’s critical for our business to succeed and would normally require a lot of preparation and planning. But our professional copywriting business uses a management application called ClickUp, packed with features to keep our calendars in line and on the move.

We quickly realized that talking about how we manage our workload can help a ton of other small businesses out there manage theirs. Using a management system like ClickUp can operate seamlessly within your budget – or without paying a single dime.

When every hour is accounted for in your day, you should have the tools to navigate your time to the best of your ability. Time management isn’t always an easy skill to master. From professional copywriters to other small business owners out there, here’s how we use ClickUp to manage our content production calendar.

Looking for additional strategies to improve productivity? Download our free guide, Easy-to-Implement Scalable SOP Framework.

What Is ClickUp? 

ClickUp is an all-in-one online project management tool that tracks your workload, follows the chain of work, and acts as a filing system. Furthermore, it has a ton of features that assist your daily responsibilities, like meeting notes, collaboration add-ons, organization tabs and folders, and so much more.

I know! It sounds like a lot, but we’ll break it down to show you how it’s helped us stay organized and efficient. 

What Is A Content Production Calendar?

Your business’s content production calendar should be a broad view of the ongoing and upcoming projects you have. You can also have a different calendar for different avenues of your business. For example, you may have one for client projects and another for marketing efforts.

It helps to divide your projects into labels like:

  • Active or open
  • Call made
  • Closing out
  • Closed
  • Onboarding
  • Complete
  • Due date

This way, everything you need to keep an eye on is on the calendar, and you know where it stands in the line of production. 

You can think of your content production calendar in ClickUp like a desktop calendar you might have in front of you. Instead of tearing off a new page at the beginning of the month, everything you need is digital. Another big benefit of using ClickUp’s online calendar is that you can view it as a list or in a digital planner, which is a huge plus for those who are more visual thinkers.

How We Manage Our Content Production Calendar With ClickUp

As you may guess, your content production calendar is your lifeline as it allows you to keep up with everything that’s going on around you. We use ClickUp’s content production calendar by using the Spaces section to divide our workload into work we do for clients and then for our own scalable growth.

Managing Client Work

Assigned work breaks down into individual labels for each one of our clients. Then it’s divided into various phases, depending on where we are on our timeline. From each phase, tasks are arranged based on due dates and named according to the correct project. All of this allows us to maintain a digital filing cabinet with everything we need, including meeting notes, calls, and anything else to help us as we write.

Tracking Brand Growth

Client work is its own category, which means the work we do to support our business is also its own section. Our marketing efforts divide up into particular sections like Email Marketing and Social Media. Each subsection is a virtual file that opens up to ongoing, upcoming, or completed tasks. Again, you can set due dates for each item so they appear on your visual calendar.  

Brain Dump Topic Ideas In One Place

Choose where you want to keep track of your ideas, notes, and meetings with anyone. So, instead of using 100,000 randomly placed post-it notes, you have everything stored where you will easily find it. Instead of a visual calendar, think of this feature as a digital notebook organized for you through ClickUp.

We keep a document in the same place as our topic reviews for each client to throw in new ideas and “dump” them into one place. These files are internal, so you won’t have anyone outside your organization see them…or your super scribbled notes. Feel free to throw in half-baked thoughts, tidbits of information, and random topic ideas whenever you need to. Using an online system prevents the information from being lost, while enhanced security keeps your notes between only you and whomever else you decide to share them with. 

When it’s time to review new or refreshed ideas, you can refer to your topic document and select from everything you’ve added over time. It will all still be as you left it, so you’re actively preparing for meetings beforehand and not scrambling to develop new ones on the spot.

Use Your Content Production Calendar To Balance Content Pillars & CTAs

You can also divide your tasks based on which type of content they cover, known as content pillars. Because scaling your business isn’t just about creating new content, it’s crucial for you to make varied, quality content.

As an example, if all you’re focusing on is producing 10 new blogs a month for a year, you’re limiting your potential. Other avenues of your marketing efforts are being ignored by not diversifying your content. Think of a few broad topics to create pillar pages on and use those to splinter into other channels like social media posts, blogs, lead magnets, and other material.

You want to focus on generating content that hits the following keys consistently:

  • Promote
  • Education or inform
  • Engage
  • Motivate or inspire

The idea of each piece? To get your audience to take action…any action! Whether you want them to buy, download, shop, or book an appointment, here is where you weave that action in.

We’re just going to leave this free download about Easy-to-Implement Scalable SOP Framework right here.

How Implementing Content Pillars Works

Own a bakery? You may have an entire web page generally covering wedding cakes. Then, you can splinter that content into so much more, answering questions like…How much does a wedding cake cost per serving? Or Why are wedding cakes so expensive? 

As the industry expert, you can answer these questions any way you like and prompt readers to take action like:

  • Book a wedding cake consultation
  • Download a free wedding cake flavor profile booklet
  • Reach out to our wedding bakery team for a custom order

The options are limitless, and it all starts with one solid idea.

Schedule Your Team Based On Availability

Finally, a visual content production calendar with clear-cut due dates and tracking for your employees. Through ClickUp, we use this feature to keep an eye on our schedules and view the workload of others. As a business owner, you can view the same information and adjust workloads accordingly.

Have an employee on vacation? What about extra time left on the schedule? 

Quickly shift assignments from one person to another, so nothing slips through the cracks. You can also make adjustments within each task to alter due dates and responsibilities and add notes just in case. Use helpful automation tools and content production calendar management software to keep projects going without missing deadlines. 

Keep Your Content Production Calendar On Track With FocusCopy

On top of using software like ClickUp, we also have other processes in place to streamline our writing process. Our goal is to deliver quality content to your inbox on time or before you expect it! Having so many organizational processes in place allows us to offer full-service copywriting to small businesses across the U.S. whenever you need it. So, wipe the sweat off your brow and leave your writing responsibilities to our team of professional writers. 

Before you go, explore more Easy-to-Implement Scalable SOP Framework tips and tricks right here!

Implement Our Scalable SOP Framework & Scale Your Business Processes With Ease

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managing your content calendar

A Step-By-Step Guide To Managing Your Content Calendar

Content Marketing / By / July 22, 2022

You wake up on Monday, ready to start managing your content calendar. You take a sip of your favorite coffee (or tea) and breathe. Then, you decide today’s the day you’re going to get it all together. You open your calendar, and it hits you. 

It looks like a mess! Where do you even start?

Right when you start to organize, you remember a client meeting you have in 10 minutes. At this point, it’s easy to let the idea of planning go and move on. But then you’re back at square one every following morning. It becomes a pattern that you don’t know how to stop.

Don’t give up yet! There are steps you can take to reach peak efficiency and productivity. You can find a way to crack down on managing your content calendar – no matter how many meetings you have. 

Even if you don’t have the time, we do! Hire a copywriter to help create your business’s content.

10 Steps To Managing Your Content Calendar

Take each of these steps at your own pace. It’s essential not to feel overwhelmed while you make changes to your content management process. Loading up on too much can leave you feeling burnout and unmotivated to follow through.

1. Applications To Use For Improved Prep & Planning

Today, there’s an app for everyone! Regardless of what industry you’re in, everyone from social media managers to engineers can use these tools.

ClickUp

This project management app has everything you need in one place. Delegate tasks, track progress and even insert documents, pictures, and so much more. ClickUp is popular with marketing and advertising pros, IT teams, and project managers.

Monday.com

A nod towards the beginning of the workweek, monday.com is an app with plenty of templates for every industry, business, and team. People like it because it’s ultra customizable and has in-app automation. This app is good for growing businesses, enterprises, and small businesses.

Hive

Program managers and even attorneys like Hive. Why? Because it’s a visual project and time management tool that keeps things organized. Users note that it even saves time on billing.

2. Utilize App Features For Your Benefit

Don’t be afraid to dive into whatever project management tool you use. Explore all of the features that your app has to offer. You don’t need to use every feature, but experiment to find what works best for you. Hate the way your dashboard looks? No problem! Most applications are easy to alter without changing the settings for everyone.

You can find a video on YouTube to walk you through using the app and find what you like. Features like color codes can highlight the client you’re working on, which stage in the process you’re at, or pinpoint your task among many. And don’t forget to use your calendar to ensure you don’t miss a thing.

3. Organize The Old School Way

Physically writing your notes helps you remember and understand better than typing them up on a laptop. This doesn’t mean you need to write everything down, but there are some classic tools you just can’t beat, like a notebook.

Additionally, use sticky notes for ideas or notes you need to jot down quickly. If you allow too many of them to pile up, you’re more likely to take a look at them to clear them out.

Also, it’s important that you don’t leave out a handy desk calendar. Yes, you can still have all of your meetings recorded online. But let’s face it, computer and mobile alarms fail! So, it’s helpful to write it down and increase your chances of remembering it later.

4. Map Out Your Content Ahead Of Time

Plan ahead and make your life easier by having the following information ready to go.

  • Your Industry
  • Products or services
  • Strengths and goals
  • Social platforms you plan to post on

That way, the content can flow out of you, and you’re already on top of your publishing schedule.

5. Prioritize To Avoid Feeling Overwhelmed

Prioritizing goals is a must for any industry – delegate responsibilities wherever they need to go. If you’re a perfectionist or even a people-pleaser, assigning duties is tough. Talk to your people and ask if a task fits in with their workload. Set reasonable and defined goals for yourself and others to avoid feeling like you have to do it all.

6. Treat SEO As A Separate Task

Don’t lump your search engine optimization (SEO) tasks into your writing tasks. Not only is there a chance you’ll skip it, but SEO should be its own assignment. You don’t want to rush the process of searching for keywords. Additionally, you should allow yourself time to compare, do a little research, and give your content a better chance to rank higher than other pages. 

7. Ensure Your Team Is In The Loop With Open Communication

Errors and mistakes happen, but you don’t want them to become part of your regular routine – especially if a lack of communication causes these mistakes. Diminish the chances of making a copy fail by keeping the conversation open with your teammates. If you have questions, ask! Check-in with your colleagues, so you’re all on the same page.

Doing so keeps everyone involved in your process as you go.

If you need a content writing team in your corner, we’re here to help!

8. Keep An Eye On The Workflow

Don’t lose track of where you are on a project. Think about adjusting certain calendar settings that can help you keep up. Using features like weekly views and time slots will help you remain aware of which phase a project is in. However, avoid going overboard and onto the extreme micromanagement side. Finally, stick to deadlines, so you and your team don’t fall behind.

9. Leave Room In Your Schedule When You Need It

We’ve all overbooked our planners on the self-made promise of… I can absolutely get all of this done today.

But how’s that going for you so far?

Spread out your workload, remain within client deadlines, and keep your clients happy. But more importantly, leave room to breathe and make yourself happy, too.

10. Have Extra Content Ready To Go Just In Case

Missing information, unreachable clients, and emergencies happen. So work every month and get ahead of the game! Create evergreen content (for your business and your clients) like blogs, newsletters, and social media posts. That way, they’ll never age out, and you can use them to fill in the gaps when you’re behind on regular content.

Talk To The Team At FocusCopy For Your Next Project

We know managing your content calendar is important. Clients appreciate the extra effort, and that effort allows the work you produce to truly shine. We know because we’re always working on multiple projects at once. Without processes for content management, we’d be lost!

Looking to partner with a group of content writers for your next task at hand? Give us a shout!

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

Let’s Grab A Virtual Coffee With Us To Discover How To Boost Your Words
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Prioritizing Marketing Tasks

Prioritizing Your Laundry List of Marketing To-Dos

Marketing / By / June 1, 2021

As an entrepreneur, many things are pulling your attention – growing your team, serving your clients, keeping your books in order, and so on. 

But what about your marketing? 

You’re told to write a blog, send an email newsletter, create SEO content, post on social media, create video content, learn all the algorithms, paid advertising, speaking engagements, and the list doesn’t stop there.

But through the noise, do you feel like marketing experts think about you and your capacity (brainwidth) as a small business owner?

Here are some things you can do to start prioritizing marketing tasks.

Get Organized And Start Prioritizing Marketing Tasks

A great place to start is by making your dream list. Come on, let’s brainstorm together! 

Ask yourself, what is your all-the-bells-and-whistles checklist? You know, the whole laundry list of marketing ideas you’ve ever wanted to implement. If you’re stuck or need some suggestions, you can:

  • Review your website copy. Does it still fit you and your company’s vision? Find a copywriter who can spice it up.
  • Are you getting any traffic? Use a writer who knows SEO to help.
  • Do you have social media followers? Work on a social media strategy that can boost sales for your business.

Now look at your list and ask, what is your more sensible barebones checklist? 

This checklist is what you need to begin and get going on building your marketing strategy.

Whether you’re running the show or you have a team of helpful employees, there are some small things you can do to be productive and get organized. 

ClickUp is an online task management tool that you can use to plugin projects you need to get done, set deadlines, assign tasks to staff, and so much more. Because it’s such a user-friendly system, prioritizing your laundry list of marketing to-dos is that much easier.

A Breakdown Of Marketing Strategies

Let’s talk about several marketing strategies you may have seen over time. Let’s determine if it’s something that you want to focus on and use for your business.

Blogging

If you don’t have an SEO strategy or you don’t have a lot of website traffic, blogging could be a useful channel. With blogs, you can kick up your ranking through SEO best-practices. Doing so gives your prime audience helpful information and a sneak peek into your industry.

Lead Magnets

Your traffic rate is reasonable, but you don’t have a substantial email list of current and potential customers interested in your services. Lead magnets can get you into your customers’ minds to find out what their pain points are and what’s important to them in a solution.

Call-To-Action

It’s okay to put your customers on the spot. Ask them for their email or create other ways to encourage them to take an action on your page. Use phrases like:

  • Subscribe
  • Sign Up
  • Learn More
  • View Pricing
  • Order Now

Landing Page

A useful landing page is an engaging and easy-to-read snapshot of your business and its services. It helps to lead a viewer to click and take them to the next step. Whether the page leads them to a phone number, email address, or order form – you want your customer to take action here.

Cheat Sheet Or Guide

Post a simple cheat sheet or guide informing others of your business model or the way you produce a product. This is a quick way to get them to understand more of what you do. Again, you want them to take action and reach out to you.

Video Or Audio

Think of a video or audio bite as a more modern version of a cheat sheet. Not only can you show off a bit of your personality here, but you’re also giving your audience a way to interact. By doing so, they are more likely to make an action on your page and seek your services. 

Quiz 

There’s nothing like a fun quiz to get an audience engaged and interested in signing up for future emails (check out this fantastic example here). Quizzes are an interactive way to get your audience to question themselves and realize they may need your help. Whether you want to lead them to make a purchase or sign up for your emails to reveal their answers, you really can’t go wrong with a winning quiz.

Email Marketing

Some lively and informative email marketing can help you turn your traffic into leads and eventually into buyers. A good email marketing strategy keeps subscribers in-the-know and consistently aware of your brand.

Social Media

It’s okay to start small with social media. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with the idea of posting on all outlets every day. It’s better to create a stable community of advocates and promoters for your business little by little.

Paid Advertising

Paid ads can kickstart awareness of your business. This can help grow your following, traffic, regular subscribers, etc. It pays to invest in yourself.  

What Are Your Marketing Priorities?

Keep in mind that you can do it without feeling like you need to do it all. 

For this upcoming quarter, make a list of 3 things you’re going to do well. It could even be cross-sections of a topic (i.e. send one newsletter a week instead of full email marketing campaigns). Then determine whether it genuinely looks doable to you.

If you know the direction you would like to go in, but you’re struggling with writer’s block, take a look at our blog 11 Tips on How To Overcome Your Writer’s Block.

Check Us Out & Check Off Your Marketing To-Do List

We’ve listed some insights into what you should really focus on between all of the agencies, consultants, and experts so you don’t skip the important stuff. Make reasonable requests for yourself. Can you put out one email a month? One blog a month? What about one social media post a week?

As a small business owner, it’s important to be true to yourself, your capabilities, and your budget.

Need some help with your prioritizing marketing tasks or creating content? Give us a shout, and we’ll get you where you want to be – operating in a timeframe that works for you.

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Content Splintering to Maximize Content ROI

Copywriting / By / June 1, 2021

Over the last couple weeks on the FocusCopy blog, we’ve talked a lot about this one fact… There is an obscene amount of information and competition out there fighting for your prospective customer’s attention. It’s tough. We get it. We see it. 

So how do you make your content stand out and become the authority for that topic? The strategy all comes down to content splintering.

What is Content Splintering?

So what is content splintering? 

Often when we talk about blogging, the intended author says something along the lines of “there is too much to unpack in just 1000 words” or “there’s no way I can write all about this topic in one blog.”  

The answer is similar to that given for the question,

“How do you eat an elephant?” 

One bite at a time.

It’s too large to eat in one mouthful!

Cue content splintering.

This is when you take a big topic and splinter it into smaller, bite-sized topics that you can actually tackle. It also helps you get super specific on your post and create solutions that your readers can implement. 

For example, you own a coworking space where you lease offices to companies. Coworking space is a really big topic to cover… So break it down into the following:

  • Benefits of coworking
  • When to move into coworking
  • Warning signs to look out for when signing for an office
  • Difference between coworking and office space

Then take those big topics and either write in a series (i.e. 5 benefits for non-profits, 5 benefits for SMB, etc.) OR splinter it even more (i.e. moving from a remote work environment to coworking, moving from an office to coworking space, etc.).

Hopefully, you get the picture. If not, comment on this blog, and we’ll answer you right here.

How Does Content Splintering Maximize Content ROI?

Content splintering maximizes content ROI because… 

  1. It’s simply taking a bigger piece of content, slicing it up into smaller chunks,  refreshing it, then republishing it. When companies create a cornerstone post (i.e. a massive piece of content that everything else derives from), it becomes so easy to take any topic discussed and blow that up into a standalone piece. 
  2. You are also stretching the amount of times you can discuss any given topic. There’s so many angles that you could take to produce a brand new piece of content – making your time go that much further. 

One company that I worked with was in the financial consulting space. One of the topics we wanted to write about was accounts receivable. Whoa! That’s a mighty big topic. 2/10 net 30, collections, reconciling, etc. Obviously, you can’t cover everything about accounts receivable in one blog or even in one book (unless it’s going to be 1000 pages long). But did you see what I did a sentence ago? 

Yep, that’s right. I splintered a massive topic into small topics. I would even argue that those topics were too big for a blog or piece of content, so I continued to  break it down even further to – you guessed it – bite-sized pieces.

More variations or angles on a given topic allows your company to grasp a larger share of the market. 

Content Splintering Methodologies

One of the books in our current stack is Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. We love it because it talks about getting more done in less time AND how to use your brain to its full potential. Hello creativity! In this book Pang claims that “new ideas are created in a two-step process: first, the brain generates lots of ideas, and second, it evaluates them” (page 44). So how does your brain, creativity, and rest relate to content splintering methodologies?

Glad you asked! All the methodologies that we mention follow this 2-prong approach. Brain dumping first then sorting through the chaos later. This is by far the most effective way to find the best content for your readers. They need what you have to say. You need to get access that creative zone to answer their request

Splintering Methodology #1: Mind Maps

I’ll start with this content splintering methodology first because it is my FAVORITE! You see I wasn’t the best student… I studied all the time and worked into all hours of the night; however, when it came to take the test, I wouldn’t be successful. 

My co-founder, Stuart Broderick, introduced me to mind mapping (invented by the late Professor Tony Buzan in the 1960’s) when nothing else was working. Whether you are a visual person or an analytical person, this simply works.

Start by putting your big topic in the middle of a blank page. It can be anything – vague, specific, etc. Whatever. Just write it down.

Hint: This works for more than just content splintering. If fact, we used a mind map when founding this company, FocusCopy, to gain clarity on what we wanted to accomplish. Oh, there I go again. Clarity, Focus, Execution – our company mantra.

Then write down topics that are related. Again, it doesn’t need to be super specific, but it needs to be big enough to “splinter”.

content splintering

For example, if my topic is content marketing… I’ll write publishing, types of content, scheduling, splintering, etc. Those are all related to content marketing. You may offer executive coaching, so some of your branches may be: how to reach your audience, what makes your audience tick, who is your audience, what times you should send topics… The key is to just start writing subtopics.

After you have those big topics, start breaking apart those topics. This is where the real magic happens. Do not worry about if it’s a good idea or a bad idea. Just write it down! You can make that decision later. This is your brain dump!

Once you’ve finished mind mapping, it’s time to filter it and create valuable content around those splinters. I promise you there is enough content for each of those subtopics.

Now, on to the next content splintering methodology!

Splintering Methodology #2: Excel Spreadsheets OR Word Documents

content splintering

Beyond mind maps, we love lists and organizing lists. We’re weird, but those frameworks (like our CFE Framework) help us maintain quality, pump out high-quality content/copy quicker, and please our clients. So it’s a no-brainer than our second content splintering methodology uses excel spreadsheets or word documents.

First, write a list of topics in one column. Keep writing until you cannot write anymore.

Then start writing specific segments of that big topic. For example, writing a landing page has multiple angles… Unique selling position, writing a hook, creating a golden thread, and design. Write it down.

Finally, you need to identify what you’re actually going to talk about in that piece of content. So write those subtopics!

Now here is where this methodology may be better than #1…

You can schedule out the blogs or pieces of content. In the same spreadsheet, literally put dates in. This will help you to create series (i.e. a month of landing page copy) or create variety. 

On the other hand, sometimes working with technology can mean more work than good. It’ll slow down your creative thought process.

Improving Your Content ROI

The key to improving your content ROI is to make it super specific and highly valuable. If you are writing about a big topic (i.e. water consumption), you aren’t going to be able to reveal secrets, how-tos, or specifics in a blog post. But if you write about a splinter of that big topic (i.e. how increased water consumption helps your gut), then you are more likely to see a return on that piece. 

Remember, specificity is key to improving your content’s ROI.

Focus Your Copy On Conversation & Conversion

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