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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

The List, Offer, Creative Framework

Creating marketing content can seem like a daunting task, but you can simplify the process by using a few helpful tools and strategies.

Here’s a brief introduction to a useful approach to content marketing – the List, Offer, Creative framework – which provides you with a good place to get started. It also aligns well with my five steps!

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In today’s video, I talk about the List, Offer, Creative framework. I explain what it is and how it can help you with creating your marketing content.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do – it will help me loads, and if you click the bell you’ll be notified when I release new videos.

Breaking Down the Framework

The List, Offer, Creative (LOC) framework is a really useful tool you can use when you want to create some marketing content but you’re not sure where to start.

The LOC framework consists of three steps:

  1. List. First, you need to identify a list of people that you’re going to contact with your marketing. When you define your list, it’s important to make sure that the list is relevant – you don’t want to be using a gigantic list full of people unless you can target your marketing at them all.
  2. Offer. Once you’ve identified the people you want to target, you need to define what you are going to offer them. What is the offer that you’re making to them, and are you sure it is an offer that will be meaningful to them – one they will care about?
  3. Creative. The final step is to build the creative content based on your offer, which will go out to your list.

You need to approach the LOC framework in this order – identify who you are targeting first, figure out what you are going to give them, and then create the content that you’re going to send them.

Why I Think the List, Offer, Creative Framework Works So Well

One of the reasons I love this framework is because it resonates with my thinking about marketing – it aligns well with my five steps to building a content-led marketing strategy because it helps you centre your target person in your marketing by focusing on your USP:

  • The List is your target person (step 1: Understand your target person)
  • The Offer is your USP (step 2: Define your USP)
  • The Creative is creating the content (step 4: Create your content ideas).

Your List and your Offer need to work together, just like your target person and your USP need to work together. And, as with my USP, you need to make sure that the content you’re offering satisfies the wants, needs, fears and frustrations of your target person. In LOC terms, your Offer needs to match your List.

Looking Beyond LOC: My Five-Step Strategy

You’ve probably noticed that in my five steps, I have two extra stages in the content marketing process (steps 3 and 5). I think step 3 (which focuses on choosing your marketing channels) is important because I feel that you need to check that the creative you build matches the channel that you’re going to use to distribute that content.

I also add a final step (step 5: Manage your resources) because you personally may not be creating that marketing content. When you factor in managing your resources, you take the time to consider who will be working on the content, how much the content creation will cost and when it will be delivered – and who is responsible for pressing the ‘go’ button.

If you’re feeling stuck when it comes to content marketing – or you’re not sure where to start – I recommend that you simplify the process. You could start with my five steps, or simplify things further by trying the List, Offer, Creative framework approach first. Wherever you begin, please do reach out if you’d like to talk through your plans or if you need some advice on next steps.

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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

Real Estate Signs Are a Waste of Marketing Real Estate

When a real estate agent is selling a house, they emblazon their logo over the signs outside, which tells you who is selling the house but gives you no clues as to what makes their business special. But those signs are valuable marketing real estate!

In this article, I explore how you can make better use of your marketing to reach out to your target person and demonstrate your USP.

In today’s video, I talk about why real estate agent signs outside houses are a waste of prime marketing real estate – and what you can do to make optimal use of these marketing spaces.

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Marketing 101: Is Adding Your Logo Enough?

When real estate agents sell or rent a house, they put these big, obvious signs out the front so you can’t miss them. Maybe the sign says “Sold!”, “For sale” or “To rent”, but they always have the agent’s logo and branding in place to signal to passers-by who is managing the sale or rental. Clearly, they are hoping to be recognised as a strong local presence or aiming to drive traffic to their website.

These are good reasons for putting up these signs – it’s base-level marketing. But really, it is little more than, “Throw my logo onto a thing!”

Imagine you’re building a Facebook ad and you take the same approach: “Oh, just put our logo on it.” Would that work? I’m not convinced, and I think that anyone who’s tried marketing on an advertising platform knows that “throwing your logo on a thing” is not the best marketing tool in your toolbox.

Use Your Prime Marketing Real Estate Wisely: Give Something!

If you think about it, those real estate signs are prime marketing real estate. They are right in front of people walking on the street, especially those who are looking at houses. But if all they see is yet another real estate sign, the signs become repetitive eyesores – which is not great for the agency’s brand!

So, what could real estate agents do differently? One approach would be to give something to their customers.

Giving something to your customers is a foundational marketing ideology. If you can internalise this ideology and make it a part of every single decision you make about your marketing, it will become ten times better.

Always make sure that your marketing is giving something to your customers. Make sure that they are receiving something that is of benefit to them and that they want to receive. Make it a good experience to encounter your marketing.

Might Humour Work for Your Business?

TikTok offers some really good insight into the power of giving something. If you want to use TikTok in your marketing, you probably need to be funny (which is one reason why I’m not on TikTok, as I’m not that funny). But the users on TikTok want to see funny content, so if you’re a brand that’s trying to get on TikTok, be funny!

Going back to those real estate signs – if they were funny, people might enjoy seeing them more. Humour might not translate into more house sales, but you know what? People will remember your branding because it’s making you unique. It’s all about step two of my five steps: what makes you unique, what makes you stand out from your competitors? This is so important, and I feel like real estate agents are wasting a huge opportunity to stand out from the crowd with this prime marketing real estate.

Giving Helps You Stand Out from the Crowd

Giving something goes beyond step two – beyond being unique and making every interaction with your business a fun experience. When you give your customers something, you can make the experience really beneficial to the customer. For example, you could put a QR code on a poster or sign that gives them access to something they really want. This comes back to understanding your target person (step one of my five steps): you know what you can offer that target person that’s different to your competitors, which means you can make that the first thing they experience from you. As soon as they understand how unique you are and they receive something from you that they want or need, you’ve got them hook, line and sinker.

If you haven’t identified what really makes you unique from your competitors, then you have nothing to say to your customers – and if so, maybe all you can do is throw your logo on a sign. But if you can figure out what makes you unique, you can figure out what needs to go on that sign.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to real estate agent signs. Look at your marketing and do a quick check with yourself – are you putting your USP in front of your customers in every space that you can?

Are You Giving Your Customers a Good Experience?

If you’re just putting your logo and your brand out there in a passive way, you’ve not won the battle yet. What you really need to do is give something that your customer loves – something that they want to see again and again.

Even if you’re not a real estate agent, I hope that this resonates with you and that you’re able to apply these ideas to your business. If you’d like some help figuring out what you can give to your target person to help you stand out from the crowd, please do get in touch – I’d love to help you out.

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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

Should You Give Away Content for Free?

One of my principles is “Pay for Work and Not for Talk”. That sounds like I should probably advocate for giving away lots of free content.

And I do. But it’s also a little more complicated than that.

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Should you be giving away content for free? Hi I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital and in today’s video I want to talk about the concept of giving away content for free and whether you should be doing it or not.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do! You’ll be notified when I release new videos if you click the bell.

Short Answer: Yes, Give Away Content for Free, Sell Your Product/Service

So the short answer is probably, yes. You should probably be giving content away for free.

The kind of core thing that I think most businesses should be thinking is: give away as much content as you can for free and sell your product or service.

That’s that core to kind of really good, ethical marketing because what you’re doing in that process is you’re showing with your content that you know what you’re talking about. You know how to do the thing you’re doing. You know how to sell the product you’re selling. You know that the product that you’re selling is good quality and you’re giving the customers that reassurance by giving away all that content.

But What Happens When You’re Selling Content?

Now, where this becomes a little more iffy, a little more questionable a little more, you know, you have to be a bit more refined about this approach is when what you’re selling is knowledge. And there are definitely different approaches to this. There is no blanket approach. There’s no easy quick answer to “Should you be giving away your content for free?”

The reason being that sometimes when what you’re selling is content – when the product is content – then you want to make sure that you’re not giving away all of your best stuff for free so that when people pay you for the content they’re actually getting good content. And sometimes this is very valid, this is very ethical – sometimes it is ethical to sell content.

This Opposes One of My Core Principles

This comes in direct opposition to one of my principles, so I’ve had to think about it quite a lot.

One of my principles is Pay for Work and Not for Talk (I talk about it in this video). And I think this is where we start walking into a grey area. Selling stuff that’s just information feels to me a little bit like “paying for talk”. But the thing is sometimes that information has been produced by years and years of experience, and years and years of learning and pouring over things and experimenting. And that is valuable and should be paid for. People should be paid for spending the time on all of that expertise and learning.

So this is where it becomes a little bit like…

“Well, do I charge for this or do I give this away for free?”

I think the blanket recommendation I can give is try and give as much as you can for free but make sure, always make sure, that the people who are paying you, the people who are giving you money, are getting real value from you. And that it’s better value than what you are giving away for free.

Create an Ethical Model that Funds Giving Away Content for Free

Now, I would encourage you that, if you are having to walk into this grey area, that you try and create a model that’s more like what I said at the start of the video. Where you can give away your content for free because you’re selling a product or service at a higher price point that’s paying for all of that content.

What that does is it facilitates you giving away that information, giving people access to information that should be available to everyone and allowing you to still get paid but for the work that you do, for the expertise, for when people really want deep and useful work from you, they’re paying well for it.

This is How I Operate

This is how I operate my own business in that I give as much content as I can for free. I give as much, actually, of my time as I can for free because then the people who can afford it and the people who want my deeper help they then pay me for that.

And I would encourage you to try and create a model like that but I fully recognise that that is not always the way it can be done and some of my clients don’t. They sell content but they sell content that they’ve built, you know? Like frameworks and structures that they’ve built that are going to be really useful to people and is worth paying for.

Long Answer: Spend Time Thinking About It!

So, the longer answer is that it’s a grey area and you should really discuss it and you should really think about it. Spend time thinking. It is really, really important to take time out – especially when it comes to pricing – to spend some time really thinking about it and really thinking about whether this price makes sense and whether this price is ethical.

If you need help thinking it through please feel free to get in touch I will be happy to help think it through, be a sounding board, bounce ideas around.

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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

Write to Fascinate

I remember coming across this very old marketing technique called “fascinations”. Let me tell you about why I think it’s a great concept to internalise, even in modern marketing. And why it’s so aptly named.

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When you write anything for your marketing, write to fascinate.

In this video we’re going to be talking about this old concept of fascinations.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already please do it’ll help me loads and you’ll be notified when I release new videos if you click the little bell.

The Original Marketing Concept of Fascinations

Today I want to talk about this concept of fascinations. It’s a really old marketing concept, I can’t remember where I was reading about it but basically, it was back when they used to send direct mail in your mailbox – where they used to send catalogs and envelopes and stuff into your mail – and the idea was to put something on the front of the envelope that would encourage people to open it and read the marketing that was inside.

So, an example might be that on the front of the envelope it might be like, “On page 10 is the number one reason why carpets are making your children sick.” So, you can see how that would be really encouraging for a parent to open and then read about why carpets might be making their children sick.

Fascinations Continue in the Digital Age of Marketing

And this concept is something that has continued into the digital age. It’s obvious when you really think about it – your email subject lines are going to do the exact same thing that fascinations would have done on the front of an envelope.

Now, why I want to talk about this is because I love the word fascinations for this. I think it’s a really interesting linguistic thing more than anything or semantic thing more than anything.

In that, I think the term ‘fascinations’ kind of implies a sense of wonder, a sense of magic, a sense of wondrous interest. It’s not just sparking this capitalist, “What do I get from this business.”

Write to Fascinate, Not for Gains

You’re not writing on the front of the envelope what the customer gets from the business. Instead what you’re trying to write on the front of the envelope is what is going to interest this person.

What is going to make them excited?

What is going to make them wondrous?

What’s going to make them want to read more?

What is it that they’re gonna be fascinated by?

What’s the lamp that they’re gonna want to rub?

This is a Core Marketing Concept

The only reason I’m recording this video is not because this concept is new, not because this concept is original, but because this concept is foundational.

This is a core marketing concept that’s going to continue no matter how marketing changes. When you write, write to fascinate. Write to make people super interested in what you’re doing.

But Don’t Get Click Baity!

The only caveat to this is the horrible thing that’s happened with digital marketing (and I’m sure this happened with direct marketing as well) is clickbait.

Let’s not go down the road of creating fascinations just to fascinate. You want to make sure that there’s payoff. That when they become fascinated by your fascination they then go in, and all is revealed. They see that that next level of thing.

And hopefully they get fascinated further, but don’t create a fascination when they go in it’s like “Oh, that wasn’t that interesting.” That anti-climax is going to make your customers hate you.

And they’re not going to hate you in this conscious way either it’s going to become like this subconscious thing of like, “Oh every time I read something from them I’m not really going to trust that what they’re saying is real.” So, write to fascinate but make sure you give the payoff.

I hope that helps if you want to discuss this further or you need some help creating fascinations for your business please feel free to message me I’m happy to have a chat with you without payment if your business is trying to be as ethical as possible.

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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

Just Sell the Next Click

A big mistake that many business owners make when writing their marketing is that they are trying to sell their product.

Here’s the thing, you aren’t selling your product in every piece of marketing you do – you’re just selling the next click.

Let me elaborate…

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When you’re writing content, Sell The Next Click.

In this video, I’m talking about a really important concept to keep in mind whenever you’re writing any content on any medium about how what it is you’re actually selling in that piece of content.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do. You will help me loads and you’ll get access to new videos where I’m sharing loads of marketing tips.

When Writing Content People Start with Features

When you’re writing a piece of content, often start with the product, they start with the features and then they realise, ‘Oh no, I shouldn’t be selling the features. I should be selling the benefits and the pains, the problem that I’m solving.’ The problem, promise, proof that I’ve talked about in a previous video.

That makes sense, yes, you’re already halfway there. You’re talking about the problem, you’re talking about the benefits to the customer. You’re understanding the target customer and stuff. There’s another step you can take here and the best example is in Email Marketing.

Email Marketing Provides the Best Example

I’ve chosen email marketing as an example because everyone knows email marketing. They know how it works, they know the structure of it. You’ve received emails before. If you haven’t received emails, I’m really impressed and I want to know what kind of life you live…contact me? I want to know about these people who don’t have emails…

But as most people have experienced emails, they know there is a subject line, there is the content of the email and then they click on it and they go to a page. The key point here is that you’re selling the next click. So, when you write the subject line, you’re not trying to go with the problems and the benefits of the product and blah blah blah. What you’re trying to get them to do is open the email.

And when they open the email and they read the email, that email needs to sell the click to go to the landing page. You don’t need to talk about everything in the email. You don’t need to go through all of your problem, promise, proof. You probably will go through a problem, promise, proof cycle, but a very short one, a very sharp one that leaves them wanting more.

Therefore they click on the link, get to the landing page and when they get to the landing page you’re then selling them to fill out a form, to request whatever you want them to request, to buy whatever you want them to buy. So that’s where you’re really talking about the benefits and the pains and really driving it home.

Everything Has To Be Congruent

The key thing to remember here is that all of that has to be congruent. You cannot sell the click of the subject line with some clickbait-y subject line and then not give them payoff in the email. And equally, you cannot write the email and then go to the landing page and it be for something completely different, or not satisfying the curiosity that you’ve created in that email. The entire chain needs to be one thing, one piece of content, but you need to consider each piece as selling to get to the next stage.

This Can Also Be Expressed as “The Small Yes”

Another way to frame this is “the small yes”. You’re trying to get them to say the “small yes”. And this has implications beyond things like email marketing in that when you’re trying to get people to buy your product, get them to make a smaller decision first that gets them in the habit of saying yes to you.

The example that I’ve seen of this – and I apologise, I would reference where I heard this, but I can’t remember, it’s something that’s just stuck in my head, and I can’t remember where I heard it, it was probably in some training – but the example of the small yes is like a place that’s selling cars and the system on the website gets you to make some small decisions about the car first. You know, what colour is it, what tyres do you want, what kind of seats do you want, and so on.

So you make lots of little decisions. And as you make each little decision, you’re more and more likely to click the big yes when it comes to the price.

Don’t Make the Process Too Long or Decisions Too Difficult

There are good ways and bad ways of doing this. You can obviously make a process way too long and people will get fed up of it. Or you can make those decisions really difficult so then they give up because the decisions are too difficult. It’s a really fine art of getting the small yes, and understanding what degree it is that you can ask for.

It All Comes Back to Understanding Your Target Person

And what this all comes back to is step 1, which is why I constantly tell people to spend a lot of time in step 1, in understanding your target person. Really get inside their head, really understand them emotionally. Understand when they get impatient. Understand at what point you can push them to buy, at which point do you need to give them a bit more information, and at which point you can get them to give you a small yes.

I hope that helps you a little bit in understanding how you can amp up your marketing, improve your marketing in those small increments to give it a little more effectiveness in any channel on any medium you’re working in.

If you need some clarification, if you didn’t understand what I said, if you want me to maybe look over your writing, or your whole marketing strategy, your processes you’re trying to get those small yeses, please get in touch. dj@rainbowdragon.digital is the best way to get in touch with me and I look forward to hearing from you.

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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

The 3P Copywriting Tip

Even the best writers cannot look at a blank page and produce fantastic copywriting.

The framework I explain in this video is something that you can apply to just about any piece of content you’re producing for your business to give your copywriting flow and strength.

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Let’s learn about the 3P copywriting technique!

In this video, I teach you a little framework that I learned right at the start of my career that has helped me constantly with writing copywriting in any medium.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do it’ll help me out loads and you’ll be updated when I release new videos.

Copywriting is a Fundamental Marketing Skill

When it comes to copywriting it can be really difficult sometimes to figure out how you order stuff and what’s the best way to convey the information. And copywriting is a real fundamental skill in selling your product and in doing any kind of marketing. My first principle is Marketing is Education, Not Deception, and if you’re going to educate your customers about your product or service you need to learn how to write about it.

Where I Heard About the 3P Copywriting Framework

When I first started learning about marketing, I went to a marketing coach’s talk in LA. His name was Taki Moore. He was a coach for coaches, and I was working for business coaches at the time (they sent me to his workshop to learn). So, I learned a lot of my fundamental marketing from him.

One of the frameworks that he gave us during that workshop which stuck with me was the 3P framework for copywriting.

It’s called the 3P framework because it’s three words that start with P, haha fancy that!

Start with the Problem

The first P is Problem. When you start writing any copy the first thing you need to start with is the problem. This is where your research starts, your understanding of your target person – the ‘Step 1’ of the 5 Steps of you Content-Led Marketing Strategy that I’m always talking about, where you understand your target person – you need to know what are the problems that they have and, specifically the problems that they have that you are solving.

When you start any piece of copywriting start with the problem. Start with explaining the problem in better words than they can, and they will attribute the solution to you. That was what Taki Moore said to us and it’s entirely correct, it’s fundamental to marketing. Start with the problem.

Make Your Promise

The second P is Promise. So, once you’ve iterated what the problem is and they understand that you are addressing this problem for them, you then need to make a promise on how you are going to solve that problem. What is it that your product or service does that solves the problem that they have?

Show Them Proof

And then the last P is Proof. So, you’ve told them the problem, you’ve told them this is exactly how I’m going to help you with resolving that problem, now they want to know that you actually know what you’re talking about and that you have actually done it before.

Proof can come in the form of awards that you’ve won. Proof can come in the form of testimonials of happy clients. It can come in the form of PR and press that shows your recognition in society for what you do.

The best sort of proof, I think, is social proof. And that means that, when they can see it – if you’ve got reviews on Facebook, on Google, on LinkedIn, then these are places where they can see that real people have taken on board what you’ve offered and enjoyed it.

So that’s a really simple framework, I hope that helps you a little bit when you’re staring at a blank page and trying to figure out what to write. Just start with the Problem, Promise, Proof and I promise you, you will start to get a much clearer idea of what you need to write for whatever it is you’re writing.

If you need any help at all with this or if you want my input on your problem promise and proof, then please feel free to get in touch with me and I will be happy to help you out.

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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

Should You Send Customers Free Gifts?

I was sent some gifts from a zero-waste organisation I was ordering from. When I posted about this on my Facebook group, there were some concerns about gift marketing.

Here are my thoughts on using a gift marketing strategy – of sending surprise gifts to your customers – and how you can do it more effectively.

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Should you be sending gifts to customers?

In this video, I’m going to be helping you decide if giving gifts to customers is a great way to do your marketing or not.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do. It would be really helpful to me on YouTube and you’ll get notified when I release new videos.

My Experience with Gift Marketing by Proper Soap Company

I recently ordered from a company called the Proper Soap Company (who I do NOT work with at all by the way!). The first time I ordered, they gave me some free soap off cuts. The second time I ordered they gave me some free bath salts.

Gift Marketing is About Surprising & Delighting

Now I think this is a really, really great strategy. It’s really made me, as a customer, feel surprised and delighted. And these are the key things – you want to surprise and delight your customers. This is really important in any marketing – that you’re giving that element of surprise will always make your marketing better.

So, when this happened to me, I went on to my Facebook group Marketing for the Many (where I help people with ideas and questions and whatever else comes up) and I knew there were a lot of zero waste companies in there, so I thought it made sense to share it, saying “Hey this is a strategy that a lot of you might want to start employing.”

But Does This Create Expectation?

The pushback that I got from this was, “Do you think this might create a bit of expectation of a gift going forward?” It was Tara who brought up that comment and she had a really, really good point.

Your Gift Marketing Should Surprise Them…

The key thing here is going back to that “surprise and delight”. I think it’s really important that if you’re going to use gift giving as a marketing strategy, you need to make sure that there’s an element of surprise and that you’re delighting them with it.

So, how do you achieve the element of surprise? You offer gifts irregularly. This should not be a systemised process. This should be a completely randomised process, so that they never know when to expect a gift.

…And Delight Them!

The other thing that you need to do is delight them. So, when you give them a gift, you need to make sure that you are really clear that it’s a gift, and really clear why you’re giving them a gift. And if it is just a random gift, saying that it’s a random gift is the way to delight them. Inform your customers that this is a gift.

This is something the Proper Soap Company actually didn’t do that well – they just kind of threw the gift in there. I could have easily mistaken it for just a mistake, and who knows maybe it was a mistake! But the key is that I think if you’re going to do gift giving, you really, really, really must make it clear that it’s a gift. Especially because that then also mitigates against the idea of them expecting the gift.

The One Thing to Take Away From This

The one thing I really want you to take away from this though is that gift giving makes sense, okay? And even if you’re not a physical product company and you’re a digital or a service company, you can still give a gift. It’s all about giving them something of value that you are otherwise selling.

You will have something that you are otherwise selling – give it to your customers because this is all about making sure that your existing customers are super happy, so that they buy from you again and again and again.

I hope that’s been helpful I’m obviously going to be making way more videos please let me know in the comments if this was helpful to you or if you would like different content on something else, I’m happy to make whatever it is that you want to hear about.

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Step 4: Creating Your Content Ideas

Give Yourself Freedom to Think Up Content Marketing Ideas

When you’re crafting your content marketing strategy, step 4 involves coming up with the actual content ideas first.

Every entrepreneur has that practical part of their brain that starts to reign in the wild ideas so that they can actually get things done.

Here, I want you to put that part of your brain on mute for a second…

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If you’re looking for the Marketing Meetup podcast I mentioned in the video, you can listen to it here

Don’t like videos? Here’s the text version:

You absolutely have to plan out your content before you start creating it.

Hi I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital and in this video I explain to you why Step Four of the content-led marketing strategy is a super important place to stop and separate from Step Five.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my YouTube I’d love to have you on my list to be hearing about when I release new videos.

What is Step Four of the Content-Led Marketing Strategy?

Step Four of the content-led marketing strategy is coming up with the content. Planning out the content that you’re going to create on this channel.

So, once you’ve understood your target person; defined your unique selling point, you’ve chosen the marketing channels that you’re going to communicate to those people on; you now need to start thinking about what content you need to create.

Expansive Thinking vs Reductive Thinking

I was listening to this podcast I think it was on the Marketing Meetup podcast and they were talking about how to get teams to create new ideas.

One of the things they were saying is that you should have separate meetings for what they called expansive thinking and practical reductive thinking.

What that means in simpler terms is separating out time for thinking about what you could achieve with unlimited resources – what could be done to sell your product on this channel.

And then in a separate meeting then start reducing it to what is actually possible within the means that you have.

Reductive Thinking Shuts Down Expansive Thinking

The reason that you need to separate out these two things is that as soon as you start introducing that reductive thinking you start shutting down the expansive thinking. You start shutting down the ideas when you start thinking about what is actually possible.

So take that step, slow it down, and just have a little brainstorming, creative session. What they call in corporate culture ‘blue sky thinking’. Think about all the sorts of things that could be done with this channel to really sell your product.

This Is A Good Time to Bring in Creative Marketing Expertise

If you feel like that you know that one of your strengths is being really organized, but one of your weaknesses is that you’re not that creative, this might be a really good time to pull in someone creative.

Whether that’s someone else on your team, whether it’s a friend, a volunteer, or whether it’s hiring a freelancer to help you, this is a good time to bring in that creative thought. Maybe even someone who understands the marketing channel a bit better than you.

This is a good time to bring them in and just figure out what kind of things could be created.

I Repeat: Do the Expansive Thinking First

I’m going to re-emphasise the point don’t worry yet about whether you can do it within your resources. Don’t worry whether you’ve got the equipment; whether you’ve got the time; whether you’ve got the money; whether you’ve got the space; whether you’ve you know got the ideas even; just start just start coming up with all sorts of things that could be done.

Then we’ll move on to Step Five where you start to plan this out into what can actually be done.

I hope you got a lot out of this post, if you have any questions or you want to talk to me please feel free to email me at dj@rainbowdragon.digital or join the Facebook Group Marketing for the Many and I would love to hear about what you’re doing I’d love to help you out if I can.

Otherwise, please, subscribe to the newsletter in the footer channel if you haven’t already and enjoy the rest of the videos on the channel.