Not All Content Strategies Are Created Equal
It’s time to stop randomly posting content, and start building your content strategy for your service-based business. As a female founder, this post will help you translate all of your expertise into the list of topics you can use to establish your credibility, position you as an expert, and help you attract, nurture, and convert your ideal clients.
What to do when you don’t know what to talk about to promote your services
How many times have you said to yourself, “I don’t know what to talk about,” when it comes to promoting your business?
And I’m not ONLY referring to what you talk about on social media. It could be anything from the lead magnet or freebie you create to build your email list. It could be the newsletter content you put out. The podcast episodes you’ve got coming up. Or anything you’re doing to attract your ideal client, engage with them, and get them to buy the services you offer.
If you know you need to be doing SOMETHING, but you’re either overwhelmed by all the ideas you have and don’t know where to start, OR you’re stressed because you can’t come up with anything, then not only is this podcast perfect for you, but this episode will be, too.
The point I cannot reiterate enough is that service-based businesses are different. So if you’re frustrated because none of the advice you hear on social media, from marketing podcasts, or anywhere else online isn’t working for your business, stick with me because not all content strategies are created equal and I’m going to share one of the exercises I do with clients inside my coaching program to help you feel more confident and get extreme clarity when it comes to creating content to promote your business.
First things first, let’s break down how content creation is different based on the type of business you have.
As a serviceprenuer, the way you promote your business is going to be wildly different from brands with physical products, or even the content creators or influencers you follow online.
If you have a physical product, you can show the product, demo it, talk about its features, and have something physically in your hands that show customers what they get. Something they can immediately visualize and understand how it fits into their life.
If you’re an influencer or content creator, your followers are interested in your lifestyle. The places you go. The things you talk about. The food you eat, the clothes you wear. They are curious about your life, and on some level want to be more like you, so they trust your judgement and buy what you tell them to buy or have already bought yourself.
But if you’re a service-based business, it’s a completely different ball game. You don’t have a physical product and you don’t make your living from your lifestyle. Some might argue, myself included, that you have a much harder time selling because you need to convince potential clients that you can help them get the results or transformation they desperately need by working with you.
YOUR visual is the results of your clients, which is critical to show, but it doesn’t always translate to sales. Here’s what I mean by that:
Say you own a spa and are showing photos of clients after your signature facial. Some people might see that photo and think “wow, I want my skin to look like that, I need to get this facial” whereas others might see that same photo and think “well she’s starting off with better skin than I have, so there’s no way I’ll see the same results.”
One person is sold, the other needs more convincing.
Now, if you were sharing content that talks about the results you can expect based on your skin type, or other information that builds trust by showing you know what you’re talking about, that second person would likely be more willing to get that signature facial.
That’s the difference between a strategy that tells you to use testimonials and before/after pictures in your marketing, and the framework I use to help you build a content strategy that’s unique to your brand and the clients you serve, demonstrates your expertise, builds trust, and actually moves the needle in your business.
How to create a content topic map
I shared this in The Easy Content Marketing Formula for Service-based Businesses blog post, but it’s worth repeating before we dive into the first part of that formula.
Here’s where most people get it wrong: they start at the end.
They say, “I need to be on Instagram, I need to be on LinkedIn, I need to have an email list”
Their entire focus is on the last part of the marketing puzzle or the CHANNELS they want to use, without FIRST asking, “what do I actually have to say? What does my ideal client care about, and how can I use that information to drive revenue into my business?
So maybe this sounds familiar:
You setup your social media accounts, you create the pop-up on your website to capture emails, and then you get busy, you lose that momentum. And that’s when the “crap I need to share something, but I don’t know what to talk about” moment hits. You become inconsistent, your brand isn’t top of mind for your audience, and you don’t see the results you hoped for.
If you’re sitting there thinking yep, I feel that. Don’t stress because the way you solve for that is by first creating your Topic Map. This turns your expertise and knowledge into marketable topics you can use across any channel, and you do this in 3 steps, which I’m going to break down for you here.
At the highest level, we’ll follow this flow: PILLARS > CATEGORIES > TOPICS
First, you need to have a really strong foundation. One that reinforces the things you want to be known for in your industry, and the services you provide. These are your content pillars, that all of the content you create will align back to in some shape or form.
Aim for 3-5 pillars, one for each service you offer. What’s super important here, is that these pillars need to be completely independent from one another – meaning no overlap. So if you offer more than 5 services, you’ll want to combine them under one common theme and in the next step you’ll be able to break them apart.
If you’re a little short of the 3-5, I want you to think about the topics you’re passionate about, that you could talk about until you’re blue in the face, related to your business.
To use me as an example, I work with servicepreneurs to turn your expertise into marketable topics (pillar one), then I help you build effective content strategies (pillar two), and provide easy tips and resources to help make the content creation process easy (pillar three). My fourth pillar is all about the Servicepreneur Network, and the fifth pillar is all about mindset and building your confidence to show up authentically and unapologetically in your business.
From these pillars you know:
My area of expertise
The services I offer
And the value you get from working with me
So once you have your pillars, it’s time to take it one layer deeper.
Coming up with your content topics
Once you’ve identified each pillar, you’re going to break it up into all of the categories of information you can speak to. These aren’t one-off topics, but the overarching theme that all of your topics roll up to. These should be educational about your pillar, but also think about what your audience is interested in and the type of information they’d search for to find you.
Some of the categories you’ll want to include are:
Defining your service: what it is, who it’s for, why someone would invest in it, the science behind what you offer, etc.
Your process – everything from the onboarding experience through the end of their contract: what do they get, what’s it like working with you, etc.
If you have a signature framework, or a unique approach you use, you’ll want to include that too.
Similarly, do you have a unique perspective, a hot take, or look at something in your industry differently? That’s a great category to include
What are the benefits your client will experience, and the results they can expect? You can either group these together, or if there’s a lot to talk about, I recommend you break them all out into their own category
Once you have your categories mapped out, this is where all that knowledge and expertise you’ve turned into a successful business gets out of your head and onto paper. For each category, you’ll want to identify all the topics you can speak to – and the more specific, the better.
If you find that you’re grouping multiple ideas into one topic, that’s a sign you could create individual topics for each idea you have.
One thing I want to call out, is this doesn’t have to be so formal that it isn’t fun. Because we all know when something isn’t FUN, it gets pushed to the end of the to do list which only stresses us out more, or maybe that’s just me.
So a quick example: I recently worked with a color analyst, and we covered all the foundational categories and topics, but then we added in some fun ones, talking about power colors, a this or that series for every color season, and even a “who wore it best?” celebrity edition.
At surface level, these types of topics will entertain and engage her audience, but the reality is she’s still teaching about color analysis, while showing her expertise and personality at the same time.
If you do this for every pillar you’ve outlined, and you’ve just created hundreds of topics that become the building blocks of a great content strategy.
Is it a lot of work? Sure. But when you focus on WHAT you should talk about first, it makes every other decision you make about your brand so much easier.
So my challenge to you: Download my Topic Map Template, and spend some time working through your topic strategy. And if you have any questions along the way or want more information on how to work with me, send me a message and let’s connect.
