Content Creation Guide for Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, you need to create content and that content needs to be pretty consistent, however, this is one of the biggest struggles for entrepreneurs and with good reason.

This guide was designed to give you everything you need to know about content creation as an entrepreneur.

Inside the guide you’ll find:

• Why content creation is essential

• 3 myths busted about consistent content creation

• 4 steps to create consistent content

• The #1 content mistake to avoid

• 7 tips to repurpose your weekly content

• And how to create content for social media

Let's dive into why content creation is essential 👇

For over five years I’ve surveyed my audience and do you know what the number one struggle is?

Actually showing up.
Not just once.
Not twice.
But, consistently.

But, dang it’s hard.

The reality is creating content can actually be overwhelming. Most people go through the typical cycle of, “Oh, I've got a great idea! Wait! Is this actually valuable? How do I know if this is valuable? Maybe I should think of another topic!"

And even when we start to figure it out, we find ourselves repeating the cycle month after month.

This is why it’s important to pinpoint and correct why we’re not consistent in the first place, so let’s jumpe into 4 of the most common reasons you might be lacking consistency in your business.

1. LACK OF COMMITMENT TO YOUR BUSINESS

Ok, I’m bringing this up with so much grace and love because I want you to know that you’re not the only one who is sitting in this in-between, but we've talked about this lack of commitment a lot with time management conversations.

For example, I always say that one of the reasons time management is a big struggle, especially when growing your business, is because your business isn’t taking top priority in your schedule.

I know it can be easy to see entrepreneurs who are “making it” and think, “Wow, they're so lucky.” But the truth is that the people who have done this and are doing it successfully have done it with intention. This success didn’t happen by accident.

This intention comes from making a commitment and in this case a commitment to your business.

Have you made this commitment? Here are three questions to help you determine if you’re downplaying your business, even if subconsciously.

#2 A LACK OF SYSTEMS = A LACK OF CONSISTENCY

One of my favorite quotes from James Clear in his book Atomic Habits is, "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."

I love it so much we talked about it last week, but I truly don’t think there is a more important conversation to have in regards to consistency than your systems.

If you’re already pressed for time, and only have so many hours to come up with content, ideas, and so much time to write our content and then so much time to get it out there, we have to get our systems in place. 

These systems in your business look like clear and defined workflows, thorough weekly checklists and frameworks for getting your content written and out for distribution.

One of my favorite parts of my business is taking one piece of content and repurposing the crap out of it, seriously I wrote an entire blog post on my process. The art of repurposing not only allows you to spend less time creating content but also allows you to create a weekly workflow that can be repeated week after week.

This repetition takes the guesswork out of marketing your business and gives you more time and energy on fine-tuning and improving your craft.

My weekly workflow looks like a single video turned into a blog post, 3-6 social media posts, an email and multiple pins for Pinterest. And every single week this workflow is repeated.

This type of system, and there are many to choose from, allow you to rinse and repeat, minimize the time and energy you’re spending and maximize output.

Inside The Consistency Guide, I share an 8-part framework for showing up more consistently in your business. One of these pieces is centered around your workflow. I walk you through my process of determining your core content and repurpose schedule, then you get a behind the scenes look into my business and my workflow so you can implement it in your business with ease.

Content might be Queen, but if your content isn't consistent it won't do you much good. The Consistency Guide teaches you how to release beliefs holding you back and put systems in place that allow you to succeed in business week after week after week.

#3 STOP TRYING TO BE ON ALL THE PLATFORMS

One of the most popular reasons for not showing up consistently in business is that you’re trying to be too much, create too much and show up too much! 

“What?! Michelle you teach marketing and you’re telling me I’m doing too much?”

YES! As with all things we need to be strategic and I’d rather you show up fully on a few platforms then stretch yourself thin with mediocre content on a bunch.

The truth is when we start our businesses, and even in that first year, shoot, even in your fourth year, it can be really easy to look and see where everybody's showing up and think to yourself, “Well, I should be there too. I definitely need to be there. Um, I'm not on Pinterest, I need to be on Pinterest. I'm not on Instagram, I need to be on Instagram. I need to be doing a weekly live stream as Michelle does.” Sound familiar?

We feel we have to do #allthethings because we’re comparing our Chapter 1 to someone’s Chapter 10. Look, I was not doing all of this four years ago, I focused on the areas that felt most comfortable and where I could show up fully and then I continued to grow from there.

In my business, it looked like Facebook Groups and my Facebook Page first, then I added Instagram, then I got serious about Blogging and Pinterest, adding podcasting, weekly live streams, etc... came next.

No one is expecting you to do it ALL right from the start, that’s just crazy!

If you’re trying to do all of the things, all of the time, and find yourself consistent for a week, and then nothing on again for two weeks and then off again because you’re stretching yourself too thin, you’re not going to be able to give your full focus and energy to the areas you absolutely need to see growth, think high-value content.

I recommend two to three platforms most when you’re first starting out and when choosing these platforms you need to consider what is required from that platform.

For instance, if you don’t have a lot of time then you might not want to focus on Instagram or Facebook to grow your community which requires daily posting. Using your blog and Pinterest might be a better option for you and better use of your time in the beginning. Then as you understand and implement repurposing you can take that blog and expand it on social media.

So that's why it's really, really important to create a strategy that works for you. This is why I love authentic marketing and what it’s truly all about. It's about really looking at your life, your schedule, your audience, where you want to show up, how much time you have and create a workflow and a content creation plan to match that.

So much of this comes from your system and workflow. I’ve mastered this with my Repurposing Plan and I’m giving you my strategies to build your own system that you can rinse and repeat every week. Ready to grab it? Go to brandmerry.com/repurpose.

#4 YOUR PURPOSE ISN’T DEFINED

Now, I don't mean your life purpose, although that could easily fit into your business if you know that go for it, but if when you hear the word purpose and instantly start to feel overwhelmed it’s not necessary.

What, I want to encourage you to think about is the purpose behind your business and how it’s deeper than your why.

Let me explain. When I started my business I remember my first coach asked me my “why”. I listed out a ton of reasons like being home with my son, bringing my husband home from his job, traveling more, paying off debt, shopping at Whole Foods.

It felt great! But then business got tough and I found myself no longer motivated by these very surface-level reasons for running my business. So I took the time to think about the true purpose behind my business, my mission, which is so much more than me and even my family.

It can’t be because of money.
It can’t be because of fame.

You can achieve those things working a 9 to 5, it has to be bigger, it has to focus on impact.

There will be months when you don't make as much as the month before, and you might have social media posts that do really, really well and then social media posts that don't.

You might have launches that do really, really well and then have launches that don't.

And when you're focused on the money, or the fame, or the, you know, influence or publicity, or whatever you want to call it likes followers, then you're going to struggle because you're going to question if you should be doing this! 

When you think about your audience and impact, the reason you’re showing up you’ll keep going, you’ll keep creating and you’ll continue to be consistent.

If you haven’t already ask yourself, 
What is the mission behind our business?
What is the purpose of you showing up every single day, even when no one is there?

Having this information at your fingertips, being deeply rooted in your purpose, allows you to pull yourself back up. As an entrepreneur, no one is going to do that for you!

Inside The Consistency Guide, there is an entire section on defining your purpose. I ask the questions needed to determine your purpose and feel deeply rooted and connected to it.

I've used my Consistency Framework to create consistent high-performing content for four years.

This has included weekly emails, weekly blog posts, at least two videos a month (now it's weekly), multiple social media posts on both Facebook and Instagram and so much more.

I've generated half a million dollars in cash from showing up consistently in my business, delivering what my audience wants and sharing my expertise in a way that is authentic to me.

Let's talk about 3 content creation myths 👇

Consistency is one of my love languages and is one of the fundamentals of a successful business no matter how you create content or where you post that content when promoting your business. 

And it’s not just about social media and promotion, but also consistency in your habits. 

So let’s bust three myths around consistency to really give you the power back in planning out your day, in planning out your content and feeling good about how you're showing up and building your community.

Myth #1: Consistency is Posting Daily

Myth number one about consistency is that you have to post daily. 

I had to start with this because I’ve got some beef with this topic. Consistently showing up online does not mean posting every single day.

I did this, we've all done this. Some of you are maybe posting twice a day. If that works for you, go for it. But if it’s a belief that you have, thinking it’s the standard and if you’re not posting daily you aren’t consistent, well that’s just not true.

We need to stop this one please because showing up and posting daily is just more emphasis on growing through social media, which is one of the things that I don't teach. 

I teach other avenues like Pinterest, SEO, Google, the things that you guys have heard me talk about all year as a way to grow your community.

And using Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, even maybe Twitter, as ways to just continue to show up for the existing community. 

Using these platforms allows you to step back from the hustle of posting daily.

So rather than looking at consistency as posting daily content, start to think about how many times you want to show up each week and honor that. 

And I think this is where people get really hung up and where they struggle is, maybe it's really fun and exciting and you do it for two weeks. And you're like, “Yes, yes, yes.” 

And then suddenly a week happens and you're like, “Oh my gosh, I can't post this week” or “I'm not feeling inspired.” And then you're like, “Aw, crap. My whole entire consistency plan is out the window.” 

It doesn't have to be like that.

Start thinking about more sustainable consistency, not something that you just feel like, “Oh, I have to do this. I have to post every single day.” 

That's one of the reasons that I encourage people to really look at platforms that expand their reach and that allow content to live longer, like blogging. 

You don't need to blog every single day. You can blog once a week and optimize that blog. Same thing with Pinterest, where the content ultimately lives longer. 

People ask me all the time, "Michelle, you're getting all this traffic from Pinterest." I'm getting anywhere between 13,000-20,000 views a month on my blog, about 90% are from Pinterest. People are like, "How many times a week do you blog?" 

Once a week, but I'm consistent with my once a week - and that’s what consistency is really about.

Think about what works for you and what is sustainable, because I’m going to bet that posting daily is not sustainable for most of you.

Myth #2: Consistency is Hard or Difficult

The second myth is that consistency is hard or difficult to keep up with. 

We shy away from this conversation around consistency because having to consistently create content every single day or weekly feels like it is overly complicated and hard to stay up to date with. 

Sometimes they say that you don't plan because you're afraid to fail, right? Many people don’t shoot for consistency because we just don't think that it's attainable for us. 

But I promise you that it is.

I promise when you have your systems in place, it 100% is possible for you. 

I've worked with enough entrepreneurs, with enough personality types and different backgrounds to say that this method works, and really simplifies your marketing overall.

This method is the art of repurposing.

The idea is that you have a core piece of content and you're repurposing that content through additional means. We’ve already chatted about how awesome this is, so if you’re ready to create your repurposing workflow head here.

In the beginning, it might feel a little shaky. 

It might feel a little like you're piecing it together; it always does. You're figuring out what works best for you, but I promise you, when you get into that rhythm, your entire mind will be blown and it just makes your life so much easier. 

Myth #3: Consistency is Hard or Difficult

The third myth is that it has to be new content. 

I think you can already pick up on what I'm putting down when it comes to repurposing and therefore you do not need to create new content every single day in your business. 

I mean how exhausting. 

But, when you’re only focused on building your community with Facebook or Instagram, it can feel like you need to create new stuff all the time and that’s because content on those platforms doesn’t live as long as these evergreen options.

I'm sorry, but if I'm taking all this time and energy to create this video and then it’s gone in 24 hours. No thank you!

It’s one of the reasons I created Brandmerry Academy, because I see too many entrepreneurs struggling to build their audience without spending all their time on social media.

This is why people have trouble with consistency. 

This is why people have trouble with content creation because they're like, “Well, shoot, I got to create something new tomorrow because that one's all gone.” 

But if you really change your thinking from new content daily to extending the life of your content, you're reusing the same thing over and over again. 

And I promise you, your audience does not get tired of it. 

Your audience will thank you for posting it again because they probably missed it. 

So when you're thinking of creating your content calendar for the year, even just for the month, I want you to break it down to one core topic every week. 

What would your life be like if you had one weekly piece of content that you then pushed out and repurposed and manipulated in different ways, and shifted the messaging so that it actually lasted longer?

What would happen? 

Would that completely change your life? Because it did mine.

I stopped focusing on creating new stuff every single day for Instagram and really went to this repurposing web. It’s one of the things I teach inside of both The Consistency Guide and Brandmerry Academy.

So it's less about creating a quantity of content and more about the quality of content. 

Now that doesn't mean that you post one thing and you're like, fingers crossed, hope it works. 

It's about then having these repurposing strategies in place so then you can make sure your content is being seen by your ideal customer.

Remember, people like to consume content in different ways.

They want to be able to read something, watch something, listen to something, consume it very quickly. And the more that we can really show up on multiple platforms and think about ways that you can show up for your audience and be there for them and they can consume your content in the way that's best for them. Again, building trust.

4 steps to creating consistent content 👇

1. STAY INSPIRED TO CREATE CONTENT

You have to stay inspired and motivated. The key to being excited about creating content is to always look for ways to be inspired.

Let me give you an example. 

I know that if I need to create content, my butt goes outside.

If I know that I need to create content, let’s say I want to brainstorm and map out 90 days of topics I head to Starbucks.

I know the type of environments and resources that get me inspired and motivated. What are yours?

We have to put ourselves in places that inspire us if we ever hope to be inspired.

If you're sitting In bed, on your laptop, you're probably not feeling very inspired. 

So not only do we need to put ourselves in situations where we're feeling inspired, but we also have to get excited about what it is we are doing.

So much of getting excited ties back to the purpose of your business. 

Why are you doing this? 
Why should you show up and create content?
Who is it for?

If you haven't figured out the real purpose and mission behind your business, today would be a great day to write that down.

When I tap into my purpose of empowering women to own their story and show up and share that with the world through their brand that keeps me motivated. So, even if I am tired or don’t feel 100% in it, I root myself in my purpose and excitement hits.

The core part of consistently thinking of content topics, consistently showing up and delivering that content and consistently engaging comes from being inspired and being motivated. 

2. LOOK AROUND FOR CONTENT IDEAS

When we start thinking about creating content we sit down with a notepad, in a quiet room and write our ideas.

I'm telling you, I've had the best content ideas in the shower, or walking through the grocery store, listening to podcasts, or scrolling on Instagram, which is not in a dark room with a notepad.

I’m using the everyday moments around me to think of ideas. For instance, when I hop on Instagram I won’t just do it to waste some time, but I’ll set the intention to see if anything inspires me outside of my industry.

Then I use that inspiration to create a piece of content.

This is why I’m a big fan of using Trello or Google Docs as a way to organize a content idea bank because as I’m going about my day, with the intention to look for ideas, I can pause and add my idea to my Trello board and then go back about my day.

What I’m doing is I’m creating a resource of content ideas every single day, rather than sitting down to “try and write” and feeling incredibly lost and stuck.

The biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs make is feeling like it's 100% up to them to come up with topics for their content.

Look around you.
Get inspired.
Don’t be afraid to Google topics and see what comes up.
Search on Pinterest for a topic and see what comes to your mind.
Look in a Facebook Group and search for topics to see what people ask.

Shift the way you go about getting ideas away from sitting down and brainstorming, to setting the intention to always look for ideas.

3. MAKE CONTENT CREATION A PRIORITY

Your content creation and your business in general, shouldn't just fit in where it fits in your schedule. Make it a priority and move the other things to fit around it.

You will get results if you’re carving out a dedicated chunk of time at least once a week to create your content if you’re not then you're doing yourself a disservice.

You don’t need to create every single day, many of my clients have one designated content creation/ writing day a week. And if you do it, for let’s say two weeks, and still don’t find you’re able to create the amount of content you want in that time frame then cut back on the content or master your repurposing workflow.

Do what you can in that time frame and then as your business grows, as you hire more team members, as you get faster and faster writing content and blog posts, then you can start to create more and show up on more platforms.

So many people fall off because they're trying to do way too much when it comes to content creation, they can't keep up with it. 

I am a big fan of bulk scheduling. I bulk create and write my content on Mondays.

I don't do calls on Mondays and pretty much my entire day is carved out to create my content.

I use this time to write my notes for my weekly live stream, Mondays With Michelle, schedule my social media posts and choose the graphics.

4. CHOOSE YOUR CONTENT PLATFORMS WISELY

When you’re starting your online business you’re thinking, “Ok, I’m going to create a website and hope someone comes to it and then I’ll show up on social media. I’ll create a Facebook group or I'll join some Facebook groups, and I'll show up on Instagram.”

Sound familiar? I know it was exactly what I did in the beginning.

This is why so many entrepreneurs get overwhelmed because in order for your stuff to really get seen on those platforms you need to consistently post, which means daily on Facebook and Instagram.

I used to do this and found myself overwhelmed with the amount of content I needed to create, so I don’t do it anymore and that's because social media is no longer my top-tier platform.

Remember back to the beginning where we talked about Awareness, Attraction and Connection? Another way to look at this is through Cold, Warm and Hot Leads.

The majority of people in the Awareness phase are a cold lead, so you’re creating content that pulls them into your brand, if this is social media you’re going to feel like you’re constantly climbing a steep hill.

In my business, I pull in cold leads through my blog, which I optimize for Google and share on Pinterest. Another alternative is Youtube and podcasting. The reason these platforms work so well is that they are Search Engines; your audience is going to them with specific questions and looking for answers, this is not the same for social media.

In addition, your content lives longer on these platforms than say a post on social media, which might last 24 hours if you’re lucky.

If you're not already considering things like optimizing your website for SEO, and you aren't blogging, and you are not using Pinterest or you’re not using YouTube (if you like videos), really consider switching up where you are showing up, it will make a huge difference and will allow you to consistently show up with less content.

Don't make these content creation mistakes 👇

New and seasoned entrepreneurs often come to me after starting their business and showing up on social media. They start creating content out of the gate and find themselves feeling overwhelmed, like their message is all over the place, struggling to come up with content ideas or not getting enough engagement.

The truth is there is a misconception around when we should be creating content and what we need to have in place in order to be doing it in a way that brings in the right people and leads to a revenue-generating business. 

The truth is so many entrepreneurs are skipping the branding process which is why content works or why it doesn’t work. It’s really not about using cool tricks and trying to beat the algorithm.

It’s not about a specific number of characters or writing your title in a certain way.

It’s about understanding the fundamentals of your brand and building a strong foundation in which every piece of content is created.

what are the CONTENT CREATION MISTAKES AND why do they happen

Unfortunately so many educators, coaches and consultants are telling people that they’ll figure it out if they keep posting content.

Okay, there's some truth to this in that you find your voice along the way, you start to see what people resonate with and don't resonate with and that tells you what you want to expand on. 

But if you think that just posting random content with no clear plan is going to help you decide the pillars of your brand and business, that's backward.

We need to figure out the foundational pieces first so the content that we create, mimics that and is in alignment with that and again, draws in the right people. 

Too many entrepreneurs are putting content out there, without a clear brand strategy in place and finding themselves building a community that they hope to sell to. Then when they finally sell...nobody buys.

The reason is you’re attracting people who aren’t in alignment with what you’re ultimately selling.

create your brand first, then create your content

Branding at its core is what gives us the foundation so we don't ping pong all over so that we don’t struggle to come up with ideas and so we don’t struggle to connect our community to our offer.

If you’re experiencing these pieces, let me tell you it’s a branding problem.

SO WHAT IS BRANDING?

To fix it we need to first talk about what branding is. There’s this lie that’s been floating around the internet for too long that your brand is your visual representation, i.e. your logo, fonts and colors.

While the visuals play a role they are only part of the finished product. They are the result of deciding on the experience you want to create.

Branding is an experience we’re creating for our target audience and what they’re taking away from the experience we’re creating.

So branding is so much more than just the color you use in a photo, and finalizing the true brand, the experience will help you decide on those visual components much faster.

It’s something that can’t wait or be done later. All of the pieces you want to create now, your website, content, free offers, promotions, etc...rely heavily on finalizing the core pillars of a brand.

The belief that branding can wait is very harmful to online entrepreneurs.

SO HOW DO WE FIX IT?

Lucky for you, I’m a Personal Branding Consultant and Marketing Strategist so you’re in good hands.

Depending on where you’re at in your business you need to:

1. Build your brand from the ground up (New and aspiring entrepreneurs)

2. Find the holes in your branding process and fill them (Seasoned entrepreneurs)
   
   

Before I share the 4 steps needed to have a solid brand, you must understand I’m not suggesting you go into hiding for 6 months, figure this out and then start again...NO!

Please don’t do that. So many of my clients do this in as little as a week, with some guidance.

If you’re wanting to fast-track that then sign up for my free on-demand class on The Build a Better Brand Method here.

The key is to put in the work, yes, sometimes extra, on the backend, so you can start creating better content, growing your community with targeted leads, experiencing more engagement and ultimately making more sales.

As you do the work, you’ll notice a shift in your content creation strategy and results.

4 STEPS TO BETTER CONTENT and A BETTER BRAND

These four steps are 4 of the 6 steps in my Build a Better Brand Method. You can learn more about each detail and get the full picture of the branding process and how it plays a role in not only content creation but also increased revenue in my free class.

Watch The Build a Better Brand Masterclass here >>

1. NICHE

FIGURE OUT WHERE YOU FIT IN THIS ENTREPRENEUR SPACE

I don't care what you sell, you have to figure out your specific market. Niching down is one of the best things that you will do for your brand, for your business and as we're talking about for your content. 

You need to understand what specific niche you provide your audience.

For instance, if you’re in skincare you won’t grow your business if you offer every skincare product under the sun, but you could focus on skincare for adult acne. 

I’m a Branding coach, but I focus on personal branding with an emphasis on storytelling. So I'm not for the woman who isn't ready to be the face of her brand who isn't ready to share stories. That's what I'm about and I've carved out a very specific niche that addresses that issue. 

This clarity is going to help you to understand how you're going to show up and communicate with your ideal audience. It's also going to help you get discovered online because people are searching for very specific things.

If you find that your market is full (aka saturated) you’re not alone. And while so many people think this is a bad thing it’s actually working in your favor. If someone is successfully doing it, then there is a need and demand.

Not one person can serve everyone! Find the gap, what they’re not doing, that you can bring to the table. This is your specific niche.

This knowledge around your niche is going to influence how you show up, create content and communicate with the world.

2. IDEAL CUSTOMER OR CLIENT

YES, YOU NEED TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

If you're just starting out, your fear of focusing on one core person is hurting you. Because when you're not clear on specifically who you want to attract, you're creating messaging, content, offers that are trying to attract a bunch of different people and then guess what happens? You're so confusing to your ideal client, that they back out and can’t handle it.

Confusing your audience will result in lost sales.

Please do yourself a favor and take some time, if you haven't already, to do ideal client research. And if you have done it in the past, but it's been a while then give yourself a refresher.

There is so much to the ideal client research, but the top three points to identify are:

1. What specific person do you want to attract, sell to and work with?

2. What do they need help with? This is what you want to begin to create content around.

3. What do they ultimately want or desire? This will help you guide them through the process and help you identify obstacles standing in their way, which can also be addressed in your content.

If you can speak to the pain points of your ideal customer, you can give them solutions, and also speak to their obstacles; I am telling you, you will be the person that they hire.

Another perk of the ideal customer work (hey, that rhymed) is understanding who they are at a core human level. YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS!

Your audience is human and the more that you can understand this and speak to their everyday struggles and desires, not just how they pertain to your product or service, the deeper the connection.

For instance, my audience also loves to hear about time management, productivity, mindset, being a mom and running a business, so I get to create content that fits in all of those pieces and keeps my audience entertained and engaged.

3. MESSAGING AND BRANDING CONSISTENCY

REMEMBER, IF YOU CONFUSE YOUR AUDIENCE THEY WILL MOVE ON.

Having a messaging structure in place will help you to avoid posting one thing on a Monday, something different on Tuesday and completely left field on a Thursday. We want to avoid this off-the-wall approach (think spaghetti at a wall) and focus on having a clear structure in place.

One of the ways to combat this is with brand containers.

BRAND CONTAINERS

Brand containers piggyback off of the idea that your audience is freaking human. They want to see and hear about more than just your one offer, your products or your photographs, they want to build a know, like and trust factor with your brand overall.

This is why we want to identify the different ways we can support our ideal customer through our content. Like I mentioned above, I might do this with time management, productivity, mindset, being a mom and running a business.

Consistently creating content in these buckets builds you up as a credible resource for your audience, makes a more personal connection and also doesn't overwhelm your audience with sell after sell after sell.

These brand containers are life savers when it comes to creating content.

4. YOUR OFFER

WHERE ARE YOU LEADING YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITY?

This is a really important question that not enough people are asking. It’s one of the reasons I consider your offer or framework one of the foundations of branding.

Again, let’s imagine you’re showing up online. You’re spending time creating content and consistently post. Then after months you decide I’m going to make an offer, but that offer doesn’t connect to the community you’ve built online...your sales won’t be great!

When we have our offer or framework in mind from the start, we can reverse engineer our content to bring in the right people and lead them to the sale in an authentic and genuine way.

Building a targeted community requires building a strong brand.

If you know exactly what you want to teach or sell, amazing! This is where you would start getting clear on what that looks like and how it supports your ideal customer.

But, let’s say you’re not 100% sure yet, that’s ok too. You can build out your framework and then use that to influence your content and eventually your offer.

Ask yourself…

“If I were to create something, what would it look like?”

“How would I want to support my idea client on their journey?”

Just having that awareness in your head will allow you to create content and build a community that will then effortlessly lead to your product.

How to harness the power of evergreen content 👇

I don't believe in just creating content to create content. 

I want to have workflows and systems that allow me to show up for you, to get in front of new ideal customers, to show up and nurture and build relationships with my existing audience, to ultimately lead members to a sale because at the end of the day I’m running a business and that last piece is kind of important.

And, after 5 years I know content creation allows me to do all of that.

Yet here’s the kicker - I want to make sure you know how to create content that doesn't involve you sitting behind a computer for hours and hours and hours every single day, trying to write up posts knowing that those posts are probably going to disappear.

Honestly, one of the most fun things that I get to do is create new content, and these 4 hacks that I've implemented have made all the difference not just in how I'm creating the content, but more specifically how long it's taking me to create it and how long the content lasts (it’s evergreen baby, more on that later).

Let’s get into the 4 tips.

CONTENT CREATION TIP #1: CONTENT RESEARCH

Let's dive into the first thing that I have for you on content creation hacks of 2021. This one is key. So I'm going to spend a little bit more time on this one than I will the others, so let’s buckle up!

This first step is all about your research. 

Now I don't know about you, but when I first started my business 5 years ago, people weren't really talking about how important it was to do research when creating content.

We were talking about ideal customer research as it applies to your branding and that is a crucial step. It was all about having conversations with people to find out how to ultimately message to them in your business. And this was great, it helps you get a solid start, but then what do you do?

No one was talking about the research that actually goes into creating content. This resulted in business owners posting things with the foundation of, “Oh, I think my audience might like this. This might work.” 

I fell into that trap for a really long time, until I started looking outside of my niche at what was really working for marketing as a whole. 

It always came back down to this idea that the data is always there. The information you need on what people are searching for is already there, you just have to take the time to do the research and look for it. 

This simple strategy opens up an entire method for creating content that is based on search engine results not just “oh, that might be nice!”

Why, is it important to think of things that people are searching for? Well, because they are searching for it! This means that you’re getting in front of cold leads (people who aren’t familiar with your brand and services every single day). This is key when you want to consistently scale your business, especially organically. 

When you're thinking about creating content, remember, we're not just creating content that is meant to serve people that already know our brand, we have to have consistent people coming in that funnel, finding you online, discovering you, getting to know you. That has to be a consistent stream in order for them to then binge read all your posts on Instagram or go binge-watch all your videos on YouTube.

This research phase requires you to do SEO or search engine optimized research.

What are people searching for as it relates to your niche on Google?
What about Pinterest?
And what about Youtube?

These are all search engine platforms, meaning someone is going there, typing in a question or topic and finding results, and these platforms can give you a freaking gold mine when it comes to finding topics for your content.

CONTENT TIP #2: DESIGN YOUR WORKFLOW

You should not be recreating the wheel every single week in your business. One of the areas that I have found that people struggle with when it comes to creating consistent content is that they don't have a workflow in place. 

So, while number one takes the mystery out of, “What do I talk about?”
This step takes the mystery out of, “How do I do it efficiently?”

You can have the best content ideas, but if you don't have systems and workflows in place, you're going to struggle with consistency showing up.

Here are some things to consider when thinking about your workflow:

• How many blog posts are you going to publish a week? 

• How many videos are you going to release weekly, bi-weekly, monthly? 

• Are you going to have a podcast? 

• What channels are you showing up on social media? 

• Are you going to be on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest?

The goal here is to determine where you’ll be showing up and how often. Now, you don’t need to be everywhere, we just don’t believe in that strategy here at Brandmerry, but you do need a clear idea of where you’ll be sharing your content.

My suggestion and something I teach inside of Brandmerry Academy is to choose one search engine optimized platform (Blogging/ Google, Pinterest or Youtube) and one social media channel to start.

Once you have that data you want to pull that into a workflow that might look something like this.

Step One: Create a blog post
Step Two: Turn that one blog post into 12 posts on Twitter for the week
Step Three: Then use that blog post to create two posts for Instagram.
Step Four: Record that blog post as a podcast episode.

You could do this a ton of different ways, figure out the way that works best for you. 

Some of my clients love blogging and writing, so that becomes their core content. 
Some of my clients love video, like myself, and that becomes their core content. 
Some love recording audio, podcasting and that becomes their core content.

Whatever core content you want, you can then push it out and repurpose it on multiple platforms. 

I’m going to do a video and blog in a few weeks on repurposing, but remember this step is all about the workflow. What needs to happen and when. If you want to grab a little cheat that I've put together for you, you can go to brandmerry.com/repurpose, and get your hands on more details regarding that. 

It’s these systems that allow us to build sustainable businesses.

CONTENT TIP #3: KNOW YOUR NUMBERS

Number three is a piggyback off of number one with the data, but this hack is all about knowing your numbers.

Seriously, please look at your analytics. They will tell you so much about what you want to scale in your business and can give you insight into the type of content that drives the most traffic, gets the most engagement and more.

While tip one might have focused a bit more on bringing your new audience in, this step can tell you a lot about your existing warm audience. 

• What types of videos do well? 

• What types of podcast titles and episodes have a higher listener rate? 

• What kind of blog posts are getting more rank on Google, are getting more traffic from Pinterest? 

• Which of your social media posts get more saves and shares and engagement? 

• Do people prefer certain topics or imagery on your social media?

You have to make it a habit to look at your numbers. 

I suggest looking at your numbers every 30 days and making small adjustments and every 90 days planning your bigger moves for the next quarter of content.

For instance, I did a podcast episode about morning routines, which was one of the hardest things for me to do because I have a very different take on morning routines. You can listen to that podcast episode over on the Beautiful Climb Podcast, but this was the topic that we knew my audience cared about and would do well.

We had seen it through Instagram posts and through past Pinterest traffic. All kinds of data was saying, “Do this dang podcast episode, Michelle.” 

So I did it and it was our highest listenership because we knew that it was going to be. 
It was one of our most viewed reels that I created on Instagram. 
We then took that content and turned it into a blog post and that blog post is doing amazing on Pinterest. 

So the data is there and once you have this consistent rhythm and that workflow in place, you can start to take the guesswork out of creating content. 

Look at your analytics, know your numbers, create more of what is working.

Now you can absolutely experiment and play around with things and you should, but always remember to come back to your numbers and allow that to fuel those decisions. 

One of the areas that perform well in my business is video. As we ended 2020 we had a lot of data on what worked best and how we could make some modifications heading into 2021.

Here’s an example of how the data then fueled a change in my marketing.

While we knew video did really well in my business we were seeing that live video wasn’t necessarily working better than prerecorded.

At this point, I was going live every Monday at the same time to deliver branding and marketing tips as part of my show Mondays With Michelle.

Live video takes more time and energy on my part, so rather than not creating videos, we realized that we could pre-record bulk video content. 

So four to five videos, depending on how many weeks are in a month to be released every single Monday on Facebook as a premiere, and on IGTV, and then repackaged to release on YouTube later on.

So by looking at the data, we realized that we could make this adjustment. I could have more time in my schedule to take on more clients, which resulted in more money and it all came from looking at the data.

CONTENT TIP #4: OUTSOURCING

The last tip I want to share with you is centered around freeing up more of your time by outsourcing. Now before you're like "Michelle, I don't have the money to invest in a team," I totally understand and that’s not necessarily what I’m implying so keep reading!

When I say outsourcing, I mean tech or team. So if you have the means to hire a virtual assistant or somebody to manage your workflow in ClickUp or wherever you're setting it up, to publish your videos, to edit your videos, then absolutely do that. 

Start to outsource those content creation pieces very early on if you have the means to invest in that. 

If you don't have the money or means to do that just yet, there are tech options available that are going to yes, be an investment, but a small amount compared to how much time you're spending.

For example, you can use a tool called Veed.io, which I talked about in my recent blog on my favorite Marketing Tools here, to resize your videos for different platforms, add transcripts and even edit the title and captions. 

You can use a transcript service like Rev.com to upload your video or podcast and have a full transcript that you can then turn into your blog. 

There are a lot of tech options out there that will help you streamline this entire content creation process. And again, as you begin to build your revenue, you can then build your team, which is going to make your life so much easier!

Content creation is the heart of your business. Without strong content, you can't attract your ideal customer, you're not nurturing your existing audience, you're not showing up for them and you’ll have a hard time selling.

Let's not forget social media 👇

1. It's Really About Quality vs. Quantity

Just like me, I bet you started your business and just focused on quantity. You researched how many times a day or week you should post in order to increase engagement, but turns out this isn’t really the answer. You can post 5 times a day, but if your content isn’t of high-value then it’s not going to matter.

The other reality is that it takes less time, overall, to create quality pieces of content. If you take time to produce quality content, you’ll get more engagement and therefore you’ll create a core piece that can be reused over and over again.

In order to create better quality content, it’s important to have a plan. When you give yourself time to map out your content you’ll be more likely to actually create a high-quality piece over just “posting to post”.

2. Content Creation Comes From Knowing Your Audience 

If you’re struggling to come up with content it’s most likely because you don’t know who you are speaking to. Trust me, I’ve tested it, if you know WHO you’re talking to then you’ll always know what needs to be said. Truly understanding your audience and where they are needing support on their journey is crucial.

This is why I dedicate a big chunk of energy to teaching my clients to truly identify their ideal client and all the nitty gritty details that will support them in creating content that their audience finds engaging. 

One of my top tips is to ask yourself, “What does my audience need in this moment?” and then allow yourself to brainstorm ideas based on what you’re seeing online, what your audience is asking and simple Google search.

3. Identify Your Brand Containers

One of my favorite tools when it comes to content creation and making sure I’m keeping my audience engaged is the use of Brand Containers. Brand Containers are essentially 5-7 themes for your brand that all your content can live under. This allows you to better organize your content, as well as recycle the types of content you are creating. This is a key in keeping your audience engaged.

If you want to learn more about my Brand Containers strategy and receive my content planner, be sure to grab yours here.

4. Using Core Brand Messages to Create Consistent Content

One of my favorite strategies I teach my clients is called Core Brand Messages. The Core Brand Messages framework allows you to create messages for your brand as a whole (streamlined messaging), share your expertise and position the benefit more clearly to your audience.

In addition, by having these unified messages you can consistently come up with content ideas (social media posts) that position you as the expert.

Let’s say one of my Core Brand Messages is, “I support women in uncovering their story to create an authentic brand that allows them to stand out online.”

I could then list out 20-30 topics under this general message. This allows me to create branded content in my zone of genius, plus showcase my expertise and how I support my clients.

80% of consumers say “authenticity of content” is the most influential factor in becoming a follower of a brand. If I’ve learned anything from creating content online it’s that authenticity is key. You not only want to create content that gets in engagement, but is authentic to you and your brand message. 

Core Brand Messages are one of the methods I teach inside my Build a Better Brand Method. Watch the free masterclass to learn the step by step of building a better brand that stands out on social media, how to create quality content for your audience and build a thriving community. Sign up at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

P.S. Planning and creating your content doesn't have to be a constant struggle. There is a better way to research, plan, and create your content as an entrepreneur and it's all inside the Content Planning Blueprint!

The Content Planning Blueprint is perfect for online business owners who know the power of content creation but are tired of spending all of their time coming up with ideas, organizing their content, and wondering what will attract their dream clients.

In just a few hours, you'll have 90 days of content planned, a repeatable workflow to save you hours on creating and distributing your content every week, and content topics that will keep performing for your brand for years to come! Get your blueprint now >>

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Plan 6 Months at a Time in Your Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

Have you started thinking about the next 6 months in your business? What if I told you that you could plan 6 months as a small business owner and entrepreneur and feel confident in your business plans as we head into your next phase? Half of your business success comes down to having a plan, and this 5-step process can help. Learn how to make your 6-month calendar for content, launches, and main focuses in your business. Learn more at brandmerry.com! #businessplans #6monthplans #endoftheyearplan

In March 2021, I released a Reel over on Instagram that showed a quick look at how I prepare for every quarter in my business. 

The video showed my giant calendar wall in my office where I have exactly six months visible to me at all times. I showcased the process of me planning with my Post-it notes, and the response was, "Michelle, we need a video about this. Michelle, we need to know how you're doing this, all of the details." 

So here we are. 

We’re jumping in with a six-month, step-by-step, behind-the-scenes look at planning. 

Now, before we get into those step-by-step pieces, I want to take a few minutes to talk about why I think planning is important and also talk about one of the key things that I do before planning for six months.

WHY PLANNING IS IMPORTANT

Some of you might be here because like me you love planning!

Some of you might be teetering a little bit. You might have been gung-ho about planning. You might try to do it a lot and then find that you fall off the wagon, but you get back on again, and you keep doing it, and you keep trying new strategies over and over again. 

And then there are a few of you that are here because you're super intrigued, but you also have a lot of resistance when it comes to planning because it can feel very restrictive.

So I want to take an opportunity to share with you the mindset shift that completely changed the way I view planning in my business. 

I've always been a big fan of planning. Even since I was a little girl, I used to plan out, on note cards (thanks, Mom), my goals for the year.

Then I'd tuck them away, and I'd never look at them again. I think we can all agree that's not how you plan effectively 😂. 

Over the years planning took on two different emotions for me, I’d either have these big ambitions to plan, but then I’d feel as if I was setting crazy unrealistic expectations for myself and freeze.

Or the idea of planning would feel restrictive; as if I couldn't do anything else, and so I never really followed through with the plan.

It wasn't until I became an entrepreneur and started my business in 2016 that I realized that I was constantly sitting in overwhelm without a plan.

I would question:
👉 How am I going to make money?
👉 What am I going to share today?
👉 What am I going to email?
👉 How am I going to get new clients?
👉 What am I focusing on?

And every day, I would repeat that kind of overwhelmed feeling, because I didn't have a plan.

This season of life made me realize that by having a big-picture plan in place, I was able to be more creative in my business. By having this roadmap in place I moved out of overwhelm, and I had more opportunities to create and be in my zone of genius, and that has served me as a business owner in so many ways.

So if you're coming into this like me where you might have had a little bit of resistance about the idea of planning and having it all mapped out, I hope that this blog changes your view on what planning is. 

So if you're worried about being restricted when it comes to planning for six months, I want to encourage you to look at it a different way, and look at it as a roadmap guiding you, allowing you to be in your zone of genius and have more time and space for more creativity.

PLAN YOUR FOCUS FOR THE YEAR

On my office wall, there are six calendars, one for every month. Now every single day doesn’t need to have something on it, remember this is big picture planning, but the purpose is to map out where you’re going.

So the first thing you need to determine before you start mapping out your steps, is what is the main focus for the year.  

Now, many of you watching this video are most likely small business owners and entrepreneurs and might find that your yearly goal is a specific dollar amount, but this works for anything and I often follow the same structure when I determine how many trips I want to take in a year.

When I'm heading into the year, I like to figure out: 

• What is my purpose? 

• What is my focus going to be for the year? 

• How much revenue do I want to bring into the company for the year? 

• How is that broken up into each quarter? 

• How is that broken up into the individual offers that I have, or that I'm planning on putting out?

So I never go into six months completely blind. I definitely know, "Hey, by December 31st, 2021, this is what I want to achieve," and this allows me to reverse engineer, and it makes the planning process easier. 

So although I'm not going into all the details of planning for 12 months at a time in this post. I want you to know that thinking of the big picture is important, and you want to have at least a number, or something measurable, tied to your yearly goal so you can move forward with mapping out six months, quarterly (every three months) and monthly actions in your business.

5 STEPS TO PLAN 6 MONTHS

Don’t move on until you’ve got your big picture goal established.
Ready?
Ok, let’s dive into it!

PLANNING TIP #1: START WITH THE BIG PICTURE

Number one is kind of a piggyback on what we just talked about, and that's thinking big picture. When you're planning for six months, which can feel like a lot of work, you're thinking about focus. 

You're thinking about the bigger picture of…
What am I trying to achieve for these six months?
What are going to be my big three things that I want to hit?

That is going to allow you to figure out all the nitty-gritty details needed to get there.

Sometimes people think when we're talking about content, specifically, that we're planning content for six months. I'm not saying, "Tell me the title of every blog post that you're going to create for the next six months."

That's not necessary, at this stage. That comes later, in step five. 

But you do want to understand what the focus will be over the next six months.

So think again: 

• What is the yearly goal? 

• Okay, how does that play a role in the next six months? 

• How does that play a role in the next 90 days? 

Because in case you didn't realize, you have to go through the 90 days to get to the six months, and the six months to get to the year. 

So reverse engineering from the big picture goal for the year to the focus every six months and 90 days will give you the stepping stones to get to your end result.

PLANNING TIP #2: CREATE YOUR WORKFLOW

Step two is to create your workflow. 

Now, in a recent episode of Monday’s with Michelle, I talked about the process of creating a workflow. As entrepreneurs, workflows are so important. If you want to achieve your goals, you need to have the systems in place that are going to support you in achieving your goals. 

One of the things that I did a couple of years ago, that changed my business completely, was this idea of creating a very clear content workflow. 

So every week, I know how many blog posts I'm creating, how many videos I'm creating as part of Mondays with Michelle, how many podcast episodes I'm putting out there, what emails are coming from that content, where I'm showing up on social media or other platforms. And I have a clear workflow every week that resets.

So we go through our week, tick the boxes, and it resets the next week. The topic will change weekly, but what we're doing behind the scenes to get the content out there does not change. 

Having a workflow is going to help you plan out six months with ease. 

This calendar that I'm looking at, says every Monday there's a Mondays with Michelle video.
Every Thursday, there's a blog post.
Every Wednesday, there's a YouTube video.
Every other Friday, there's a podcast episode.

That's what I'm able to visually see on this big-picture calendar that I've got up, and that helps guide my efforts. So make sure you have a workflow in place, and if you don't have one, there's an entire video and blog teaching you how to create your own.

PLANNING TIP #3: DETERMINE IMPORTANT DATES

Step three, when planning out for six months, is to determine any big launches, promotions, dates, and vacations. Any big these-are-set-in-stone dates that aren't super flexible.  

You want to put those on your calendar because that is going to impact a lot of your content that you're creating. It's going to help you look ahead and say, "Oh, I'm opening the doors to the Academy." 

Which I am, at the end of May. Just a heads-up 😉

I know that that's happening and it’s already on my calendar. This helps me determine what content to share leading up to that. I know The Academy is focused on marketing your business, so my content will be marketing-focused.

This clear focus will help build know, like, and trust with my audience so that you're most likely to join me inside of the Academy.

It's also going to allow me to put my promotion dates on there. If you're doing a challenge or a masterclass, what day you're going to open the cart and what day you're going to close the cart. If you're going to run ads, when are you going to run ads? 

So putting your actual promotion dates on your calendar will allow you to reverse engineer and add in the smaller details needed for a successful promotion. 

So step three is to determine those big launches, promotions, or any specific dates that you have. 

Think of EVERYTHING!
Maybe you're launching a podcast. What date is that? 
Maybe you're thinking of launching or putting a new product out there. What date is that? 
Maybe you're putting out a freebie. What date is that? 

Putting these markers on your calendar will help you get ahead of the game and help you embrace more of a forward-thinking mentality so you never “feel behind.”

One of the biggest things that I see entrepreneurs doing is that they aren't planning this far in advance.

They'll do maybe 30 days, and then the end of the 30 days comes, and they're like, "Oh, I have no idea what I'm doing next month." And then they're like, "Oh, I want to start a freebie, and I want to put it out next week." And then they're scrambling and doing mediocre work to get it out there. 

Give yourself space. 

By me looking at September, I can kind of, in the back of my mind, start thinking about all the things that I am doing and start formulating ideas around that. So when it comes time to create that stuff, it's not just coming out of thin air.

PLANNING TIP #4: PUT UP A 6 MONTH CALENDAR

Now, and only now do we physically put the calendar together.

I like seeing my calendar all of the time in my office, it’s incredibly helpful for me and has been for my clients as well. 

Sometimes people feel overwhelmed because things change, but again when we’re planning for 6 months we’re not focused on the tiny, tiny details we reserve for our Google Calendars, we’re focused on “What’s Happening!”

Once you’ve determined your physical calendar, then you want to take those dates that you've determined from step three and use Post-Its to pencil in. 

I like Post-its because you can move things around, as things change, which they will and not have to start over.

So once you have your calendar up and Post-its ready you want to do the following:

1. Add you’re important dates. Think launches, sales, promotions, vacations, etc…
   

2. Add your weekly workflow to the calendar. Think blogs, podcasts, videos, live streams, etc… If you write a blog every Wednesday you need a Post-it for every Wednesday.

What this is going to allow you to do is support you in the last step, which is adding the details for the next 90 days.

PLANNING TIP #5: ADD DETAILS FOR THE NEXT 90 DAYS

Now, I am not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you that I know what I'm talking about in September. I don't know what I'm talking about in July, but I know that I will be showing up, and that is super clear. 

But what I do know is what's happening in the next 90 days in my business down to the detail.

This blog that you're reading right now, if you are reading it on May 6th, when it's released, was recorded for a Monday’s with Michelle on April 6th. It's an entire month ahead, and that's because I have a clear workflow. 

So one of the things that you want to do in step five is add those individual details OFF of the calendar. I prefer a task management platform or Google Calendar for the details because your calendar can get super messy and you’re not able to list out all the tiny micro details on your physical calendar.

We use ClickUp, as a task management tool, and put those tasks and the workflow inside of there.

This allows your 6-month physical calendar to showcase the big picture and focus and your task management software to map out the smaller details needed to achieve that focus.

Or, if you’re visual like me a little something like this:

BIG PICTURE YEAR GOAL

👇

6 MONTH FOCUS
With important dates, general workflow, and promotions

👇

90-DAY FOCUS 

Specifics on what you’ll be sharing in your content, topics, etc...

HOW PLANNING LEADS TO CONSISTENCY

While I do have a team to support my business efforts today, I've been doing this since I was sailing the ship by myself. Having a clear idea of how I was showing up every week for my audience allowed me to continuously grow my audience and make sales.

As an online brand wanting to build a revenue-generating business you don’t want to disappear or ghost your growing audience, this is why creating consistent content is important.

Consistently creating content and putting your brand out into the world will allow you to continuously attract new people who have never seen you before, lead them through the process, and ultimately to the sale. 

And rather than constantly feeling overwhelmed with, "What should I talk about?" How would it feel if you just took an hour, every quarter, to plan all that out? 

I promise you, you get faster at it, and it gets easier.

RECAP

So let's quickly go through the five-step process again, and then I'm going to let you go on your way and start planning the next six months in business. I like to do this every quarter, adding on the next three months, but you can start this now, whenever you're reading this blog. It does not matter, but getting yourself in the habit will do tremendous things for your productivity and creativity.

Number 1: Think big picture. Remember, we're not talking nitty-gritty details for the next six months. We're looking at our goals for the year, and we're saying, "What is my focus going to be the next 90 days, the next six months? And how is that going to get me to my end goal?"

Number 2: Make sure you have a workflow in place. If you don't know what that is, or you need a step-by-step, go ahead and watch this video and grab this free gift. That is going to help you with this process.

Number 3: Determine any big dates, any big launches, and promotions. if you're going to launch a new freebie if you're launching a podcast if you're going on vacation. Whatever it is, it goes on your calendar, so you can work around it and reverse engineer any necessary promo.

Number 4: Put the six-month calendar up. Make it visible. Don't hide your plans. And if you can put it on a wall in your office or have a binder or something like that, go ahead and do that. But get that six-month calendar up. Put the major dates on there that we talked about in step three, and then put your workflow, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, all the different things up there, with Post-its or dry erase or something.

Number 5:Add the individual details for the next 90 days. We add these details into ClickUp but you can use any task management software. Again, the calendar that I'm looking at behind me has very specific dates. How I'm showing up, launches, promos. But all my emails aren't up there. All of that stuff is in my task management platform, ClickUp. This is my big picture. This keeps me focused. This is my roadmap.

CONCLUSION

So I hope that this blog supported you in starting to think about the power of planning and how it can ultimately help you feel more aligned, make better decisions as a CEO, and be more creative. 

Let's remove the overwhelm with a plan! And this roadmap is going to make a difference.

Be sure that you save this post, so you can come back to it and you can repeat this process time after time. 

If you want to take a look at this layout, I've also linked the reel that I shared with you, if you want to physically see what this calendar looks like. 

And make sure you check out the workflow video to walk you through creating your repeatable workflow. And for additional support, go to brandmerry.com/repurpose to grab a complete repurposing guide that talks about creating your workflow.

Watch the full video here!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Turn One Piece of Content into 20+ (Ultimate Repurposing Guide)

If you’d like to watch this in video form, you can do that right here.

There is absolutely no reason why you should have to reinvent the wheel every single week when it comes to sharing content in your business. 

Furthermore, there’s no reason why you SHOULDN’T be able to create multiple pieces of content from a single topic. Today on the blog, I’m sharing how to make your life a million times easier.

The topic of repurposing is my secret sauce to marketing, although it's not really a secret anymore because I talk about it all the time, it saved my business; it saved my sanity, to be honest. 

I've truly spent the last five years fine-tuning my approach to repurposing to where it runs like a freaking machine. Just to give you a sneak peek this blog you’re reading right now was created over a month ago (more on that strategy in a bit).

This art of repurposing all comes back to understanding the content workflow and creating a plan that works for you. 

So today I want to share with you how to create a content workflow, how to really embrace the art of repurposing, and ultimately, I'm going to share how you can take one piece of content and turn it into 20 plus pieces of content for your business.

3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT

Before I jump into it, I do want to talk a little bit about why repurposing is so important. It will save you a lot of time and energy because you're not sitting down to create something new every single day, remembering to post it, and remembering to choose a new photo for it (one of the reasons I think many of us despise Instagram sometimes).

I know you know what I'm talking about because you've either been doing it in your business, or you've seen people doing it. And you're like, this seems very unattainable to constantly be thinking of something new to post.

When I first started as a solopreneur with a baby, I had no team. 
I was working nine-to-five at my full-time job. 
I was raising a baby, and trying to launch my business. 

I realized really quickly that I needed to find a really strategic way to create some core pieces of content and then make sure that I was getting them out everywhere to expand my reach and brand awareness.

So the number one reason you want to repurpose is that it saves your sanity and your time.

Number two is the fact that it’s actually more beneficial for you to create multiple variations of your content to create this more evergreen effect. 

If we're just posting on Instagram or Facebook, that content is going to disappear within 24 hours. 

Whereas if you're utilizing your blog, that content might take a little bit more time to get in front of the right people, but it's lasting for years and years to come using platforms like Pinterest to extend the life of your blog content. 

If you're really strategic, and you take one piece of content and are clear on exactly where you're putting it out, you're actually extending the life of that piece of content.

So the time that you're dedicating to creating that content is really helping in the long run. 

And finally, number three is that we can't expect that our audience is just going to see our stuff right when we post it. 

Everybody's got their own stuff going on, everyone's busy. So if we're only posting our content in one place at one time, then we're limiting ourselves. 

We're limiting our brand exposure, and we're making it really difficult for people to find the content that they need to know about us so they can move through the buying process to purchase our products or our services. 

So repurposing is essential as an entrepreneur, not just for your sanity, but also for strategic marketing. 

The following content is all about how to design your repurposing plan, but if you want to snag a free guide it’s going to help you take what you’re reading today and map it out for your business. 

You can grab this guide here.

REPURPOSE CONTENT STEP 1:
FIGURE OUT YOUR CORE CONTENT

The very first thing you want to do is figure out what your core content is going to be. 

Now, I recommend that this core content is a long-form piece of content, so something that is quite a few words, typically around a thousand words or so that you can break it up into smaller pieces. 

It'll make sense why we're doing that shortly. 

But this core piece of content typically comes in the form of blogging, video or podcasting. Those tend to be the top three that my audience and my clients like to gravitate towards. 

I do have a few clients who are super comfortable on social media, and that's their well-oiled machine. They're wanting to move into other areas like podcasting, video, or blogging so they like taking their three or four posts a week from social media and pulling them together into one single piece of content.

So that is available to you, but I find that the majority of my clients really love taking a long-form piece of content and then breaking that down. 

Keep in mind with all marketing strategies you want to choose the piece of long-form content that works best for you. 

I personally start with video content, so this blog actually came from a recorded video that I created first. This video gave me an entire week of content for my business.

👉 RECAP: Step one is to figure out what your core piece of content will be.

REPURPOSE CONTENT STEP 2:
DECIDE WHERE TO SHARE YOUR CONTENT

Number two is to decide on your platforms. 

Now, this is equal parts: 

• Where do you feel comfortable showing up? 

• Where do you want to show up? 

• Where's your audience showing up? 

So we never want to say, "I want to be on Twitter,” and your audience really isn't spending a lot of time on Twitter because that’s not going to help you build your business. 

So be really strategic, especially if it's just you in the beginning and you’re not working with a team, because you don’t have to be everywhere in fact, I don’t recommend it.

As you start to get better at mastering your workflow, you'll find that it's really easy to add on another social media platform or add on a different piece to your content, but in the beginning, start simple and you’ll have a greater impact.

The three areas that I recommend showing up, in the beginning, are one form of social media, one form of a search-engine-optimized platform, and email marketing. 

You should always be growing your email list, which means you should always be emailing your growing email list and making sure they are aware of your new content (remember, we can’t assume everyone has seen our initial post).

For search engine platforms you want to think Google (blogging), Pinterest (also blogging) and Youtube. These are platforms people are searching for content and answers on.

Then you’ll have your email list where you’ll send a link to your core piece of content for the week. If you want some tips on growing your email list using a lead magnet and funnel, be sure to check out this post here and another one here.

And a form of social media. Maybe that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or TikTok. You can have a little bit of fun with this one depending on where your audience is hanging out.

So that is where you want to decide where you are going to share this core piece of content.  And then ultimately making sure that you're falling into those three categories, email marketing, search engine optimization, and a form of social media.

👉 RECAP: Step two is determining where you’ll be showing up focusing on your email list, a search engine platform and at least one social media platform.

REPURPOSE CONTENT STEP 3:
MAP OUT YOUR REPURPOSING PLAN

Once you have your core content figured out and you've decided where you're going to share that core content and the additional pieces, now we get to map out the plan. 

So this is where the fun begins. Inside of the guide, there's actually a web that I've created so you can do this yourself. 

Essentially, you have your core piece of content in the center, and then you have all of these webs, kind of like mind mapping, that go out that have the different platforms and how many times you're going to show up on each of those platforms.

How I create 20 pieces of content from one topic

Here’s an example of my business, so you can see how this works. 

So we start with a core piece of content, which is a video I create as part of my weekly series Mondays With Michelle.

I record an entire month of videos in advance and then schedule each one as a premiere on Facebook and IGTV on Instagram every Monday. We also post on Youtube on Wednesdays.

So that's already three platforms out of the gate from one piece of content. 

In addition to that, we transcribe the video content and turn that into a blog post. So we transcribe our video pretty much exactly how it is and put that on our blog, which we've optimized for SEO, making sure that our title and our headers and keywords are going to show up in search engines. 

This post right here is one of those blog posts. That’s another piece of content bringing the total to four.

From that blog post, we create five-ish pin graphics for Pinterest to start, more down the road as we navigate analytics. 

We want to make sure that my content is getting seen on Pinterest because we have a very awesome strategy with Pinterest that brings in thousands of visitors every month, you might be one of them ;)

Pinterest is one of the mini-courses inside of my membership Brandmerry Academy because it’s so powerful for every business. So we're creating five additional pieces of content for Pinterest and those will be recycled not just that week, but over the course of a few weeks. And then the pins that do really well, we'll continue to put energy towards and optimize for years to come. 

That gives us a new total of nine pieces of content.

From that core piece of content (remember that video from the beginning), I'm showing up on Facebook and Instagram multiple times a week. We're typically creating two to three graphics or posts every week. We also create a Reel for Instagram as well.

That's on two platforms, so that's six additional pieces of content over that week and possibly into the next week as well, just depending on what we've got going on. 

Then in addition to that, we will create Instagram stories. I'll go on stories and just talk about the Mondays with Michelle before it is released, I’ll share the replay, I’ll share the Reel, etc…

And last but not least, I’m emailing my list at least once a week and saying, "Hey, I've got a new blog and I've got a new video up - check it out!" 

So that's about 20 pieces of various content that I'm putting out into the world. And it's coming from one single video, and I'm not having to recreate the wheel every time.

That core transcript from the initial video is creating the social media content, and it's creating the blog, and it's determining what the Pinterest graphics are going to be. 

So I don't have to think about what I’m going to write every single day. 

I hope you see how awesome this is because it's such a fun way to make sure that not only is your content getting into the hands of the people who need it most, but it's also making sure that you're becoming known for something in your industry. 

That's the power of branding - repeating yourself and saying the same things in different ways multiple times helps get your point across, builds brand credibility and recognition and really helps move your customer through the buying process. 

Another reason I love repurposing my content is that people are going to find your brand at different points of the buying process, meaning that someone who's further along and ready to purchase is most likely going to Google to find your products or your services, where someone who's just casually scrolling and casually looking for advice or education might be turning to social media.

So by showing up on these various platforms, you're able to make sure that you're bringing in people at various points of the buying process, which is truly, truly important as a business owner. 

👉 RECAP: Step three is mapping out the specifics of how many posts you’ll share on each platform and when throughout the week. You can grab the guide to do this on your own here.

REPURPOSE CONTENT STEP 4:
ADD YOUR WORKFLOW TO A TASK MANAGEMENT TOOL

So you have created your core content, decided on the platforms that you're going to show up with to start, mapped it out and determined what your workflow looks like. 

The next step is building the workflow in your task management software so you can repeat the process weekly. In the beginning, this is going to be super valuable to get you into a consistent flow and when you hire team members you’re going to be so thankful you had this all mapped out!

My favorite platform for this is ClickUp, but we’ve also used Asana and Trello.

After you've created your map of what that content is going to look like, then you want to make a checklist of the things you need to do.

For example:

• I have to pick the title for the content. 

• I need to write a script maybe if I’m doing a video.

• I'm going to take that video and transcribe it, so that's a step.

• Then I want to make the graphics for these different platforms (Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, etc…) 

I want you to list out every micro piece that goes into this process.

If you're a solopreneur, you might be like, "This is a long list, Michelle," and I get it, but I promise the more that you repeat this, the faster it will become for you and this list will keep you on track and out of your head.

Then when you are in a place where you're ready to add a team, you can very easily assign people the weekly things that they need to do for your business to keep it moving forward and to make sure that you're creating that consistent content.

Once you have your workflow designed as a checklist in your task management system you can save it as a template and then repeat it every single week for the new topic.

CONCLUSION

Repurposing isn’t just limited to your weekly content, although this is where I recommend starting because creating consistent content is essential as an online marketer.

Repurposing can be used in your programs, too. I’ve repurposed workshops that I've done, that I've turned into free content. 

Free content that I offered for a limited time, like a challenge, that I've turned into paid content or bonuses. 

Again, consistency doesn't mean you're showing up every single day, but it means that you're showing up for your audience and you're not peacing out for an entire month. 

The lack of consistency that might be happening is stalling their movement through the buying process and trust me you want to keep that momentum going.

Don’t forget to get your hands on my free Repurposing Guide, which includes some of my top tips, tools and the repurpose map! You can get your copy at brandmerry.com/repurpose.

If you are ready to master your content strategy and streamline your process, then you can get instant access to the Content Made Simple Roadmap for just $27 here.

P.S. Planning and creating your content doesn't have to be a constant struggle. There is a better way to research, plan, and create your content as an entrepreneur and it's all inside the Content Made Simple Roadmap.

The Content Made Simple Roadmap is perfect for online business owners who know the power of content creation but are tired of spending all of their time coming up with ideas, organizing their content, and wondering what will attract their dream clients.

In just a few hours, a repeatable workflow to save you hours on creating and distributing your content every week, and content topics that will keep performing for your brand for years to come! Get your roadmap now >>

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

4 Content Creation Tips for Entrepreneurs: Harness the Power of Evergreen Content in 2021

Seriously, content creation is one of y'all's favorite things that I talk about over here at Brandmerry, because I have been creating consistent content for my audience for five years now and honestly know a thing or two about creating content that brings in your ideal customer.

But, even though I’ve consistently created content for 5 years, you’re probably here because you know I do it in a very strategic way. 

I don't believe in just creating content to create content. 

I want to have workflows and systems that allow me to show up for you, to get in front of new ideal customers, to show up and nurture and build relationships with my existing audience, to ultimately lead members to a sale because at the end of the day I’m running a business and that last piece is kind of important.

And, after 5 years I know content creation allows me to do all of that.

Yet here’s the kicker - I want to make sure you know how to create content that doesn't involve you sitting behind a computer for hours and hours and hours every single day, trying to write up posts knowing that those posts are probably going to disappear.

Honestly, one of the most fun things that I get to do is create new content, and these 4 hacks that I've implemented have made all the difference not just in how I'm creating the content, but more specifically how long it's taking me to create it and how long the content lasts (it’s evergreen baby, more on that later).

Let’s get into the 4 tips. If you prefer to watch the training, scroll down for the video below.

CONTENT CREATION TIP #1: CONTENT RESEARCH

Let's dive into the first thing that I have for you on content creation hacks of 2021. This one is key. So I'm going to spend a little bit more time on this one than I will the others, so let’s buckle up!

This first step is all about your research. 

Now I don't know about you, but when I first started my business 5 years ago, people weren't really talking about how important it was to do research when creating content.

We were talking about ideal customer research as it applies to your branding and that is a crucial step. It was all about having conversations with people to find out how to ultimately message to them in your business. And this was great, it helps you get a solid start, but then what do you do?

No one was talking about the research that actually goes into creating content. This resulted in business owners posting things with the foundation of, “Oh, I think my audience might like this. This might work.” 

I fell into that trap for a really long time, until I started looking outside of my niche at what was really working for marketing as a whole. 

It always came back down to this idea that the data is always there. The information you need on what people are searching for is already there, you just have to take the time to do the research and look for it. 

This simple strategy opens up an entire method for creating content that is based on search engine results not just “oh, that might be nice!”

Why, is it important to think of things that people are searching for? Well, because they are searching for it! This means that you’re getting in front of cold leads (people who aren’t familiar with your brand and services every single day). This is key when you want to consistently scale your business, especially organically. 

When you're thinking about creating content, remember, we're not just creating content that is meant to serve people that already know our brand, we have to have consistent people coming in that funnel, finding you online, discovering you, getting to know you. That has to be a consistent stream in order for them to then binge read all your posts on Instagram or go binge-watch all your videos on YouTube.

This research phase requires you to do SEO or search engine optimized research.

What are people searching for as it relates to your niche on Google?
What about Pinterest?
And what about Youtube?

These are all search engine platforms, meaning someone is going there, typing in a question or topic and finding results, and these platforms can give you a freaking gold mine when it comes to finding topics for your content.

keyword research tools

In addition to using those platforms to find data-driven research, below are my favorite three tools to take your content creation topics to the next level.

KEYWORDS EVERYWHERE

One of my favorite tools is called Keywords Everywhere, and it is an extension that you can use on your Chrome browser. 

You do have to pay a small fee for a certain number of searches, but it is totally worth it because when you type topics into Google it’s going to show how many people are searching for that every single month, the cost per click and if it’s competitive.

You can start to play with that and find combinations that work really well for the topics in your industry. It's also going to give you a list of suggestions of other things that you might talk about. You could have an entire month's worth of content from just a few searches.

UBERSUGGEST

The other tool that I love to use in my business is called Ubersuggest and it is another Chrome extension. They do have a free option with a couple of limited searches every single month, but you can also pay for a paid version of that as well. 

Ubersuggest is another tool that we love to use over here for SEO, big picture, not just what content should I be creating, but how do I optimize that to show up and rank on Google? 

Again, you can type in topics that you think are of interest to your audience based on your ideal client research and what people are asking you. 

Then you can get the data to back that up. 

It also allows you to see some awesome variations of how people are asking questions, who is doing a great job ranking for that keyword and even a way to take a sneak at others in your industry for inspiration.

Remember, sometimes we think we have a great idea, but our title is sucky! Use Ubersuggest you can choose a title that’s going to get in front of your ideal customer.

ANSWER THE PUBLIC

While I don’t use this tool as much for content creation ideas it is an excellent tool for ideal customer market research to learn more about their internal and external problems. This of course will help with content topics, but it’s not as useful for determining strong SEO.

The tool is called Answer the Public and it pulls all the data from Google on the top questions that people are asking in certain areas, niches, industries, and around specific pain points. 

So you can take the information that you know about your ideal customer, put it in the search line, and it's going to give you all of these different questions that people are asking. By clicking on those, it'll then open it up to Google, where you'll be able to do more digging.

This stage takes a little bit of time, but it's absolutely worth it. And it's going to take the mystery out of what you should be writing and creating content around.

Everything that you're going to create regarding your content, which includes podcasts, blog posts, social media content, videos, is data-driven.

CONTENT TIP #2: DESIGN YOUR WORKFLOW

You should not be recreating the wheel every single week in your business. One of the areas that I have found that people struggle with when it comes to creating consistent content is that they don't have a workflow in place. 

So, while number one takes the mystery out of, “What do I talk about?”
This step takes the mystery out of, “How do I do it efficiently?”

You can have the best content ideas, but if you don't have systems and workflows in place, you're going to struggle with consistency showing up.

Here are some things to consider when thinking about your workflow:

• How many blog posts are you going to publish a week? 

• How many videos are you going to release weekly, bi-weekly, monthly? 

• Are you going to have a podcast? 

• What channels are you showing up on social media? 

• Are you going to be on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest?

The goal here is to determine where you’ll be showing up and how often. Now, you don’t need to be everywhere, we just don’t believe in that strategy here at Brandmerry, but you do need a clear idea of where you’ll be sharing your content.

My suggestion and something I teach inside of Brandmerry Academy is to choose one search engine optimized platform (Blogging/ Google, Pinterest or Youtube) and one social media channel to start.

Once you have that data you want to pull that into a workflow that might look something like this.

Step One: Create a blog post
Step Two: Turn that one blog post into 12 posts on Twitter for the week
Step Three: Then use that blog post to create two posts for Instagram.
Step Four: Record that blog post as a podcast episode.

You could do this a ton of different ways, figure out the way that works best for you. 

Some of my clients love blogging and writing, so that becomes their core content. 
Some of my clients love video, like myself, and that becomes their core content. 
Some love recording audio, podcasting and that becomes their core content.

Whatever core content you want, you can then push it out and repurpose it on multiple platforms. 

I’m going to do a video and blog in a few weeks on repurposing, but remember this step is all about the workflow. What needs to happen and when. If you want to grab a little cheat that I've put together for you, you can go to brandmerry.com/repurpose, and get your hands on more details regarding that. 

It’s these systems that allow us to build sustainable businesses.

CONTENT TIP #3: KNOW YOUR NUMBERS

Number three is a piggyback off of number one with the data, but this hack is all about knowing your numbers.

Seriously, please look at your analytics. They will tell you so much about what you want to scale in your business and can give you insight into the type of content that drives the most traffic, gets the most engagement and more.

While tip one might have focused a bit more on bringing your new audience in, this step can tell you a lot about your existing warm audience. 

• What types of videos do well? 

• What types of podcast titles and episodes have a higher listener rate? 

• What kind of blog posts are getting more rank on Google, are getting more traffic from Pinterest? 

• Which of your social media posts get more saves and shares and engagement? 

• Do people prefer certain topics or imagery on your social media?

You have to make it a habit to look at your numbers. 

I suggest looking at your numbers every 30 days and making small adjustments and every 90 days planning your bigger moves for the next quarter of content.

For instance, I did a podcast episode about morning routines, which was one of the hardest things for me to do because I have a very different take on morning routines. You can listen to that podcast episode over on the Beautiful Climb Podcast, but this was the topic that we knew my audience cared about and would do well.

We had seen it through Instagram posts and through past Pinterest traffic. All kinds of data was saying, “Do this dang podcast episode, Michelle.” 

So I did it and it was our highest listenership because we knew that it was going to be. 
It was one of our most viewed reels that I created on Instagram. 
We then took that content and turned it into a blog post and that blog post is doing amazing on Pinterest. 

So the data is there and once you have this consistent rhythm and that workflow in place, you can start to take the guesswork out of creating content. 

Look at your analytics, know your numbers, create more of what is working.

Now you can absolutely experiment and play around with things and you should, but always remember to come back to your numbers and allow that to fuel those decisions. 

One of the areas that perform well in my business is video. As we ended 2020 we had a lot of data on what worked best and how we could make some modifications heading into 2021.

Here’s an example of how the data then fueled a change in my marketing.

While we knew video did really well in my business we were seeing that live video wasn’t necessarily working better than prerecorded.

At this point, I was going live every Monday at the same time to deliver branding and marketing tips as part of my show Mondays With Michelle.

Live video takes more time and energy on my part, so rather than not creating videos, we realized that we could pre-record bulk video content. 

So four to five videos, depending on how many weeks are in a month to be released every single Monday on Facebook as a premiere, and on IGTV, and then repackaged to release on YouTube later on.

So by looking at the data, we realized that we could make this adjustment. I could have more time in my schedule to take on more clients, which resulted in more money and it all came from looking at the data.

CONTENT TIP #4: OUTSOURCING

The last tip I want to share with you is centered around freeing up more of your time by outsourcing. Now before you're like "Michelle, I don't have the money to invest in a team," I totally understand and that’s not necessarily what I’m implying so keep reading!

When I say outsourcing, I mean tech or team. So if you have the means to hire a virtual assistant or somebody to manage your workflow in ClickUp or wherever you're setting it up, to publish your videos, to edit your videos, then absolutely do that. 

Start to outsource those content creation pieces very early on if you have the means to invest in that. 

If you don't have the money or means to do that just yet, there are tech options available that are going to yes, be an investment, but a small amount compared to how much time you're spending.

For example, you can use a tool called Veed.io, which I talked about in my recent blog on my favorite Marketing Tools here, to resize your videos for different platforms, add transcripts and even edit the title and captions. 

You can use a transcript service like Rev.com to upload your video or podcast and have a full transcript that you can then turn into your blog. 

There are a lot of tech options out there that will help you streamline this entire content creation process. And again, as you begin to build your revenue, you can then build your team, which is going to make your life so much easier!

Content creation is the heart of your business. Without strong content, you can't attract your ideal customer, you're not nurturing your existing audience, you're not showing up for them and you’ll have a hard time selling.

So creating content should be a very, very important part of your brand and of growing your business.

This is where I recommend that people invest pretty early on when it comes to tech and team, and when it comes to marketing and advertising dollars as well. 

Remember, to save this blog for future reference and grab your free repurposing guide at brandmerry.com/repurpose to master your workflow.

P.S. Planning and creating your content doesn't have to be a constant struggle. There is a better way to research, plan, and create your content as an entrepreneur and it's all inside the Content Planning Blueprint!

The Content Planning Blueprint is perfect for online business owners who know the power of content creation but are tired of spending all of their time coming up with ideas, organizing their content, and wondering what will attract their dream clients.

In just a few hours, you'll have 90 days of content planned, a repeatable workflow to save you hours on creating and distributing your content every week, and content topics that will keep performing for your brand for years to come! Get your blueprint now >>

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

10 Branding Quotes to Inspire Entrepreneurs in 2021

10 Branding Quotes to Inspire Entrepreneurs in 2021

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Who doesn’t love a good quote?

Fun fact, during my high school graduation speech I listed out my top quotes. Super original, but like I said everyone loves a good quote.

So what better way to motivate us to build an amazing personal brand than quotes from the experts

After you dive into these quotes, save them to your Pinterest board and hang them in your office (hello, motivation) be sure to watch my free class on How to Build a Better Brand.

Sign up for the on-demand training here>>

10 Branding Quotes for Entrepreneurs

“If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” - Howard Schultz

Why this quote is important: Brand Affinity is an aspiration that every brand should have. It is the shared values between a consumer and a brand and leads to brand loyalty. Focus on your brand values from the start and let them shape the voice of your brand.

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” - Seth Godin

Why this quote is important: Branding can feel confusing, what is it really? This quote from Seth Godin is one of the classic definitions of a brand. Remembering that it’s not about the product or service and the overall combination of memories, stories, relationships and more.

“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” - Steve Forbes

Why this quote is important: As a Personal Brand Consultant I 100% agree with this quote because I’ve seen it time and time again as the #1 contribution to a successful business. Inside my 6-part Build a Better Brand Method class, I share how your solid brand foundation leads to success in all aspects of your business. Spending not only money but also time building that foundation is key.

“It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have. Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything, and more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level.” - Gary Vaynerchuk

Why this quote is important: The truth is your business is going to change. Your products and services will evolve and how exhausting would it be to have to change your brand as that happens? When you focus on building your personal brand around you then it evolves with you and your strong reputation follows.

“If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” - Zig Ziglar

Why this quote is important: This has been the most influential quote in my entire business. When I first discovered this my first year in business I instantly saw the purpose behind the frequent posts, emails, content, etc. I realized it’s all about building trust! It might not lead to the most likes or comments on a post, but over time I’m building trust with my audience and that has repeatedly proven to be the most important strategy as a business owner.

“Your brand is not what you sell.” – John Iwata

Why this quote is important: Can I get an amen? Too often I watch business owners brand their product or service and find themselves with no community and no sales. As I’ve mentioned before, focus on building a brand foundation and allow your products and services to be an extension of that.

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin

Why this quote is important: While this might be more marketing-focused, I hope you realize how both branding and marketing fit so perfectly together. Marketing won’t survive with a solid brand and a solid brand won’t survive without a marketing strategy. You’re probably picking up on a theme in this post, but it’s not about what you sell, it’s about the experience and storytelling is an excellent way to share that with your ideal customers.

“If no one hates it, no one really loves it.” - Jessica Walsh

Why this quote is important: I often say a good brand should both attract and repel and the reason for this is that when you’re clear on your values, your niche is specific and your messaging is direct, there will be people who like it and others that don’t. This is great! Stop trying to please everyone with your brand and focus on your ideal customer only.

“Demand for your business is driven by the quality of your reputation. Live and breathe your values to maintain control of your brand reputation.” -  Stacey Kehoe

Why this quote is important: I told identifying your brand values was key, but I think this quote also ties in the importance of transparency and an authentic brand. Your personal brand should be an extension of you - it doesn’t have to be all of you, this isn’t your diary, but it should be a living and breathing representation of who you are, your ideal customer and your values.

“Your personal brand is the experience you’re creating for your audience. Think of it as the beating heart of your business.” - Michelle Knight

Why this quote is important: Why, yes I did just quote myself and I’m not ashamed. I want to leave you with this vision of your brand. When we think of starting a business we often jump into all the logistics and systems, completely bypassing the very thing that makes it survive - your brand. Start to think of your brand as the heart of your business and watch as your ideal customers come seeking you out.

Don’t forget to sign up for my free training on the Build a Better Brand Method. It’s completely free and will support you in better understanding not only the purpose of a personal brand but also how to follow my 6-part framework to bring your brand to life.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.