08 - Get Your Content On - 6 W's of Content Mini Marketing August Edition with Abi Jacks

Welcome back to another episode of the Mini Marketing Podcast with Abi Jacks!

In this power-packed session, we explore the lifeblood of effective marketing:

Content Creation. Abi breaks down the essentials of crafting engaging, purpose-driven content that resonates deeply with your audience. Whether you're wrestling with what to say, how to say it, or when to release it, this episode lays out a straightforward blueprint to elevate your content strategy.

Discover the "Six W's of Content"—a checklist that ensures your content hits the mark every time. From identifying the purpose to pinpointing the perfect timing, Abi guides you through creating a content plan that speaks directly to your audience's needs and interests. Plus, get exclusive tips on turning those middle-of-the-night brainwaves into compelling marketing gold with practical tools and insights.

If you're looking to refine your approach to content or just starting out and need direction, this episode is your mini-masterclass in marketing.

Stay tuned for more insightful episodes from Steps2Success, where we help you navigate the challenges of running a children's activity organisation with practical advice and expert insights.

Created with pride by LoveAdmin

Edited with finesse by Making Digital Real

Transcript

0:00

Hi everybody, I'm Abi Jacks, Director of Marketing and Growth at LoveAdmin, and you're listening to the Mini Marketing Podcast, where I'll be taking you through the world of marketing for your children's activity organisation, with no buzzword bingo as a promise. Welcome back to Mini Marketing, I hope you enjoyed the last session on how to know your brand. If you haven't heard it, then check out the full Step to Success channel and add 10 minutes to your listening experience. Today, I'm going to be talking about a massive topic, which is a tricky one to fit in such a short episode, but I will give it a shot. Content, the one thing that you can't really do a huge amount of marketing without. The one thing that you can make or break a connection with your audience with, and the one thing that just takes time to build up. The positive is that we all have reels of content probably running through our mind all day, and for me, often into the early hours of the morning. I'll come back to that point a bit later. If you're thinking about what content to write, then I would say break it down to the following things. Number one, what is its purpose? Number two, who is it for? Number three, what do they care about? Number four, what format is it taking? Number five, what can people take away from it? And number six, when is it most suitable? As I'm in marketing and we love to create lists because they are easy to be remembered, let's call these the six W's of content. A great way to work on these six things is to create a content planning template. Nothing fancy, you can draw it out on Excel, or we've created a template that you can access in Love Admin School of Marketing to get started. It's easy to enrol and costs nothing. Just head over to loveadmin.com and the registration page can be found under business support. For those of you who don't know the School of Marketing, it actually came from the ideation of these mini marketing podcasts. I basically wanted folks to have something they could refer back to, listed out everything people needed to get started with marketing, and voila, it turned into the training school. Any activity provider can enrol. I just wanted everyone to get access to marketing learning to help them grow. That's a mini content learning in itself, podcast turned marketing school, and in a matter of months. Anyway, back to content. First and foremost, you need to think about who your content's for and what its purpose is. Otherwise, you risk just throwing content out there in volume that isn't really resonating with your audience. For those of you who followed my podcast in order, this will sound familiar because I talk about it in getting to know your audience. There'll always be repetition to the content I'm giving you because I know it can take up to seven times for a message to sink in. Keep that in mind when building your content plan. Are you writing content for potentially customers or members? Is it for existing customers? Is it for teachers and coaches? Is it for Google? Are you writing it to support a promotion, a new event or class, or because you want to attract people to sign up? Or are you looking to improve your search rankings? Perhaps you want to keep existing customers in the loop and informed, or it's coming up to renewals time, and you want to help people choose to renew with you and smoothly. By giving yourself a quick check before you start creating content, you give the piece focus and help remind yourself of the key messages that need to be in there and what the call to action is. Note, a call to action is the action you ask people to take during or at the end of the content. Any content without a clear call to action is a little wasted, to be honest. Creating this content takes precious time. You unlikely have a lot of, so make sure that you're purposeful with it. Now you know who and what your content is for, make sure you're also thinking about what they're going to get from it. There is plenty of content out there written for the writer. What they want to say instead of what the audience will find helpful and care about. Put yourself in their shoes and make it easy for your audience to consume it. Stick to a tone that they're familiar with. Don't be overly formal if you know that's not their type. And stay true to your brand and consistent in how you talk or you're giving your audience mixed messages. On format, there are some things to consider. If you're trying to increase search rankings, then you want blogs or articles that answer questions. People are likely to ask Google. So think about it in that way when deciding on your title and how you write it. Is it a list of five ways that said class can improve your child's confidence in response to best classes for child confidence? Or is it the best swim classes for five to eight-year-olds in response to the search of what level should my five-year-old be swimming at? If you're looking at video content, then make sure you're showing that at the top of your page because Google will want to see it up there on the landing page. If your content, however, is to support a Facebook community or an Instagram page, then your content will need to be short and snappy and highly visual. So what topics will work with that? And then what are you trying to convey? These are simple, single message content pieces that can be skimmed and are often entertaining or they'll resonate with people emotionally. Timings. Think about the best time for your content and topics. If you're pushing something seasonal like holiday camps or a winter promotion, you want your content to run up to that probably a couple of months ahead. And if you want to stay topical, look at what's happening for your audience or in your industry when you're writing. There's nothing worse than a great piece of content that doesn't land because it was just totally the wrong time. And don't just think about which month to post it, what day or week and time of day is likely to suit your audience. You can test and look at what's best for you, but the general rule of thumb is avoid school runs and mealtimes and think about when is there likely downtime or are they commuting? Hello mobile content or podcasts in the car. Now there's no perfect time to create content, so use what works for you. Don't ask me why, but when I'm resting, read that as trying to sleep and my mind isn't full of the millions of tasks throughout the day. That's when the little nuggets of joy come to the surface and want to play. That always creates a quandary for me. Do I try and hold on to the thoughts enough that when I do get up, they'll be remembered? Or do I give in and grab my phone to write down some notes that will make sense later on? I've honestly tried both. I have Otter on my phone so I can dictate my thoughts first thing in the morning when the brightness of the screen is just too much for typing. Hubby doesn't really appreciate that at 3am though. Most of these nuggets aren't fully formed. I like to think of them as night nuggets, not to be confused for the tasty chicken ones. They may just be flashes of inspiration, but they're worth capturing no matter when and how they come to you. Notes on your phone, notes in an ideas book, notes on a sticky note. Get them out of your head and where you can see them. Because once these notes are real and not just unformed thoughts, the best way to tackle them is to block out an hour. Lock yourself away with no interruptions. That means you phone. Team members and messaging apps. Open up a Word doc and start writing something. If this sounds daunting and you're thinking, but I'm not a writer, what do I know? Well done, you're 100% normal and human and like the rest of us. You don't need to write war and peace, which is probably best to avoid in the children's activity space actually. But your subconscious and brain gave you some nuggets, which means it's highly likely you know or have an opinion on something that's relevant. So don't think about how your grammar is, because thanks to AI and spell check, that can be easily rectified. Just start writing something that your audience will find A, useful, B, honest, and C, easily digestible. I refer back to avoiding war and peace. I will be honest, when I had my nighttime nugget of starting a podcast and in the morning I spent half an hour sitting in bed writing out subject titles into my phone, I didn't worry about what each podcast was actually going to cover. Today, when I blocked out an hour to write this one, I started with a title, I opened Word, and I just started typing some thoughts on it. I'm now 700 words in and I'm thinking, I should probably form some structure around this to help my listeners digest and follow some key advice. But the important thing is I'm flowing. I've gotten started and it's easier to refine once you're off the starting line. By now, what you're listening to will not be my first draft, but I've left this in just as an example that even those of us trained in marketing and creating content still need a kick to get off the start line now and then. My final thought is on perfection. Don't get hung up on perfecting something. You are likely to be much more critical of your work than your audience and it's not written for you, remember? Yes, make sure there are no typos or spelling errors. I would advise you close the piece and come back to it later to make final checks because we can get wind to those when we're first writing. But don't hold off using it because it's not quite perfect in your mind. Nobody will benefit from a draft that they never see. As usual, I've covered a lot, but I hope it was helpful, gave you some inspiration, and you can read back through the transcripts or even hop over to the Love Admin School of Marketing where there are a few courses on content that you can benefit from. If you're enjoying my practical pods, subscribe to the Step2Success channel and next month I'll take you through how you can hit all your marketing pillars at once when I've written it. I'm just one of the experts dedicated to helping Love Admin customers achieve success. And if you're looking for a software provider that gives you more and will help you grow, visit loveadmin.com to see what working with us looks like. I'll see you next time.