How to create content that converts #30

In this episode of Content Catalyst, Deb Szabo, a marketing strategist and video coach, shares 12 key steps to create content that converts and directly impacts your bottom line. She discusses the evolving landscape of digital marketing, the importance of aligning content with business goals, and strategies for developing a content marketing plan that resonates with your audience.

Summary: Deb Szabo outlines a comprehensive approach to content marketing, covering everything from setting goals and understanding your audience to developing a content workflow and distribution strategy. She emphasises the importance of aligning content with business objectives, creating a vivid story framework to understand your ideal audience, and using AI tools to enhance content creation and keyword research. The episode provides practical tips for auditing existing content, developing a brand vibe, and using metrics to monitor content performance.

Time Stamp Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction and overview of content marketing challenges

03:15 - Step 1: Setting goals aligned with business objectives

05:30 - Step 2: Defining and understanding your audience

08:45 - Step 3: Developing effective messaging using the VIVID Story framework

12:20 - Step 4: Keyword research for discoverability

14:00 - Step 5: Auditing existing content for success clues

16:30 - Step 6: Choosing the right content formats and platforms

19:15 - Step 7: Defining content categories 22:45 -

Step 8: Creating a recognisable brand vibe

24:30 - Step 9: Monitoring metrics for content performance

26:15 - Step 10: Content distribution strategies

29:00 - Step 11: Developing an efficient content workflow

31:45 - Step 12: Using a content planner for consistency

34:30 - Recap of the 12 steps and conclusion

Resources:

1. Content Catalyst Blueprint: https://www.debszabo.com/Blueprint

2. Perplexity AI: For content research and ideation

3. CapCut: Video editing tool for creating short clips

4. Vista Social: Content scheduling platform

5. Notion: Project management and content planning tool

This episode is for you if you're interested in; Content marketing strategy Business growth AI in content creation Content that converts Audience targeting Marketing Message Content categories Branding Content distribution Content workflow Content planner SEO and discoverability Content auditing Metrics and analytics Perplexity AI Video content Repurposing content Content scheduling Personal branding Notion for content planning

Episode Transcript

is your content converting into sales
if you answer no to these three questions
then this episode could be for you
when creating content to promote your business
do you always know what to talk about online
No.2 does your content marketing align with your business goals
and No. 3 do you create content that solves your audience's problems
hi I'm Deb Zabor
I'm a marketing strategist and video coach
and in this episode of Content Catalyst
I will share how to get a content strategy
that directly impacts your bottom line
so digital marketing is constantly evolving
how we connect with our buyers
AI is changing how we create content and how we also get discovered
um like it's a
it's really saving us so much time
like the content creation process
I can you know
edit a video in just a few clicks now
so the other thing to note is that open AI
is also changing how people are searching for what they need
so like I use perplexity AI and that's my assistant for the day
I rarely Google anything now
and I was talking to some people last night about this subject
and I'm like how many times do you use ChatGPT on your phone
or perplexity on your phone
and that's how um
we're evolving now searchgpt is also coming and um
certainly Google has got a lot of keeping up to do to
if they wanna maintain their
you know go to you know
the term of I'll just Google it
you know is not gonna be the term that we'll be using um
you know down the track
so the question is how do we create content that converts well
today I'm gonna walk you through 12 key steps
so you never run out of content
ideas of what to say and dial in your messaging
so your content resonates with your audience
and also the workflow of how to make it happen as well
so number one is goals
are you creating content that aligns with your business goals
so for example if I wanted to set up a new office location
that would be my business goal however
my content marketing goal would be to build a database
ah of 1,000 potential clients in that region
now when I'm creating business goals
I'm always quantify it
because when you go back and review your metrics
you wanna know yes I built a database
but did I increase it by the percentage that I wanted or um
did I hit the number that I wanted
so smart goals they call it
so have a think about write down three of your business goals
and write down three of your content marketing goals
that align with each other
No. 2 audience
now this is where again
a lot of people do have a vague idea of who their customer is
in a broad sense but what we wanna do in defining our audience
so we create content that resonates is really profiling those people
now um
I do two things when I create a content marketing strategy
and that is I look at the cohort
so the cohort imagine this right
so
if you were to speak in front of an auditorium of your ideal audience
and let's say there are 1,000 people in there of your ideal people
that would be your cohort
okay so they
your you know
females age between you know
45 and 55 that are self employed
okay so that'd be your cohort
your audience your Avatar however
is when you grab one of those people out of the audience
and get them up on stage
and then profile them and have a conversation with them
so that's your Avatar and the more specific we get with your Avatar
the better the content that you can create that resonates with them
now I did a video challenge last month
and it was about how to create a sales video
so I gave you an 8 step um
sales script on how to write out your video
and one of the things that um
the first couple of days was about the messaging and the planning and
of your video and writing out the script
and this is probably the one place that most people got stuck on
was really understanding um
the language that uh
our audience uses and creating those real life scenarios
and so when we profile our Avatar
we really uncover what's their motivations
what are their challenges
what are their pain points
and then we can start to really um
use the language and thought process that they're thinking
and feeling
and that's when people will hear a piece of your content and go
oh my God I thought you were talking about me
so when we profile our Avatar
it's about really getting detailed as much because let's say
let's just say that we were talking about a woman
age between 45 and 55
you've got a really broad spectrum of that of going
well if Sarah is fifty has she got children living at home
is she still running around playing soccer mom on a Saturday or other
is she an empty nester for example
and so her habits will change depending on those kind of things
so that's why we really wanna dial in our Avatar with um
who our audience is
so No. 3 is messaging and this follows very closely on with our ideal
um
person and I have an exercise that I do called a Vivid Story exercise
so when you do this exercise
this is where you start to again
dial in your messaging and start to really understand
your Avatar even further so Vivid Story stands for visualise impact
value and implement and desire
so we go through each column of uh
understanding our Avatar by visualizing what are their pain points
what are their motivations
what are their challenges
what are they thinking what are they feeling
what are they doing what are they not doing
and so when we understand this
then we understand the impact that if they don't work with you
what's the consequences what's the impact if they don't work with you
and so when we understand that
then we can understand the transformation that you offer
and that's your value so your value isn't just I offer this course
the value is all the levels and layers
of what makes you different to everybody else
because there could be 10 people lined up that do the same thing
however
nobody does it like you
and then that's where we delve into what is your niche
what's your USP your unique selling point
and so then when we understand that
the transformation comes from when they implement what you do
and a lot of the time when I see people actually make content
um and let's say it's an online course for example
and I've been guilty of this please
you know I'm not
not perfect in any way of all of this
and this is why I can share this with you
is that if we don't articulate the transformation of what we offer
then again we're missing out on dialing in our messaging
and of course then the result is uh
the desire
what's their desired outcome when they actually do work with you
um and it's not always about
you know again
we're using top level wording when I um
work with a lot of clients
is that they may turn around and use the words um
the impact is you know the
the challenges are for them um
is that they're procrastinating or they're overeating okay
so and let's say if you were a health coach
uh helping someone
but the reality is if we were dialing in the scenarios of uh
what they were doing um
procrastinating might be uh
doom scrolling on TikTok for hours
um while they're eating um
you know a packet of Tim Tams and that's overeating
so when we give those real life scenarios
it changes how we um
connect with our audience
and the other thing about that as well
those real life scenarios are really powerful
when we go to make video content or get B roll content of um
describing and show showing
and demonstrating what our audience is going through
and how you help them so that's why that is really
really important and if I say anything out of all the um
the 12 steps that I'm gonna share with you today
that vivid story with your audience and your messaging is the
you know probably the most important part there
uh so once we do our messaging
that's No. 3 then No. 4
then we use what we've got
so our goals our core offer
our audience our messaging
and then we get to our keywords
so keywords equals SEO it equals discoverability
it equals um what people are searching up to uh
remedy their pain points
and when we create content that uses those keywords
then we have better opportunities to be discovered and found
and essentially you've got your solution and you've got your audience
and those keywords are like the glue that helps
um like a magnet that it helps to attract uh
you both together so the keywords is all about um
when you let's say you do a podcast
you know like I will use perplexity
um to help me write my show notes
uh for this podcast for example but I'll also ask it to um
pull out the keywords
because when people are on YouTube or on Google or on
um ChatGPT or on perplexity
finding the wanting solutions to their problems
they're typing in those words and that's what we wanna um uncover
alright so No. 5 is audit
success leaves clues so when we look at what we've already been doing
we then can start to paint a picture of what content that we're uh
doing actually resonates with our audience
and what's not resonating with our audience
so when we audit
uh what we've been doing
then we can start to look at what opportunities we're missing out on
and what opportunities we can dial in and amplify
and the other thing about when we look at auditing
what we're currently doing is then we can actually look at um
where your stuck points are
where are your sticky points of where you're not optimizing your um
content marketing workflow as well
um the other thing about auditing
things is that you could actually be
creating a lot of content for a platform
so let's say um
you're spending all this time on Instagram
but actually your audience is over on LinkedIn
and you're not doing LinkedIn
and I've been guilty of this
um then uh
this is the opportunity to actually go in and uh
take advantage of um
those platforms that you're not um
currently engaged in so uh
and it also gives you an opportunity to uh
update your BIOS and look at what you've been work um
you know what you need to work on
I've just done this recently with my own business
so I've just gone through all my social media
uh platforms because
you know when we're setting up our business
for example
we can just be in the mode of just got a ticket off the list
and that's fine I'll always say done is better than perfect
but there is a point that you've got to go back in and level up
and that's what I'm doing with all of my content at the moment
I'm auditing my BIOS in fact
I've got somebody just um
looking with fresh eyes on my bio at the moment as I speak
and the reason why I think that's a good plan as well
is because sometimes we're too close to our business and
and you know I go back to
it's always hard to read the label from inside the jam jar
so
I've got my team and also experts and mentors going in and auditing
look my BIOS and seeing if they're optimized now
and what I need to actually make improvements on
so like I said success leaves clues
and it also gives you an
idea of where you need to plug the holes that you're not taking
advantage of
so No. 6 when we are creating content that converts is uh
the formats what platforms are right for you and
and this follows on very closely once you order your content
so then you can look at going cool um
I am missing out on all of these opportunities here on LinkedIn
and what is uh my strategy then gonna be uh
that my posting strategy that I'm gonna do for um
for LinkedIn and then I can look at what is the culture
what's working over there at the moment
so I know like infographics are working really well and um
LinkedIn has just released um a video feed
so these are the things that then we can go through and look at
what is the culture
the culture on TikTok is very different than over on Instagram
the style of videos that you create um
YouTube for example is gonna be different again
so think about um what are the cultures of each um
platform and you'll find often that you will have a platform first
you know so some people might just prefer to
you know only deal on LinkedIn because they're a writer by heart
where if you love creating video and um
you want to uh position yourself as a thought leader
then certainly you YouTube is a great place for you to be over and um
use that as your platform first
when you do platform first by the way
it's like sometime depends on how your brain works like for me
I like to tackle one thing
really go in deep and um nail it and then move on to something else
if I start to scatter myself all over the place of doing things
I I tend to you know get a bit distracted
a bit of sciatica so for example at the moment for October
I am doubling down on YouTube
so that is my whole strategy that I'm gonna focus all on in
and that's why inside Content Catalyst membership
we're also um gonna be dialing in our YouTube um
activities as well so then we get to No. 7 content categories
so the uh I ran a poll on my Instagram Stories the other day asking
what do people get stuck with
is it time content ideas
um tech you know
all of the above
and it always comes down to knowing what to talk about
so when you have done those exercises of looking at your core offer
looking at your messaging
your audience your keywords
then you can actually come in and start to define
your content categories now your content categories
think of them like buckets of information
or topics that you talk about
or how you help people and serve people
and their pain points of your audience
okay so now when we go to create content
and this is kind of a little bit of a um
a grind point for me when I hear people say
when you create your content pillars
create entertaining content
education content behind the scenes content
testimonial content yes
they're not content category
they're not your content pillars
what they are they're an approach to how you create your content
that's the style of content that you can create
your content categories however
really defines the offer that you have and uh
the pain points that you solve for people
so for example uh
now think about this create between three and seven
you know some people like I'm
I'm working with a health coach at the moment that's got three okay
so theirs is all about nutrition um
movement and mindset okay
so they're the three key three key categories that they have
but out of that
the movement has plenty and probably about 20 sub topics out of that
so then they have yoga swimming
um you know uh
Pilates all the things that help talk about movement
now the difference is is if
if I was doing
say yoga and I was doing an entertaining post about yoga
I could create some like what's a what's a what's a you know
a struggle that people have when they're doing yoga
and it could be your dog tries to come and lick your face
that's an entertaining post about yoga
educating would be here's my routine on how I
you know kick off my morning by spending
you know 20 minutes doing this yoga exercise um
you know you're gonna increase your um
you know your blood flow
your blah blah blah blah blah so educating them
but you also might do a tutorial in that
and take them through a 10 minute before work yoga
uh behind the scenes might be you setting up for your yoga class
so you can see how the content category is about movement
the topic is yoga
but the style and the approach and the angle that we take is um
how we tell the story so um doing this again
I you know go in and if you've got
if you've done the exercises of the first um
six things that I've just told you
then you can actually use AI to come in and help um
uncover some more information with this as well uh
in my so I do a contact catalyst blueprint and um
for people that have been working with me
1 to 1 at the moment on this
they've um
I did this exercise with somebody last weekend
and we whiteboarded everything out up until this point
and then we use so I've created inside each um
stage of the blueprint
I've created a I prompts to uncover more in depth information
and I use Perplexity AI so once we um
get to the next step we upload that into perplexity and it
and it extracts all this goodness that we think
oh gosh I didn't even think about that
you know um
so when we get to that stage
being able to use those AI prompts in well sorry
not in that stage in every stage is really
really powerful to um
dive a little bit deeper in what we're doing
and it also saves us so much time
like honestly the
the amount of time I can save uh
by using these AI prompts is um yeah hours
okay No. 8
when we create content that connects
first of all we wanna be recognizable and we need to be memorable
we need to be relevant we need to be top of mind
and so how do we stand out from the crowd
how do we dial in what makes you uniquely you
and that's by having a good brand vibe
so what is your personal brand
what is your business brand
how are you recognizable and memorable
so then we go through and we um
we do a um
a brand vibe at guide and then we establish what makes you
you what's you
you know what makes you uniquely um
and it could be the colours of what you wear
it could be the glasses of what you do
it could be a tagline it could be a signature look
it also comes down to your um
brand vibe is you know
especially when we're doing video content
what are your captions that you're using
what is the style of captions
what is the style of video that you create
so if you can create a template of how you show up and do your videos
not only is it gonna save you so much time
but it's also going to help your audience um
make the connection that your um
of your content as well online
so No. 9 is metrics so again
like when we get to auditing our content
we have to monitor what we're doing
because especially when we're doing campaigns
you know last month I was talking all about campaigns
um and launches and when we're in launch mode
for example we wanna understand what's working for us now and what is
um what needs some help
because when you're in the middle of a campaign and it's not um
resonating with your audience
the title could be off the um
the messaging could be wrong at the visuals could be off
if you go in and just by tweaking something
and I've done this so many times over the years
when an event's not selling out or
you know the campaign isn't um uh
resonating I'll go in and update it
so when you monitor what you're doing and track those metrics
you can see what's working and do more of that
or uncover those sticky points and rectify it and go why
why I've had all this growth over here and then I've um
dignified here so monitoring your metrics
now here's a little tip that I do
so in my Google calendar I have a reoccurring calendar
um note that on the 1st of each month I go back and order um uh
update my metrics for the month and that'll be
you know looking at how my email list is growing
my opt ins and um
and then each social media um platform
uh what are the numbers on that
so No. 10 is distribution
okay so one of the things that
you know we get told all the time when we're creating content is
consistency is the key and I'm a shocker for it
you know like sometimes my brain just
like I'm creating content for a lot of other people
that my brain just gets like jelly after a while
and I just wanna tap out and I'll
you know ghost you on on Instagram for a week and
and it's like I just need to restore my brain power
that's okay um
you know you can't let um
social media burn you out
how can we stay consistent when we are in holiday mode
for example when we um
don't wanna do that and that's by having a one
a good um
you know Contact Library will help you do that
so if you don't feel like turning on
on camera today you can just go into your album on your phones
pull out something remix it
repurpose it um
you know
just repost it for example or pull out some B roll and you know
pop some um information on that
so you can always do those things when you um
you know don't have the energy or the inclination um
to do it but if you can get to the point when you have
especially if you got team as well
is that you're batching up content
and then you can actually schedule out the content like
you know I was talking with somebody I did a podcast with um
Josh and Mon this week uh
for the personal unbranding uh
podcast and uh
we were talking about how they had all this content already
from their previous podcast
that they just haven't done anything with
and I'm guilty of this too
like I've got all this podcast information like uh
videos and I'm being able to repurpose it and redistribute it
so right now I've got my um
I v a going through all of my podcast and pulling out short clips
and again use CapCut you know pop up your long form video um
press the short clip maker and it'll give you 20 clips and um
and she's organising that now so then we can um
distribute it out uh for the month
so a scheduler is really good for that now I use um Vista Social
I've used like literally all the platforms
I think metrical I've used um buffer later
all the things they all pretty much work the same
what I do look for in a scheduler though is
does it push it out to the key platform
so I want
I want it to go out and this is why I like Vista Social is because um
I can I think it's got 18 different platforms that I can push it out
so if I was a restaurant
and I wanted to push out content to Tripadvisor
I can schedule that in there
if I wanna um push out content to uh you know Pinterest
I can do that in there um Google business
Google Business often gets forgotten about uh
with sharing content cause a lot of schedulers
so if you only use meta for example
you're not gonna um
you're not going to be able to push out content to YouTube
LinkedIn um TikTok
whatever
but if you have a good scheduler that covers all those platforms
um then it just makes your life so much easier to repurpose
content as well
okay so uh
distribution just a thing if you are doing LinkedIn
um carousels for example
you need to upload them as pdfs not
um
uh images like you do for say Instagram
so just uh
keep that in mind um workflow
okay so No. 11 is workflow
and workflow is then the way on how we get the most out of our time
uh I
you know
I'm recording this podcast right now just before I'm about to uh
go out uh
today and I'm like okay
I've got 20 minutes to record this podcast
I wrote out my outline
and now I've got this one video and I'm gonna upload it
and then I'm gonna turn this one video into 15 pieces of content
marketing so I've got a checklist there that you can get um
to be able to do uh
this workflow and I've got all the templates in there
so you know what um
thumbnails to um
the right size thumbnails and everything
so if you do want to um
uh get that workflow
I'll put that in the show notes as well
okay
so No. 12 when it comes to creating content that connects and converts
it's about having a content planner
when you have a content planner
um it just helps to know what content
uh to post consistently and the style of content
so you get a good mixture uh
in your content as well alright
so I have been playing with different project managers
um over the years just like schedulers and I have landed on notion
let me know in the comments um
if this is something that you've used
I've used Monday I've used Asana
I've used Trello I've used Google Sheets
I've used them all but what I'm loving about notion at the moment um
especially if you've got a bit of a uh
a spicy brain like mine um
I love visual things and uh
Monday is great from a colour perspective but sometimes it's um
just a little bit restrictive and it's a little bit too colourful
if I'm honest where Asana is like the black and white version of that
um Google Sheets is great for integration but it just gets it
um it can't do all the things that I want it to do as well
so uh I've actually created a content planner
um
in notion at the moment to help me organise my content
and so far I am loving it as well
so uh
I'll put some uh links to those resources in the show notes as well
um and it's free
like you know that's the other thing is I was paying I don't know 60
$70 a month for Monday and if it's just one of you that's like
it's crazy it's okay if you got a big team um
but yeah for me when it was just one person
I had to pay for three seats whether I used it or not
Trello is great because um uh
you can you know
get enough out of their free version just like Asana as well
but like I said notion is something that I'm uh
you know ah loving at the moment
I've created a template in there and um
if you wanna grab that ah template
I'll put that in the show notes as well alright
so these are my 12 steps just to recap ah
how to create content that converts and makes you money uh
number one is goals No. 2 is audience
No. 3 is messaging No. 4 is keywords
No. 5 is um audit No. 6 is formats
No. 7 is content categories
No. 8 is your brand vibe No. 10 is distribution
No.11 is your workflow and No. 12 is having a content planner
so these are my 12 steps now uh
for those that need a content marketing
uh strategy and a business growth strategy essentially is what it is
um and I have you can work with me 1 to 1
I have some openings in my calendar at the moment only a handful um
to do that for the month however
I am about to release an online course that you can go
through these at key steps to do this for your own business
so uh if you wanna know more about the course
I'll put the details in the show notes and you can join the waitlist
um it'll be launched very shortly
doors open for that very shortly
and it'll cover off on all of those 12 steps
now here's the beautiful thing about this
the Content Catalyst blueprint
every single step includes an AI prompt to make your life easier
so once you've gone through and done all of that
you are then gonna go into your um
perplexity and set this up
so every time you wanna plan out your content for the month
you just have to um you know
press go and it'll give you all the ideas based on your offer
your message your um uh
your audience and and it'll be on point with what you do
so if you're interested uh
join the waitlist now because um
I've got some special bonuses coming for those on the waitlist
and until the next episode
a content catalyst thank you for tuning in
and if you've gotten value out of this episode
please share it with um somebody else that may also get some value
that's struggling to get impact with their content uh
because it essentially you know
we need to be sharing our message with our audience
and we also need to be optimizing our time on how we do it as well
so thank you again and until the next episode of Content Catalyst
I'm Deb Szabo

How to create content that converts #30

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