C2 Consistency

Producing a regular stream of content is only the beginning. Although it is the most difficult of the phases for most people, and because it is difficult, it can sometimes be a challenge to maintain the consistency needed to get traction.

It is the consistency that will make the entire process work for you. That is why earlier in the program, I mentioned how habits are formed. You need to get in the habit of consistently posting new and engaging content that has been designed with your target market and avatar in mind.

The content needs to consistently educate and get the target thinking in terms of doing something about the issues you are raising. The items you write about need to resonate with your target market; it is all about them, not you. Most importantly, you need to be patient while being consistent; this does and will take time to establish. You can help this process significantly if you always keep in mind where the motivation will come from. We cover this in some detail in other course modules. For now, I think it is important that you understand that your market, the people you are producing the content for, will be moving away from pain or toward pleasure based on key motivations.  Think about it, every pain or pleasure will fit into one of these key motivations, and this gives you something to focus on when you are considering the production of your content. 

You also need to be open-minded and have that all-important foot planted in reality. That means you need to seek out and listen to candid feedback. Learn the lessons and make the changes without interrupting the consistency of your outbound communications.

Here is a little tip for you that may well help. Rather than seeing each post as an item that stands alone. Tell a story that you can then split into episodes and post one at a time. For example, I wrote an interesting article about a story designed for my market. It was 1,000 words long. That is about 2 to 3 pages depending on font and spacing. I then split this into four episodes and posted them over a month. They were all scheduled at the same time and so my investment in time was minimal. It is always worth considering using blocks of time for this activity.

The content habit is one you should work on, and in so doing, the consistency of content will be that much easier to achieve. Commit to setting aside diary time for your content. It certainly works for me. I diary the time for content creation, editing and posting, and I treat these time segments as if they were client meetings. In other words, I treat them as vitally important and a priority, just like I do for my proactive members.

The more you do this, the more you will start to move into the next phase of the process; with each post, you are moving closer to the eventual outcome you are looking for, the sale.

It doesn’t matter if you will not write the content yourself, as long as you select the person who will do it with great care. They must share your passion and understand your business. You do not need to be an author to write great content, just use your voice, and your passion will do the rest. Schedule this activity regularly in your diary. The more you do this, the better you will become at it.

Think about your content in terms of a value ladder that take the participant in your content on a journey of discovery that takes them deeper and deeper into the story, culminating in the desire to buy into your product or service.

Finally, be consistent in the construction of your content. Use compelling titles, use a construction model that you know is going to be attractive and encourage the reader actually to take note of your content. I tend to use the model of Hook – Story – Offer. Make use of shorter paragraphs and plain language and use white space to make your content easier to follow and easier to read. 

A Quick Exercise For You

There is no time like the present; your next task is very important; start developing your content plan, one that will give you consistent activity, use the template below as an example of the structure you could use to help create some structure for your content production.