Before you make content of any kind, make sure you stay intentional and data-driven with the topics you write or make videos about. The first step is to find your “why.”
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When looking for your “why,” ask yourself: Why is this content being made? Why is it relevant to my desired audience? Why should they even spend time to read this? The “why” is the reason that people will connect emotionally with your content and your brand. That’s why it’s so crucial to have a solid “why” before you go out and discover the what and the how.
One helpful method to finding your “why,” “how”, and “what” is the bullseye method. This is, essentially, starting from the inside by establishing why people would want to read your blog, then moving outward to discover how people are going to have their questions answered, and then finally moving out to what is going to make up the meat of your content.
Broken down, it looks like this:
Why: While you don’t have to start with your “why” it’s always helpful to do so at the beginning and build from there. This acknowledges why this is important to the reader and why they’d read it in the first place. A good “why” means that your content is valuable to the reader. Having a great reason behind your content will make your “how” and “what” much more powerful.
How: Once you have the reason for the content to exist, you should think about how you’re going to answer that question. How can you properly convey your “why?” Video? Blogs? Podcasts?
What: This covers what you’re going to offer to your audience in order to complete your own goals.
The next step after you’ve established your “why” and are working toward actually producing your content is to find the “golden nuggets” that help you convey your message. Most people would call this the outlining stage. It’s the part where you decide the key points that you’re going to structure your content around which will guide its flow of information.
These main points will then become your main H2’s or the chapters of your table of contents, if your content is longer form. You don’t want to hide them since they are the reason the audience is here; make them as pronounced as possible.
Creating Content Around Video and vice versa
If you’ve been blogging for a long time with a huge back catalog of blogs dating back a decade, don’t worry. Jumpstarting your content strategy with video doesn’t mean all your past work becomes moot. In fact, it will only help boost your old content back into relevance.
If you’ve decided to start using video marketing, an effective first step would actually be to take your highest performing blogs of the past, even some whose view numbers may have dwindled, and make a video using that old content. Plug that video into the blog, refresh the written content if it needs to be updated, and you’ve got a fresh piece of content to promote. Plus, you can use that video anywhere where it is relevant including social media, other blogs, website pages, or emails.
An easy way to get started having videos on your site is from a handy video tool from Verblio that pulls information, text, and photos from your blog posts and makes videos for you.
No matter if you’re just getting started with a content strategy or if you’ve been blogging for years, there’s never been a better time to get started making videos and combining the power of an engaging video with effective written content to produce the ultimate content strategy.
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