6: How to Create Content that Increases Engagement and Generates Leads

Creating content for your business can be daunting. You want to make sure it's engaging and helpful, while also generating leads. Here are some tips on how to create content that does just that. By following these simple steps, you'll be able to create content that helps your business grow!

Highlights

00:00 - Introduction and welcome
02:37 - Increase your relationships and reach
08:36 - What types of content should you be making
09:21 - Engage
11:29 - Educate
13:13 - Entertain
15:30 - Extend an invitation
18:59 - Decide on your weekly content

Resources and Links

Register for Challenge Launch Bootcamp and learn how to create and deliver a 4-Day Challenge that boosts your revenue and skyrockets your business. CLICK HERE

Download my free guide, 3 Things You Need to Launch and Scale Your Online Business at banishbusinessclutter.com/guide. 

Learn simple yet effective organic strategies that will generate consistent leads and customers with Online Revenue Roadmap.

Join our Facebook community at launchperspective.community. 

Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes, or ask a question that I answer on the show? You can do this and more at launchperspective.com.

My favorite tools:

Kajabi / Learn Kajabi

Canva / Learn Canva

Evernote / Learn Evernote

Ecamm / Learn Ecamm

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Transcript:

Wow. Here we are on episode six already of the Launch Perspective podcast and super excited about today's episode because I know this is one of the biggest questions people ask me once they've determined their offer. They've thought about how they're going to launch their offer and now they're like, how do I find the people that are going to register for my challenge, register for my webinar, purchase my offers. How do I find the people, get enough eyeballs on what I'm doing, so I get enough conversions that increase my revenue? And that's what we're going to talk about today.

Just a quick tip, for those of you who are maybe listening to your first episode with us, we do have a guide that you want to get, because it's going to review everything that we've been talking about. The guide is called Three Things You Need to Launch and Scale Your Online Business, and you can get that now by going to banishbusinessclutter.com/guide.

If you remember, OLL you need, OLL, is an Offer, a Launch, and Leads. And we've already talked about the different types of offers and launches that you can have in previous episodes. And today I want to jump into the first of two parts on how to generate leads. Now to generate leads and to grow our email list, grow our following we really need two things. We need to increase relationships and we need to increase our reach. And the relationships are built through the content that we share. And so today I'm going to be talking about the four E's of content creation.

So, these four E's of content creation are Engage, Educate, Entertain and Extend an invitation. And I'm going to explain a little bit more about them here in a minute, but today we'll focus on the content that we share. And then in our next episode, I'm going to talk about the various traffic sources that you can use to share content.

So, what type of content are we creating is today and then where do we share that content. How do we expand our reach? Okay. Because so much of what we do is simple math. If you are wanting to earn, let's say a 100K in a year, how many students, members, customers, clients, are you going to need based on the offer price point that you have in order to reach that goal? And then in order to get that many students or clients, how many people need to come into your world? How many people need to see your sales page? How many people need to register for your webinar? People definitely underestimate in the beginning because they think, hey, I'm just going to share my challenge with fifteen people and fourteen of them will sign up. And that's just not how it works. We typically need a lot of eyeballs, a lot of people following and listening and engaging in order to get people farther down in the funnel where they convert to a paying customer. All right.

So, let's go ahead and jump into the four E's of content creation. So why are we even creating content? It's all about connecting and building relationships that spur conversation. Okay. Conversations, even though we live in an online world. Okay. People don't even think of what sales used to be back in the day. I started a direct sales business long before we had all of this technology that we have today. And you would literally create reasons for conversations that you'd have in the post office line, in the grocery store line. Right. The whole goal was to be able to spark conversations about your business in order to have conversations that would lead to potential clients and customers. Okay.

So here we are in an online space. And I think a lot of times when people, they kind of use social media as this, I don't know, it's almost like this little crutch. And they think, well, if I just post on social media that's what's going to help me engage with my audience. But it's not posting, it's engaging. It's creating content that is going to get people in your personal messages, reaching out to you saying I've got to connect with you, I love what you're doing, sending you emails, or, you know, all the things that's going to create a conversation between you and a potential client or customer. And that is why we create content. It's to build those relationships. It's to build that know, like, and trust factor.

And I think a lot of times when people think of leads, that they want to generate leads, they have this feeling, or they think that all it's going to take is me creating this lead magnet. Let's say it's a PDF download. Okay. If you're familiar with a lead magnet, it's something you create to generate leads. I think I'm going to put up this lead magnet and all of a sudden, it's going to grow my list and I'm going to have these raving people, these raving fans, that now when I do a launch or sell an offer, they're going to be in.

And a lead magnet is not going to do that for you. You need to be showing up consistently. It's about sharing consistent content that gets people, not just to know, like, and trust you, but to understand who you are, how you help, what you can do for them to either help them get the desires they have, or to reduce the pain points that they have. And without consistent content, this is very difficult.

And I know that for some of you, you're thinking, oh my goodness, it takes me so long to create just one piece of content. It means that you're overthinking it. You're doing too much. There are absolutely ways to create multiple pieces of content from even one thing. So, for example, a piece of content I love to do is I love to share tips, whether it's tech tips or shortcuts, that sort of thing. So, I might go live in a Facebook group to share a tech tip or tutorial, but then I will take that piece of content and I'll turn it into a blog post. I'll turn it into a few quotes. I'll turn it into an Instagram story. I might upload it to my YouTube channel. Okay. So, it's not that you need to create new pieces of content consistently, but when you create content, you want to be able to kind of tear that apart and share it in multiple places. That's batching your content and having that multi-purpose for each piece of content.

But then that question is, is what type of content should I be making? All right. This is probably the hardest part for people. They know they should be, you know, seen and doing these things, but like what content are we creating? So, it doesn't matter if it is written content, whether it's a blog or a post. If it's audio content, in maybe a podcast or maybe it's a video content, such as a live, a YouTube video, there's lots of different ways, stories, reels. There's lots of different types of content, but no matter which of those formats you choose to use, I want you to remember the four E's.

So, the first E is Engage. And I want you to think about content that is going to get your audience to engage back with you. Engage meaning they're going to react, they're going to comment, they're going to share, they're going to reach out to you in personal messages. And engagement can happen in a number of different ways.

Sometimes it's through inspiration. That's one of my favorite ways to engage with my audience. I am so passionate about helping people create the business of their dreams so they can live the life they desire. Inspiration in helping people get started in working towards that goal is a lot of the engagement content that I share. So that could be an inspirational quote. That can be a personal story, an experience, something that I've gone through that maybe was a challenge that I've overcome. And that way people say, oh my goodness, I can relate to that, I've had that same experience. Thank you for sharing something so encouraging.

Inspiration is one but engaging is also asking questions. As a former music teacher, I did go to school for education, and I've loved teaching. I think I shared in a previous episode, since I was in the fifth grade, I've known I wanted to be a teacher. I used to line up my stuffed animals and my dolls and play school. Right. And I have learned that one of the best things you can do is ask questions. So, asking questions gets people to engage.

What's a question that you can ask that gets them to respond? Maybe you're sharing a certain thing or a certain idea or a certain tool. And then you say, what are your favorites? All right. Even if you're live, you can do this. You're sharing a tip, you're sharing a story and you say, I'd love to hear, has this ever happened to you guys? All right. That sort of thing. So, engagement is really that inspiration, you know, asking engaging questions, getting them to respond rather than just posting information. Right. So that's the first E of content creation.

Another one is Educate. This is probably my favorite, just because again, I love to teach, but all of us have something to share. It doesn't matter if it's, you know, how to grow plants, or how to draw, how to do crocheting. It doesn't matter what it is that you're educating, even how to handle temper tantrums with your kids. Right. How to improve your marriage. There are so many things that we can teach and sometimes I think we do get in the rut of only teaching what's in our niche. Which is true, there are a lot of times I'm teaching about launch strategies or technology, because that is part of my audience and what I teach.

But sometimes I just love to educate people on a great deal. Right. Who has ever found a great deal online or maybe you bought this amazing new item at Costco and you're like, oh my goodness, this is so awesome for anybody who eats this certain way or somebody that, you know, likes such and such. I'm going to share this. I mean that is an educational piece of content that may not be relevant to my niche, but it gets people seeing me as a real live person, who is a mom, who is a wife. Whatever it is, it's me just being authentically real. It's not just me coming online as the expert all the time but being that person. Many of you probably follow certain bloggers or YouTubers who, this is what they do. They share real life. Okay. So, you can educate people in this way.

And that's also where the third E comes in. Entertain. When I say entertain, I don't necessarily mean sing, dance or lip-sync. That is not something I would feel comfortable doing. Entertaining can also be something fun, something funny. One of the things I love to do is laugh. You've probably heard me laugh already. I actually didn't know that was a thing I did until one time I was speaking at a conference and the CEO introduced me and one of the things she said she'd loved about me is that I laugh when I talk. I didn't even realize other people didn't do that. Right. I just love to have fun, to be fun, to get people, you know, feeling happy and comfortable. So, entertainment doesn't have to be something that makes you feel awkward, but you do want to have some fun, whether that's sharing a funny story, a funny video, a funny experience. That is definitely content that people engage with.

So, think about ways that you can be authentically you, but also bring a lot of fun into the mix. Another thing that you can do is like a behind-the-scenes piece of content. Right. Blooper reels are a great thing, you know, if you're just getting started with video content or a podcast. I've been laughing with my husband because we've discovered certain words that I say all the time on my podcast. And I'm not going to tell you what they are, because you all have probably figured out what those are. But the point is I could probably do a blooper reel on the words I always say in podcasting. That's a form of entertainment, okay, and that's a form of content.

And then the biggest piece of content that really applies to all of the above, whether you're, you know, inspiring, educating, entertaining, yes some of the content stands on its own, but often it leads to a resource, a guide, a course, a program, or just an invitation to do XYZ. So that's why my fourth E of content creation is Extend an invitation. You can also call it a call to action. A call to action does not have to be sign up for this, buy this, like this. A call to action can be any number of things and it really just relates to what might be the next step that someone would want or need based on the content that I just shared.

So, for example, let's just say I am doing a tutorial on my four ways that I use Evernote. I'm actually getting ready to do a training in my Banish Business Clutter group, where I'm going to share my four favorite ways to use Evernote and why I feel it's a tool every business owner should have. Well, when I share that piece of content, my educational content, I'm going to be extending an invitation for people to check out my four-day bootcamp or my Evernote Edition Digital Clutter Cure course. So those are paid offers, but often when I'm extending an invitation, it's be sure to check out this blog post, or be sure to check out this video that I have on my business page, or sometimes it's just "Want more information? Send me a personal message."

But extending an invitation is a way to guide the person to that next thing. And I think so many times people are creating content, but they're never extending an invitation. And I think of it like this, it's like a baking the most amazing chocolate chip cookies, and you put them all on a plate and you walk over to your neighbor's house, and you say, "Hey neighbor. Check out these amazing cookies that I made. This is how you made them. Oh, my word. They're so good. I know that anybody would love them. Well, I just wanted to come over and let you know. "And turning around and going back to your house and never saying, "Would you like a cookie?" All right.

That invitation is your way of now saying, okay, I taught you this thing or I shared this tip. There's always an invitation of something, okay, where you can lead them somewhere, whether it is to something that you offer in your business or another resource or just something fun and educational.

So, keep those four E's in mind. It's Engage, Educate, Entertain and Extend an invitation. The reason why I want you to think about the type of content you're going to create is because in the next episode I'm going to share the many different traffic sources, in other words, places and ways that you can share content that generates leads. All right. And obviously creating a lead magnet, whether that is a guide, a template, a checklist, a video. There are so many different types of free content that we can give away. We still are going to be creating content that leads people to these lead magnets.

And the best thing that you can do, even before you have a lead magnet, is decide how, where, and when you will share weekly content. If you're just getting started or you feel like you're not getting any traction and you would love to have consistent leads coming into your world, sharing content weekly will do that. And again, that weekly content could be a blog post. It could be a podcast episode. It could be a video that you deliver in a Facebook business page, a video in Instagram, a video on LinkedIn.

Next time we're going to talk about all the various places where you can share this content, but for this week, this episode, I just want you to commit to the type of content that you're going to create. Is it written? Is it audio? Is it video? Where are you going to deliver that? And then what is some of the content that you can start creating now that I've gone over with you four ideas with our four E's.

I'd love to hear from you, so be sure to join us in our Launch Perspective community. You go to launchperspective.community, request to join, and let me know what type of content you're creating. Let me know where you're committing to show up each and every week, because that is really the best way to generate leads is by building relationships.

So, join us next time and be sure to get our three things to launch and scale your online business, which you can get at banishbusinessclutter.com/guide. Now, if you've been following us for a little while and you're thinking, oh, there's all these great ideas about offers and launches and leads, but you would love a little bit more help in determining those things that would work for you, then I invite you to check out Online Revenue Roadmap.

Online Revenue Roadmap is an interactive course where you get a video training from me and worksheets to help you think about how you're going to expand your reach, how you're going to expand your revenue, your relationships, and it even helps you think through your genius zone and your first offer. To get started, go to lydiamartin.biz/roadmap and get started with online revenue roadmap today.

All right. I can't wait to hear what content you're going to be creating. And we'll see, in the next episode, when we talk about the ultimate guide to traffic sources that are going to help you generate leads. See you next time.