Use Content Pillars For Your Marketing Strategy

Use Content Pillars For Your Marketing Strategy

Do you struggle with your marketing strategy? You’re not alone. Many people find it challenging, not only highly sensitive people, empaths and introverts. Having a good marketing strategy in place can be laborious at the best of times.

Something I find extremely helpful both for myself and for my clients, is to use content pillars. Content pillars help you to come up with topics that are interesting and relevant for your audience.

This blog post will discuss how to brainstorm content pillars and what they actually are. It will also share some tips on creating better content using your content pillars as a guide.

More About Content Pillars

Content pillars are the core ideas or topics that you use as the foundation of your content marketing strategy. They help to guide your content creation and ensure the content you share is valuable, interesting and relevant to your audience.

They also ensure that you share a variety of useful topics rather than just one main focus.

Your content pillars form your regular lead content pieces which can be written blog posts, articles, podcasts, live video, recorded video, or imagery.

This lead content can then be broken up into social posts that are based on the blog post, podcast episode, or video, or whichever medium you use.

How Do You Come Up With Your Content Pillars

When deciding on your content pillars, think about what your ideal clients need and what topics they are searching for. What are they interested in? Also base your content pillars on your own business goals.

Here are some questions to get your creative juices flowing:

  • What do my ideal clients need help with? (eg. marketing strategy, mindset tips)
  • What is important to them? (eg. growing their online business, finding their ideal clients)
  • What are they curious about? (eg. hypnosis, self-care)

Brainstorm three or four content pillars then once you have these, you can list out the various sub topics under each pillar.

For example, I have four content pillars that also form my signature framework Process To Thrive™. These are Soul, Science, Systems and Strategy. Within each of these pillars, I have listed sub topics and I use these topics to base my weekly blog posts on.

I keep this list of sub topics in a Google document within my content creation folder. I’m constantly adding to the lists of sub topics both in planned brainstorming sessions and when I get intuitive hits (which usually happen when I’m out walking).

Tips for Creating Your Marketing Strategy Around Your Content Pillars

Use Content Pillars For Your Marketing StrategyWhen you have decided on your content pillars, create a content marketing calendar.

You can use something as simple as a Google Spreadsheet or a project management system such as ClickUp which is what I use. Other popular ones include Trello, Asana and Airtable.

Your content calendar keeps track of what content you will create around each pillar, the type of lead content it is and when it will be published. You can take this a step further and break down your weekly lead content into social media posts.

As an example, I often share a relevant quote in my blog posts and use this quote to make a Canva graphic. I then post this graphic to Instagram with a snippet of text from the blog post.

Always check that your content provides value and is relevant to your audience.

For you to provide the best that you imaginably can, it needs to come from both your head and your heart.

~ Mike Michalowicz

You can mix up your lead content types if you prefer. For example, one week you could write a blog post, the following week you could do a live video. If you have a podcast, another week could be a new episode.

Some of your audience may prefer written, while others prefer consuming content via a podcast or live video. Test out what works well for you and for your audience and keep in mind your energy levels. What do you enjoy creating the most as this will show through with your energy when your audience reads, watches or listens to you.

It’s also important to get into the flow of what you enjoy doing so you keep things consistent with your marketing strategy.

Final Thoughts

Creating content pillars for your marketing strategy is an excellent way to organise both your lead content and your social media posts. It helps you to create relevant and useful content for your audience.

When your marketing strategy is based around three or four main topic areas that you know your ideal client is looking for, it becomes easier to plan your content marketing strategy. Creating content that provides value, ensures you are more likely to build your community and create interest in your products and services.

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