If you’re always scrambling to figure out what to talk about on your podcast, share on social media, or email to your list each week, this episode is for you. In this episode I’m going to show you how to use your podcast as your content map, so that you can feel less stress about content planning and see how a podcast can create all of the content you need. And guess what – it’s not as much effort as you might think!
Before I get into the content, I wanted to share an amazing listener review from Nicole D., who said “Emily is the go-to podcaster! Emily is so entertaining and informative. I always learn something new and she is so fun to listen to. Such a needed resource for podcasters!”
And if you want to take what you’re about to learn in this episode and implement it right away, I’ve got an awesome freebie for you today, the 52 Week Content Planner! I’ve designed it to give you a birds eye view of all of your content week by week, so that you can plan, and execute. Download that at theultimatecreative.com/52weeks
Big picture! What’s happening in your business this year?
Start with your annual goals! If you want to make a certain dollar amount in revenue by the end of the year, list that. If you want to sign up a certain number of new VIP clients in January, list that. If you want to get more downloads on your podcast in November, list that.
Then, map out the timelines. For example, Podcast Rocket will launch in April and October, so I know that I can list my Podcast Rocket goals in those months. Keep this very high level so that you don’t feel bogged down or overwhelmed by everything you need to do in order to get here – right now we just want to be focused on the outcome so that we can build our plan backwards.
Business cycles
Now, look at everything three months at a time – how do your business activities flow into one another?
For example, people join Podcast Rocket and I can expect to sign on more monthly production clients as a result of the visibility, or the Podcast Rocketeers who come out and decide they don’t want to bother with the editing but want to have a weekly podcast they can be accountable to.
So knowing that, in the month leading up to the Podcast Rocket launch I plan out podcast launching topics, how to start your podcast, things you need to know about microphones, interviews that feature relatively new podcasters and how they were able to launch their podcasts with Podcast Rocket, etc.
Then, the month that Podcast Rocket is actually being deployed with the Rocketeers going through the program, I shift to “what comes next” like this episode! You’re in it right now! Wild! So we’re covering how to use your podcast as your content map now, because the basics are out of the way, and the cycle shift in my business activities has moved towards helping people who already have podcasts instead of focusing on helping people to launch their podcasts.
List topics that will support your business cycle and the goals you’ve listed out in step 1.
Planning Promos
At this stage it’s also important to know what you want to be promoting so that you can direct your audience to take a specific action. And if you’re recording in batches instead of one week at a time (which I hope you are) it’s ALSO very helpful to know what other marketing channels you’ll need to prepare to support this promo, like your social media posts or emails.
Let’s get real meta here for a second and I’ll open up the curtain to help you see this in action. The promo and call to action for this episode you’re listening to is going to direct you to one of my freebies, The 52 Week Content Planner. The topic is super focused on content strategy, and then I give you a freebie where you can put everything you’ve learned into action – because the goal of this episode is really to help you feel less overwhelmed by your content planning .
By showing you how I do this and how I help my clients do this, we’re building a process together, so if you were thinking about hiring someone to help you with your podcast you already know what you can expect from me.
Another option could be to ask listeners to book a discovery call with me to see what it would be like to work with a podcast producer. That might be a bit more explicit, but if you’re not a billion per cent comfortable with promos, you can work your lead magnets into the content of the episode instead, sort of like how I just did here.
Production Schedule
Now that you know when things are happening and what needs to be produced to accomplish your goals, you need to make a schedule and implement the plan.
Keep it very simple – and I will keep this VERY short, all you need to do is list the publication date, the topic, whether or not there’s a guest, and assign a recording date. Record as many episodes as you can in one day to avoid weekly burn out.
Creating more content
From here, you should have a complete plan for your content, and all that’s left is recording, editing and creating the promotional assets to go along with it! When creating assets, aim for the following
- Show notes with highlights
- A blog post that is linked from the show notes similar to this post
- An audiogram for your IG feed and one for your stories
- An audiogram for other platforms you might use
- Quote graphics that can be used as social posts
- Captions for social posts that can be pulled from your show notes
- An email to your list with a story about the episode, i.e. how doing x helped you achieve y – here’s the episode to learn all about it
And that’s it! Now, each week you’ll have a clear framework for the content you need to create, and it all stems from your podcast content!
To put this into action, download my 52 Week Content Planning Template to start planning your content while staying organized, and remove that extra overwhelm feeling you get whenever you start thinking about what you need to be posting on social media! It works, trust me!
Links mentioned in this episode:
- 52 Week Content Planning Template: http://theultimatecreative.com/52weeks
- Podcast Rocket: http://theultimatecreative.com/podcast-rocket
