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Building a Content Plan

Lesson 19 from: Market, Launch, and Sell Your Next Big Thing

Tara McMullin

Building a Content Plan

Lesson 19 from: Market, Launch, and Sell Your Next Big Thing

Tara McMullin

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Lesson Info

19. Building a Content Plan

Lesson Info

Building a Content Plan

go ahead and have Bridget. Come on, Uh, and we're gonna get ready for this hot seat here. So, Bridget, why don't you go ahead and tell us who you are other than Bridget and where we can find you online and what your next big thing is? How I am Bridget, and you can find me at 300 white apron chef dot com. Um, and the next big thing I'm doing is, um, launching service. That is gonna be it's like I'm gonna be I've been a personal chef for the last 10 years, and I have a health coat certification, and I'm sort of like merging the two and helping people really get control of their cooking and eating lives. So we're going to be creating these a meal slash cooking plans for people. These really comprehensive plans that, like, help them figure out where the shop how to shop, um, and then have and figure out, like, exactly like what their food preferences are like. I have a really comprehensive questionnaire that helps them. That helps me really plan something that is specifically suited for th...

em. Um, because there's a lot of meal stands out there that are just like, um they're just don't necessarily what you're gonna eat. So, um so I give you recipes and cooking like very specific cooking tips for those recipes. And, um co two along the way. Yeah. So I saw an example of Bridges. Next big thing, and it's really, really great. And what I love about this example to is that it's yes, it's absolutely a service and in the service with a really specific delivery herbal. So you get this customized e book, essentially this customized guide that's made just for you. But it's something physical, almost. I mean, even if you're delivering and digitally, it's something that could be printed out right into the refrigerator, stuck all sorts of different places so that every time you're thinking about what am I gonna eat next? It's right there on, and I love service product hybrids, so that's really idea. So I think we're gonna need a little bit of background on what your before and after what your key insight and your hypothesis is from from our previous session, and then we're gonna go through your content plan. So just give us the really quick overview of before and after key and site hypothesis. OK, so I think I have a couple of different customer profiles for this. Um, so I'm just gonna pick one, which is the person that I'm helping right now. Um, so basically, he waas a bachelor. He doesn't know how to cook. Um, and he well, he needs to save money, but he's also really wants to get healthy. And eating healthy for him is important. And it's not gonna work if he, you know, eats out every night. And it's like this problem of not knowing what to cook or where to start. Or, um, you know, he's he doesn't have the information to go look at, like cookbooks or blog's. They're all that stuff is just too complicated. So busy. Too busy. Lack of information, lack of convenience, maybe a access those air, All kind of the before. And the after is he wants to be healthy. What else? What kind of what does healthy look like for him? Um, feeling good. Feeling good, losing weight or probably not maintaining weight. Maintaining maybe supporting physical activity. Absolutely notably huge. Okay, um, and just having the confidence of knowing you can make something on confidence is great. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. So, what's your key insight? What's the thing that unlocks the door between us before? And it's after, um uh, well, this is like I'm not sure this is right, but like, you don't have to know how Teoh eat healthy to put healthy food on the table. Okay, let's work with that. OK, Uh, it's different. I'm not sure that I love it, but let's work with so you don't know how I'm sorry. You don't have to know how to eat healthy or even cook healthy to get healthy food on the table, OK? Yeah, I think I like it because it's really unexpected. So I'm actually gonna write that down. Since that's our theme for the launch. You don't have to know. Do you know how to eat healthy Teoh have healthy food? Sorry. This was put put healthy food on, uh, table. Great. Okay, so that's the key insight. So when you put healthy food on the table, you, um, feel better are I feel better, Have more energy to do the things you love and have more confidence in the well, more confidence in the kitchen wouldn't really fit with that. But, yes, you have more energy. You feel better. You're more supportive doing the things that you left. Okay, Awesome. So that's your hypothesis then. So now we know our destination. All of our content that we create needs to lead to this destination. You don't have toe know how to eat healthy to put healthy food on the table. All right, so content number one content piece number one is the challenge piece. Uh, did you have another misconception, or is this the misconception that you're kind of rolling with the misconception being like, What is your customer? Believe about the problem your product solves? Um, well, I wrote, uh, cooking, Eating healthy is hard time consuming are complicated. Eating healthy o E is hard time consuming. Uh, complicated. And the other thing I'm thinking is like, boring. Okay, now I put this in brackets because I think you should pick one. Okay. Um, so the one I think goes back, uh, to the key insight. Best is complicated. Actually, you everyone's not okay. Good. I love it. Eating healthy is complicated. And you could cite all sorts of things with that. You could you could cite fad diets, you could say, um, advice from health coaches, right? And you so you could talk about all the ways that people complicate eating healthy. And then at the very end of the post, you could say, But it doesn't have to be that way. It can be super simple. All you need is a plan that works for you. You don't need to worry about what's healthy for everyone else. You only need to know what's healthy for you, which might actually be the next iteration of this key insight. What's healthy for everyone else doesn't matter what's when you know what's healthy for you. You put food on the table that gives you more energy, takes less time to prepare and gives you more confidence in the kitchen. That's actually your key, and you actually have some reflections from you on that because they're they're playing with that, too, And they're They're wondering how they can help a swell Fernando's RS Kris with A K and Amy are two of them are saying you don't need to be an expert to put felt healthy food on the table, and then Amy says you don't have to study nutrition to put healthy food on the case. Yeah, I think those are both fantastic. Really, really, really great work out there people. And they're just they're different ways that she could nuance the same idea, which is fantastic. So what you could do, just like we talked about in the previous session, was take that to social media and figure out which one of those land best, right? So you take it to your Facebook page, or you take it to Twitter and you put that message out in all of those different with all of those different nuances and see which one gets the most results. And the knots, the one you take and really expand out here. If you don't have time to do that, no big deal, pick the one you like best and roll with that. But if you do have time, then you can Really? You could test that and see what's going on. What's gonna land best? Okay, cool. But yeah, I really I'm I'm digging this. Okay, Expands expand my vision. Bridget, Um, in terms of like, what can customers as expects if they buy your product? Um, more time. Um, better health less overwhelmed. Now your personal story doesn't work here because you are a trained chef. It's not what that would be. A wonderful thing in the next piece of content in the expand piece of content, however, we're trying to make results, feel more riel, try to feel like they're mawr attainable. And on top of that, try and show people that even Morris possible. So what I ask is, have you done this before? For somebody else? Yeah. So I think this is a perfect opportunity to tell a client story on when I would dio is look for a client story where, um the maybe the conventional wisdom or the popular fad diet was making her less healthy. We're making him less healthy and you honing in on what exactly he or she needed to be healthy and creating a specialized plan for that. With the key to her feeling more confident, the kitchen having more time and having better health. Okay, Okay. So see how that client store it could be any client story, right? But we took a client story and we used the key insight to make it better to make it more compelling. So good. Yeah. So in my email marketing campaign, that would be like, the second email. And I would just, like, tell a story and the Okay? Absolutely. Just like we talked again in the previous session yesterday. You can, um, you'd have her tell that story. You can tell that story. It could be a video. It could be a article. It could maybe have some before and after photos in it Who do all sorts of different things to make that content. Um, you really work for you and your audience. Okay, three, analyze. So in this case, we're looking for lots of different reasons that people don't eat healthy or don't get Don't cook for themselves more often. That might actually be the better thing. Toe, Look for here, because that's one of the reasons people don't move from before to after, right? Don't go and cook in the kitchen. OK, so, um, that's what I would want you to think about here. And this, as I said, might be a great place for your personal story. So, like I said, you're a professional chef. What? I'm bet a I'm betting that there were clients that you had as a personal chef because you did personal. So shipping, right. There were clients you had. Where you I saw what they were eating. Saw what was going on in their house or with their habits. And you made changes based on what you knew about them and their needs. And so what you could do is use your This is actually almost like your professional story of how you did it. But how? It's also possible four individuals to dio all you have is a plan. Okay? Yeah, Exactly. Exactly. I'm just gonna write professional story here and changes you made for clients. Okay, last piece is the deliver peace. What can you deliver for people? That gives them a concrete result that gives them an experience of the results that you're creating? Um uh, like having food in the front, actually having food in the fred? Sure. So one thing you could do is, um, create a like, foundational shopping list that everybody needs toe have. Okay, so I know that a shopping list is part of the product overall, but are there save the 10 things that every healthy person has in the fridge. Right. Okay, so a shopping list, and then what you might do with this is collect emails to get the shopping list. And you could actually be, um, leading people back to this with all three pieces of content. But what I would probably also do here just to make it a little bit better sweeten it up even a little bit more, given the sugar is do a call so that they've got their shopping lists. And then you say, Hey, bring your shopping list with you to the call on the call I'm gonna teach you, or I'm gonna show you how you can re combine these ingredients in three different ways to create three different meals that you can put on the table in 15 minutes and something like that, okay. And so you're you're giving people concrete results, but you're also really setting them up for a while. I don't want to think about this anymore, Bridget. Can't you just do this for me? Which is? The idea, right? Is that we want Teoh meal plan with exactly a personalized shopping list and where to go to find all of these things. This product is really awesome. Um, so yeah. What do you think about this? Yeah, that sounds great. Cool. So you could be collecting interest list emails this whole time. Leading people Teoh a call where you're using the information that you've given them this whole time to give them a really specific result of what's coming makes sense questions. Do you have questions? I think this is good. Cool. Do you also see how all of the brainstorming you did there could also be rearranged? Take that, Freddie. Exactly. So ideally, say you've launched this in the fall. Okay, so that's when you actually put the product out for the first time and use this Siris of content. Then in January, January is the perfect time to re release the product likeness to have a new sales conversation about this right over almost to get healthy in January. So then you create a new conversation about it. And not only could you just use what you've brainstorm so far to just create a new conversation, you could take that conversation and present it through the lens of New Year New You. So you take these same things. I mean, you could actually take the same conversation on Present it through a New year. New you kind of lens, right? You might even redo the sales page a little bit and say, Hey, your New Year's resolution needs a meal plan. We're stick with your New Year's resolution longer. Grab your personalized meal plan today for the month of January, I'm offering you a free coach of health coaching session with me on top of the meal plant, right? Anything like that, right? I do have one question about, like, just even recipes on my site like, Do you think that's an important part of having sort of this business? Or do I just center the content around? Sort of answering that these questions? I would say that recipes should probably definitely be something that you do on a regular basis. I think one place that food minded people get in trouble with content is always putting recipe. Yeah, exactly. It's great content, and it's certainly really clickable, and it's useful, but it doesn't give people the other foundational knowledge they need to make a great buying decision. So if you want them to buy personalized recipes, tell me why personalized recipes are important and sure, I'm gonna want to keep up with the recipes that you put out for everybody and experiment and, you know, whatever. And I might send you an email and say, Hey, I saw that recipe you put out on the block. Does that fit in with my meal plan or this recipe is amazing. Can you let me know if this works for my particular health condition? And if so, I would really love. Have you built out a whole meal plan for May? Just such a great way to give people results and get them interested in a product. But you do need, I think, to give them MAWR information as well, really set them up for making a great buying decision. Got it cool questions questions from online suite eats. Okay, you're all set. Thanks, Brigitte Queue. But just to say again, it's not all that different. It's just not all that different products or service service or products. That's my philosophy. All right, um, to take our reader question here quick. This is from Jacket Timmons of Finance of the Fine, creator of the Financial Intimacy Lounge. She asked if you have an evergreen product, E g. A. Membership. What's the most strategic way to keep this top of mind for members of your list? Currently, I do a PS and mention it during my monthly financial intimacy, our events. So great question from Chicago. Really common concern. What I would dio is just like what we were talking about with Bridget is, I'd create a plan to build out a launch conversation a sales conversation maybe four times a year or two times a year, depending on how often you're releasing other products and how often you're kind of entering into these different sales conversations. But if you've had a big window of no sales or no sales talk like no pitching direct pitching, then absolutely, it's time to build out a new sales cycle and lead people to that opportunity to buy again. A PS works great, sure, but it doesn't work nearly as well as leading people to the point where they're gonna have that ah ha moment that leads them to buying and more, even more importantly, making a direct pitch. All of this is setting you up to make a direct pitch at the end of this call or Ott the bottom of the shopping list. There's gonna be a link that says, Get your personalized meal plan from white apron chef dot com. Click here for more information. Wish you knew exactly what's for dinner because it was already in your fridge. Click here for more information and your custom, your individualized meal plan. All right, so building out those sales cycles gives you the opportunity to create a direct pitch, and that direct pitch is always going to be more successful than a P S at the end of your usually emails. That's fine. This is better. All right, let's talk about why you should approach each launch. Uniquely, We talked a little bit this in the last segment, or we talked a lot about this in the last segment, but I want to bring it up again every time you launch your effectively talking Teoh a different group of customers. You're talking to people who are ready to buy for different reasons. We talked about how early adopters are ready to buy because it's new. It's different, it's innovative. Then we talked about how there's a segment of customers who are interested in a solution. There people who might actually be going out and looking for a customized meal plan or special individualized guidance on what they're cooking and what they're eating. They might be people who are going out and looking for customized family based jewelry, right or history based jewelry, all sorts of ways you could approach, that they might be people who are going out and looking for art workshops for kids. Okay, those people are trying to achieve a particular goal and understand the solutions that are out there or actively looking for a particular kind of solution. So the way you would craft this content is based on guiding people to that solution. It's with the understanding that they know what's out there or that they know what they want. And you all you have to do is kind of show them why you're the right service provider. You're the right maker. You're the right business to be doing business with. Then you think about the late majority and these are people who are really focused on the problems that they have there are aware that something is not working. They're frustrated, they're feeling pain. There's an amount of fear that they're feeling, and it's your opportunity to acknowledge that fear or pain or frustration and create a story that leads them from the fear and pain and frustration to your solution. But you have to approach it. Problem first, Not solution first. If Bridget were to start talking about meal plans to people who didn't know what a meal plan, Wasit was so fixated on the fact that they're out of money because they're so they go out to eat every night. That's that's not going toe work. But what does? Work is saying, Hey, I know you're going out to eat every night because you just don't know what to make for dinner. I'm going to show you how to do that. That's a problem based approach, and so you want to take the temperature of your audience Austin very, very often, and you want to think about what the majority of your audience or what the vocal majority, the people who are most likely to buy, think about, Uh, yeah, what? Whether they're thinking about solutions, whether they're thinking about problems, whether they were thinking about goals, whether they're thinking about pain and adjust your your cycle, your launch conversation accordingly. Okay, Again, uh, like what we talked about with the customer development arc you might also be thinking about. Well, I've burned through my early adopters now. I burned through my early majority. Now it's time to really start thinking about the people, my late majority people who are really focused on what they're frustrated by. What the problem iss. Okay, you could be thinking about it that way, too. And you want to approach all of those different all of those launches differently. Um, also, an early adopter launch is going to be much more focused internally in your business on early majority launch. Almost like a private lunch. Kind of what we talked about, where you know you're going out and you're talking to individual people. Bridget, I have a feeling the person you're working with you reached out Teoh individually to see if he was interested in something like this, right? Sort of ish. Yes. So that's an early adopter approach to that launch on early majority approach might be an internal launch where you're focusing on mawr of the people who are already with you. Because here's the thing. If they're following you to begin with there. Probably people who arm or solution oriented, more goal oriented, then your late majority people are actually people who are perhaps outside of your audience. These are people who haven't found you yet because they don't know your solution exists. And so you go to places and you build launch content that's going to draw them in based on their pain points based on their frustrations. And you can use this the same kind of principles to do that, and then your long tail is just like more of the same. It's it where you know you go all sorts of places with that. But that's kind of how you're gonna think about how you approach each launch uniquely.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Free 30 Days Kickstart Labs
Sales Page KickStart Guide
Sales Page Quick Start Template
Your Next Big Thing Workbook
What's My Next Big Thing?
How Do I Avoid a Flopped Launch?
How Do I Turn Excitement Into Dollars?

Ratings and Reviews

Linda Makes Impressions
 

The timing of this course was perfect. I am in the middle of a launch and able to immediately apply what I am learning to my sales page. I have confidence that I can use the tools to catapult my next big thing to even higher levels. I am grateful for Tara's bonus gift, free month in her Kick Start Labs. I am taking advantage of the knowledge and resources there as well. Tara is a role model of action, authenticity and clarity, that I aspire to be. Thanks! Linda Germain http://www.lindagermain.com http://makemonotypes.com

a Creativelive Student
 

I'm so disappointed I didn't have this information years ago!! Just the sales page information alone is more than worth the price of this course. I finally have a structure and a sense of how it works and ties into a bigger picture. I have a clearer sense of how the pieces fit together. Writing sales pages has always felt like I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Now that I know what I know, I'm pleasantly surprised I've had the sales I've had and I'm so excited to now be able convey my message more clearly so I can help more people and generate more income. Thanks so much for shedding light on how this all works, Tara. Your clear and grounded approach are incredibly helpful. After having spent A LOT of money on various online marketing courses, and not gotten nearly as much from them as I have from this course, it was incredibly refreshing to take a hype-free, sleaze free course on marketing, sales and product development. Thank you! Lisa Gillispie

Merry
 

Took this course and followed along in order to get my new product launched. Wow was I surprised at the amount of sales I had right away. Doing the work is paramount. You have to want to create, edit, rehash and be persistent. (Guess that is called discipline!) Tara is well spoken, methodical and full of the business advice I was lacking. Got a product to get out into the world? Tara's course will be a great help in your success. Do it.

Student Work

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