Have you ever struggled with any of the below statements?:

How many of you create content, whether that’s blogging, social media, or video, and you’re not getting the engagement you desire?

Are you ready to learn the secret sauce to creating content that builds relationships with higher-ticketed clients while providing trust with your business?

YES PLEASE!

All this month, you’re going to learn how to take four different types of content to draw in new higher-ticketed clients, retain your current ones, and write better copy for multiple types of platforms, whether that’s a paid platform or a free one. 

Content can be used for a number of purposes as it’s the fuel that powers all parts of your business. From writing your freebie to your coaching material, content rules.

But content cannot rule if you don’t know the different types of content and how to use them to grow your business and attract dream clients. Not to mention that not all content is designed to draw people to your website or build your expertise. Not all content is designed to build relationships or earn a profit. 

As we draw into Quarter 2 of 2020, begin to plan out the four broad content areas that you’re likely to use in any content marketing plan because each type of content is for a different part of the audience’s journey with your business.

I’m going to go over the four types of content in this post and as the month of March rolls on, you’ll learn in-depth how to use each type to further your business by gaining higher-paying clients and making more money.

First Type: Awareness Content

The first type of content you want to create is Awareness Content. Awareness content is how a person first comes into contact with you. It’s the first blog post or video they see of yours. 

At this point, they have no idea who you are or that you even existed. They’re just looking for some form of information on the internet and they happened upon your content. The goal of content at this stage is to pull the new person into your orbit of influence. 

It offers a taste of the unique value you offer and encourages the person to follow you on social media, sign up for your list, check out your other content, or engage with you in some other way.

This is why I encourage all of my clients to blog or produce video or audio because this is the number one way a new client is going to find them. This type of content is to bring people into your influence is fairly general in nature and easily digestible in small chunks, such as a blog, video, or podcast. 

Awareness content should be search engine optimized and designed to reach as many people as possible. This is your board content and as we move forward, you’ll see how you’ll weed out those who are not your targeted audience and funnel the ones you’ll love working with into your sphere of influence.

Type Two: Lead Generation Content

Once people have become aware of you, they will want more from you. This is where lead generation content comes in and where you start a relationship with the person by offering them to connect with you further.

This relationship begins when they sign up for your email list, start following you on social media like Facebook or Twitter, subscribe to your YouTube channel, download your report, join your Facebook Group or take some other action. 

Now they’re actively following you and paying attention to what you publish. 

A common type of content to use here is something free, like a downloadable that the person downloads in exchange for joining your email list. It can be any kind of freebie, like a trial membership to your site, a free online course, an offline event or seminar, or a free sample of your service or product.

The important thing is that it’s free and it gives your new lead a deeper taste of the value you offer. Through this content, you can then make other offers to them.

For example, one way I lead people into a relationship with me is by offering a free piece of content – whether it’s my 30-day content calendar or how to repurpose your content worksheet, and then from there, send them emails on how I can further help them. I send them my calendar link in case they want one on one help with me specifically and from there, I’ll see if I can lead them into a package or not.

I also use this strategy for speaking; one way of awareness content is by offering to speak at a networking group and then lead people into a conversation with me privately. From there, I’ll see if I can help them achieve their goals with my services and make an offer.

Third Type: Relationship-Building Content

A person has signed up for your email list or started following you elsewhere online and they may feel like they know you quite well at this stage and they’re expecting more high-value helpful content from you. So you can say, they are a fan.

Content for relationship-building needs to be highly focused on your audience and their needs because you’ve their attention; now you need to offer personalized content that’s exclusively for them. 

Market research is extremely important here as you need to know your audience well in order to offer the solutions they’re looking for. This is also the stage in the process where you learn the most about your customers directly from them. 

Relationship-building content can be much longer and more involved because you’re providing more direct content for them. This content can be in the form of a free courses designed especially for your audience and available only to them; email content that goes straight to their inboxes;  webinars focused on critical problems; products, product prototypes, beta versions, new services to gather feedback; and anything else that’s highly personal and exclusively for your audience.

Think retreats, workshops (online and offline), and exclusive content for them by videos, audios, or texts that no one else sees.

An example of my relationship-building content is when I went to Casper, Wyoming, and presented on why an author needs to blog where I made new friends. These new friends were interested in what I had to offered and I kept in contact with them through emails, texts, calls, and messages.

Now one of them has been through my free blogging bootcamp, a paid group training, and just enrolled as a private client. I’m actually following up with someone else today about my services. 

This process can take some time, but these relationships are critical to building a lasting and sustainable business.

Type Four: Paid Content

This is my favorite type of content because paid content is content that generates income directly! This is how we grow and scale our businesses!

Your free content works to attract people to you, turn them into leads, and build a relationship. Now, you’re actually making an offer. If they feel that you have unique solutions to their problems, they’ll buy from you.

Here’s an example of promotional content: It would be an email or social media post announcing to your audience members a new product or service. Or it could be a piece that’s promoting a paid course you’re planning to offer and you’ll looking for beta testers (if you need them) or if they are looking for your type of service.

By the time you offer paid content, you know your audience well and they know you and they know that you’re an expert worth trusting so when you make an offer, it must be good. 

The idea is to do the background work with your other free content well, and then your paid content will virtually sell itself.

Can One Type of Content be Multiple Types of Content?

If you’re seeing that you offer some free content into your paid content, you may be wondering if Awareness content can also be Paid Content. And you would be right!

In some cases, some content I have created is in ALL types of content! I offer my awareness content into my paid content and I am still building and leading people into other paid content!

Even though your content may be in all or a few types of content, each piece should have a single goal. 

For example, your content for awareness already starts building a relationship, but its main purpose is to draw people to you. The topics, format, presentation, and other considerations should all be focused on how to get people to see it first and foremost.

Now that you know the 4 types of content to use, it’s time that you put this into a content marketing plan, which is a plan to coordinate your content in one organized location. 

Here is a 15-page workbook that will help you organize your content using all four types of content that I just talked about. How to Create a Realistic Content Marketing Plan Workbook will teach you how to understand your potential clients and then start planning, writing, and marketing content that they want from you.

Click the image to get started with downloading your free workbook now and get organized with your content so that you’re bringing in new leads and higher-paying clients.