As we kick off a New Year, many business owners are in content planning/marketing planning/promotional calendar mode. Personally, we spent some time in November/December planning our promotional periods for 2022 and then honed in on quarter one and the content we plan to share to lead to those Q1 promotions in December. We will focus on quarter two during quarterly content planning day towards the beginning of March {post coming soon featuring how we run a quarterly planning day}

 

Does this approach sound like something that might be lifegiving for your business and life? I can tell you since I started using this approach, my time and business efforts have felt much more intentional. It has given direction to my weeks and with intensity of 2020/2021 behind us, I’ve made it one of my 2022 intentions to be better at the promotional steps of marketing that stem from the champion piece of content {grab the guide below for how to extend your champion content into a week’s work of marketing content!} 

 

Today I wanted to chat about the role of creating champion content – what it is, why it’s important, and how to operationalize this approach in your business today. Let’s dive right in! 

 

CHAMPION CONTENT | The What 

 

Your champion piece of content is the main source of content you produce on a weekly basis. For many this will be a blogpost, a youtube post, a podcast, etc. It is the central piece of content that aligns with the value or service you are providing to your community. 

 

More often than not, it is a strategic piece of content. Something that showcases your experience, that inspires, that helps your community overcome a barrier or obstacle. It is always something that provides value or is part of a larger series of published content aimed at helping your community move from where they are to where they hope to go. 

 

CHAMPION CONTENT | The How  

 

So how exactly should you plan out your champion content in a way that feels truly strategic? I recommend looking at the current or next quarter to identify what promotions in your business you are currently working on. You will then want to identify dates for this promotions. From there you will want to provide champion content that breadcrumbs or leads your community to your offer. 

 

How do you do this in a way that is value aligned? The goal is to brainstorm content that helps your community identify the path from where they are today {with whatever need/want/desire they currently have} to where they desire to be. You want to focus your content topics on what and why topics. 

 

CHAMPION CONTENT | The Why

 

Why this approach? Because it helps you logically warm or lead your community to the promotion period. If you are running a business and not just a hobby, you need to profit off of the work you do. This type of approach helps you to organize your content calendar in such a way that you know what to talk about and when. 

 

It gives both you and your community a reliable and consistent roadmap. And publishing one central piece of content per week helps you stay consistent. From the hub, then you can pull facets of the champion content into the rest of your weekly marketing efforts – filling your marketing with everything you need to be successful for the week. 

 

CHAMPION CONTENT | Operationalize It! 

 

How do you exactly operationalize this in your business? The first step is to generate the content’s topics. 

 

 Grab your quarter’s promotion or even better start to plan next quarter’s promotions and ask yourself the following questions: 

1. What needs/wants/desires do your services/products aligned with your quarters promotions meet for your community?
2. What information can you provide that helps your community take a step forward or get started? 
3. What value based/actionable content can you provide that helps identify what your community needs to be successful. 

 

Use these question prompts to help you generate topics and then place the champion content pieces into a roadmap that gradually leads to your promotion. These should form stepping stones that are aimed at guiding your community  from where they are today to where they could be based on what they desire. 

 

What do your next steps look like?  From here you will want to extent this content into a weeks worth of marketing material. We’ve put together a quick guide showing you how to do this! Grab yours here.