Continuing with yesterday’s post, which gave five more reasons that every startup really needs to tell its story, it’s easy to understand how many startups simply don’t know where to start telling their stories. Many times I speak with entrepreneurs about blogging and they end up at a point at which they can’t see themselves having anything really good to blog about after they’ve covered the basics of their business. It’s a misnomer that once you’ve blogged on a topic, or created any content on that particular topic, you can’t focus on that topic again. It’s just not true. In fact, the opposite is the case.
Ask any marketer how many times their target audience has to be shown the marketing message before they actually see it: at least 6, and more like 10. The same message has to be presented to your target audience 6 – 10 times before they ever realize what they’re seeing it. This is the same philosophy behind showing the same old commercials on TV over and over and over ad nauseam.
Why should it be any different for your company’s blog? For many startups and most small businesses, the blog is the primary method of publishing the content of their marketing message. Here are three constructs that you can apply to your content calendar to make sure that you keep telling your story until your audience actually sees it.
- Yesterday | Today | Tomorrow – This method is the simplest, and really is just what it says: what happened yesterday (or last week or month); what’s going on today (or this week or month); what’s planned for tomorrow (next week, month, or quarter). Literally, tell your audience what’s going on with your business. Have you hired anyone? Made any changes to your product or website? Gained any new partnerships? Created any new offerings? What’s coming in the future? What did you just launch or announce today?
- Educate | Engage | Exchange – This model fits well into the types of content to offer up, assuming you have a lot of content as part of your business. “Educate” means to teach your audience something relevant to your business. Salesloft and Rivalry do a great job of teaching businesses different aspects of the B2B sales process. “Engage” is about engaging in a conversation on a more personal level by sharing your team, your culture, or your values. And “Exchange” means commerce, or a more direct marketing message, e.g., “Big Summer Blowout!”
- Winter | Spring | Summer | Fall – This third construct is event and calendar driven, or may apply simply because your business is very seasonal, and you really do different things in each season. An example of this might be a restaurant with a seasonal menu or an outdoor patio or some other part of the restaurant that opens or closes depending on the season.
More than one of these constructs may apply to your business, and each requires a different level of planning using your content calendar. The idea is to make sure you never lack for content, types of content, and meaningful engagement with your audiences and customer segments.
Which one of these content constructs might help you in telling your story?
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