We are just over half way through our series! Yes, a 6-part series on creating a content (a.k.a editorial) calendar that with actually work for you, your business, and your lifestyle. 

So far, we’ve covered how your epic new content calendar is going to benefit you, your business, and your audience. Which means we tackled the “why,” and the latter half of this series will be diving into the “how.”

If you haven’t been following along but think this could be of massive help to you, please do check out the first half of Creating a Content Calendar That Works.

Part 1: Before You Start
Part 2: Benefits for Your Business
Part 3: Benefits for Your Audience + Building Ideal Client Avatars

Today, we’re going to look at how to take a one-time visitor all the way through the process of becoming a loyal customer, eager to support you on your next product launch. We’ll call it the Conversion Flow (think big booming voice), similar to a Sales Funnel (or Pyramid, however you think of it), but not automated like an email sequence. Think of this as using your posts planned in your content calendar to lead more visitors into eagerly coming back for more.

First Off, You Need Visitors

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but making content and just letting it sit there will not pull in readers. No. Nor will sharing your post on social media once and never again. You need a better strategy then that, so let’s look at some options for growing your readership
.

A. Share on social media more often

1. Hang out where your ideal audience goes to share, and gander.
2. Find yourself a social media management tool, I suggest Meet Edgar because you can loop your posts which save you even MORE time!
3. If you think three tweets a day is a lot, it’s not (the lifespan of a tweet is about only 15 minutes). Do some more research on how often you should be posting to certain platforms, and be mindful of how your audience will (or will not) react to nth number of posts.

B. Guest post and collaborate
You’d think that more popular blogs or online businesses wouldn’t want to share the spotlight, but plenty of them enjoy a small break if they know you can add value to their website or content. If you want to make it online, you can’t afford to be shy, so let’s jump that hurdle together right now (plus high fives)!

1. Find someone with an audience ideal to your own.
2. Draft up a short message which includes your name, link to your site, and how you could add value to the reader’s own site by guest posting or collaborating with them.
3. Proofread, please!
4. Hit send and don’t stop there, e-mail a few other people you’d like to mix and mingle with

C. Join groups and community

I’m a part of a few select Facebook Groups and I often notice newer folk posting questions, to which more experienced members will answer in the comments, or reply with a link to one of their post that perfectly answer what was being asked. I think combining the two, giving an answer written directly in the comments and then a brief, “I wrote about this here…” can do wonders.

BONUS: This also further established your expertise as other watch you answer numerous questions in groups directly related to your field or niche.

Don’t stop at Facebook, there are tons of other platforms and online groups and communities. Pinterest has Group Boards related to probably every niche you could ever think of!

• Hit up Pinterest
  Speaking of Pinterest! I’ve said it once before, and I will say it again, we are visual beings. Whether you write articles, or own a shop with physical product you can make good use of Pinterest with the right use of keywords and a well-lit, clean, and crisp image or graphic.
• Ensure your content is crazy valuable every single time
  If every post you wrote were written like you were trying to make the best first impression, then you’d get plenty of shares, re-tweets, 1+, and more.

  If you’re going to write for your business, then it IS business. Treat it like nothing less than that, and do your absolute best every time. The more people share, the more your reach expands!

Visitor to Regular Reader And Loyal Follower

A visitor to your content has one of two choices: 1) love it and read more, or 2) not enjoy it and leave. Pronto.

Ultimately, turning a flippant visitor into a regular audience member means you’ve got to hit a sweet spot for them. You can’t turn everyone into a loyal follower, so don’t sweat those one-time visitors. Focus on capturing the returing visitors, help them solve their problems or provide them with advice, tips, tricks, a product, or service that meets their need.

You also need to gain their trust. If you’re content is two paragraphs long and you’re superficial and vague, you can guarantee they won’t be coming back. People don’t want to spend their valuable time learning nothing. They want to delve into something deep that they can use and apply in real life, so be THAT person and you’ll see a good ROI!

Want more social shares? Say it! At the bottom of your post leave your reader a Call-to-Action (CTA) or Action Step asking them to share the content if they loved it or found it helpful. If they think it’s amazingly helpful and relevant for them and for others, they’re bound to share the wealth!

Loyal Follower and Potential Client to Paying Customer

Turning a prospect into a happily paying customer requires the following of you:

• established expertise
• trust
• consistency
• near guarantee of transformation
• safe payment methods (think: Paypal, Secure Credit Card, etc.)

Clarification: I say near guarantee of transformation because you cannot ensure the paying client will apply what they’re learned, or regularly use your product.

This is also where you’d want to direct potential clients to a separate landing page which focuses solely on the benefits of your product or service. Do include testimonials from people you’ve worked with or served with your product. Share everything, spare no detail. Appeal to their issue/problem/challenge/need, use keywords, and if you can’t write good sales copy, hire someone!

IF you’re product or service directly meets the need, or solves a problem for someone, they are far more likely to buy. So narrow your target. Remember what we said in the first half of the series? Try to appeal to everyone and you’ll appeal to none.

One-Time Customer to Loyal, Referring Client

This is what happens when you over-deliver, overwhelm (in a good way), and over-delight! When you make one product or service completely worth every penny your customer paid for, they won’t hesitate to buy another product or service you might offer. This also increases the likelihood of them referring you to anyone they come across that needs your kind of business.

This INLCUDES your lead-magnet, or opt-in. It’s got to be AMAZING, even if it is free. THIS is what gets them into your Sales Funnel. An amazing resource or product for free that makes them want the better, deeper, more evolved paid version, which leads them into your other more pricey stuff.

IF each product can amaze, to amazing, to blow-their-mind, and onward, they’ll stick by your business for the long haul and recommend you to many!

Your hard work is totally worth loyal customers who love to refer you to others. It all pays off in the end!

Round-Up

Let’s go over a few important parts to summarize:

• The ultimate goal of your content is that it ends in conversion
• Be you, be real, be authentic, honest, and humble.
• You also need to be relevant and SUPER helpful.
• Solve their problem, offer them just what they’ve been looking for.
• Feel free to educate them if they don’t yet realise they need what you offer [wink]
• End your articles with a Call-to-Action (sign-up here, share this, comment, etc.), only ONE

Yes, I know we didn’t cover ALL of those points in this article, which is why you should be sure to check out the first three parts! Now you can also use your Conversion Flow to strategically plan your posts in your content calendar!

TAKE ACTION: Look up the definition for Sales Funnel and find an example you understand (Maybe Mariah Coz of www.Femtrepreneur.co). Then look up Regina Anaejionu of www.byRegina.com and check out her info on humanizing your process!

Lastly, map the products/services you offer in your Conversion Flow. I’ve included an example below to help you get started, but use as many boxes as you need. If you have multiple products/services, use one sheet of paper for each!

In Part 5 (second to the last), we’ll talk about using your content calendar to help you aim for specific goals! We’ll do some mind-mapping and you WILL benefit from the exercises included, I just know it!

Meanwhile, if you have any question regarding the content above, please do comment and I’ll get back to you or contact me personally and let’s chat!

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