Content. The million-dollar word that has revolutionized business as social media platforms have begun to evolve. 

Whether an influencer, freelancer, small business, or corporation, content creation is all the rage. Everything is content—from your website to your email flows. While content has become an integral part of business, it can be difficult to keep content fresh and engaging. And so begins the creative content process, where companies and service providers alike have to create content that sets them apart from the competition. 

The beauty of content is in its ability to ensure your relevancy to your client or customer by the value that it adds. Approaching content from an educational or resourceful perspective can take your business to the next level and further develop the relationship and trust you have with your client. Research has shown that more than 80% of customers are more likely to choose a brand that educates them over one that does not. 

In this step-by-step guide, we intend to help you view content as less of a sales ad and more of a conversion method. While not always a direct conversion, creative content planning that builds off of your on-hand resources can increase your sales and engagement long-term. 

Step One: Brainstorm Company Knowledge and Resources Beneficial to Your Customer

First, think of your customer base. What are their interests? What outside or industry information do you know that would benefit them? By taking the time to understand the needs of your customer, you can better predict the type of content that would be useful or interesting to them. 

You should write this out and review the list to hone in on who your customers are and what they may need outside of the service or product you offer. Once you’re clear on who you’re creating content for, you can begin to evaluate what you can offer them. 

Brainstorm a list of company resources, industry information, or tips and tricks as it relates to your customer. The purpose of this exercise is to look inward to determine what more you have to offer your client or customer. 

*Pro Tip: Transparency and communication are two of the most effective ways to build trust with your audience. By relating to them and offering behind-the-scenes information, businesses can benefit from the many pros of increased client trust (more sales, customer loyalty, higher engagement, recommendations/reviews).

Step Two: Make a Network List For Content Features

Alas, another exercise! In this step, you should brainstorm current resources in your company or professional network that will allow you to increase the relevancy and validity of the content you create. Think of podcasts, for instance. Most podcasts feature guests that would be interesting to their audience, and typically have a social return for the guest participant. 

Adding a level of depth to your content with industry experts can take your content from flat to alluring, further increasing client trust in your brand. 

As you make your network list, be sure to consider what level these contacts would be comfortable with participating in your content. Are they comfortable being quoted, on camera, or sharing their photo to increase credibility? How frequently would they contribute to your content? 

Step Three: Use Step One & Two to Create a Long-Form Content Plan

For this exercise, I want you to combine your brainstorming from step one and step two and use them to create a long-form content plan that will educate your audience. Creating this plan from your resource base allows you to structure the information in a way that is leading and makes sense to the customer. 

Once you have your long-form content plan, you will have a holistic view of the information you can present to your audience. From there, you can break it down into short-form content pieces. You likely do something similar for your marketing campaigns already, and should take this approach for your internal resource content. 

*Pro Tip: When breaking down your content plan, incorporate multiple types of content (videos, memes, photos, statistics, etc) to ensure that your message is interesting and contains variety.  

Step Four: Create an SMS Membership Program to Deploy Your Content Plan

Once you have your internal resources broken down into bite-sized bits, it’s time to guarantee that the content will reach your customer. SMS marketing is the most effective way to reach your audience to date, with text messages having a 98% open and read-rate compared to emails or mobile applications. 

To ensure that your effort is not wasted, you should turn your long-term lesson plan from step three into an create SMS subscription service that customers can sign up for membership for a low monthly fee. This will serve as an agreement between you and your customer that they are interested in the information you have to offer and expect to receive text messages from you. 

When businesses invest time into creating a content based subscription that effectively reaches their customers, they are able to create more opportunities for revenue generation. Along with the subscription revenue gained for supplying useful content, businesses can benefit from higher conversion rates and increased sales when they gain client trust through educational content. 

With Subflow, content publishers can create an unlimited number of SMS membership products, with an unlimited number of users, and only be charged for the number of text messages sent. With several package options, your Subflow use case can be adapted to fit any budget. 

Full List of SubFlow Text Membership Services—

• Unlimited Membership Products
• Unlimited Membership Subscribers
• Payment Collection with Stripe
• Dashboard Product Management
• Dedicated Account Manager 
• Bulk Delivery
• Single Delivery
• Two-Way Texting 
  

Request a Subflow platform demo today and start using your on-hand resources to create and deploy valuable content to your customers!