What’s the difference between a content strategy and a content plan (and why it matters)

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I recently got a message from a client who was considering joining one of my business and content strategy retreats In it. They said they were glad I was covering business strategy and not just helping people plan social media content. And it made me want to cry, not because they'd said something wrong, quite the opposite in fact, but because it made me think I'd done something wrong.

. I'm also the creator of the: 2023

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a content plan and why it's a distinction that really matters.

ate your content strategy for: 2023

So do you stick around for that?

So first off, why did this comment make me want to cry? Well, it made me want to cry because I'm a content strategist, which means I help people get clear on their goals, and I help them to design a content strategy which

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supports those goals. Content planning does sometimes come into it, but much further down the line when we're clear on the overall content.

Sometimes I might be creating a content strategy to support a client's overall business goals, but other times it's about creating a strategy for a specific content project. So it might be a new podcast, a new email, lead magnet, an event, or even helping them build out a sales funnel. But you can't really look at a project like this in isolation without seeing where, how, or even if it fits into their bigger business and life goals.

So we have to look at business strategy too. And if somebody comes to me and says, can you help me create an email, lead magnet and a funnel? The first

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question I was asked is, Do you really need an email lead magnet? I mean, maybe they do, but first off, I want to be sure that they are using the right tactics to achieve their goals.

Otherwise, what's the point? Another common question that comes up with clients is, I have multiple businesses. Do I need to create different content for each one? Because it takes a lot of time. Couldn't I just bang them all in together? Again, in that case, the first question I'd ask is, why have you got multiple different businesses?

Do you need to have multiple different businesses? Sometimes the answer is yes, but sometimes the answer is no. So being a content strategist is so much more than helping people plan their content. And this comment

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from a client, it wasn't the first time I'd heard that kind of thing, and certainly won't be the last, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about why people associate me with content planning.

started publishing it back in: 2017

But here's the thing about my planner. It's never been about content planning. And here's why. You can't create a content plan unless you have a content strategy and you can't create a content strategy without a business strategy. And there is

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nothing like creating a content strategy to expose the leaky bits of your business strategy or that you haven't actually really got one.

Now, I know this I always have done, but my client's comment and those other comments I've heard over the years made me think that perhaps I haven't always done the best job of explaining it to you and that many content specialists like. Use the phrase content planning when what we are really talking about is strategy.

And by the way, I totally have done this too. It's almost like we've dumbed it down because we think that if we talk about strategy, it will be too big and scary. But that comment from my client and other comments that I've. Had like that over the years

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have made me think that in talking so much about content planning instead of strategy, I'm actually doing my clients and my audience a disservice.

So I hereby promise you that I am now going to be talking about content strategy first and foremost because it's so important. Now, if you find it difficult to get your head around the difference between a content strategy and a content plan, this analogy might. A content strategy is about the destination, so it's about where you want to go and also why you want to go there.

And also exploring the best roots and modes of transport. And by that I mean the content platforms that you choose or the tactics and thinking about the different ways that you. Might get there and working out the

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best way to get there, your content plan is the map you create to get there. But you can't create a map if you don't know where you're going, right?

So if you've been struggling to stick to a content plan, this may be why you're trying to plan content when you don't actually know where you are going. There's a moment that happens at my Courageous Content live event every single year, and it also happens on my content strategy class that I held this year, which I've now officially renamed a content strategy masterclass, not content planning as it was called in the past.

And what happens is I ask people to do something, which I think is pretty simple and straightforward, just to look across their year, look at. Different quarters in the year and write down two

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or three things that they're going to be focusing on. Any key launches or any events. Maybe they might be launching a book or a podcast.

Maybe there's natural peak points, so periods during the year when people are more likely to be interested in their product or service. I just ask them to just spend a few minutes writing down two or three things in each quarter. And typically more than one person says, I can't do this. This is impossible.

I can't do it. And they say, well, I don't know what's gonna be happening in my business this time next year. And at this point, and if you've listened to this podcast for a while, you'll probably know what's coming. I usually say, well, if that's the case, you don't have a business. Like if you can't sit there and think about what you

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might be doing, what you might be selling, what you might be focusing on in your business this time next year, you don't have a business, you're.

Leaping from month to month with no real sense of where you're going. So of course your content is going to be hard. So if that's the case for you, you need to take a step back and you need to spend some time on your business strategy. And it doesn't need to be detailed. You don't have to have all of the answers.

It might be that you put something on your plan and it doesn't come to fruit, or it ends up changing. For example, I worked with a client this year. I actually interviewed Josephine for the podcast on her discovery that two of her children were transgender. When we first talked about that podcast project, I think, if I remember rightly, Josephine was planning on.

Launching that

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podcast in the second quarter of the year. It ended up being the fourth quarter because when she got into it, and particularly with the sensitivity around the topic and also the groundwork that she had to do to build her audience, she did an excellent job of creating a a wait list. So she had people who knew about the podcast were excited and ready to listen when it went live.

Yeah, it ended up being later in the year and that's fine, but not being able to just sit down and start to create that vision just to, as my friend Oman Cherif always puts it, apply your best thinking right now. If you can't do that, you don't have a business. You are a freelancer. You are a contractor. So it's a hard and harsh lesson to hear, or certainly it can be, but it's a really important one.

One of

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my longtime clients, Rachel Spencer. Hi. If you're listening, Rachel, who spoke at my recent live event, courageous Content live's, one of the clients I'm so proud of because she's really stuck in there. She's done the work, she's built a. Successful business like me, she started off as a journalist and she now has a business where she teaches pet owners to promote their business primarily through pr, but also other types of content.

Rachel heard me say that on a podcast years ago now , and she actually stopped her car and pulled over to the side of the road because. That realization hit her so hard, and since then she's gone on to drop the journalism, I think pretty much completely

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now and build a successful online business.

Creating a content strategy always starts by looking at your overall business goals and also crucially your income goals. Because if you don't know how much money you need to generate and from which products or services, of course you're gonna have no idea what to publish when or where. You're gonna feel overwhelmed.

You're gonna feel confused. You're not gonna know where to start, or you're going to end up publishing content that doesn't get the. That you need. You may also feel frustrated because people are engaging really well with your content. I call it the messy middle. People are engaging with your content.

They're responding to your posts, they're responding to your emails. They seem really engaged, but they're just

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not buying because perhaps there's a disconnect between the products or services you're selling and the content you are putting out. And of course the easiest way to generate more income in your business is always to do more of what works, not jump onto every content trend or every new content platform.

Because when you do that, you can focus on the type of content that will increase engagement or sales or, or whatever your goal is. And you can't do more of what's working if you don't actually know what's working. When you take the time to create a content strategy for the. You know where to place your focus.

For example, a client who came along to my recent annual content strategy masterclass, Nikki, she noticed that most of her

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income was coming from a surprising place. It was coming from her book, and she didn't really expect that. And it's such an important piece of data because it can now guide Nikki on where to place her focus with her content in the coming.

to publish a book in August,: 2023

Maybe you don't even have an email list at all. The average conversion rate for online sales is just one to 2%. So this should give you an idea of how many copies you might expect. And

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how many people you would need on your email list to achieve your target sales, and that might feel daunting. But if you spend some time this side of Christmas creating your content strategy, you can create a strategy that focuses on audience growth.

You can think about the best way to build that audience. It might be about email marketing. There might be an easier way of doing it. It might be about doubling down on a content platform that you are already using like Pinterest or YouTube or your podcast. How you do it is the next step. Once you are clear on.

What you want to do, and I think a common problem with content is people skipping ahead to the tactics, to the platform without

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actually knowing what it is that they're trying to achieve. So I hope you're now clear on the difference between a content strategy and a content plan. And why it's really, really important, and I hope this episode will inspire you to put some time aside this side of Christmas to create your content strategy.

If you'd like some help with this, I have a Christmas gift for you. I've created a content strategy template you can download, and there is a link in the show notes to you. Download my content strategy template. And yes, if you follow the link from the show notes, which are just underneath the podcast player where you're listening to this episode, it is meant to open in me.

If you have trouble or you can't find it, DME on Instagram or email me on Janet Janet Murray dot co

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uk, and my team will send it to you. And my Instagram handle is at jan murray uk. By the way, if you've already invested in my 2023 Courageous Content Planner and content kit, I've sent this template out to planet owners and also added it to the members' area with your creators kit.

My advice would be to do this first, then go through the audio. In the creators kit, that will take you less than an hour, and then creating your content plan will feel easy peasy in comparison, I promise you. But if you skip out the content strategy bit, everything else will feel harder, and your content will be less effective.

By the way, if this episode has helped this, click for you. If it's been a big light bulb moment and you now understand why you need to go through the process of

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creating a content strategy and then your plan, you can go right ahead and grab your 2023 Courageous content planner and content kit. Using the code Strategy 30, that will save you 30 pounds.

You'll be able to grab the whole kit for 67 pounds. When you have a look, you won't believe what's included in it. It's tremendous value, and that code is exclusive to podcast listeners and will give you 30% off the planet and content kit until December the 31st. You'll get your strategy template with your kit, which means you'll be ready to go.