4 smartest content ideas for growth and reaching your goals

Ever feel like you’re just creating content because you have to? Let’s change that. What would it feel like if every piece of content you created had a clear purpose for your business, met your needs for growth, traffic, subscribers and sales, and truly resonated with your audience? 

That’s the power of planning your content with intention and around your goals.

Before you dive into creating your next post, take a moment to think about your goals.

• Are you trying to sell more products? 
• Grow your email list? 
• Highlight a new feature or new product?
• Or maybe you just want to connect on a deeper level with your audience. 

Whatever your goals are, setting them upfront can make a huge difference when you’re creating your content planning. 

In this blog post, I’ll show you how to organize your ideas and make sure they align with your goals. Ready to make your content work harder for you, instead of the other way around? 

Before getting started, make sure to grab a copy of my Content Playbook:

Let’s get started! Want to watch this as a video? Watch here:

Set Your Content Goals and Identify Your Intentions

Before you start your content planning, it’s important to set your content goals. Why are you creating this content? What message do you want to share with your audience? Do you want to sell more products? Are you aiming to grow your email list or generate more leads? Do you want to highlight a new feature or product update? Or maybe you just want to connect with your audience on a deeper level.

To help you align your content with your goals, I’ve categorized the average online business owner’s goals into four main content pillars.

Goal 1: “I want to grow my traffic, subscribers, and sales in a steady, predictable way, over time”

For this goal, you’ll use Evergreen Content types.

Pillar Content 1: Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is all about providing lasting value to your business and for your audience. This type of content helps you achieve steady, compounding growth over time in traffic, subscribers, and sales. These are the timeless content ideas that stay relevant and useful over time to support your goals.

Here are some content ideas for an evergreen content pillar:

• “Learn the top 5 strategies for improving your productivity.” (Educational Content)
• “Our Journey: How I Turned [topic] into [goal].” (Inspirational Content)
• “How to master the basics of [your niche].” (How-To Guides)
• “The ultimate guide to [topic] for beginners.” (Comprehensive Guides)
• “Top 10 tools you need for [specific task].” (Resource Lists)

These content ideas would pair well with our monthly captions and Animated Reel Templates inside the Content Membership:

Goal 2: “I want to stand out, build awareness, share my unique message, story, and values, build relationships and build trust”

For this goal, you’ll use Core Messages as your content type.

Pillar Content 2: Core Messages

Core messages are crucial for reinforcing your brand, sharing your unique story, and communicating your values. This type of content helps you stand out, build awareness, foster relationships, build trust, and make deeper connections with your audience. These messages consistently communicate your brand’s core principles and values.

Here are some content ideas for a core messages pillar:

• “Why I started my business.” (Inspirational Content)
• “My take on [topic]: Why it matters if you want [goal].” (Beliefs / Opinions)
• “10 mistakes I’ll never make again.” (Beliefs / Opinions)
• “How I achieved [goal] without [alternative].” (This Vs That)
• “What I’d do if I had to start over from scratch.” (Inspirational Content)
• “10 things to stop doing for [goal].” (Beliefs / Opinions)
• “10 key steps for [goal].” (Beliefs / Opinions)

A great way to share your story, beliefs or must-have tips could be a simple list graphic or chart like these inside the content membership:

Goal 3: “I want to simplify content, make my life easier, make content more effective without sacrificing quality, and still see engagement, drive traffic, subscribers, and sales”

For this goal, you’ll use Popular Posts.

Pillar Content 3: Popular Posts (Repurposed)

Popular posts are all about getting great engagement and driving traffic without sacrificing quality. By repurposing your past popular posts, you can save time and keep the content fresh. These posts have already proven to resonate with your audience, so you know they’ll work. Updating and reusing these posts helps you keep the quality high, increase interaction, and reach more people.

To find your popular posts, you’ll look at your insights on Instagram or your google analytics for reports on your traffic. Then, every 4 months or so, you can repurpose that content into a fresh and updated piece of content for a new platform. 

Examples of repurposing popular posts: 

• Turn a past Instagram text graphic post into a simple reel where you use the same message, but add a voiceover to bring it to life.
• Turn a blog post into a carousel on Instagram.
• Create a YouTube Video Tutorial from a Blog post.
• Convert a detailed YouTube Video’s main points into a list graphic for posting on Instagram

For example, and easy win with repurposing is by taking the points of a blog and turning the key points into carousel for Instagram:

Goal 4: “I want to try new things like viral trends and hopefully see spikes of engagement”

For this goal, you’ll use New Ideas.

Pillar Content 4: News, New Ideas, or Trends

News, trending and topics can keep your content fresh and relevant. This type of content helps you stay current with trends, test out new content ideas, share news, or hop onto a viral trend. The good news is with new new ideas, you may have a better chance at spiking your engagement for a bit, which could raise awareness more than an average day, ultimately growing your audience and driving traffic or subscribers. These are going to be content ideas that capture attention and keep your audience engaged with what’s new and trending in your niche or business. 

Here are some content ideas for a new ideas pillar:

• “New product alert! Discover our latest release and get [discount] today.” (Promotional Content)
• “Feeling like this today? 😂 #MondayMood [Insert Meme]” (Entertainment Content)
• “How [recent trend] is changing [your industry].” (Trend Analysis)
• “Top [number] things you need to know about [current event].” (Timely Updates)
• “We’re loving this new [tool/trend]! Here’s why you should too.” (Product/Trend Review)

For this content, if you had a new product, you could do a mockup style reel with a voice over, or for relevant trends and engagement, you could adapt a relevant and popular meme:

Summary

By setting clear content goals and aligning your content with specific intentions, you can create a powerful and effective content strategy and plan. Whether you’re looking to provide long-term value, reinforce your brand, boost engagement, or stay relevant with new ideas, having a plan in place makes all the difference.

Plus, now you know how to match the goals you have in your business with content ideas and templates!

Look at you go! If you’re interested in a more mindful approach to content creation, check out this blog on how to batch content while embracing a slower, more mindful approach.

Now, it’s time to Start Breaking down your ideas into a Content Plan Using a Content Planner!

Now that you know how to match content types with your goals, it’s time to create your own Content Playbook with your content pillars.

There’s no reason to start from scratch with this. Below is my content playbook for making content fun and easy. It helps you define a content workflow and organize your ideas so you can start creating content 4X faster!

To get started, you can use a simple Google Sheet or use any project management tool or file system you want, but make sure it’s all in one place. That’s the key! We want to prevent switching back and forth between things during the content process. 

Ready to take your content organize your content effectively in a way you’ve never been able to before?

It’s time to..

Join the Content Membership from Ivory Mix!

This month inside the Profitable Content Membership from Ivory Mix, we’ve included everything you’d need for a flexible and full month of content:

• Caption Templates: Engaging captions ready to customize.
• Reels Templates: Eye-catching templates for your Instagram Reels.
• Canva Templates: Stunning designs for various platforms.
• Stories Content Plan: A strategic plan for your Instagram Stories.
• Pinterest Content Plan: Optimized content ideas for Pinterest.
• Blog and Email Templates: Ready-to-use templates for your blog posts and email newsletters.
• Stock Photos: High-quality images to enhance your content.
• PLUS: Additional Digital Products you can resell

Click here to join the  Content Membership at Ivory Mix to access these resources and to start planning with intention and watch your engagement, traffic, and sales grow.

Suggested Reading

• How to batch content with a slower approach and softer business
• Create content 4 times faster with the content playbook