Exercise for Content Ideas

Content marketing requires …content. A lot of content. Whether you are working with social media posts or blog posts, or both, you likely need a lot of content!

The trick is making sure that your content is actually related to the services that you are trying to sell.

If you are a coach who works with clients 1:1 or within a group program, you want to make sure that your content is speaking to the same problems that your paid services work on.

This is so that your content attracts and serves the people that are a good fit for your services.

OK, now that that is settled… how do you come up with a TON of ideas that will work for content marketing and also be related to your services?

Enter the “zero-to-hero” exercise.

I learned this exercise from Sunny Lenarduzzi — she uses this exercise as a way to walk people through creating a signature course. It’s brilliant and you can learn more about it via the free training available on her website.

As I’ve marinated on the idea, I’ve also found that it is such a good exercise to use for content marketing (like, ahem, this blog post idea itself came from me doing the exercise).

To see how I use the exercise for content brainstorming, check out the video below 👇

Step One

Think of what your ideal client is struggling with before they find the solutions that you are able to share with them.

How are they feeling?

What are the specific problems they are having?

Step Two

How will your ideal client feel after they have worked with you? What will they have? What are the benefits they will have experienced? This is the hero state.

Step Three

What are all the steps that they will need to go through to go from “zero” to “hero”? Get really specific. Start from literal Step 1. And make sure that you put yourself in their shoes and assume that they don’t know anything.

List out all the steps and then break them down into mini steps.

These become your topics!