3 reasons businesses FAIL at Content Strategy...even if they have a good one - Teacher: Juma Bannister

Hello and welcome to Useful Content today I am your teacher in the Useful Content Classroom.

And this episode is a special episode, not only because I'm doing it solo, But for two other reasons. The first thing is that this is very much a YouTube video. And it was given over to edit to one of the main guys on my team, Nicholas. He doesn't usually edit my videos, but I gave it to him to edit and he treated the video pretty nice, so the version that you're hearing here will get a nice fancy looking YouTube style video. And everyone else who's listening to the audio will not hear any of the sound effects or hear any of the music that goes along with that. So you're missing out if you're only listening to the audio.

So you should go check the. YouTube version out on YouTube.

And the second reason this video is special is because this was never intended to be a podcast episode, as in it was an impromptu video that I did. Almost all of it was done off the top of my head based on my interactions with clients. I just had this burning thought about challenges. Clients were encountering when we did content strategies with them. And I said, you know what, I need to talk about this.

So I turned on the camera and I recorded the video. And about 15 minutes later, this video was done. And so it was almost all done without really scripting out the entire thing. I had to go make a few changes, but it turned out pretty well for what it was. And I know you're going to enjoy this one for sure.

Especially if you're a business owner looking to implement a content strategy.

Now, what is the actual video about? The video is about three things that make a content strategy fail. And of course, what you can do to stop that from happening.

Now I address a very specific part of the process. I'm not addressing the planning stage, which is the part where you're putting the content strategy together. So I'm not addressing the planning stage, which is the part where you're putting the content strategy together. That stage has its own challenges and I'm also not addressing the execution stage where you're taking everything that you planned and you're now implementing it.

I am addressing that kind of funny area in between where you're moving from the plan into execution and the kind of things you need in order for that to happen smoothly.

So this is not a tactical type video, even though there's the actions you have to take. This is more of a systems type video, and it will be very useful if you have a strategy and you've been having difficulty implementing it. You may need to go back to the drawing board and look at these three factors.

So that's the summary. Hope you enjoy the video. Let's make useful content. 

So if you're a business owner attempting to execute on a content strategy, you're always in danger of failure. and for what we've seen from doing content strategies for clients, there are three main things that people tend to lack that cause their content strategy implementation to fail.

So let's talk about that today.

I want you to listen carefully to this because I'm going to share with you what the problem is and I'm going to share with you how to solve it.

So if you're a business owner and you have a core type of business, whether that is accounting, whether that is computing, whether that is a bakery or hardware or whatever it is, creating content is not usually your core thing that you do day to day. So if you're doing a content strategy you're doing to get more of your main business. How it works is that you have the strategy here and you havethe tactics here You have this big plan right here, and then you have the execution on the other side.

The problem with most business owners is that they don't consider that there is a bridge in between the strategy and the tactics, between the plan and the execution, and that bridge is called systems.

Because even if you have a plan and you know what you're supposed to do, unless you have a way to do it, it won't get done.

So you're probably saying, well Juma, what do you mean systems? We have the plan already, let's just go do stuff. Let me explain. There are three main resources that you need. In order for your systems to run well, and I'm going to go through each of those three main resources. So let's start with number one.

The first resource that you have to identify is the human resource. 

If you've taken time to create a strategy that involves a goal that you're moving towards, the main thing inside of that goal is that someone has to be responsible for it.

Someone has to be the one who is in the front line making sure that this strategy gets executed.

So that someone could be the business owner themselves, they could take responsibility for being the main content creator or they could assign someone to lead the content team and that person will do what they need to do and report back to the business owner or the leader of the company in order to show what they've been doing. But you need someone to take primary responsibility for the execution of the strategic plan and how it rolls out in actuality inside of the company and how it gets to the people who you want it to get to.

So number one in your systems. is the human resource. Identify the people, make sure someone is responsible. 

So how do you solve this human resource problem? Well, when you're creating the strategy, it's always important to get the people involved who, you know, are going to be an integral part of the strategy or who are the core of executing on the implementation of the strategy.

Onboard people early, tell them the responsibilities so that there'll be no surprise when the plan is finished of who is going to take responsibilities for what. 

And just to note, even though that responsibility lies with someone inside the company and is internal, they can also call on external resources in order to help them with that. 

You can also get the external team involved early too so that they know what you want and they learn more about the company early.

And we'll see how that works in the next point I'm going to make.

So the second resource you need in order to execute on your content strategy is the technical resource.

Now this technical resource includes the how to and it includes the actual tools that you need in order to execute. So it could be software, for example, I use Descript to make my videos and to edit my podcast, so you could have a tool or piece of software for your podcasting like Riverside.

fm or Squadcast or Zoom or whatever it is, but that technical thing, that software needs to be available for you to use. And you can also have hardware, things like lighting and cameras and hard drives in order to store the videos when you make them, or maybe you have a cloud account, something like box or something like Google drive, and you can store your videos and keep them safe after they've been created. And so you have all these technical things that you're going to use to support your content creation. process. That might even be something like chat GPT 4 if you're a writer and you need assistance with that. Whatever it might be in order to execute on the content will be a technical thing that you'll need in order to support the creation of the content.

And again, all of that technical resource and know how doesn't have to be only internal. You can outsource that. So for example, a company might come in and bring their cameras and their lights and they might do your editing for you. But if you don't hire a company, you're going to have to have that expertise internally 

in order to execute any content strategy and make sure that it is successful. So the second thing is your technical resources. 

Now how do you solve for technical resources? Now technical resources are a bit tricky because it actually takes investment in equipment or software in order for it to get done. So you will have to allocate some resource on new equipment or new software or training or something of that sort in order for things to get executed the way it's supposed to.

So you have to have a budget set aside for that. And if you want to find out what exactly you need, whoever is creating a content strategy for you, you can ask them about what resources might I need to execute on these things and what do you recommend.

And of course you have the option of if you don't want to buy anything new or you don't want to invest in any software or you don't want to edit or do things in house you can also outsource all of those technical things to an external team so that they can help you execute on this technical part of your content strategy. 

And the third and final important thing that you must have in order to execute on your content strategy is your time resource.

So what do I mean by time resource? Your time resource is the time allocated specifically for the creation and development of the content, including the recording of videos, writing of scripts, writing of blogs, repurposing, and also posting those things to the relevant social media platforms. All those things take time.

Time and if someone is working inside of the company with their primary task They are going to have to be given the time in order to execute on these things as a part of Executing on the larger content strategy.

And I actually believe that time resource is one of the biggest challenges companies have. That many times you have marketing departments with people who have massive responsibilities and they just cannot find the time or the time allocation is not given to them in order to execute on the plans that they have internally to create content.

Now if you want the strategy to be successful If you don't want it to fail, you have to be able to allocate a specific time every week in order to execute on it. Content strategy is not outside of your marketing. It's not a bastard child. It's something that has to be brought into your marketing and time has to be given to it.

Just like every other essential task that builds your business. So the time resource is very important.

And just to give an idea of how That works, my podcast in particular, I take about five hours to create the podcast from top to bottom. And then there's another set of time that you take to cut clips and repurpose clips and then turn that into like a blog or social posts or anything of that sort. So in any given month, depending on how deep your content strategy is, you're probably going to have to allocate five to 10 hours in order to execute on the strategy the right way.

How do you solve for time resource? Now this is the probably the biggest and most touchy issue when it comes to Doing things apart from the fact of getting someone to do it many times people resist having to create or setting aside time from their job in order to do it, but You're gonna have to make a sacrifice Someone has to make the sacrifice if it's the business owner if it's the marketing lead, or whoever it is, they're going to have to make a sacrifice.

It's going to have to be integrated as part of their responsibilities. And that is the only way to do it. It cannot be on the side. If it's on the side, it will be neglected. So the, you solve the time problem by doing one or two things.

By hiring someone specifically to deal with this and letting all of their time be dedicated to executing on the plan.

or allowing someone to split their time in between what they do day to day and the time that they have to execute on the plan. Either way some high level decision is going to have to be made about how this person was responsible for the execution is going to have to allocate their time in order to do the work. 

So let's review three resources you need to execute on your content strategy. So number one, the human resource, the people that actually take responsibility to turn the strategy into tactics. Number two, the technical resource, the tools that you need in order to execute on all of the content and make it come to life. And then the third thing, the time resource. The actual chronological time you need to set aside for people to get this done that is set apart from the main job that they have to do.

And if you get all of these three things right, it makes it highly likely that the execution of your content strategy will 

succeed. 

I hope this was very useful for you the three things that put content strategies in danger of failure. If you want to subscribe to my newsletter you can find a link for that in the show notes. It's been going very well. I've been running it for about five weeks now. Going out every week like clockwork is very useful.

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Thanks so much for joining us. All of you useful content creators out there, useful content classroom, dismissed. And we're clear. Ooh, let me see. All right, this is a new boom arm I have. Um, the people who are on the audio are going to hear this but they're not going to see it. I have a new boom arm that I'm using.

I used to have a stand that was on the desk and I decided to upgrade and get a boom arm. So this is the first time I'm actually using it here and it's working pretty well. It's not the most expensive one, but you don't need the most expensive thing. Uh, most of the time people just don't need it. By the more expensive brands, cause that's what they know.

Uh, so you can get a boom on fame, Mike, if you want to have your podcast as well. Good tips. And my family's being very noisy outside as usual. It's they have the TV on so loud. Uh, so we'll talk soon.