Once you’ve set up a membership site, whether it’s a paid subscription or a free membership, it’s important to deliver fresh, relevant content to your members on a consistent basis. The type of content you deliver to your members can be anything including articles, infographics, images, videos, ebooks, workbooks, and more. The frequency with which you deliver your content is entirely up to you – just be sure to deliver on the promises you make to your members, or you’ll quickly lose integrity and subscribers.
Producing content on a daily/weekly/monthly basis can be a daunting task. It’s both mentally and physically exhausting, and as business owners we tend to nitpick and stress over the quality of our content right up until the minute before we take it live. This often gets messy and deadlines become more like “suggested posting dates,” which is never good for your reputation.
In an effort to take some of the stress out of releasing content regularly, I’ve compiled some of my favorite tricks for you today:
- Build an editorial calendar. This can be digital (e.g. Google Calendar or any number of plugins/online tools) or you can go the old fashion way and use a tangible planner, calendar, or notebook. The idea is to plan out how frequently you want to be posting and structure your posts to supplement your business strategy. Editorial calendars are also a great way to plan far into your future and incorporate recurring series or product, event, and launch promotions.
- Get ahead of the game. Try and set aside an entire day or a weekend dedicated solely to drafting content. If you can start outlining or even writing first drafts for the next five posts in your calendar, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run. By getting ahead of schedule, you give yourself enough time to let ideas marinade, edit/proofread calmly, and share top notch content on time, everytime. One of my favorite tools for the collection of new post and product ideas is Evernote. It syncs up with all of your devices, so whether a brilliant idea strikes you while you’re at your desk or on a train – you’re ready to jot down some notes or edit on the go!
- Upcycle content. One of the best places to grab new content from is actually your old content. But just like you might give your apartment walls a fresh coat of paint or get a new haircut for summer, you gotta spruce it up. Go back through your blog archives and take a look at some of your favorite and fan-favorite posts. Can you repurpose any of that content? Freshen up old posts with a new introduction, conclusion, or updated insights and commentary. Maybe combine a popular series of posts and package it into a free ebook for your members. There’s no better inspiration for producing new content than taking a trip down memory lane.
- Outsource help where you need it. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. If writing, editing, and digital marketing are not your fortes, don’t waste your time or energy trying to force it. Not trained as a graphic designer? Don’t spend three hours trying to figure out how to center a photo in your ebook. We live in a time where, with a literal click of a button, you can hire ghostwriters, copy editors, designers, and marketing mavens to handle all those parts of content production that might be intimidating you. Outsource those tasks that make your job ten times more difficult than it needs to be and devote that time and focus to something you really excel at instead. I promise you that 9 out of 10 times it will be more than worth the financial investment.
These are just a few tricks to help you get started on your way to consistent content creation, and I encourage you to tinker with them and make them your own. Find the system and schedule that works for you, and just remember to have fun with it! Your members are there because they love you, your products, your services, your brand, and your business. Even if you’re not always sharing the most relevant content, your members will just be grateful that you haven’t forgotten them.
And don’t forget that MemberPress is one of the easiest ways to create members only areas on your website to protect all the great, exclusive content you’re sharing!
