When it comes to creating great content never betray the golden rule:
It’s never about you; it’s always about them.
Even when it looks like it’s about you, it’s still going to circle back around to them.
All great content needs 3 things:
- It needs a hook
- It needs some entertainment value
- and then it needs something actionable that the readers or viewers can take away from it and apply to their own lives or businesses
The hook I am talking about now…
…think of it like a subject line.
In this case you are not trying to get people to open an email though, you are trying to get them to keep reading your post or keep watching your video.
It’s operating on the same basic principle though. So, refer to those psychological tactics for your hook. To recap them for your convenience here:
One) Curiosity – If I use a subject line that invokes curiosity it always raises open rates.
Two) Educational – The promise of teaching your reader something they did not know.
Three) Fear – The third and final type of subject line that I have found to be incredibly effective for getting opens is simple fear. The idea that something is going to be taken away. Nobody wants things taken away from them.
Okay, now the entertainment value I am speaking of comes in the form of a story, either from your own life, or something you are conveying from somewhere else, like a video you watched, or a podcast you listened to.
And then of course the actionable content. Either a step-by-step walk through or some kind of lesson or takeaway.
You now have an excellent formula for how to create fantastic content.
What I want to teach you now is how to create that kind of content without trying so hard.
I have 3 words for you. Private Label Rights (aka PLR).
This is content that you can buy or get for free that was written by someone else, but you buy the rights to use it. It’s pretty awesome and it will save you a ton of time.
There is a problem though and I’ll tell you what it is in a minute, but first let me tell you a couple of my favorite PLR sources:
Now the problem?
PLR is great for coming up with actionable content. You can find some really nice step by step instructional type reports and how to guides. But they are horrible at the other two parts of the equation.
You still need that hook. You still need that entertainment value.
For coming up with a great hook, what you can do is utilize a nice headline generator for quick ideas. Here are a few of my favorites:
https://sumo.com/kickass-headline-generator/
http://www.title-generator.com/
https://seopressor.com/blog-title-generator/
https://www.impactbnd.com/blog-title-generator/blogabout
Alright so now you have a quick fix for actionable content, and a great hook.
But what about the story? What about the entertainment value?
Utilize google here.
We are going to do simple searches on quick motivational or inspirational stories. Motivational and inspirational stories are universal in their appeal. Not only do people enjoy them but these kinds of stories can be woven into almost any kind of content.
Another concept that works really well is famous quotes. You basically start with a famous quote and then speak a little bit about what it means and the person who said it and then you segue that into your actionable content.
For example, let’s say you want to teach people how to blog for money and you have a 10 step guide to do that.
I’ll do a simple google search on “quotes about doing what you like” and I’ll pull up this interesting quote:
“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.” ~ Wayne Dyer.
So, then I would go on to say something like this:
“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.”
Wayne Dyer said that, and he would know. He was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker. His first book, Your Erroneous Zones (1976), is one of the best-selling books of all time, with an estimated 35 million copies sold to date.
Can you imagine selling 35 million books? That’s crazy to have so many people interested in what you have to say.
Well, honestly, it’s not that far-fetched. Thousands of people out there write simple blogs online everyday for a living. That’s all they do. I bet if you wanted to you could do the same thing.
In fact… I have written a 10-step guide to show you how to do just that…
(then we bring it back around to the actionable content)
So, you can see how I very quickly found some actionable content. Generated a “hook” around that content and then told a simple entertaining story about a famous person and brought that around to the actionable content.
This kind of strategy can have you putting together great content every single day if you wanted to. It eliminates the need to be insanely creative or come up with fantastic ideas every day.
You can do this easily. It would be like some kind of a parabolic content machine…
Also consider how effortless it would be to write a piece of content like the example I gave there about blogging, and then to pitch a more in-depth course on the subject.
This is the kind of content that will get you real affiliate commissions AND have people knowing, liking and trusting you.
Remember,
Hook, Story, Action. In any order. Although generally the hook needs to be first.
That’s a lot to take in and for now I want you practicing creating content like this. See if you can’t create a solid piece of content today using these simple tactics I have just shown you.
