Further adventures in the Land of Content
2021 was a year of experimentation for us at the School of Valuable Content.
Of trying to find ways to help people create the content they need for their businesses.
Of leaning into the different kinds of writing for the different kinds of content a business needs.
And more this year than ever before, not just what to write but how to write it.
Our focus has been on helping people get the hidden and often difficult work of getting content production done in a way that’s enjoyable and rewarding. So they do it better and more regularly, and build businesses that make them happy.
Because there’s a lot to do when it comes to creating valuable content.
Content Writing Club was born
There’s the steady heartbeat type content that you need to produce and that’s where the Content Writing Club comes in. We ran the first one in March with a couple of people, and it’s been growing ever since.
The format has stayed the same. Two and a half hours on the third Thursday of the month. It’s enough time to write a newsletter or a short blog. Between sessions, Content Writing Club is a platform for sharing and getting feedback on your work. We’ve done a bit of teaching in the sessions, talked about the importance of planning and given Club members our super valuable content planning template to help them structure their writing more effectively.
New group coaching courses
We’ve gone into a lot more detail and depth on our courses, which we are seeing more and more as extra support for our Content Writing Club members. The courses help you uncover your unique valuable content sweet spot, and give you heaps of ideas for what to write, and then you can build time in your calendar to do the work with us at Content Writing Club.
We especially loved the newsletter course this year, because it is so focused on a tangible result. It’s not a hypothetical, nice-to-have list of possible ideas and maybes. It gets you from a standing start to creating your own newsletter - from purpose to list building to template to publishing - and the final result is one of the most useful content tools you have at your disposal. So we’ll be doing that one again this year.
Content Creation Retreats
Some writing jobs can’t be managed in one afternoon a month. If you’re thinking about course creation, or writing a book, or tackling a big proposal, it helps if you can block out a couple of days rather than a couple of hours.
The Content Writing Retreat was born out of a request from a friend working at a University who wanted to give her department proper time out of their schedule to focus on their writing. Thesis, books, articles - writing is a key part of the job but it often gets squeezed out because of teaching and admin demands. It becomes something to be dreaded, rather than something to be enjoyed, and that’s a shame.
Pre-pandemic their writing retreats had been in the real world. An away day to a beautiful old country house where everyone could find a lovely quiet spot to write and dive into their work in peace, fuelled by biscuits and good company in structured breaks. We created a two day online version for the Department, and realised the potential the format had for our people, running their own businesses. It was so useful having proper time to think and write, away from distractions. The feedback was wonderful, people got so much done. Just imagine, we said, what our people could create in that time?
The structure we’ve created for the retreat seems to work really well, and it’s made the participants who’ve tried it super productive. But I don’t think we’ve marketed it well enough. This thing needs an identity, and we need to be clearer on the benefits of big business shifting content pieces.
Tell better stories
One of the best ways we could do that would be to share some stories. For example, Helen who came on our first business writing retreat created the slides for a new two day course, which she went on to deliver for 60 people. The idea for the course had been on her to-do list for months, but it’s just not the kind of thing you can do in between seeing clients or in the evenings when you’re tired after work. The writing retreat gave her an opportunity to get this work done, and by the end of it she’d created another income stream for her business.
Sharing more stories about how valuable content can transform your business is high up on our list of priorities for next year. We talk about telling better stories a lot, but have been slow in doing it for ourselves.
Daily writing habit
Also on our list is an idea for helping people really up their content production by cultivating a daily writing habit.
We reckon if we commit to writing for 15 minutes a day for a month, we’ll make good stuff happen for the School. And we’re going to invite people to join us. Content Writing Club members first, and then anyone else who fancies joining the writing party.
What you focus on grows, so focus on your writing, and it will improve.
We haven’t figured out all the details yet, but we will kick off the first part of 2022 with another big writing experiment. And if you like the idea and think you might like to join us, do drop us a line and we’ll count you in!
