Table of Contents
You’ve been posting. Maybe consistently, maybe sporadically, but you’ve been showing up. You write the caption, share the blog, and send the newsletter. And yet somehow it still feels like you’re shouting into a void.
Here’s the thing: the problem usually isn’t the content itself. It’s that nobody, including you, is quite sure what it’s supposed to be doing.
Before you think about what to post, or how often, or on which channel, there’s a more important question to answer first.
What are your content goals?
Content without a goal is just noise
Most business owners start creating content because they know they’re supposed to. Someone told them to be consistent. Or they saw a competitor posting daily. Or they read an article about showing up on social media.
So they post. They share tips, behind-the-scenes moments, the occasional offer. And it looks like content. It might even be good content. It might even get responses. But maybe it isn’t getting you what you wanted. And you suddenly realise you didn’t even know that that is what you’re trying to achieve. And if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, you can’t tell whether it’s working or not.
Clear content goals give your content direction. Without them, you’re just filling space.
So what can content actually do for you?
Content can do a lot of things, but it can’t do all of them equally well at the same time. Here’s what good content is genuinely capable of:
It can teach. Sharing your knowledge helps your audience understand something new and positions you as the person who knows their stuff. This builds trust quietly and consistently over time.
It can drive people to your website. A blog post, a video, a LinkedIn article: these bring people into your world and give them a reason to explore further.
It can grow your email list. If you create content that leads somewhere, whether that’s a freebie, a resource, or a signup, you’re building an audience you actually own.
It can bring in clients. Content with a clear call to action can directly lead to enquiries, discovery calls, and sales. Not every piece of content has to sell, but some of it absolutely should.
It can improve your visibility. When you create something genuinely useful or resonant, people share it. That extends your reach without any extra effort from you, meaning new people get to know you exist.
It can show who you are. Beyond expertise, content is how people get a feel for your personality, your values, and whether they’d actually like working with you. That matters more than most people realise.
It can improve customer experience. FAQs, tutorials, behind the scenes content: all of this helps your existing clients feel supported and informed, which makes working with you feel easier.
Before you pick your focus, it helps to get clear on your overall marketing direction.
The Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is a free workbook that helps you work out exactly that. Grab it below!
Pick your focus, at least for now
You might read that list and think “yes, I want all of that.” And yes, me too. But trying to achieve everything at once usually means achieving nothing in particular. It’s a bit like trying to talk to everyone and ending up talking to no one.
Instead, pick one or two content goals to focus on. Not forever, just for now. That focus will shape everything: what you write about, where you post it, and what you include at the end of each piece.
For example, if your goal is to grow your email list, make sure much of your content naturally leads to a freebie or signup. If your goal is to build trust and show expertise, you’re creating informative, generous content that helps people solve real problems. If you want to bring in new clients, you need content that speaks directly to the people you want to work with and shows them what it’s like to work with you.
Different goals, different content, different calls to action.
Now, I want to mention a caveat here. You never want to post 1 type of content. There are 6 of them and you want to alternate them, but you can use those 6 types to focus mostly on that goal.
How do you know if it's working?
Once you know what you’re trying to achieve, you can actually measure whether it’s happening. Not vanity metrics like likes, but real indicators.
If you’re trying to grow your list, you track signups. If you’re trying to get clients, you track enquiries and where they came from. If you’re trying to drive traffic, you look at your website analytics. If you’re building trust over time, you pay attention to how people talk about you when they do reach out.
The goal determines the metric. Without the goal, you’re just hoping.
A quick content goals exercise
What do I want my content to achieve right now?
Be specific. “Grow my audience” isn’t a goal. “Get 50 new email subscribers this month” is. (It doesn’t mean you’ve failed if you don’t get to it, but it does give you a spot to work towards and then analyse what happened.)
Who is this content actually for?
What do I want them to do after reading, watching, or listening?
Every piece of content should have one clear next step, even if it’s just “read this other related post.”
That’s it. Three questions, written down before you start creating, will do more for your content than any posting schedule or trend-chasing strategy.
Ready to build content that actually does something?
If you’ve got the why sorted but you’re not sure what to create, or you feel like you keep running out of ideas, the Content Success Course is where to go next. It teaches you the six types of content that every business needs, a system for coming up with ideas that never dries up, and how to create your first six pieces in about two hours.
Want to dive in even deeper? This course will teach you how to use the 6 content types effortlessly, help the customer on their journey and make your content fit you.
