Long-Form Content Strategy with Hayley Klees | 34
The neverending game of “What should I post about next?” Seriously, if only someone had told me that would be the question that haunting me as an online business owner… My guest this week is Hayley Klees. She’s a content strategist that helps TPT authors creating 90 day content plans to help grow, nurture and market to their audiences using blog posts and email marketing.
All About Hayley!
Hayley is your best friend when it comes to planning out your content! She is a former 6th grade ELA teacher turned small business owner. She helps TPT authors feel less stressed & overwhelmed by creating a game plan for your store. Hayley loves playing volleyball & is a former collegiate athlete and coach. Being a business owner is a lot like coaching where it's important to know your audience & what they need at certain times of the year. If she's not working, you can find her outside because she loves the sunshine & being active!
We chat all about…
how to get started with a content strategy
the importance of strategically repurposing content
hard-selling vs soft-selling and which she recommends
how to organize your content and email marketing content
using UTM Codes and tags to help track purchases
Connect with Hayley
Instagram: @hayley.klees
Content Strategy Planner {FREEBIE!}
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Thanks for listening to this week’s Inspiring Story! If you would like to share your story on the podcast head to www.marketscalegrow.com/journey to apply today. We would love for you to join us and can’t wait to hear about your journey as a teacher business owner.
Episode Transcript:
Jenzaia: Hey there. I'm Jenzaia and this is Market, Scale, Grow. A podcast created for ambitious teacherpreneurs looking to have a bigger impact on the world, achieve freedom, flexibility, and ultimately make more money. With weekly strategy sessions and inspiring stories from fellow teachers, just like you, my goal here is to help you create a customized marketing strategy so you can grow your teacher business beyond your wildest dreams.
Jenzaia: Before we jump into the episode, I am super excited to share a brand new freebie with you. It's my targeting ideas for Facebook ads. If you've dabbled in Facebook ads or you've done them and you've tried them, and you're just looking for some fresh inspiration for your audiences, this freebie is for you. I share my top Facebook ad targeting groups for you so that you can have inspiration and find those people that are perfect for what you have to offer. From warm audiences, to cool lookalike audiences, to cold interest based audiences; I cover all three in this freebie. Head to marketscalegrow.com/audiences to grab your copy today.
Jenzaia: Hello, hello and welcome to Market, Scale, Grow. As you know, I'm Jenzaia. I'm your host and this is a Saturday Strategy Session. But it is not any Saturday strategy session. It is a special, exciting episode because today I've invited on my first ever guest. Yes, I know I have guest episodes that air every other week with inspiring stories, but usually my strategy sessions are solo, but today is our first one. And then I'm going to be having more guests come onto Saturday Strategy Sessions in the future.
Jenzaia: So my guest today is Hayley Klees. She is a content strategist for TpT authors. She was formally a sixth grade ELA teacher, and now a small business owner. She helps TPT authors feel less stressed and overwhelmed by creating a game plan for their stores and their blogs and email marketing. Hayley loves to play volleyball and is a former collegiate athlete and coach. She truly believes that being a business owner is a lot like coaching, where it's important to know your audience and what they need at certain times of the year. If Hayley is not working, you can find her outside because she loves sunshine and being active. As this is a Saturday Strategy Session and super special with a guest, Hayley actually created freebie for you. So stick around to the end of the interview, where you can grab the link and enjoy this amazing freebie from Hayley. That's enough for me probably. So let's dive in to the episode.
Jenzaia: Good morning. Good morning. How are you doing today, Hayley?
Hayley: I'm good. Thank you.
Jenzaia: Today I'm talking with Hayley Klees. She is a TPT content strategist, and I'm super excited. Do you want to dive in and just explain a little bit more who you are and what you do?
Hayley: Yeah, absolutely. Well, first off, thank you so much for having me today. I am a content strategist for TPT authors. What I do is I kind of help you plan out your content that you need to be putting out into your audience. I can help you determine what blog posts you need to write, what emails you need to be sending to your audience on a weekly basis. We can talk about social media themes and different content pillars, stuff that you can be posting on either Facebook or Instagram, wherever your audience hangs out. And I just kind of dive into your TPT products, see what your best sellers are, how we can market them in different ways throughout the school year to hopefully help you make more sales.
Jenzaia: Awesome. That is just so important and something that I don't think that I've even wrapped my head around yet. So where's the first place that people should start when they're trying to figure out a content strategy?
Hayley: Ooh, that's a good question. I would say the first place you should start is actually in your TPT store. If you look at your products, I want you to think of like one of your main sellers and how you could create, let's say three different blog posts just from that one main seller.
Hayley: A lot of people will come to me and say, "I don't know what to write about in this blog post." Well, have you dove into your products? Like if it's guided math, how can you create three different blog posts around guided math? And so between the client and myself, I always say that two brains are better than one. We work together and we can bounce ideas off of each other. And by the time we're done, you will be amazed with how many ideas that you have and you will be so excited to just get your blog posts up, be able to soft sell your products in them. You'll be able to send out weekly newsletters about those blog posts and everything will just feel like it's coming together and you're not rushing around trying to figure out what do I post? What do I send? Stuff like that.
Jenzaia: That makes sense, especially to take something like a bestseller and then make your content around that. What are some of the benefits of doing it that way?
Hayley: I would say one of the benefits of doing it that way is that... I don't know if you've heard any of the statistics, but like the main part of your sales only comes from 20% of your products. So if you are trying to market, let's say you have 200 products, you're trying to market all 200 of those products. You are putting too many things out there and people are just getting too overwhelmed. So you really want to focus on those that you already know are doing well and just continue to put them out there in different ways. I love to repurpose things, but you can repurpose them in a variety of ways that's always different and unique to your audience based on what month it is during the school year. If there's holidays, I love thinking of like fun, creative holidays that they talk about online, that you can just relate to like National Doughnut Day, stuff like that. And it's just gives your audience a different perspective of your best sellers.
Jenzaia: So in these blog posts, would you suggest that people are doing a hard sell, a soft sell, just content? What kind of mix of that type of content would you suggest?
Hayley: Good question. I would say soft sell majority of the time, and you always want to be providing that value in the blog post. So you don't want the blog post to be specifically about that product, but you could talk about how to set up your small group instruction and you could talk about maybe a binder that you have, like a guided math binder that you have. Maybe you have some math comprehension questions you can talk about. And so you want to be providing that value to your audience, but then you can also mention, "Hey, here's what I use. Head to my TPT store to check it out." Things like that, that they're going to be interested in while you're providing that value to them.
Jenzaia: You did a good job of explaining it, but I realized after I asked the question that people might not know the difference between a hard sell and a soft sell. So can you kind of just clarify?
Hayley: Yeah, sure. A hard sell is like you write a blog post specifically about that product. Like it's all about it. You're explaining every single detail of it. What's included, why they need it, things like that. So you're just basically like selling that to them. Whereas in a soft sell, you are trying to figure out ways that it can be used in their classroom or ways that they will enjoy this product, how it can help them. And you want to just bring light to helping them really in the forefront. And then bringing that product along with you in the journey and saying, "Also, this product can help you while you're trying to get organized." Things like that.
Jenzaia: So it sounds to me, it's almost the difference between highlighting all of the features versus highlighting the benefits. In the hard sell you're like, "It has 12 workbooks and this, and this, this, this," and listing out the things it has. And then the soft sell is, "It's going to help you save time. It's going to help you save energy. Here's all the ways that you can use it. And then to make it even easier, I created something where you can do it yourself, but buying from me, and it's a little bit easier."
Hayley: Yeah, exactly. While you're talking about those benefits, you can throw in other ideas that can help teachers that don't have anything to do with the product, just so that you can build that know, like, and trust factor with them while they're reading your post or engaging with you in the online space.
Jenzaia: Awesome. What would the next step be after they've put the blog post out to continue that relationship building? Do you help with that as well?
Hayley: Yes. So we talk about opt-ins and freebies, and I'm really big into building your email list so I will help you determine like monthly opt-ins. If you want to do more than that, we can do bi-weekly opt-ins. And basically anytime you're putting something out, you should always have some type of freebie or opt-in so that your audience can get to know you in your emails, because as we all know, you're social media doesn't belong to you, but your email list does. And so that's really where you want to cultivate your audience, you want to grow with them, and that's just where you're going to be real and vulnerable with them. And so in your weekly newsletters, you tell them the things that you're struggling with, things that you're going through, ask them if they're going through these things as well. And so then they can really relate to you as a person.
Hayley: And so when you do have, let's say it's TPT sale time, and you do have something that you want to sell to them. Because they have opted in through your blog post or another way to your email list, now you've kind of built that trust factor with them and they'll be more apt to actually purchase.
Jenzaia: That makes perfect sense, but I'm a little bit, and this might just be me, a little overwhelmed by the amount of content it sounds like. Your blog posts and weekly emails, is there a connection between those? How do you save yourself a bit of sanity?
Hayley: Good question. I follow a system. And so what we'll do is either using monday.com, Airtable, if you already have a project management system, we can work in there. If not, we can even just use something as simple as Google Sheets, and we will first look at the blog post, and then that's always going to be one of your weekly emails. And so we'll tell our audience about the blog post, tell them why they should go read it, things like that. But then we can also use that information. And later on in the week, we can send out a soft sell of a product.
Hayley: Maybe let's say it's October and it's Halloween time, and you want to send out some information about some Halloween craft or activity that you have in your store. So as soon as you have sent out that blog post email on Monday, we'll work together to create UTM codes and tagging and everything like that. And so then if someone clicks on a link within that newsletter, we'll know, let's say on Thursday of that week, we want to send just those people an email, all about your Halloween activity, because they had clicked on the link from your blog post newsletter. So we like to tie it all together so it's not so sporadic and things like that.
Jenzaia: You made a comment about UTM codes and tags. I get constant questions about those and I don't know very much about them. So do you know a bit more about UTM codes and tags?
Hayley: Yeah, sure. UTM codes can be found on your dashboard on TPT, and they're just a great tracking tool. And so it just allows you as the seller to know where your buyers are coming from, whether they're coming from a post that you put on Instagram, your newsletter you're sending out, things like that. And it will track if it's coming from a Facebook ad, if it's coming from a newsletter. And so basically it's specified for whatever product that you create, that UTM code, so that when you go to look at your dashboard, you'll be able to see where they purchased from.
Hayley: And then with the tagging, all you need to do with that really is just make sure that you are tagging people that click on links in your newsletter, because it helps you really narrow in who your buyers can be. And especially when TPT sale time rolls around, the tagging can really make a difference on who you want to be targeting.
Jenzaia: So when you talk about tags, you're talking in the email platform?
Hayley: Yes, email platform. Correct.
Jenzaia: Okay. That makes sense. That's a good thing too. I feel like later on you can look back and say people who have this tag are more likely to buy. So how can I get more people to have that tag? Like they're pushing out that opt-in or that blog post or whatever it is more often so that you can increase that number of people who have seen whatever it is that is doing such a great job, right?
Hayley: Yeah, absolutely. And let's say you have a vocabulary unit for third grade and you are in the process of making a second grade vocabulary unit. Well, if those people have the tag, vocabulary unit, maybe they're changing grade levels, maybe they do teach a combo class and they need both grade levels. So you can go into your email platform and see who has the vocabulary unit tag. And then when your new unit is ready to go, you can email just those people and let them know.
Jenzaia: I like that. I really like that. And I also like the idea of, if you send your email out on the Monday, somebody clicks on a link, then only those people are getting another email later in the week, which helps to ensure that the people who are seeing that second email want more content from you first of all. And second of all are interested in whatever you're sending out, right?
Hayley: Yep, absolutely. Because I know one of the fears is, "Well, I don't want to send out too many emails. I don't want to annoy my audience." You know things like that. So this way you can really specify who is actually interested in your products. Who's clicking on your links and target those people later on in the week so that you're not trying to overload everyone on your list. Just those specific people that do seem interested.
Jenzaia: What email platform do you recommend people use to be able to do that? Because I use Flodesk and I'm thinking, I don't know if I can do that Flodesk yet.
Hayley: I know Flodesk is more of a newer email system and I haven't actually worked in that one much. The main one I work in is ConvertKit, and I really like that one because it's just very user-friendly. I've worked with a few other ones, but I just haven't fallen in love with them as much as I have with ConvertKit because you're able to do the tagging, you can create the opt-ins right there. You can set up automations and it just makes it a lot easier with it all being in one place.
Jenzaia: Yeah. I kind of was going to guess that you were going to say ConvertKit because I've also worked in ConvertKit a couple times and seen very similar automations happening. So it is definitely one of the better ones out there I think.
Hayley: Yeah. I feel like that one's probably the most popular with TPT sellers right now, but it can always change. I know a lot of them have started using Flodesk since it did come out. So it's really just personal preference too.
Jenzaia: You've talked a lot about blog posts. Do you help with any other sorts of long-form content? Because we're on a podcast right now. So do you help with, if people want to do podcasts as well? Is it similar, would you say, or do you think the content strategy behind a podcast is different? What's your thoughts on that?
Hayley: What I always say when you're doing things like that is work smarter, not harder. And so you're already creating content in your blog posts on your social media, things like that. So if you do have a podcast, try to use that information that you have in your blog posts or your social media, or even the newsletters that you're sending out to your audience and pull that information to be able to put a podcast episode out. And one of my secrets actually that a lot of people don't think about is use your question and answers in your TPT store to help you come up with content. Because when you're stuck, that's the best place you can look because that's your audience asking those questions. They want to know, "Do you have this? How do I do this?" Things like that. So that's perfect to come up with a blog post title, or even a podcast episode to answer what the people are asking.
Jenzaia: That's so smart. I love that so much because they are. And often I'll see the same questions repeated, and so you know that when somebody is asking the same question, then it needs... Well, maybe not needs you, but should be addressed because if there's two people asking the question, then there's probably 20 more people who haven't asked it, right?
Hayley: Yep, absolutely, absolutely. And while we're talking about that, I just had a thought. I want you to think about what your audience is teaching at that time of the year. As PpT sellers, most of us either are still in the classroom, were in the classroom at one point in time. So we know what second graders should be learning. For me, I taught sixth grade. So I kind of know the flow of what the sixth grade standards are and when you teach them and things like that. So use that as your guide to what kind of content you're putting out. Like if you know that your audience, let's say fourth grade, starts the year off for volume with math, then you're going to push those math products that you have about volume the beginning of the year.
Hayley: So even if you don't know, I will help you figure out how to pull your audience. We will either email them. We can come up with story ideas that you can do on Instagram, post ideas. If you want to put it into your Facebook group to pull your audience, get that data, get that feedback from your audience because that's going to really lead what you're putting out there.
Jenzaia: That's another really good point that I love, the feedback from the audience, because I personally have found that sometimes what I want isn't what they want. And trying to force something on somebody is just going to be frustrating for you and they will just ignore it, especially with social media, right?
Hayley: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jenzaia: But if you're taking that information from your audience and giving them what they're asking for, then it will be a less painful experience for everybody involved.
Hayley: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it can be frustrating because maybe you've just tried to develop this new product. You put it out there and no one wants it, or it could just be the time of year. Maybe they aren't teaching about plants until April. So wait until March, April to really push that product out more. So it's all about when your audience needs what you have to offer.
Jenzaia: You made a comment like about October products and Halloween. When is a good time for me to start creating that content?
Hayley: It kind of depends really on your preference. Some people like to put that out, let's say a month ahead of time. And then other people say, "No, that's too early. I want to wait till it's closer." So I've found this sweet spot to be anywhere between two and a half, three weeks between that holiday or that event to really kind of get people thinking. Because as teachers, we have so much going on anyways, and most of the time, if you're a teacher, you wait until the last minute to look for things anyways. So if you do put it out too early, Halloween could be the last thing on their brain at the end of September. But if you start marketing it early October, mid October, then they could have a better chance of, "Oh yeah, I need that. Halloween's coming up. Let me grab that now."
Jenzaia: Yeah, I feel like I'm that teacher who if you sent me a Halloween thing end of September, I would just ignore it. But a couple weeks before, you might catch me in one of my like, "Oh yes, I need this so that I'm not scrambling."
Hayley: Exactly.
Jenzaia: Or if I am scrambling, then you put your blog post out two weeks ago. So if I'm Googling, then I might stumble upon it. So that's a good compromise for me. I feel like it would get me perfectly as a teacher.
Hayley: Exactly. Yeah, that was me too. I was that person.
Jenzaia: So much good information. Is there anything else that you think that somebody has never done anything thinking about content strategy, where should they start?
Hayley: Don't try to take on too much at one time. I am offering VIP days where I will help you set up your content for, let's say 12 weeks, so three months. But if this is your first time doing this, don't feel overwhelmed like you have to get 12 weeks worth of blog post ideas, email newsletters, things like that. Really just try to work a few weeks out ahead of time.
Hayley: And my rule of thumb is a new quarter. Sit down at the beginning of that quarter, or even at the end of the quarter that's finishing, and think ahead to what you want to be putting out as the time is coming up and don't overwhelm yourself. Things are going to happen. Plans are not going to go according to plan. As we all know, being in the classroom, you always got to have plan A and plan B, but if you have a plan, then you're more likely going to stick to it. And that's really what I want to help TPT sellers understand. Is it doesn't have to be perfect. You can change it as you go along. But this is just a general idea to give you confidence, to help you understand that you are providing that value to your audience and you are doing something amazing for these teachers when sometimes you feel like you're scrambling and it doesn't matter. But if you really have the amazing products and stuff to put out there, then go for it. Don't hold back.
Jenzaia: Awesome. That's exactly, I think, what people needed to hear for that.
Jenzaia: Okay, awesome. I know that you have a freebie for anyone listening who wants to start content with their content strategy. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Hayley: Yeah, absolutely. So what it is, is it's basically a content strategy guide and how you can get started with top tips and products and putting it out there and knowing that you are going to be successful these next few weeks, because you have an amazing plan to go off of.
Jenzaia: Perfect. So if anyone would like to... I will put the link in the show notes, but I'll also just give it to you. It'll be marketscalegrow.com/hayley, which is H-A-Y-L-E-Y. So marketscalegrow.com/hayley to get that content guide and the link will be in the show notes as well.
Hayley: Awesome.
Jenzaia: Okay. Where can people find you?
Hayley: People can find me on Instagram. That's mainly where I hang out at. I like to be active on there and kind of show my everyday life on my stories and then provide lots of value on my feed. Just search Hailey.Klees, and I'll come up. I would love to get to know more TPT authors and sellers and grow and connect. I really love Instagram just for that awesome feature where we can build relationships with one another throughout the world.
Jenzaia: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Hailey. I had a great time chatting with you.
Hayley: Yes. Thank you so much. I had a great time.
Jenzaia: Thank you for listening to today's episode. Today was brought to you by Dubsado, my absolute favorite customer management tool. If you're looking to streamline and systematize your service-based business, I highly recommend Dubsado. For 20% off of your first month, head to marketscalegrow.com/dubsado, D-U-B-S-A-D-O, and use the code Jenzaia at checkout. And don't forget to head to our community at marketscalegrow.com/community, where you'll find inspiring, ambitious teacherpreneurs who are looking to grow and scale their businesses just like you. See you soon.