How To Make "Content Buckets"

Hello hello!

Welcome back to, 1, One, 1. This newsletter is the place founders come to learn how to get leads from their social—and I’m so glad you’re a part of it.

This week, we had a prospect who (I guess?) been following me for a while book a call and sign 16 minutes after it started. I say “I guess?” because this person has not once liked or commented on my posts. We weren’t even connected.

Getting leads like that is quite literally my job, and it STILL blows my mind, in all honesty.

As promised, here’s your 1 winning hook template, 1 post breakdown, and 1 content tip:

Winning Hook Template

There isn’t much to this hook, but it’s beautifully simple—and we’re going to break down why.

Why Does This Hook Work?

For a couple of reasons that work in tandem:

1/ Desirable metric everyone wants.

I can't name a business owner on earth who does not want 45% growth. Using this as the hook is a great way to stop the scroll in that sense.

And for the record, you can tailor this more to your ICP. If I was selling outbound services, for example, I would probably start by sharing a reply rate number or number of meetings booked.

It really depends on what you sell and who you're trying to target.

2/ Heavy contradiction that stops the scroll

Read the hook again. 45% growth with zero marketing activities. I don’t think I have to explain where the contradiction is there—but to make it even simpler, this can be templatized as:

[good metric] with zero [thing you think you need to achieve it].

I do have to caution, you should only use this hook if you can actually justify it. In this case, Peep can.

How Can You Replicate This?

1/ Pick a metric you can speak to and that your ICP wants to improve.

For Peep this was growth in general. For you, it can be something more specific or vague.

The point is that you pick a metric you can speak to with authority and then share how you influenced it.

This really works when you can talk about how you influenced it in a non-traditional or unconventional way. Which brings me to my next point.

2/ Pair the metric with the negative of the activity that you would commonly assume you have to do to achieve it.

Like I said, this depends on what you're selling and what metric you're talking about.

Using my outbound example, this might look like: 3% positive reply rate with zero personalization.

As long as the hook is contradictory in that sense, you are fine. Again, just make sure you can justify the topic you’re talking about.

Overall, this is a very simple hook you can execute very easily as long as you have the right metrics and actions to back it up.

Post Breakdown

Today’s post comes from Jen Allen-Knuth, AKA DemandJen. It’s simple, but powerful.

Why Does This Post Work?

1/ Simple, direct, clear hook.

If you read this hook, it takes zero seconds to figure out exactly what you're going to get by reading the rest of the post. That's the point. Not to mention, on top of offering the tip, she mentions that it's for zero dollars. Everyone likes free stuff.

2/ Clear three-step plan.

Jen goes on to give a tactical three-step plan her readers can use to get their desired result as she promised. And although she really could have just stopped there, she went a step further. That brings me to my third point.

3/ Personal story tie-in.

On top of the tactical three-step plan, Jen ties in a personal story as to how this tip has made an impact on her personally. She shares a personal struggle and how this three-step plan helped her overcome it.

For her readers, who are largely salespeople, I am sure they can relate to this. That is exactly the point. On top of just sharing the plan, she shared a personal story that ties in emotion to make this plan hit even harder.

Not to mention, she gives an actual example of a message she sent, which makes the post even more tactical.

How Can You Replicate This?

1/ Think of a process or sequence that you use in your day-to-day that gets a quantified result.

For Jen, this was following up with closed loss opportunities. For you, this can be anything you use to get a desired result your ICP wants.

As an example, I tell business owners how to get leads from LinkedIn. My hook might say, "Here's a three-step way to book three meetings from LinkedIn this week for zero dollars."

Oh wow, I'm actually going to use that.

2/ Break it down into actionable steps.

It does not necessarily have to be three steps, but I wouldn't recommend more than five or seven here as the rest of the post still has other material we need to fit in.

Using my past example off the top of my head, it might look as follows:

Step 1: Open Sales Navigator and filter for your ICP. Ensure profile viewers are toggled. This gives you a clear view of what ICP accounts are viewing your profile. You can use this as a social signal to reach out. In a perfect world, you'd have 10-15.

Step two: Create a custom deliverable or asset of value that you can share with this person. Ideally it'll be personalized to their business.

Step three: record a video explaining that You saw them checking out your profile and made them this free asset or resource that they could use to get their desired result.

That’s just my example, you can take this wherever you want.

3/ Tie in a personal story.

Jen talked about how she used this exact process to win back closed loss accounts. I would use this to tell a story about how I was struggling to get leads from LinkedIn and then use this process and ended up getting them.

Ideally, if I wanted to really replicate Jen, I would show the exact video script and/or assets I delivered.

It's an extra step in making the post extremely valuable. That should always be your North Star for making LinkedIn content.

And just like that, you have a high-performing LinkedIn post. I can tell you firsthand that this will be out on my LinkedIn account soon.

As I will, and as you should too, if you're going to replicate this, make sure you credit Jen either in the post or in the first comment. You do not want to steal content or ideas.

Content Tip - How To Make “Content Buckets”

If you never want to run out of content ideas again, you should ideate content buckets. We do these for each client, and they act as the basis of their content strategy.

A content bucket is an idea or topic you can repeatedly hit on in various ways. For us, because we interview clients, we craft prompts that map to certain buckets at each stage of the funnel.

Really you should have buckets that map to the top, middle, and bottom of funnel. Here's how we think through them at each stage:

Top-of-funnel.

These are the buckets that are most designed to get visibility. They are the least about your product and more about getting eyeballs that you can later nurture.

Top-of-funnel content buckets generally circle around hot LinkedIn topics—things you know will get likes, comments, and shares.

A typical set of top-of-funnel content buckets for a SaaS founder might look like:

• Hiring tips

• Fundraising advice.

• General startup takes and frameworks.

• AI use and AI takes/ opinions.

• Remote work vs in-person work.

What I want to get across here is the idea that these can be repeatedly hit on in different ways. For example, using the hiring tips bucket, here are five prompts:

Number 1: What is one hiring tip you wish you knew on day one of starting your company?

Number 2: What is one hiring mistake you know never to make again as your company grows?

Number 3: What is an automatic red flag that if a candidate does in their interview you know not to hire them?

Number 4: What is the most underrated thing you look for in a candidate that has nothing to do with their skill but lets you know they'd be a great fit?

Number 5: How much do you care about where a candidate went to school or their previous work experience? Is that a big factor for you in making your hiring decision?

I can go on for days. The point is that you can craft various prompts in the same bucket and hit on the same topics in different ways.

Middle-of-funnel.

These buckets and the corresponding content are more so related to the problem you solve and the service you provide and or tool you’re selling to do so.

They are less designed for visibility and more designed for nurturing the visibility you did get at the top of the funnel.

Typical middle-of-funnel content prompts for a SaaS founder in this example might be:

• Pro tips and mistakes for getting the desired result that your ICP wants.

• More industry-specific hot takes or opinions.

• More niche industry commentary that only your ICP would really care about.

• Process breakdowns ideally including your product to some degree on how your ICP can get their desired result. Note that you can also break down other company strategies in your field in this sense.

Similar to the top of funnel buckets, you can craft multiple prompts into each of these middle of funnel buckets. Here is an example using the first bucket:

Number 1: What are the five pro tips you would give anyone of your ICP on trying to get their desired result?

Number 2: What are the five biggest mistakes your ICP makes while trying to get their desired result?

Number 3: Tell a story where you or someone you know made 1-3 key mistakes while trying to get the desired result and then share the fix or the solution that they could have used.

Number 4: Make a carousel or infographic with the most underrated but high-impact tips your ICP can use to get their desired result. Bonus points if these are not obvious.

Number 5: If you got a blind sample of 50 of your ICP, what's one mistake you bet 90% of them are making? What is the result of that mistake and how can they fix it to ensure they get their desired result quicker?

See how that works?

Bottom-of-funnel.

By this point, in an ideal world, you've attracted visibility with top-of-funnel buckets and nurtured it with middle-of-funnel buckets. At this point, all that's left to do is convert it. That's why bottom-of-funnel content buckets exist.

Posts in these buckets, by nature, will get the least reach and engagement, but I've seen firsthand their impact in converting leads. Even though they're not good for social performance, they are massive for converting leads.

With that bottom-of-funnel content buckets are generally the same across accounts. How you execute the content within them is what changes.

For most accounts, bottom-of-funnel content buckets are as follows:

• Case studies

• FAQs from customers and your answers to them

• Common objections you get from prospects and your answers to them

• Product updates (ideally with a Loom or demo)

• Team updates

• Press or event announcements

There aren't a whole lot of ways to spin these buckets, but there are a few. For example, here are a couple of ways to portray a case study in different frames:

1. This company was struggling with X. If they didn't fix it [negative consequence]. Instead, they [got desirable metric] Here's how they did it.

…and then go into how they used your product or service to do so.

2. Here's how [Client Name] [got desirable result] in time frame.

This is obviously a way more direct approach to portraying a case study.

The rest of these buckets are sort of timely and event-specific. You pretty much need to post in them whenever something comes up.

Bottom-of-funnel content is the least frequent in your content calendar, so I wouldn't worry too much about this.

If I were you, I would aim for one to two case studies per month, as well as sprinkling in FAQs, common objections, product updates, team updates, and press or event announcements over the course of the month intermittently.

And just like that, you have content buckets you can repeatedly make content in. You don't have to copy exactly what I said, because this does depend on who you are and what you sell.

The point is that you come up with these general ideas at the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel that you can repeatedly tap into for high-quality content.

If you have any questions about this or concerns, reply to this email with them and I will personally answer them.

Social Stuff I Found For You

📌 Neil Mehta (Greenoaks Capital) on ILTB – just a great podcast for founders.

📌 90-second exec intro blooper reel (just thought this was funny)

📌 How to optimize your LinkedIn profile for leads

Last Thing

Thank you for reading. Truly, it means a lot to me that you take the time out of your busy week to do this.

Just wanted to say that my agency, Hat Tip, has availability for more founders like yourself if you want support with content.

See if you’re a fit here.

I’ll be back next week,

Christian