Something tells us that if you are here it is because you have understood what Content Marketing is about , a content-based strategy and its importance within the digital environment . Great! that means you are about to unlock the next level: how to make a content plan step by step.
In theory, Content Marketing sounds like an essential axis, but in practice it can turn to ashes if we don’t know how to make it a reality. That is why today we are going to talk about how to make a content plan step by step considering the key elements of your environment. Are you ready? Then take note!
What is a content plan?
It is the action of documenting all the information related to the content that you will use to execute a Content strategy, allowing you to define what the published formats will be: blogs, video, success stories, etc. On what date and on what channel .
During the registration of a marketing plan there are certain key elements to guarantee its effectiveness, such as objectives, Buyer Persona and Buyer Journey stage. In this way you can establish your differential value proposition much more clearly.
Why is a content plan so important?
A content plan is the bridge that allows you to materialize the objectives set from the idealization of a content strategy because it is theory turned into practice.
In other words, it helps you establish in a tangible way how you are going to reach the ideal client; through the right path and message.
But also, since it is about executing a plan in a real way, it makes it easier for you to recognize the mistakes you are making along the way, to know the tastes and preferences of the ideal client and therefore to try and make mistakes as you go along. .
Steps to make a content plan
Making a content plan is still different from the rest of the procedures you carry out when creating effective strategies. That is, you have to establish objectives, know the target audience. As well as, consider the technical details that will make us stand out from the competition.
For this reason, we explain from start to finish what you should dedicate your efforts to when making a content plan step by step:
1. Define your goal
Clearly, the objectives of a content plan must be established in the medium or long term in order to hope that each piece generates an impact.
In any case, the objectives of a marketing plan must be able to materialize in a concrete way, for example, what is not a content plan objective? Get more leads for the coming year.
How to define objectives for a content plan?
- Get a base of 2,000 subscribers before 12-30-2021.
- Increase website traffic, going from 1,500 to 2,000 monthly visits in 3 months.
- Increase the rate of permanence on the website, going from 1 minute on average to 3 minutes in 4 months.
In other words, it is an achievable objective according to the company’s investment, measurable, real and tangible.
2. Know your buyer person
It is a totally essential step from the beginning of the marketing story, to generate actions that attract the target audience, you have to create a message that touches it, and what is the best way to achieve it? Knowing your Buyer Persona!
The Buyer Persona wants to know the real problems of the ideal client: work and personal challenges that can be reduced to simple questions:
- Demographic profile of the ideal client? Age, sex, purchasing power, etc.
- What are the consumption habits of the ideal customer?
- What are your pain points?
- Where do you look when you want to consult doubts?
- What type of content do you usually consume?
- With which social network do you feel more identified?
- What time do you usually connect?
You have the answers much closer than you think, you can consult your current clients through a simple online survey and thus generate a semi -fictitious profile of those ideal clients that we want to reach with our content plan.
Consider that your current clients and your potential clients have something in common; pain points, purchase patterns and content consumption. So, the best way to know your Buyer Persona is to investigate how you converted current customers.
3. Work with topics or topic cluster
Recent changes in Google’s algorithms have meant that keywords are no longer as relevant to position, but they still have an important influence when it comes to defining which topics are worth investing time in producing.
Our recommendation is that you develop your content strategy through the methodology of topic clusters or grouping by themes , once you have defined the topics on which you are going to write, that is when you can use keywords to optimize these contents. .
4. Research your keywords
Now that you have defined the topics that you are going to cover in your blog, it is time to investigate what kind of words people are looking for to find this content on the internet.
The next thing will be to determine what tools you are going to use to carry out a keyword study that will make it easier for you to structure quality content for your plan. And when you have your keyword research ready, you continue with the next step.
5. Create an editorial calendar
The editorial calendar is the document itself, in which everything you have been researching will be reflected; topics, publication dates, Buyer Journey stages, Buyer persona, format.
And any other information that you consider important to include for the control of your content plan. Some ideas could be:
- Name of your project leader , proofreader, editor, designer and writers
- Status to know in which part of the construction the material is located. For example, if it is a text for the blog: writing, proofreading, editing and design are some of the phases.
- Target keyword with its search volume.
- Number of words written.
- Sources.
- The offer that will be made in each content; i.e. eBooks, templates, webinars, etc.
The editorial calendar can have as much information as you need to keep track of your content, it is fully customizable and individual. Therefore, only you can define what to include and what not.
6. Choose the channels to broadcast content
The fantastic thing about Digital Marketing is that it gives us many channels to spread our message in a personalized way , that is, using a channel that follows the consumption characteristics of your target audience is not a problem. The problem is when you choose the wrong channel to get your message across.
So be careful with this point, to choose the right channels and spread your messages, you have to go back to your starting point: who is your Buyer Persona? where do you prefer to consume content?
If you already have a content strategy in place, take some time to determine which of the current channels have given you the best numbers and based on that analysis, launch your content plan through promotion.
7. Promote your content
Promoting your content strategy is one of the most important steps, and this is where many companies fail. You can use the following means to promote your content:
- Own media: Blog, list of subscribers, etc.
- Earned Media: Social networks where you have gained an audience.
- Payment methods: Payment platforms such as facebook ads, Google ads, linkedin ads, etc.
The objective is to achieve the greatest possible reach of your content on the channels where your audience is.
8. Measure and analyze
It’s great that you can continue with your content strategy from this phase, but sometimes it can be the hardest of all, if in the end you perceive that it has not given the results you expected.
But that is exactly what it is about, measuring and analyzing what has caused a positive impact to repeat the formula, and what has caused you to hit your head against the wall. We give you a boost with these questions:
- What content, formats and channels are driving the results you expected? which not?
- What is the quality of leads obtained? how fast are they converting? Through which channel, format or content do they convert better? which ones do not cause lead conversions?
- Are you forgetting a type of content that works?
- What is the performance of the keywords? Are they causing the traffic you expected? how about referral traffic?
- Bounce Rate? time per session?
- And finally, will the results obtained allow you to increase the budget for your content strategy? We hope the answer is yes.
There are a lot of elements that you must take care of when measuring your content strategy, but to begin with, you can guide yourself with these questions and as you discover useful and new information, you can redirect the meaning of your questions for analysis.
Conclusion
Consider that the content plan is the tangible way of seeing your content strategy work in a real scenario , therefore you have to take the time to create it with the help of your team and with the strength of human talent.
Remember that a content plan without a Buyer Persona and without content that adds value in each interaction is just an activity log document, so keep in mind all the steps that we have explained so that you can have results in your marketing strategy.
