Creating a content plan for your business can feel overwhelming with so many channels out there to utilise.
However, it’s also not rocket science! If you think about what you’re trying to achieve, get organised and choose the right channels, then you can create content that converts.
In this article we’ll break down the key steps to follow and the different things you need to consider:
Step 1: What Are You Trying to Achieve?
The first question to ask yourself is, what am I trying to achieve?
Are you looking to build your brand? Change perceptions of your business? Educate your audience? Increase your web traffic? Identifying your goals is really the backbone of your plan and can spark ideas for content.
Next, who are you trying to appeal to?
Create a profile of your ideal client. Once you know who you’re speaking to, think about the challenges they face and the solution you’re providing, and let this be another key driver.
Step 2: Make a Plan
Organisation is important, as the key to success on any marketing channel is consistency. Planning in advance also helps you avoid any last-minute scrambles. Pick a length of time, one month, six months, 12 months, whatever feels right for you.
Build a calendar (it doesn’t need to be anything fancy to start with), there are plenty of templates online, and consider the following:
- Identify your content strands: Make a list of all the areas you want to promote and group them into strands. For example, each area of your business might be a strand, your sustainability message could be another, meet the team etc. You can then use these to build out a plan that is varied and hits all your main messages.
- Add your key dates: Add the dates that are important within your business. For example, if you’re an estate agent and spring is your peak season, then ensure you’re adding more activity around this time.
- Create monthly campaigns: To give your plan more structure and direction, create a campaign message for each month. What do you want your audience to know this month? It might be a thought leadership piece or just education around one of your services. Let your answers from step 1 drive your choices.
- Balance content types: Incorporate a variety of content formats, like video, graphics, ebooks, podcasts, to keep your audience engaged.
Step 3: Creating your Content
Once you’ve built your plan, you then need to put it into action!
Here are a few tips for creating great content:
- Focus on value: You know your audience, so ensure that you’re providing them with valuable content that solves their problems, entertains or educates them on relevant topics.
- Be clear and concise: Avoid jargon and get straight to the point. Our attention spans are getting shorter every day!
- Embrace storytelling: Weaving stories into your content helps connect with your audience on an emotional level and makes information more memorable.
- Optimise for search: If you’re working on blogs for your website, then use relevant keywords to ensure your content shows up in search engine results.
- Calls to action: Tell your audience what you want them to do next, whether it’s visiting your website, subscribing to your newsletter, or making a purchase.
- Think about the channel: Different channels need different types of content. It’s not enough to create a post and share it across all channels. Content works best when it’s tailored to the channel.
Step 4: Choosing the Right Channel
Before you set up an account for every channel out there (if you’re an inhouse marketing manager, then likely someone above you thinks this is a great idea) STOP!
Managing content on any channel is time-consuming. You need to create it, schedule it, interact with users. It’s a lot! What works better is choosing a few channels to focus your efforts on, depending on the type of business you run and the audience you want to attract. Likely you’ll know best which is right for you. The key is to understand where your audience spends their time online.
Also don’t just think about social media. Email marketing, press releases, blogs, all these formats can feed into your content plan. Print might still be relevant in your industry, you might guest blog on another more established site, or decide to use influencer marketing.
Take a look at what’s out there, consider all channels and keep your audience front of mind. But the main thing is, don’t spread yourself too thin as you’ll find that you have little to no impact.
Step 5: Monitor Your Progress
Creating and scheduling the content is one part of the plan, the second part is measuring your performance. You can then use this data to adapt your strategy and improve your content:
- Website traffic: Track overall traffic, new vs. returning visitors, and traffic sources (organic search, social media, referrals) to understand how your content attracts and engages your audience.
- Engagement (likes, shares, comments): Monitor social media engagement metrics and track how they’re changing over time. Notice the days/times when your content performs better.
- Lead generation: Track how many leads your content generates (e.g., email signups, whitepaper downloads). This helps you measure the effectiveness of your content in driving conversions.
- Sales: If your content is part of your sales funnel, track how many leads convert into paying customers. This provides valuable insight into the content’s role in your overall sales strategy.
- Search engine ranking: Monitor your content’s ranking for relevant keywords to see if your SEO efforts are paying off.
Need support with your content?
At Frank we create content that drives results.
We can handle the whole process for you, from identifying your audience, choosing the right channel and creating content that meets your goals.
Get in touch for a chat and we can talk you through the support we can provide to help move your business forward.
