The number one question when starting out in content marketing is where to begin? Everything starts with the content plan. Here are the top nine things to keep in mind when putting together your content marketing plan.
Audit
The first thing to consider is your content audit. Does your current content include brochures? Blogs? Email newsletters? Website copy? Podcasts? Infographics? Perhaps you only have a little content – but do spend some time looking at what you have, your tone of voice, keywords you are being found by and audience reaction. Then look at where you want to be, whom you are trying to reach (which platforms are those people using and how to reach them), what are your key messages and what are your overall objectives? Now you are ready to get started.
What is your content saying?
Your content should be relevant to your target customer. Make it interesting, add value – is it something your customer will be interested in or learn from? “Open” content is becoming increasingly popular; this is content that gives away knowledge or showcases the credibility of the company in question. What can potential customers learn from you? In the long term, is this going to be profitable and build sustainable relationships with your customers?
Use tools to help you
If you had to manage it all in real-time, you would never leave your computer. Several online tools are available that will help you put together and publish a video, turn a piece of written content into audio, change images and add effects and create seamless presentations or e-marketing campaigns. Make sure you check out software such as Trello for helping you to plan your content and Hootsuite for scheduling social updates across multiple platforms at times when your customers are most likely to be active.
Don’t do it alone
For those who don’t have the luxury of an appointed content position within the company or external agency support, make sure your plan outlines roles and responsibilities. Content can be very time-consuming: you have to take into account time for planning, research, curating, creating, editing, distributing/promoting, interacting and reporting across several pieces of content – that’s a full-time job so be sure to share the tasks with others to make it more manageable and therefore less likely to go wrong when somebody takes annual leave.
Work around your calendar
Work into your plan events that are specific to your industry. Is Christmas important for you? If so, you should be preparing Christmas content now. In fact, even sooner if PR is part of your content plan as the glossy publications put together their Christmas issues in July. When are your industry events? Build up to these and highlight them in your plan. If you know something is happening or you have a new product or service launching, include these in your plan.
Use your content to inform your content
Reporting is crucial and you should set aside time for this. Analyse what your audience are spending time consuming or interacting with and respond to this by adding more of this content into your plan. Even before you start your plan, look at any content you have had as part of your audit and analyse the response to this, which will help inform you of customer preferences or popular topics to work into your strategy. The best tool for this is Google Analytics but pay attention to your social metrics (what people liked, favourited, retweeted or talked about).
Put it into an actual calendar
Sometimes the most obvious things really are the best. Put a real plan in place, whether it is an online one or a paper one, this format will help you be able to see what the content is, when it is going live, where it is being published/distributed, who is managing it and how well it was received and you can easily view and amend upcoming months.
Plan in advance
Many companies have a 12-month plan in place but don’t worry if that sounds daunting, anything from one to three months out is great and it means that you are thinking strategically about your content and not panicking in a rush to publish something each day. But make sure you leave room for change. Being agile means that you can adapt your plan according to new trends, company changes, reactions to previous content or macro events that you can take advantage of.
Build in time specifically for research
Make time to research the topics you are getting content for. Some content will take longer than others eg an image can be quick and online in seconds while a feature video will require storyboarding, other people involved, a potential script, editing time etc. Also, include collaborations and look at guest content contributors for your company and guest contributing to other companies that support your objectives and share the same customer demographic, build this into your strategy.
Jess Collins is creative director at Type Communications. You can follow her on Twitter @Jess_Type
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