Write a content marketing plan

Boost your business with content marketing

A good content marketing plan:

• attract new customers
• encourage your existing customers to buy more
• make sure your content is consistent and regular
• provide you with backup content

Use our free content plan template below to start mapping out your online content.

Before creating your content plan

Define your goals

A content marketing plan works best if it’s clearly linked to the business goals you’ve set for your website and other online channels. Your existing marketing plan is a great starting point, so use it to:

• write the messages you want to convey to your audience
• build a strategy
• make a schedule and stick to it – be specific and realistic about your schedule – avoid being aimless and scattered

Know your audience

Find out where your audience “hangs out” online – are there any industry forums, online communities, or other websites that are doing really well in your space?

Reading forum posts, comments, and social media discussions will also help you stay on top of what your audience wants to read — and how they talk. It’s important that your content isn’t a one-way flow, so take the time to listen to what your customers and competitors are saying, and use that information to shape your messaging.

Search your content – ​​get seen

Search keywords, new content, and trending awareness will help people discover your content. Use search engine optimization (SEO) on your website and other online content to achieve the highest possible rankings in search results, increasing the likelihood that your content will be discovered and read. Discoverability should also be about promoting your content.

There are many free and inexpensive tools that will schedule tweets, Facebook posts, and LinkedIn status updates to post after you complete a website update or blog post. Find other websites or people who would find your content useful and share it with them.

Create regular content

Tell a story and update it regularly. You’ll retain more loyal readers with consistent monthly posts than with daily posts for the first week followed by a few weeks of silence.

When creating your content marketing plan, create a realistic timeline that you can stick to.

Measure your results and stay on track

Monitoring and analysis should be part of your plan, with results collected and reported regularly. This insight can help a business redirect its campaign when certain elements aren’t working, ensuring success and increasing return on investment (ROI).

Social media analytics is a great way to get campaign insights specific to various social media sites.

• Google Analytics is a free service that can provide insights into customers and audience search habits on both PCs and mobile devices.
• Platforms like Sprout Social and Hootsuite provide both social media publishing and management tools as well as social media analytics, with reports customized to your needs.
• Google Garage offers free training to help you build your web presence, connect with email, get noticed on social media, and more.