A content plan defines all the marketing assets and content creation templates required to execute your content strategy. It includes all the digital marketing channels and tools you need to create, publish, and manage your content.
Content Planning also defines when, where, and what content will be published for your business.
An effective content plan, also known as a content calendar or editorial calendar, helps you prioritise your tasks, organise your creative process, and track your progress.
Indeed, creating a content plan is an important step in your content strategy. No matter what kind of content you create: images, videos, blog posts. Or any platform including Instagram, YouTube, or blog.
How to Create an Effective Content Plan
You can create your content plan with a simple spreadsheet, or you can go one step further and use a project management tool. When it comes to content planning, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. This is largely because content plans for each company differ.
Still, some factors are important. For every content piece, you should include, at least:
- Title
- Format such as; 30-second video, blog article, and eBook.
- Person in charge
- Publication date
- Status
But each type of content has specific requirements, and you need to adapt content plans to those needs.
Let’s see some content plan examples and what they should include:
For Social Media
If you’re posting content on social media, your content plan should include:
- Caption
- Image or video file
- Hashtags
- Link
- Date & Time (including time zone)
- Tagged users
Those elements apply to most of the leading social media platforms.
However, each of these platforms is different, and you’ll need to adapt your content plan to them.
For example:
- For YouTube, you could add a video thumbnail
- For Instagram, you could add a list of products to tag, and so on.
For blog
If you want to publish blog posts as part of your content plan, you can add;
- Title
- Type of article
- Author
- Title tag and meta description
- Main keywords
- Secondary keyword
- CTA (Call to Action)
- For podcasts
If your content plan includes creating a podcast, consider including:
- Title and subject
- Guest name, biography, and contact information
- Link to script
- Recording date and time
- Original sound file
- Edited audio file
Promote your content
You need to connect your content to buyers. There are several ways to do this. For instance, you can own your channel, and publish a blog or use a subscription list, which we have discussed a bit above.
Finally, there are paid methods such as online advertising, measurement, and analysis.
Assign tasks
Unless you’re a one-person team, you need to organise your content development process by assigning tasks and deadlines. This is an important step in improving your content planning process.
Let’s say you want to create an Instagram video to announce that all purchases from your store are free shipping for a limited time.
Your tasks, and deadlines could look like this:
Write video script and Instagram caption;
- In charge: Social media manager
- Deadline: September 25
Edit video
- In charge: Video editor
- Deadline: September 27
Activate e-commerce coupon
- In charge: E-commerce manager
- Deadline: September 29
Publish reel
- In charge: Social media manager
- Deadline: September 29
Schedule in Advance
If your distribution channels allow it, it’s a good idea to schedule your content. Scheduling content in advance will help you stay organised and avoid last-minute problems when planning content.
This is especially important for time-sensitive content, such as social media posts or newsletters.
There are many types of content and platforms, each of which has its particularities regarding content scheduling.
Some channels that have built-in scheduling features are:
- Facebook business
- Instagram business
- Pinterest business
- LinkedIn company pages
- YouTube
- WordPress
- Anchor
- Most email marketing tools, such as Mailchimp and Substack.
How to create a content roadmap
A content roadmap is a tool that helps you implement your content plan. It’s a visual way to organise your goals and objectives. Use a content roadmap to focus your overall content strategy, set priorities, inform decisions, visualise progress, and keep everyone informed.
Set goals:
This creates a bridge from planning to execution. This is followed by creating an initiative. This is another way of saying the work you need to do to reach your content goals.
Define your buyer personas:
This is an important step even if you’ve already done it. The most important thing to remember is who your target audience is.
Start creating your campaign:
Take on tasks here and assign them to members of your team. By integrating your campaigns into your content roadmap, you can ensure that your campaigns are aligned with your overall content strategy.
Monitor and track progress:
Don’t forget to share this data with other departments in your organisation. This way everyone can stay up to date on the marketing plan and how it affects their work.
Have a clear content strategy
A content strategy defines the goals, audience, distribution channels, and other key factors that guide your content marketing efforts. A content plan, on the other hand, is a document used to manage the implementation of that strategy.
It’s easy to understand with an example:
Suppose you own an e-commerce website that specialises in fitness products.
In a very simple content strategy, you publishes 5 videos per week. It features a mix of workout tutorials and product reviews.
On the other hand, your content in the plans says that on December 3rd you want to release a YouTube video analysing the best running shoes between $80 and $200.
As you can see, a strategy sets the guidelines that shape your content plan. So the strategy should always come first. To have a solid strategy, you need:
- Set goals
- Get to know your audience
Now that we know what a content plan is, let’s analyse these two factors.
Set goals
Content marketing requires precise goals. There’s no point in creating content if you don’t know what you want it to accomplish.
Remember that these goals must be
- Clear
- Measurable
- Viable
- Related
- Time-limited
Understand your audience
Audience research is essential to creating content that meets customer needs.
Here’s what you need to know about your customers.
- Interesting topic
- Channels you use Instagram, Google Search, Apple Podcasts, etc.
- User-preferred formats such as; videos, blog posts, podcasts, etc.
How to conduct audience research
You would have to feel like you don’t know enough about your audience to create an effective content plan.
Start with audience research. There are many ways to do it.
Two quick and effective options are:
- Reach your customers and followers
- Analysis of your data
Talking to your customers (or followers) is the best way to understand what content they find valuable. You can call them or email them privately, or you can use surveys to save time.
Free tools like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, and Type form make it easy to create customer surveys.
Conclusion
Content strategy is about planning, creating, delivering, and managing content. On its part, content includes text, images, infographics, and designs. All of which help inform and improve people’s user experience on your website, email, mobile, or print platforms. So, you want to ensure you do it right.
For expert advice on how to create an effective content plan that is going to deliver real results for your business, get in touch with an experienced Gold Coast SEO agency.
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