The Importance of a Marketing Content Planner

Content planners are accountable to develop a vision of content creation, publication and distribution. They also are accountable for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of strategies.

This type of content informs the audience on the products and services offered by the company. It also assists the audience to solve problems and meet their needs.

A marketing content planner may be a spreadsheet, or a third-party tool. The difference is in the way you utilize it.

1. Set Your Goals

The famous quote, often believed to be the work of Benjamin Franklin although perhaps never spoken by him, holds true: "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail." Getting from a strategic vision to a successful content marketing engine requires a structured workflow, efficiencies in workflow and clear communication.

One of the most crucial steps in this process is determining your goals. Start with the high-level business goals or the SMART framework to make them more specific and actionable. It's also a good time to review your existing goals for content to ensure they are still in line with your current strategy.

Understanding your goals will help you to monitor the performance of each piece of content. This will help you determine which elements are working and which isn't working, allowing you to make the necessary adjustments and improve overall performance. This will ensure that you're meeting your goals overall and delivering quality content to your audience.

2. Identify Your Audience

Knowing your audience will aid in creating content that is relevant, effective and engaging. The best way to do this is by conducting research and identifying the characteristics of your ideal customer personas. This can be accomplished by surveys, data analysis, and other methods of gathering data about your customers.

You can then apply the results of your research to determine the types of content that will be the most effective for you and your business. This could include anything from blog posts and social media posts to webinars and podcasts. Once you've determined which formats will be most effective, it's time to start creating your content plan.

A tool for planning content will help you to keep on top of marketing goals and make sure that the appropriate people are working on the most relevant projects. It can also boost productivity by allowing teams to focus on the most important things and staying clear of distractions. It's easy to start with a free Content Analysis Report from CopyPress today.

3. Find Your Ideal Platforms

It's crucial to adapt your content to the platform you prefer. Instagram users want aesthetically pleasing images, whereas TikTok users enjoy stylish short-form videos. You can find out the preferred platforms of your target audience by conducting some market research.

A successful marketing content planner will outline all the steps needed to convert your ideas into a finished asset. It will provide a framework to help you meet your objectives and ensure that everyone on your team is on the same team.

A content planning tool such as Monday and Kapost can assist with this by allowing you to design, assign tasks and collaborate with others, and monitor progress on a single dashboard. Additionally, there are in-depth tools like Wrike that allow for drop-down menu functionality and provide overall project timelines and tables of actionsable items and a message board. Both come with a no-cost version, and more extensive subscriptions for teams that need more advanced capabilities.

4. Find Your Content Types

No matter if you're an individual influencer or an enterprise marketing team, a content planner helps you keep track of your ideas and ensures everyone is on the same page. It's also a great way to manage content for longer time-based projects, such as quarterly or annual campaigns.

A well-designed content plan will aid in identifying the types of content that need to be produced and the best way to get them executed. This includes determining the format your content should be in such as blog posts, infographics, case studies, podcasts, or social media press releases. This should include a timeline of the date these pieces will be published and produced.

You should also keep track of the metrics that relate to your content marketing for b2b marketing goals such as traffic and engagement. This will help you analyze your results and make the needed adjustments. Ahrefs is a fantastic tool to help you identify what works and what doesn't. It can also provide insight into the performance of your competitors.

5. Identify Your Content objectives

If you establish clear goals for your content marketing in digital marketing this will assist your team to remain on track to reach their goals. It doesn't matter if it's increasing the number of visitors to your website by updating blog articles or enhancing customer retention through organizing webinars, having clear objectives will help you reach your goals for content marketing.

A good content marketing strategy course planner will help you define your objectives by laying out a well-organized workflow and allowing collaboration. It can also include tools such as image-generating software, text-to-image instructions or social management software to make the process easier.

A marketing content planner will aid you in identifying your performance metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as other important elements. This will enable you to monitor the effectiveness of your content and respond in a way that will improve your marketing strategy. Some examples of measurable metrics include bounce rate websites, traffic to websites and social media shares and newsletter signups. These metrics should be tracked throughout the lifecycle of your content, including production, publication and distribution.

6. Identify Your Resources

A successful content strategy won't be effective when you don't have the resources to make it happen. When planning, ensure that you have the funds to complete the tasks you've laid out. This could include salary or team payments and production costs for the web space and materials, and paid marketing tactics.

Once you've got the budget in place, you can begin assigning responsibilities to each job. For instance, you could be able to assign keyword research, copywriting, editing, and design to various members of your team. Alternatively, you can also employ a tool like Sprout to ease the process of scheduling content across multiple platforms and channels.

Sprout allows you to connect your social media accounts and schedule posts for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn company pages, as well as Google Business Profiles, all from one dashboard. The scheduling tools offered by Sprout include an image library that can simplify asset management and save time when creating posts.

7. Determine Your Key Performance Indicators

It's crucial to ensure that your marketing efforts are worthwhile if you're planning to spend lots of time writing content. You can improve your results by analyzing and tracking the most important performance indicators.

For instance, a popular KPI for content marketers is the number of repeat customers. This is a measure that can be used to gauge the effectiveness of your content at converting customers. it can be used to pinpoint any areas of improvement for future campaigns.

It's also important to establish the type of content you'll create based on both your goals and target audience. This may include posts on social media, blog articles or infographics, as well as videos. After you've identified these various content formats, it's important to create a plan that includes the frequency and distribution methods for each. This will ensure that the right people are viewing your content at the right time.

8. Identify the tracking methods you use

A marketing content planner is a valuable tool for any company looking to improve their marketing strategy. It helps you keep the track of your goals, audience, and resources while allowing to evaluate how efficient your strategy has been over time.

A social media calendar will help you plan your content and ensure it is consistently released. You can also plan ahead for holidays and events that could impact your audience.

A keyword content strategy is a great tool to improve your SEO strategies. It can help you determine the most effective keywords to use in your content and boost your search engine rankings and visibility. It can also help measure the effectiveness of keyword strategy for content over time.

9. Find Your Measurements

Your marketing plan should help you identify which metrics are most relevant for each piece, regardless of whether you organize your content based on the theme or keywords. This will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your content to continue to improve it. A cloud-based marketing content planner, like Optimizely CMP, can also help you manage collaboration between team members and generate reports that are useful for making future decisions regarding content planning.