The Importance of a Marketing Content Planner

Content planners design a strategy for content creation, publication and distribution. They also have to evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of a strategy.

This type of content educates the audience about the company's products and services. It also helps the audience solve issues and meet their needs.

A marketing content planner may be a spreadsheet or a third-party tool. The difference lies in how you make use of it.

1. Set Your Goals

The famous quote, usually attributable to Benjamin Franklin although perhaps never said by him, is true: "If you fail to plan, you will fail." To go from a strategic view to an effective content marketing engine requires a structured workflow, efficiencies in workflow and clear communication.

The process of identifying your goals is one of the most crucial steps to take in this process. You can either start with the most basic goals for your company or use the SMART Framework to make them more specific. It's also a good opportunity to review your existing goals for content to ensure they are still in line with your current strategy.

Understanding your goals will enable you to monitor the performance of each piece of content. This will help you determine the areas that are working and what isn't working which will allow you to make necessary adjustments and improve overall performance. This will ensure that you reach your overall objectives, and provide high-quality content to your users.

2. Identify Your Audience

It's important to know who your target audience is to create content that is relevant, engaging and efficient. The best way to do this is through conducting research and identifying the characteristics of your ideal customer personas. This can be done by using surveys, data analyses and other methods of gathering data about your clients.

Based on the results of this study, you can then identify the kinds of content that will be most effective for your business. This could range from blog posts and social media posts to podcasts and webinars. Once you've decided which formats work best you can begin drafting your content strategy.

A tool for content planning can aid you in keeping track of your marketing goals and make sure that the appropriate people are working on the correct projects. It can also boost productivity by allowing teams to focus on what's important and avoid distractions. CopyPress provides a free Content Analysis Report that you can utilize right now.

3. Choose Your Ideal Platforms

It's crucial to adapt your content for the platform you prefer. Instagram users want aesthetically pleasing visuals, while TikTok users enjoy stylish short-form videos. Conducting some market research can help you identify your ideal audience and their preferred platforms.

An effective marketing content planner will take into account all the steps required to turn your ideas into an actual asset. It will give you a structure to help you achieve your objectives and ensure that everyone on your team is on the same level.

A content planning tool such as Monday and Kapost can help with this by allowing you create assignments, assign tasks, collaborate and track progress on a single dashboard. There are more advanced tools, such as Wrike, that provide drop-down menus that include a table with actionable items such as a message board and a project-wide timeline. Both of them offer an initial free version and more comprehensive subscriptions if your team requires more advanced features.

4. Identify Your Content Types

If you're a single influencer or an enterprise marketing team, a planner for content can help you keep track of your ideas and ensures everyone is on the same page. It's also a great way to manage content for long lead-time projects like annual or quarterly campaigns.

A good content planner will aid you in determining what kinds of content you should create and how to execute them. This involves determining the format of your content marketing strategies, such as podcasts, blogposts, infographics or case studies, or social media releases. It should also include a timetable to determine when these pieces need to be published and produced.

It is also important to monitor the results of your goals for content marketing such as engagement and traffic. This will let you analyze your results and make changes. Ahrefs is a fantastic tool to help you determine what is content marketing works and what doesn't. It can also give you insights into the performance of your competitors.

5. Determine the goals of your content

If you've got clear objectives for your content Your team can stay on track and make sure they're meeting their objectives. Clare goals will help you meet your goals for content marketing, whether it's to increase SEO traffic by updating blog posts or increase customer retention by arranging webinars.

A good content planner will aid in defining your goals by laying out a well-organized workflow and allowing collaboration. It could also include tools such as image-generation software and text-to-image instructions or social management applications to make the process easier.

A marketing content planner will help you to identify your metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other important factors. This will let you evaluate the effectiveness of your content and make adjustments to improve your campaign. Some examples of measurable metrics include bounce rate web traffic, website traffic as well as social media shares and newsletter signups. These metrics must be tracked throughout the content's lifecycle including production and publication.

6. Identify Your Resources

If you lack the resources to implement your content strategy, it will be useless. When planning, make sure you have enough money to complete the tasks you've outlined. This could include team or salary payments production costs as well as web space and marketing tactics.

Once you've got your budget in place, you can begin assigning responsibilities to each job. You could assign various employees to conduct keyword research, copywriting and editing or design. Alternately, you could make use of a tool such as Sprout to simplify the process of scheduling content marketing seo across various channels and platforms.

You can connect your social media accounts to the Sprout tool and schedule posts for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn company pages and Google business to business content marketing Profiles all from one dashboard. The tools used by Sprout to schedule posts include an image library that streamlines asset management and saves time during the process of creating.

7. Identify your Key Performance Indicators

It's important to ensure that your marketing efforts are worthwhile if you're planning to spend a lot time creating content. The right way to identify and track the performance indicators will help you determine the effectiveness of your content and increase your performance over time.

For example, a common KPI for content marketers is the number of return customers. This metric can be used to measure how effective your content is at converting customers, and it can also be used to identify any areas that could be improved for future campaigns.

It's also important to establish the type of content you will create based on both your goals and your target audience. This could be blog posts, videos, infographics or social media posts. After you've identified these various formats of content, you need to devise a plan that includes the frequency and distribution method for each. This will ensure that your content is being read by the appropriate people at the right times.

8. Find Your Methods of Tracking

A marketing content planner is an essential tool for any business looking to enhance their marketing strategies. It can help you keep track of your goals, audience, and resources, while allowing you to see how efficient your strategy is over time.

A social media calendar will aid you in planning your content and ensure it is released regularly. It also lets you prepare for holidays or other events that could affect your audience's engagement.

A keyword content strategy is a powerful tool to improve your SEO strategies. It will help you find the most effective keywords for your content and increase your search engine rankings and visibility. It will also allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your keyword content strategy over time.

9. Find Your Measurements

Regardless of whether you choose to organize your content according to keyword or theme your marketing strategy content marketing will assist you in identifying the most important metrics for each piece. This will allow you to determine the success of your content and continue to improve it. A cloud-based marketing content planner, like Optimizely CMP, can also help you manage collaboration among team members and create reports that can be useful in making decisions about future content planning.