Plan around seasonal events, such as Christmas or Easter. Keyword: high-level. Are you struggling with how to better quantify content marketing’s impact on your organization, especially. As we have noted all along, sharing your content strategy with others in your organization ensures that you get their buy-in and demonstrates how the content strategy supports other sales and marketing initiatives. Content Plan Sample Template Use this content plan template to organize and prioritize potential topics by theme or by any category that suits your needs. If leads and sales are the yardstick by which your efforts are measured, you’ll want to offer a different set of statistics. Step 1: Complete a SWOT analysis of your content marketing efforts and develop a plan to improve them; Step 2: Define the right objectives and KPIs for that plan ; Step 3: Brainstorm content ideas and map these across your funnel ; Step 4: Create a timeline to put your plans in action For example, if a train manufacturer develops a plan to expand revenue by 50% that plan will include a marketing, sales and operations component. We use machine learning, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence to power two software platforms: Curata Content Curation Software (CCS), and Curata Content Marketing Platform (CMP). Content marketing can be a vital resource for an organization. Why? It covers objectives, strategies, sales, marketing and financial forecasts. © 2021 IZEA. See the webinar for an example of each. Create your content plan; I wrote this on the YouMoz blog last year as a introduction to content planning and it contains some useful elements around beginning to structure your editorial calendar, or plan, by using key elements. In short, the editorial calendar is the working document that provides everyone involved in your content effort with the information they need to produce, deliver and promote the content strategy plan. To start, gather all your content that is currently produced by your organization: keywords, blog, website, social media, etc. It sounds simple, yet it’s a step many content marketers don’t take. Strolleria. Every other facet of content strategy starts here. This is the old-school hardcopy solution. CLARIFY THE LIFESTYLE YOU’RE SELLING. Free Download: How to Curate Content Like a Boss In addition, this question also asks to whom are you targeting this content? ), Research on competitors (what content are your competitors producing, and what other sources of content are out there? Before you dive on into creating content for Instagram, … By having a content plan in place that clearly answers the Why, What, Who and How, you will be able to be more adaptable and reactive with your content.” Sejal Parekh, Brand and Creative Strategist @holasejal. The content audit will take some time and effort. The key part of the process though is ensuring you achieve the right flow. Magazine. When?You need to plan all the critical dates associated with creating and distributing your content. To start, you’ll want to see what content was most successful and what didn’t meet your expectations. To adapt the sample plan for content marketing, you could adjust the marketing mix section to focus specifically on existing content, and your methods of distributing and promoting it. Copy-editing the text, fact-checking information, or even vetting it with organizational stakeholders like the legal team or C-suite, are all a lot easier when you’re working days or weeks in advance. It will specifically outline who you will be talking to, what you will say and how to say it, where the content will be promoted, and how you will know when you have been successful. Here are a few examples of companies getting it right.1. And you know that you’ll find the time and resources you need to develop a content marketing plan. With the audit completed, you’re ready to take the next—and most critical—step in developing your content strategy. Before we jump into calendaring our content, let’s talk about what a content calendar actually is and a few baseline requirements for success.We define a content calendar as Download our white paper, The CMI Content Marketing Framework: 7 Building Blocks to Success , for an overview of the process, or learn about the other steps with our how-to guides on the right-hand side of the page. If anything starts to go off track or you’re not sure what the next steps to take might be, you can refer to the plan to help you get back on track. Here you’ll want to define the purpose of your content marketing plan. Project Plan Example: What is a Project Plan? But how should you use social channels to promote your brand? But, as Rebecca Lieb, Digital Advertising, Media & Content Analyst, Altimeter (@lieblink) notes, what matters the most is that you are providing data on the metrics that are important to your organization. To realize the potential content marketing offers, it’s critical to have a plan. A blog post can easily be turned into an infographic, for example. One of the foundations of a social media content plan is figuring out the ideal ratio for the content that you’ll share. For inspiration, we’ve selected six great examples of social media content from brands that are getting it right. These are just a few ideas. The roadmap is not a place to list every single content piece your team publishes. From writing and posting to sharing and tracking, each member of the team knows what needs to happen and when. The editorial calendar is also a good place to keep the URLs associated with where your contented has been posted. Charting this information ensures that your content aligns with the goals of your organization, and can also show you where you need to add additional resources or subject areas. How to Develop a Content Marketing Plan with Templates, Todd Wheatland, Author and Speaker, Global Strategy at King Content | @ToddWheatland, Adele Revella, CEO of Buyer Persona Institute | @buyerpersona, Larry Kim, CEO of MobileMonkey & Founder of WordStream | @LarryKim, Share How to Develop a Content Marketing Plan with Templates on Facebook, Share How to Develop a Content Marketing Plan with Templates on Twitter, Share How to Develop a Content Marketing Plan with Templates on Linkedin, Share How to Develop a Content Marketing Plan with Templates via email, The Emergence of the Content Marketing Platform, read this in-depth look at how to connect content with your buyers, read more about how to capture and track this information, dozens of ways to measure the effectiveness of your content strategy, How To Unlock More Profitable Content With AI, How Content Marketing Drives Sales Throughout the Buyers’ Journey, Content Crush Nov. 17: SEO Strategies and the Revenge of the Creatives, Content Marketing Conferences: The Ultimate List, Content Marketing Job Description & Titles for Executives, Directors, Managers and Specialists, 11 Effective Ways to Use Social Media to Promote Your Content, The Insider's Guide to Content Marketing World 2017, Content Marketing KPIs: Mapping Content’s Organizational Influence. Whether you decide to put together a single-page content marketing plan or an in-depth, detailed plan, the important thing is to have a plan in place. Be sure you have the data you need to fully demonstrate just how valuable it is. You know you need a plan and strategy if you want to succeed as much as possible with content marketing. For any given slice of updates—say, your past 10 Facebook posts—what is the balance of content shared from your blog and from the blogs of others? Now take the time to analyze the results. Provide a brief summary of a topic, identify the content’s unique angle, pinpoint your target reader, decide which types of content you’ll need, and describe your main goal. A marketing plan will obviously be different for a local coffee shop than a thriving corporation like Coca-Cola. A content strategy can either be about a brand's journey to land a customer (useful when a brand is new or has lost its way), or a content strategy can be about a customer's journey and how the brand can help. Here’s how you might map content to some of the goals of site users: What Are These Content Maps For? Your current landscape is … You can also include any paid promotions that further promote your content. They stress the importance of sticking to just a single sheet of letter-sized paper. If you are one of the 70 percent of marketers operating without a plan, take heart: we’ve got the information and templates you need to guide you through the planning process and produce a content plan that can generate results. Seventy percent of marketers lack a consistent or integrated content strategy (Altimeter), and only 29 percent of leading marketers systematically reuse and repurpose content (Curata). Sharing your plan also gets others in your organization to buy into the role that content plays in making the organization successful. Instead, it’s a full on how-to guide to putting together a comprehensive strategy and plan. Is it a video, blog post, infographic, or podcast? Add blog@curata.com to your trusted senders list. At high level, your editorial calendar needs to answer the critical questions of who, what, where, when and why of your content strategy: Also, what format will the content take? Content strategy is the ongoing process of translating business objectives and goals into a plan that uses content as a primary means of achieving those goals. What?What is the goal of the content? Consult our ultimate list before you decide what to hit and what to skip. Spreadsheets. Moreover, you have a road map or guide that you can share with others in your organization. 2. You have great ideas for content that you are sure readers will connect with. How many product pitches do you make? It is critical to keep that spirit of collaboration alive during the reporting process. A content marketing plan should provide you with a map or step-by-step guide for implementing content marketing at your company. Creating an action plan when teaching your lessons is a great mindset for creating engaging lessons and proactive teaching. ), Content you already own (include keyword research, social media content, email content, as well as website and other online content), Who can create the content (analysis of your team, whether you need to hire more or outsource some work). The Buffer Content Marketing Plan template includes: Cengage has produced a sample marketing plan for a small software company. Try to get a sense for the reasons behind these outcomes. For the other map, you’ll then want to map the content to the goals of the users of the site. It is an approved document that serves as the roadmap for the project and defines the execution of the project, how it will be monitored and controlled. While a content marketing strategy outlines what your goals are, who your audience is, and so on, a plan covers the execution of content marketing so that you can reach your goals and connect with your audience. Where?What channels will you use to promote the content? Social media image sizes. You can’t tell where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. After you’ve done your research, you’re ready to create content for your … Who on your content team is responsible for the creation, posting and promotion of the content? Who? As this article notes, all too often sales and marketing act as a silos, each focused on its own effort. You have some thoughts about places to promote that content. This type of content can shed new light on a business problem your prospects have. Note the emphasis on strategy in this statement. Now that you’ve got a solid base for the topics and … Purpose is a big topic but essentially it comes down to two important elements: who are you targeting with your content, and what do you want them to do with the information you provide? The distribution plan explains how you’ll deliver your product or service. Know What Type of Content You Want to Create. Taking a look at some content marketing plan examples and templates can help you get an idea of how to put together your own. The Care Plan template is provided for your reference as a starting point for the documentation that you should have in place as a provider of care and support services. Okay, calling this a template might be a bit of a stretch, but it will save … Publish one e-book each quarter. Marion Williams-Bennett is a corporate communications consultant working in Boston. As you do this, be aware that some of the business problems or trends that were an issue in the past might not be relevant to the strategy you are building today. These examples range from simple templates (to help you “fill in the blanks” and get started) to actual marketing plans produced by brands and organizations. Without a social media plan, your content is going to have a shorter lifespan. A project plan is a formal part of the project that is created by the project manager along with inputs from key stakeholders and team members. Marketing Plan Sample. Finally, no matter what type of content you create, be sure that your content is compelling enough to give the reader the information he or she needs to think or act in a new way. Customers, prospects, the market as a whole? No two marketers’ objectives are exactly alike. Including details about the actual outcome helps you understand where your success has been and lets you prepare for the next content audit! But when you bring these two teams together, it can have a positive impact your content strategy. Collaborate with your sales and marketing teams. Good news is on its way! She has over 20 years of experience creating compelling communications that advance an organization’s goals. More than an editorial calendar, a content marketing plan document is your road map to a successful content marketing effort. If you want to gain sales or interest in your product or service, then your content will need to be more focused on specific benefits while still being educational. Understanding the value your content strategy brings is a good first step. Otherwise, it’s possible to go too in-depth and get bogged down in the details. According to the Content Marketing Institute’s one-page plan, here’s what you should include: While the Content Marketing Institute’s plan takes a less-is-more approach to getting the content marketing ball rolling, Buffer’s strategy template takes a more-is-more approach. You’ll receive an email alert when new articles are published to the Curata Blog, about 2 times a week. This content marketing strategy template fits on one side of standard printer paper. The scale of your marketing plan will greatly depend on the purpose or type of business it is for. Why is it so hard for marketers to create a strategic plan for their content? The Content Marketing Institute has put together the layout for a one-page marketing plan that will help your brand assemble its first content marketing plan. ), Audience personas (full and detailed, versus the CMI’s snapshot versions), Connect your brand’s solutions to the audience needs (i.e., how do you solve their problems? What outcome do you expect to receive from this effort? A content calendar can be anything used to plan, schedule, and organize content and other marketing projects. Excel and Google Sheets can be cost-effective tools for building marketing calendars. There are several benefits to having this level of planning in place before you start sharing content. A plan for content promotion Now that you know what a content marketing plan should include, let’s take a look at a few content marketing plan examples. It’s also important to note gaps in your subject areas so that you can create new content to fill that void. If you absolutely need more space, use legal-sized paper or even an 11- by 17-inch piece. Here’s an example of content marketing analytics and the type of information that can be detailed in your report. Now let’s look at how to create that strategy and at the templates that are available to guide the process along the way. Apps. This template gives you a pre-defined structure of your marketing project. This can include your owned channels such as your Facebook Page, blog, website, YouTube channel, email newsletters, etc. Content Marketing One-Page Plan. While the businesses and messages are different, they all want to know. Then include information that shows them new ways (such as your product) to solve that problem. Your content can also be used to change perceptions. What are these prospects telling your salespeople about their problems, the industry, and the role your product or service plays in making their life better? It also provides a description of what each component of a SWOT analysis means, and how they influence a marketing plan or strategy. You can easily import and export Excel files to work with your tasks online, manage dates, track progress, and estimate marketing budget. You’ll be curating content like a boss in no time. For a detailed editorial calendar template, look here. - Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | California Privacy Notice, sample marketing plan for a small software company, Your brand’s message, or what it’s trying to say, A description of your team and their responsibilities, An editorial calendar with a schedule for content creation and distribution, List of goals (a measurement of your company’s objectives), Strategy for content (what will the content do), Metrics (how you’ll measure and what you’ll pay attention to), Topic ideas and length suggestions/type of content ideas, Call to action (how will you get people to act? To find out, start with the information gathered in the content audit. Plan Your Content Calendar. Let’s start by taking a look at what content marketing is: The Content Marketing Institute defines it this way: Content marketing is the strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience—with the objective of driving profitable customer action. We’ll email you a copy as well, but click here for some instant gratification. Content marketing plan template consists of typical ready-made tasks. Data sourced from Curata CMP, our content marketing platform. Ideally, a content marketing plan will include: Now that you know what a content marketing plan should include, let’s take a look at a few content marketing plan examples. Free Actionable Bonus: Free Actionable Bonus: Want to create better content for social media? Washington Post's List-based Article. Distribution Plan. If they are up to date, these composites of ideal customers will help you understand the current needs and problems. Here’s a simple example of mapping content to the goals of the client: Mapping Content to the Goals of the Site Users. A Basic Content Plan. This not only supports your efforts but also gives you a team of employees who are engaged and willing to share the company’s content. Before engaging your content strategy, ask what metrics are important to your company and be sure you can provide the relevant data on that metric. Publish one podcast a week. The following are illustrative examples of an operations plan. The first step is to determine the format that you will use: content for your blog, corporative website or social networks. Every content marketing plan must be well structured and with the correct amount of information towards conversions. Strategy Most business strategies have an operations component. Then, using a content inventory spreadsheet, to chart how successful each of these elements has been to your content strategy. Get My Copy! 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