Creating a content marketing plan for your blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Kevin Ocasio

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Content marketing strengthens your brand identity.

The content you provide to your audience regularly helps people know more about you. By engaging people with your free advice and stories, you earn their trust and loyalty.

Today’s post is going to be about creating a content marketing plan.

Do you really need to have one for your blog? Absolutely.

Planning out the creation and distribution of your content guarantees that you’ll always be heard by your audience.

You need to make sure that you provide the kind of content your audience needs. Above all, your content should align with the goals of your company.

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog If you’re ready to create the best content for your readers, read on.

Where To Write Your Content Plan In creating a content plan, you can use a simple spreadsheet on your computer or a personal planner. Dedicate your spreadsheet or planner to your content plan for the year.

Allot columns or spaces for every aspect of your content: Content Type, Frequency, Goal, Target Audience, Results, and more.

Define your target audience.

First of all, you need to identify who your readers will be. Make sure that your target prospects are those who are really interested in your message and have the huge potential to convert.

Collect as many details as you can about your prospects.

Quicksprout recommends that to confirm that people are actively looking for the content you wish to provide, use Google AdWords . Simply enter your keywords to ďŹ nd out the number of monthly searches that were done for those keywords.

Create a marketing persona to best represent your target readers. Below are important questions you need to ask in the process:

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog What is the age group of my target audience?

Are they mostly males? Females? Or both?

What are their jobs?

How much are they earning?

Did they graduate from college?

What are their personal challenges or difficulties?

Are they computer literate?

What are their hobbies?

You can ask as many questions as you like. These will help you visualize your market. Be very specific about your persona. If possible, create a picture of your ideal customer so you can target your content better.

Find out what topics they are interested in.

Aim your content towards your readers. What do people want to know more about? What content are they willing to pay for?

Your content should be the ultimate “solution” to their problems.

Remember that people arrive at your blog because they want to know whether you can give them the answers. If you are able to, you earn their trust.

To find out what people want, do the following: Run a survey – Survey your prospects online and offline. When it comes to online surveys, choose a free survey tool such as SurveyMonkey . Post your survey on Facebook or email your subscribers about it. To encourage people to participate, offer them a free incentive.

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog Check your analytics – Visit Google Analytics to discover pages on your blog where people stay the longest. This will help you identify the kind content that people want to consume.

Use Google Trends – Google Trends is another invaluable tool that allows you to know the interest for a particular term over a period of time. It provides real-time data. You’ll also be able to research topics according to location.

The easiest way for you to know what your prospects want without spending or using any tool is to ask them directly in your comments section. Be interactive.

Decide on the type of content to create.

There are several content types to choose from and all you have to do is decide on the one that best matches your topic. Below, you’ll see a list of 44 content formats from Hubspot: Among these types of content, the ones that bloggers often use are the following: How-to’s – According to Buffer Social

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog , in-depth how-to guides are more read and shared. When it comes to word count, the best post is around 1,500 words. If you decide to go as high as 3,000-5,000 words, make sure to use shorter paragraphs and bullet points.

Lists – Top 10 lists are viral. These are often used by bloggers to enumerate ways to solve a problem. They can be top strategies, secrets, tips, ways, and more.

Videos – Explainer videos or tutorial videos where people get to see and hear you talk help you get your messages across better than plain text. Videos are great in explaining complicated concepts.

Infographics – Infographics are for visual learners. They’re ideal to use for showing research, facts, and numbers that bore people.

Case studies – Case studies showcase people’s success stories because of your product or service. They are a must for your online business because they help prove your expertise by providing real examples.

Tool reviews – Tool reviews or product reviews need to be exhaustive. Be honest enough to state the positive and negative aspects about what you are promoting. Here’s a guide to help you write reviews: 5 Easy Ways to Write Effective Product Reviews .

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog Set a schedule content.

for

publishing

your

How often should you create and publish blog content? Should it be daily?

Twice a week?

If you have just recently launched your blog, you’ll have to create more content in a week. This allows your blog to grow fast. Doing this also gives your audience more posts to read.

Whatever your publishing schedule is, what really matters is the end is that you remain consistent. It’s not a good idea to publish content daily for a week and then publish once the next week. You don’t want your audience to be confused.

It’s best to create content during your productive hours to prevent exhaustion. Have a schedule that’s realistic, one you can keep up with.

Below is an example of Sprout Social’s publishing calendar:

Promote your content.

Your content has been published and you need to get the word out. Below are ways for you to promote your content: Social media – Marketers these days take advantage of social media because that’s where people are often found. Get more people to share and discover your content by having fast and responsive social sharing buttons .

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog Email marketing – Let your email subscribers know that you’ve published your latest content. Give them a sneak peek and provide a link to your post.

Influencer marketing – Ask or pay influential people to get the word out for you. Since influencers have a huge following, you can be sure that your content will reach wider audiences.

Track the marketing.

results

of

your

content

According to Jay Baer of Convince & Convert, there are 4 types of content marketing metrics. These are the following: Consumption Sharing Leads Sales He mentions that marketers put more value on consumption and sharing (your blog posts get read and shared on Facebook, etc.) rather than on leads and sales.

Clicks, likes, and shares are wonderful but they do not determine true content marketing success. Leads and sales are more important results to take note of. With leads and sales, you achieve your business goals.

Final Thoughts

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog Check your content marketing plan every now and then and see whether what you’ve written down are still relevant to your goals and objectives. Keep your content marketing plan updated to get you the best results.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I hope that the things I’ve written here are able to help you start creating an effective content marketing plan.

If you have any thoughts to share, leave a comment below!

Creating A Content Marketing Plan For Your Blog