How You Can Create a Simple Content Marketing Plan for Your Business

Content marketing is a cost-effective way to advertise and you sure need to know where to start and how to get your content out there to reach your audience. Content marketing is simply planning out what you want to share about your product/service, how you share it, and when you share it via social media and other channels. Your content marketing needs to raise enough awareness and establish enough trust that your target customer decides to choose you.

Here’s How You Can Create a Simple Yet Effective Content Marketing Plan For Your Business:

1. Define Your Goals

In creating your content marketing plan, defining your goals is very important. The content you create delivers for your business short-term or long-term results. For your goals may include building a potential customer base, creating or increasing awareness, increasing end-user sales, product education or any other related goal. The end goal you have in mind will determine the most effective type of content marketing for your business.

2. Develop Your Content

After you have clearly defined your goals, the next thing is to consider the best content to accomplish that objective. Content that offers tips or reviews will give you better bearings. For instance, if you’re looking at establishing your brand, fostering trust or expanding your potential customer base; offering free blogs and other helpful content can help you convert your followers to customers.

You may consider developing these types of content and see how they can suit your marketing needs:

• Captivating Write ups. By coining out marketing words or sentences related to your industry in way that introduces your product and gets the attention of your audience in a moment. However this must be simple, short, captivating & engaging.
• Graphics. Images are a simple, visual way to convey your content, show off products or help users get to know what your brand has to offer. Relevant and creatively designed images that are appealing works better.
• Stories. creating stories about your product, product experience, outings e.t.c also works well on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. You are able to capture your audience attention by giving them an imaginative experience about your product.
• Videos. short videos about your brand can include  product tours, tutorials or walkthroughs for specific products.
• Blogs. blogging can be used to answer frequently asked questions, offer advice and checklists, or just keep your customers in the loop about your product offers or new releases.
• Customer Reviews. User reviews create and keep trust in your business. Whenever you receive great reviews from your customers, it’s good to share them on social media or your website.
• Email Subscriptions. this is a low-cost marketing tool that allows you to stay in touch and top-of-mind. Your subscribers can get regular emails that offer a roundup of your product updates or any other free content.3. Distribute Your Content

After you’ve decided on the type of content you want to offer your audience, the next thing you want to do is to deliver it straight to their devices. Social media accounts will likely make up your main channels of distribution and, luckily, they’re free and very easy to use.

Now, deciding on the right social media channel for your business depends on your goals and objectives and also the type of content you want to share with your audience. Facebook is usually best for creating and sharing conversations, while Instagram is ideal for photos, videos, and other visual mediums like infographics.

4. Create a Calendar

Planning what you’re going to share and offering users a consistent and valuable experience will keep eyes on your social media pages and website.  Obviously, your followers want you to continue offering the type of value they expect via content, so its better to create a simple weekly content calendar and keep delivering it to them. One of the easiest ways to plan content is to give each day of the week a theme. Here’s an example of a weekly themed content marketing calendar:

• Monday: Publish a story or images about your products to create awareness and establish your brand voice.
• Tuesday: Share a free, quick tip or offer actionable advice for free.
• Wednesday: post something that doesn’t benefit you immediately, such as a community story, or something funny.
• Thursday: Discuss about a product or service you offer. It is important to keep selling your products at back of your mind.
• Friday: share wider or more comprehensive content, such as educative or informative content. It could be in form of videos.

Search for online and download free calendar templates to help you get organized and plan your posts weekly, monthly, and quarterly in advance. Tools such as Hootsuite, TweetDeck, would be very helpful because it can help you write, schedule, plan, and post in advance as you hone your content marketing strategy.

5. Regularly Analyze and Optimize

Understand why someone would follow and consume your content, and always create value with that in mind. Good content would gradually generate steady growth on your social media channels. Reviews and interaction can also help you understand whether and how your content is being consumed and allow you to adjust accordingly. Lets say for instance, you notice your audience prefer watching videos, it makes sense to pivot to that type of content over the necessary channels that can deliver that to them consistently.

Lastly, by creating commonly used and search-friendly terms throughout your content and in content headings and titles, you have a better chance of making it to the top of search engine results. This boosts your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

All the Best!!