Six Steps to Plan a Great Content Campaign

Why plan? Isn’t spontaneity the spice of life? Isn’t it more fun to get up and do something and see where it takes you, instead of planning every little detail? Yes and no. It is great fun to jump in the car and drive along the coast until spontaneously stopping to enjoy the view or a local bar, but your work goals are different. Setting up objectives, like your content campaigns, require planning. A content campaign without planning will result in boring content and few prospective clients. However, proper planning for a content campaign can be incredibly satisfying. It allows you to define a clear process from idea to execution, and that clear process will guide you along step by step. Finally, this thoughtful planning and execution will lead to success. And who doesn’t enjoy success?

Now that you are assured that you have to plan your content campaign in order for it to be successful, here are six steps to consider while you map out your plan:

1. Set out your Goals

Define specific goals for your product or service. These goals must be measureable, and you need to set a timeframe for when they should be achieved.

2. Define your Audience

You want to direct your content to prospective clients. Before you can produce content, you need to understand who these people are. You cannot speak the same way to middle-aged housewives as to college students.

3. Develop your Content

Once you understand your goals and your audience, you must develop your content. You must decide what type of content attracts the audience’s interest. Will they respond best to blogs or newsletters or videos?

After you choose the type of content, you must select topics. Remember what you do and your goals, and then think about your audience’s interests. Choose subjects that combine these topics. For example, energy drink companies discuss extreme sports and the need for high energy on their websites; they are directing themselves to a youthful audience that is interested in high energy activities. Prospective clients in this audience will be interested in drinks that keep their energy levels high.

Now that you know what type of content you will produce and the subject matter, you need to create the content. Good content is about quality. Titles need to be captivating. Paragraphs should transition logically, keeping readers interested. Don’t forget — there cannot be any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

4. Planning Publishing

When your content is ready, it will need to be published. You need to consider the channels of distribution. Will you publish on social media or on your company’s website? Will you send the content to leads in an email?

In addition, you need to think about frequency of publishing. Do you need to publish new content every day or once a week? What day of the week will prospective clients be most likely to see your new content? What time of day will they be online? You can publish content about a new movie at the local cinema at 10am on Monday, but it might be more effective to publish the same content at 6pm on Friday.

5. Prepare Promotion

Once your content is published, you will need to promote it. Hopefully, prospective clients will find your content organically through search engines, but not all readers come from keyword searches. Plan to promote your content through social media and email. Remember who your audience is. Do they respond to liked content on Facebook? Or do they prefer tweeted information?

6. Measure your Results

When your content is published and promoted, you will need to know if the content is helping the company reach its goals. You will need to choose and set up analytics tools, so you can measure the content’s effect on the business. Then, you will need to compile the information collected by the analytics tools into a report in order to show your progress. In addition, you must decide how often the reports need to be given in order to keep the company informed in a timely manner.

As you can see, planning a content campaign is a detailed and time-consuming project. However, a solid plan allows for easier execution and successful accomplishment of the company’s goals. And truth be told, successfully reaching your goals is incredibly satisfying and enjoyable, probably more than taking an unplanned drive along the beach.

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