How To Plan Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content has rapidly climbed the ranks when it comes to the attention it receives and the priority it’s given by a business. From startups to the largest organisations across the globe. And it’s about flamin’ time.

Content is one of the big hitters when it comes to creating a kick-ass digital experience, and having a content strategy is a must.

In this article, we look at how to plan your content strategy and then how to execute!

What is a content marketing strategy?

A content marketing strategy is the plan for creating, sharing, and tracking all the content you put out online to hit your marketing and business goals.

A content strategy can focus on short-term goals, like a specific campaign, or be part of a longer-term plan that covers everything from a few months to a year.

Why is having a content strategy important?

Having a content strategy is important because it gives your marketing efforts direction and purpose.

Without a plan, you’re essentially guessing what works and throwing content out there without a clear goal. A solid content strategy make sure that everything you create supports your business objectives, whether that’s generating leads, increasing sales, or building brand awareness.

A content strategy makes sure your content isn’t just filling space – it’s working hard to drive real business results.

What should a content marketing strategy include?

A comprehensive content strategy should cover several key components to ensure that your content is effective, engaging, and aligned with your business goals.

Here’s a breakdown of what a solid content strategy should include:

1. Goals and Objectives

• Purpose: Define why you’re creating content. Is it for brand awareness, lead generation, customer education, sales conversion, or something else?
• Measurable Goals: Set clear, measurable objectives (e.g., increase website traffic by 20%, generate 500 new leads per month, boost engagement on social media by 15%).

2. Audience Research

• Target Audience: Identify who your audience is—demographics, interests, pain points, preferences, and behavior patterns.
• Buyer Personas: Create detailed buyer personas to guide content creation and ensure it resonates with the right people at each stage of their buyer’s journey.
• Audience Needs: Understand what your audience wants to know or solve and tailor your content to address those needs.

3. Content Types

• Content Formats: Decide what types of content you will create (blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, webinars, case studies, eBooks, social media posts, etc.).
• Content Mix: Diversify content formats and delivery methods based on audience preferences. For example, combine long-form content for SEO with short-form content for social media.

4. Content Calendar

• Publishing Schedule: Develop a content calendar to plan and schedule your content in advance. This helps maintain consistency and ensures you’re always creating content that aligns with current trends and your goals.
• Frequency: Set a cadence for how often you’ll publish content, keeping in mind the resources available.

5. SEO and Keyword Strategy

• Keyword Research: Conduct research to identify high-value keywords and search phrases that align with your business and audience.
• On-Page SEO: Ensure your content is optimised for SEO, including keyword usage, meta descriptions, header tags, and internal linking.
• Content Optimisation: Focus on creating valuable, high-quality content that answers the audience’s search intent while optimizing for search engine algorithms.

6. Content Creation Process

• Content Guidelines: Establish content standards for voice, tone, and style to maintain consistency across all content pieces.
• Content Workflow: Define roles and responsibilities for each stage of content creation, from ideation to drafting, editing, and publishing.
• Collaboration Tools: Use content management or collaboration tools (e.g., Trello, Asana, Google Docs) to streamline the process.

7. Distribution and Promotion Plan

• Owned Channels: Decide where you’ll publish content (website, blog, email newsletter).
• Earned Media: Consider promoting content through public relations, guest posts, influencer partnerships, or social shares.
• Paid Promotion: Plan for paid distribution options like paid search ads (Google Ads), paid social media ads, or sponsored content on third-party platforms.
• Social Media Strategy: Develop a plan to distribute content across your social media channels, adjusting for the platform’s format and audience.

8. Engagement and Interaction

• Community Engagement: Encourage interaction with your audience through comments, discussions, and feedback loops.
• User-Generated Content: Incorporate user-generated content into your strategy (e.g., reviews, social shares, testimonials).
• Call-to-Action (CTA): Make sure each piece of content has a clear CTA, whether it’s downloading an eBook, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase.

9. Measurement and Analytics

• KPIs: Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) to track (e.g., traffic, conversions, time on page, engagement rate).
• Analytics Tools: Use tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, SEMrush, or social media insights to measure the performance of your content.
• Continuous Optimisation: Regularly review content performance, learn what works, and optimise based on data.

10. Content Repurposing

• Maximise Value: Repurpose your top-performing content into different formats (e.g., turning a blog post into an infographic, video, or podcast episode).
• Update and Refresh: Periodically update old content to keep it relevant and valuable for your audience, especially if it performs well.

11. Budget and Resources

• Resource Allocation: Determine how much time, effort, and budget you can allocate to content creation and promotion.
• Team Roles: Define who will be responsible for content creation, editing, design, SEO, promotion, and analytics.

12. Content Governance

• Content Ownership: Identify who owns each piece of content and how ownership or responsibility will be managed.
• Legal and Compliance: Ensure your content complies with any legal, regulatory, or copyright requirements.

13. Competitor Analysis

• Competitive Benchmarking: Analyse your competitors’ content strategies. What are they doing well? Where are the gaps or opportunities you can capitalise on?

By including these elements in your content strategy, you can ensure that your efforts are purposeful, efficient, and aligned with your business goals.

Ok, it is a huge list of expectations for a content strategy, but there’s a lot to consider. It’s a lot to do on your own.

But we’re here, we can help you to put your brand’s content marketing strategy together.

What questions will a content strategy answer?

What are we trying to achieve?

What are the specific business or marketing goals we want to reach with our content? (e.g., generating leads, increasing sales, building brand awareness)

Who is our audience?

Who are we creating content for? What are their needs, interests, pain points, and where do they spend time online?

What type of content should we create?

What formats (blog posts, videos, infographics, social media posts, etc.) will resonate with our audience and best communicate our message?

Where will we distribute our content?

On which channels (website, social media, email, etc.) will we publish and promote our content to reach our target audience effectively?

How often should we post content?

What is the right frequency for publishing content, and how do we maintain consistency without sacrificing quality?

How will we measure success?

What KPIs (key performance indicators) or metrics will we track to determine if our content is achieving its goals? (e.g., website traffic, social engagement, conversion rates)

What resources do we need?

Who will create the content? What tools or budget do we need to execute the strategy successfully?

What makes our content different?

What’s our unique value proposition, and how can we ensure our content stands out from the competition?

How to plan your content marketing strategy in 6 steps

To help you put together a content plan and create a content strategy framework that works for you and your business, we’ve put together 6 key questions to ask yourself:

1. What problem are you solving?

This is a standard question for a business, and one you should be able to answer easily – especially if you did your homework for your business plan.

Before you write a single word of content, you need to know why you’re here in the first place:

• Why should your audience care about your products and services?
• What problem are you solving for them?
• And how does that link to what it is your business wants to achieve?

The content you produce needs to help your future customers realise they have the problem you’re solving, educate them through the process, and eventually, realise your business has the solution they’re looking for (or didn’t even know they needed).

2. What’s so special about your offering?

You might think your business is the best thing since sliced bread, but it’s likely you have competitors out there in the market and customers will want to know what makes your offering unique – or at least different to the rest.

Your content should clearly highlight why customers should choose you, and not the competitors. Not by mud-slinging and slagging off the competition, no need to play dirty. Instead, focus on the details of why your products/services really are the bees knees.

3. Who’s going to read your content?

Questions 1 and 2 are about what you’re going to say with your content. This question is about who you’re going to be talking to.

Knowing your target audience is super important for any marketing activity, but it’s particularly crucial for producing content.

You’ll most likely have multiple types of customers, and that’s OK. Just make sure that your content strategy includes them all in the mix. And think about each customer type to help you choose the types of content and the channels you use to get your content out there.

4. What content formats will you create?

When we talk about content we don’t just mean words. You might want to use images, videos, infographics, as well as blog posts, user guides or other written content.

Some of the most popular formats are:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Animations
• Gifs
• Infographics
• Images and illustrations
• Case studies
• Podcasts
• Tutorials

But do you know what is popular with your target audience? Or the channels where your planning to push out your content on?

Leading us onto…

5. Which channels will you use?

The next step, once you know what you’re going to say and have decided on the format(s) that will work best, is to choose where you’re going to publish your hot-off-the-press new content.

Deciding which channel(s) you want to use will depend on two things: 1) your audience and where they consume the majority of their content, and 2) the format of the content you’re creating.

Here are some of the main marketing channels to consider for your content:

• Your website and/or blog
• Social media posts (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn)
• Email
• Podcast platforms (e.g. Spotify, Google Play, Apple Podcasts)

6. Frequency of your content

How often will you create and publish content?

1. Once a week?
2. Twice a week?
3. Everyday?
4. Five times a day?

You’ll need to know what works for your audience and how big your growth targets are to help decide this.

7. Who’s going to do what, and when?

The key to a successful content strategy is in the execution. You’ve taken the time to think about what you have to say, who you’re talking to and the way you’re going to create the content, and now it’s time to walk the walk.

The best way to do this is to create a content editorial calendar that details what content you’re going to create, who’s going to create it, where it’s going to be published and when.

By mapping out your content and assigning responsibility to individual team members (or a content marketing agency like our good selves here at TJ Creative), you can break it down into manageable tasks to ensure you hit all the target dates.

Need help writing your content?

Hiring a professional copywriter can take away the hassle of having to create content yourself, so you can focus on your other priorities.

Find out which type of copywriter you need for your business in our guide to the different types of copywriting.

6 popular types of content to consider for your content marketing strategy

Different types of content have their own goals that they’re trying to achieve, and it helps to understand the difference when you’re planning your content strategy.

SEO content – very popular right now!

As you might have guessed from the name, SEO content is created to help boost the SEO performance of a website.

It’s written using the most appropriate and popular keywords for the topic in question, and structured in a way that helps Google understand what the important themes are in each piece of content.

Social content

No prizes for guessing what social content is. Yep, you got it. It’s content that will be shared on social media channels.

One of the key elements of social content is creating engaging, shareable content that sparks emotions and encourages audiences to share, like and comment.

Video content

Admittedly, video content can sit with two other types of content we’ve listed already, but video should sit in its own right within any content marketing strategy or team.

By having video content you can then be thinking bigger picture. Creating a video should not be the limit. It’s then how you package it up and repurpose it for your marketing mix.

x1 video could be repurposed into a YouTube Short, a TikTok or Instagram Story.

If you have a traditional long form video on YouTube, why not break it into bitesize videos as social media posts?

You could post your video online but embed it onto your website or blog content.

There are tons of options when it comes to your video content.

Visual content

I’ve stuck this with video – nowadays we have images, infographics, mems and GIFs. All of which should be considered if they will resonate with your target audience.

And again, they can be repurposed and distributed across your marketing mix; website, social media, emails.

PR content

Traditionally PR content would have taken the shape of press releases, news articles and billboards. Nowadays, with social media and blogging having taken the world by storm, the term PR content can often be used to refer to pretty much any content produced by a business for public consumption.

Digital PR is a great way to get a story out from your brand and get mass exposure and coverage of it online.

Email content

Content for email campaigns often falls into two camps:

a) functional emails, and b) marketing emails.

Functional email content is often associated with automated emails, e.g. when a user creates an account or resets their password.

Marketing emails, on the other hand, are generally more promotional or topical in their messaging – covering anything from a product launch to announcing seasonal discounts.

Google ads content

Paid advertising is big business these days and Google Ads is one of the top platforms of today. Google Ads content is short form content targeted at certain keywords and phrases to generate clicks.

There’s an art to it, but when done right you can create a clicking frenzy and boost your online traffic (and sales).

User experience content

UX, or ‘user experience’, is the term commonly used to describe the overall experience of using a website, app or software.

UX content refers to content that’s used to create the best possible experience for your users/customers.

Good UX content is clear, concise, avoids jargon, and provides helpful messaging to direct the user to the next step of their journey.

Having good UX content = offering a better customer experience for your users. And that means, if directing them to convert, you’ll be able to increase the conversions of your website, app or product.

So although your content strategy will largely focus on bringing in new customers, you should also have an eye on improving the ‘in-life’ experience of existing customers too.

This would positively influence customer retention, repeat purchases and customer loyalty.

The typical steps to launching any content strategy

Once the content strategy is approved, it’s then go time! So what does that look like?

Here’s a rough guide on what it takes to get any content marketing strategy off the ground:

• Step 1 – Establish your business goals and objectives. Using the SMART framework each goal for your content should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.
• Step 2 – Get to know your audience. You want to know as much as you can about the folks who you’re going to be creating content for. Create personas that include information such as their age, location, average income, typical jobs they do, and personal interests.
• Step 3 – Check out your competition. It’s pretty likely that your competitors are already active on their websites, SEO, and social media, so have a gander at what they’re posting. Learn from what they’re doing (or not doing), and then do it better – but always aim to be unique.
• Step 4 – Carry out an audit. If you’ve already been creating content then, it’s a good idea to take stock of what you’ve done so far and consider what’s working (or not), who’s engaging with you, and how your content compare to your competitors.
• Step 5 – Set up your accounts and/or update your profiles. Once you’ve decided what platforms you’ll be using to create and publish your content, you need to create your profiles/channels – or improve the ones you already have. Fill out all the fields, consider popular keywords for your business, and make sure everything is on brand (logo, images, tone of voice, etc).
• Step 6 – Get inspired and plan your content. Don’t just look at what competitors are doing, check other industries and other platforms to see which brands are kicking ass on social media. Be inspired by them and make notes on the best bits that you think will work for your business.
• Step 7 – Create a content calendar. Having a content plan in place is a must and should detail what content you plan to publish and when with a clear schedule. Don’t forget to build in time for engaging with your audience.
• Step 8 – Measure performance and optimise. Track how your content is performing on each channel (based on the goals you set out at the beginning) and then do more of what goes down well, and less of the content that tanks. You will have slightly different metrics on each channel, but it should all lead to the same goal.

Don’t have the time, skill or experience to pull a content marketing strategy together?

We don’t blame you, you’ve probably got lots of big fish to fry. That doesn’t mean you should ignore content, but you might want to think about outsourcing your content marketing.

FAQs

What does a content strategist do?

Content strategists are experts in developing content strategies based on a businesses goals and their customers’ needs. It’s their job to figure out the priorities for the business, understand what the customers want and need, and then consider what content would be the best fit.

A content strategist will often conduct content audits to see what content has already been created, identify gaps to fill or improvements to be made, and then put together a content plan.

Their main responsibilities include putting together and maintaining the editorial calendar(s), implementing style guides, and setting up content processes.

How much does a copywriter cost to hire?

On average, you can expect the cost of an experienced freelance copywriter to be around £50 – £75 per hour, or £400 – £600 per day – depending on the copywriting work you need them for.

Working with a decent copywriter can save you a lot of time and stress, especially when you have a lot on your plate trying to run your business.

Get help with your content marketing strategy

Putting together a content marketing strategy for your brand is a big job for one person to do. Whether you’re running the show with your entire business or all of the marketing, sometimes, a fresh perspective and another pair of hands will take your marketing to the next level.

We’re passionate about content and our team are experienced at planning, creating and optimising content to help you build your brand and connect with your audience.

Fill out our contact form below and let’s book in a chat.