Annual content planning can feel a little overwhelming. Even if you’ve aligned your content marketing goals with your business goals, it can be difficult to know how to turn those goals into a content plan. That’s why for this week’s #ContentChat we discussed everything you need to get a content marketing plan-on-a-page.
I’ve personally found that starting from a 1-page plan makes it a lot easier to ensure your final content marketing plan ladders up to your primary business goals, instead of becoming a kitchen sink collection of activities. #contentchat
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
Q1: Two weeks ago we took a deep dive into how to align our content marketing goals with our business goals. With that conversation in mind, what are your top 2-3 #contentmarketing objectives?
Objectives will naturally range from individual to individual, covering everything from sales and marketing alignment, continuing momentum of existing campaigns, and increasing visibility.
A1. I think my major goal (which is also my biggest challenge) is to develop a content strategy that will get marketing and sales on the same page. Yeah, I know it’s not a SMART goal, but it’s the starting line for me. #contentchat https://t.co/bxiUOhbaV9
— David Simanoff (@dsimanoff) October 1, 2018
A1: Top #contentmarketing objectives
1. Not lose steam mid-campaign
2. Move folks from inital push to ongoing engagement
3. Develop potential partnerships early before next campaign push (build my well before I need it) #contentchat https://t.co/ms6Um7tXFp— Jennifer Navarrete (@epodcaster) October 1, 2018
My goals: Become known as a leading SME on content marketing for startups. Lead generation. Business growth. #ContentChat https://t.co/TIxl4WWhBZ
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
A1: One is to have content that is relevant toward the audience and to have a goal for the content – sales, transactions and engagement. #ContentChat
— Bernie Fussenegger 🐝✌️the7️⃣ (@B2the7) October 1, 2018
A1: #1 is always drive more bookings/sales. Good SEO is always important as well. As a startup that is largely unknown, we also want content to educate customers of our mission and establish a ln approachable voice with our content marketing. #ContentChat
— Divya Mulanjur (@Di_Mulan) October 1, 2018
A1:
In short
1) Personalization
2) Optimization
3) Integration#ContentChat— LaDonna LaGuerre 🇯🇲 🏳️🌈 (@ladonnajonze) October 1, 2018
Q2: OK, let’s make those objectives more tangible by creating goals to support them. What are some achievable and measurable ways to show you have met your objective?
A2: It’s all about KPI, right? How can we prove what we are doing is a success unless we measure it? Having an indicator of success is important because it helps guide us along the way and keeps us from spinning our wheels. #contentchat https://t.co/0WpJcvzogg
— Jennifer Navarrete (@epodcaster) October 1, 2018
Goals can get tricky—without tangible outcomes, your “goals” may just be more objectives. Ensure your goals have a quantifiable measure like these examples:
A2: I can support those objectives with these goals: 1) Increase daily website traffic 20%. 2) Increase my social engagement rate by 50% #ContentChat https://t.co/QcKzaxpOLs
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
A2.) One of my ex-cos (RE Aggregators) did was:
a) Traffic Goal on blog (30K a day)
b) Lead Gen Goal (3% of blog traffic)
c) Revenue Goal#ContentChat— Avtar (@Avtar_Madan) October 1, 2018
A2. Good content goals:
(1) Increase non-bounce website traffic by 20% by Q2 / 2019.
(2) Get 500 backlinks for content written in 2018 by the end of the year.
(3) Increase customer retention rate to X% by Q3 2019.#contentchat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) October 1, 2018
Q3: What are the strategies you plan to use to reach those individual goals? For example, are you going to start inviting guest authors to your blog? Or are you going to start marketing to a different audience segment?
Strategies are the actions you’ll take to achieve your goals. Again, these will range on a case-by-case basis, and the possibilities are endless. Don’t be afraid to try out new ideas, and diversify the avenues you take to achieve the goals.
A3. I think this is where experimentation comes in. The trick to find new readers without alienating existing ones. I think bringing in more voices, possibly through guest authors, is a good idea. Expanding into new topics is also worth considering. #contentchat https://t.co/4ZFkEVxf25
— David Simanoff (@dsimanoff) October 1, 2018
A3: Inviting guest authors is a great strategy that we’ve been using to reach our goals! It engages other members in the marketing community in our content and helps to solidify topic authority. #contentchat
— Brafton (@Brafton) October 1, 2018
A3: I’m going to contribute at least 12 guest blog posts in 2019, expand my work with trusted freelancers to increase my capacity, and work to secure more podcast / Twitter chat / conference speaking engagements. #ContentChat https://t.co/FZWCOY7uNY
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
A3: Although I am just getting my list together. One strategy I was considering was gifts and giveaways to drive traffic and engagement. #ContentChat https://t.co/SEM1stUSFz
— DetroitDrew (@DattzDrew) October 1, 2018
A3. Creating reports. Many reports. And holding content optimization workshops. #ContentChat https://t.co/qSYQ0zOw8d
— Jen Brass Jenkins (@chrliechaz) October 1, 2018
A3:
1: start with timely 1×1 engagements (Zappos style)
2: Exploring additional tracking options with Google Analytics
3: Leverage tools like influitive to connect influencers and provide exclusive experiences
#ContentChat— Paul Young (@youngp2) October 1, 2018
I think @todcordill is spot-on about the need for buy-in. You should be driving the car, but you need some consensus on where you’re headed. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you think you’re going in the wrong direction. #contentchat https://t.co/SLf1o52I7a
— David Simanoff (@dsimanoff) October 1, 2018
Q4: What are your top 2-3 metrics that if you attain them will mean you’ve been successful with your content marketing and reached your goals? For example, have a 2% conversion rate from newsletter subscribers or publish 20 guest authors on the blog.
Content marketing metrics can be tricky—whether you already have an idea for your personal metrics or not, industry benchmarking is a great place to start (or at least check in on).
A4: Before I can set my success metrics I need to do a little more research on historical performance and industry norms. I want numbers that go in the right direction but also that meet or beat my competition. #ContentChat
— Paul Young (@youngp2) October 1, 2018
A4. I have a client where we should be able to increase email subscription rate 4X by being a bit more aggressive on the website. #contentchat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) October 1, 2018
A4. Increasing the content report open email rate by 10% (starting small); 3 content creators requesting content optimization workshops #ContentChat https://t.co/wHA3WjDYUA
— Jen Brass Jenkins (@chrliechaz) October 1, 2018
Q5: What are the key differentiators that set you apart from your competition that will help you reach your goals? For example, your specific audience, niche subject matter expertise, or otherwise unavailable tools and resources.
Knowing what makes you unique could help you hone in on new strategies to implement to achieve your goals.
Q5. I don’t know if I’d say competitors, but in our siloed community, I work back end content strategy, which touches every single content creator. You could call that a differentiator… #ContentChat https://t.co/MgPSVSWQQc
— Jen Brass Jenkins (@chrliechaz) October 1, 2018
A5: I’ve worked as an employee in everything from Fortune 50 and non-profits to Series B startups. I have solid consulting experience, but I also understand first hand how the enterprise makes decisions, unlike many others in my space. #ContentChat https://t.co/Jqa6wiV2Gv
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
A5:
A strong exsisting customer base allows me to leverage economies of scale. Just like any marketing done right, growth should be expotential not lienar. #ContentChat— Paul Young (@youngp2) October 1, 2018
A5: I have an abundance mindset which is how I look at all of my endeavors. We all have a unique spice and flavor that will attract our ideal audience. That is your strength. Live it. Breathe it. Own it. #contentchat https://t.co/lcDPZztBKr
— Jennifer Navarrete (@epodcaster) October 1, 2018
Q6: What are your top 2-3 calls-to-action that drive toward your goals, that every piece of content you produce should be able to ladder up to? For example, subscribe to our newsletter (soft), request a demo (hard).
Ensure your audience has a call-to-action that can help you achieve your goals.
A6: Once I have my email list going, it’s going to be Subscribe as a soft CTA, and Sign up for my course as a hard CTA on appropriate content. I have 2 in-progress courses that need to get published in Q1. #ContentChat https://t.co/wwPRJjqvzh
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
A6: Visit our (X topic) page. If you have solidly optimized landing pages that showcase your best content and have engagement opportunities (email or chat) your best bet is to get them on platform which will also help with attribution #ContentChat
— Paul Young (@youngp2) October 1, 2018
A6: This is a good question. Call to action is part of the measurement of success. some CTA’s are hard “Buy my book!” while others are soft “To learn more…” #contentchat https://t.co/CFqEqDmR2b
— Jennifer Navarrete (@epodcaster) October 1, 2018
A6. CTAs are tricky in my industry. We want to talk to our B2B customers directly, as there are a lot of things to explain and we really need to understand their issues. But we also want to make it as easy as possible to begin that conversation. Good content helps. #contentchat https://t.co/WJDEPEddiB
— David Simanoff (@dsimanoff) October 1, 2018
A6: I always prefer selling the benefit versus pushing the action: “Be a stronger champion of your ideas” vs. “Visit my website” or “Check me out on Instagram”. To steal from @simonsinek, the why eats the what (and the how) for breakfast. #contentchat
— Joel Schwartzberg (@TheJoelTruth) October 1, 2018
Q7: Let’s open things up for the last 10 minutes of the chat. What questions do you have about creating a content marketing plan-on-a-page that we can help each other address?
A7. Do you have an example of a plan-on-a-page, @SFerika? I’d love to be able to visualize this. #contentchat https://t.co/4KtTAQw0Q3
— David Simanoff (@dsimanoff) October 1, 2018
And this post from @CMIContent when it was originally published a number of years ago is what got me started with thinking this way: https://t.co/aD1V5sdvPi #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
Social is definitely a good place to distribute. And you can work to include quotes from partners, influencers, etc. and reach out to them. Often, they’ll share your content if it presents them and the topic in a good light. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
I honestly don’t know where to start.
I don’t have any of the stats or tools you guys named😔 #ContentChat https://t.co/4k9BBhTOMh— DetroitDrew (@DattzDrew) October 1, 2018
Excellent. If you are using Google Analytics on your website, you can set goals tied to purchases (i.e. if someone sees your “thank you” page), and you can get basic metrics from Facebook as well. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Consultant | Content Strategist (@SFerika) October 1, 2018
It was a busy chat for sure, but we’re glad we were able to work together as a #ContentChat community to discuss this daunting topic. Now, go make those plans with ease!
I know it’s a good #twitterchat when I spend almost all my time engaging in the Notifications panel and am continually 10 minutes behind in the #contentchat panel. Thanks @SFerika pic.twitter.com/F3hvQaiNff
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) October 1, 2018
Excellent #contentchat! I feel like I just went through a mini-coaching session with @SFerika. Thanks everyone for the chat. The hour flew by quickly. Have a fab week!
— Jennifer Navarrete (@epodcaster) October 1, 2018
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