▷ 8 Steps to Create a Successful Content Marketing Plan
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  • Writer's pictureToucan Insights Staff
    • 7 min read

8 Steps to Create a Successful Content Marketing Plan

Table of Contents





How to Succeed with Content Marketing


Introduction



Considering all these websites, how could you make yours stand out from the masses?


Content marketing is a very effective way to attract your audience by answering their biggest questions and it has been proven to be one of the best marketing strategies that content marketing agencies use when it comes to increasing traffic to your website.


In this article, we are listing 8 starter tips that will give you a foundation to develop a successful content marketing strategy.


1. Create a Strategic Content Marketing Plan


Create a Strategic Content Marketing Plan


A content marketing strategy is a plan to map out the journey from A to Z.


It lays out the content marketing campaign goals and a clear strategic content marketing on how to accomplish them step by step.


One advantage of having a documented content marketing plan is to have a clear picture of which topics have already been posted to avoid repetition.


This allows content marketing agencies to connect published article topics with new ideas, which bring new visitors to the old article.


The goal of developing a strategic content marketing is to create a long-term scheme for attracting visitors to your website through targeted content marketing campaigns.


A great Strategic content marketing plan can lay the foundation for a successful and sustainable stream of new visitors who could become customers.



2. Focus on your Audience


Your target audience should be the most important focus when creating your strategic content marketing plan.



Producing content for your audience instead of merely describing the characteristics of your products is crucial to gain trust from new visitors.


It is important to research your audience to get to know their most pressing problems and questions.


A successful content marketing campaign aims to provide answers to these questions in order to help your online visitors solve their problems.


Focus on questions and issues that are related to your business.


This will allow your visitors to connect with your company's digital content marketing efforts and bring them when facing other similar needs in the future.


Knowing the most popular search terms in your industry will allow you to provide the right answers that your target audience is seeking.







 
 


3. Research your Competitors


The next step is conducting research on your competitors. Sometimes acquiring the help of a content marketing agency to make sure your research is on point.


Looking at the highest performing companies in your industry can give your content marketing agency valuable insights into how your competitors achieved success.


It is easier to replicate someone’s path to success than to try out a new way.


However, this doesn’t mean copying other people’s work is acceptable. Their work should only be your point of reference or inspiration.


Use your creativity and imagination to come up with new viewpoints, ideas or to induce your own personality into the mix.


Using Google is a good way to find out what wording your competition uses to address their audience in advertisements, meta-descriptions, and headlines.


Their social media accounts are also a great place to find similar companies in your industry.


In summary, you should ask yourself these questions when analyzing the market:


  • How do similar companies address their target audience?

  • Which tools do they use?

  • What keywords are they focussing on?



4. Go after the Right Keywords


words in different sizes and shapes


Digital content marketing agencies use knowledge about who your target audience and your competitors are and find the most appropriate keywords to connect them back to your company.


Your keywords should be a mix of popular terms which have a high search volume per month on Google and niche keywords with a more specific audience and therefore less popular on Google.


On the one hand, choosing terms with a high search volume will bring in the necessary number of website visitors to gain awareness within the target audience.


These popular keywords will drive a higher number of website traffic.


However, those visitors are less likely to become your clients because their search intentions tend to focus on understanding the terms and not acquiring the services.


As an example, let’s imagine you have a bicycle repair shop you want to promote.


By choosing to focus on the keyword “bicycle”, people who just want to look up a bicycle shop nearby, a simple definition of a bicycle or events related to bicycles are going to pop up on your search results page.


On the other hand, focusing on specific keywords will attract people who are looking for something similar to what you offer.


Therefore, those people are more likely to become your customers.


Going back to the bicycle shop example, let's imagine that you decide to include the keyword “repairing a bicycle” for your Digital content marketing plan.


In this case, people with the intention to repair their bicycle will come to your website and will have a higher chance of taking your services into consideration.






 
 


5. Analyze the Data Behind your Results


Data is key to provide evidence for your strategic content marketing efforts.


Being able to explain to a client the successes and improvement points of your content marketing campaign results is only possible with factual data.


Digital content marketing is more reliant than ever before on data. Clients want to clearly see how you can help them reach their goals.


At the same time when a digital content marketing campaign didn’t perform as expected, the first thing you should do is analyze the data on which you have based that digital content marketing plan and optimize it with new terms.


Nowadays, technology enables new ways to measure the success of content marketing campaigns. Before it was rather abstract and vague to measure those performances.


There are many free tools online that include options to measure your digital content marketing plan and the right digital content marketing channels to execute them.


Especially the tools created by Google offer great value, for example, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, etc.



6. Reformatting your Strategic Content Marketing


Reformatting your strategic content marketing means adapting it to a different platform.


As an example, you could choose to take your best performing LinkedIn article “Top 10 free analytics tools” and convert it into a youtube video tutorial.


Nowadays, the strategic content marketing we produce is being recycled over and over again.


This is an indication that the target finds the content interesting and relevant.


Distributing one piece of content on different digital content marketing channels allows it to be discovered by different audiences.


For instance, if your youtube video tutorial gets many views, you can recreate a podcast episode with it to expand on the topic.


If your business is active on multiple digital content marketing channels then this is a good approach to attract a bigger audience by making some content pieces available on the remaining platforms.


Furthermore, updating an already popular topic will give visitors the chance to better inform themselves and as a result, make better decisions.


Finally, it requires less effort transforming an already published piece of content than creating a completely new article or video of a trending topic.





7. Maintain an Editorial Calendar


woman pasting a note on a calendar

Many people use a calendar to organize their day-to-day schedule and plan ahead.


The same goes for strategic content marketing agencies who use an editorial calendar to keep track when to publish what on which platform.


In strategic content marketing, it is very important to follow the publishing schedule.


Posting strategic content marketing material later than planned can decrease the viewership because the audience might not be online.


Being consistent is the key to a successful strategic content marketing plan. Therefore, it is crucial to follow a defined schedule in order to maximize viewership and awareness.


Having an editorial calendar is the best way to keep things organized and get a clear picture of what to start writing next and which content marketing channel to write it for.


Calendars are a great tool to plan content marketing campaigns in the long term as they help to visualize and connect the topics on the different content marketing channels.



8. Build an Email list


Keeping your current customers can be challenging.


An email marketing strategy is an excellent tool to provide valuable content to both current customers and prospective ones.


Counter to popular belief, having an email list is one of the most effective tools digital content marketing agencies use to nurture existing clients.


Email lists are mostly used to inform customers about the latest news on the company, new product releases, and enhanced services.


Also, digital content marketing agencies use email marketing to link trending topics to their current offering seeking to provide new perspectives to their subscribers.



Conclusion


Throughout the article, we have seen the importance of each of the 8 steps needed to create a successful content marketing plan.


Understanding who your audience is and where and how do they search for offerings like yours is key.


What do they think of the current market players, and the type of interactions, uncertainties, and opinions shared on social networks represents key information that will allow you to develop and perfect your strategy.



 
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