9 factors that content marketing veterans won’t ignore when planning

Effective marketing increasingly relies on storytelling, and telling stories online only requires adding a little bit of news operations feel to existing business processes. When it comes to content marketing , you must make a plan. In fact, this is also very simple. The following 9 factors are usually taken into consideration by experienced people when making plans.

1. Set tiered goals

Every successful business plan begins with a set of hierarchical goals. Set quantifiable annual, quarterly, and monthly goals so everyone knows what to expect. One post a day is the minimum you want to achieve, and beyond that, at least two or three posts per social media platform that are relevant to each day’s story.

When articles are automatically promoted on each social media channel , three conversation-themed posts are needed to keep them fresh and active on the social media channels.

Don’t worry too much about how much direct traffic you get per post; include daily, monthly, and yearly traffic in your content marketing and social media reports.

2. Quantify ROI

The only way to know if something is working is to quantify it. Just like lead generation and sales should be quantified as a percentage increase in a year, the same goes for content marketing.

Quantitative results for each post in content marketing should also be recorded, which allows marketers to be more proactive rather than reactive, especially when it comes to increasing the number of posts.

3. Determine the content direction

Before you create content, you need to decide the direction of your content. Internal people are always focused on whether or not it ultimately drives sales, but content marketing is not sales content (I’ll come back to this later).

Content should focus on creating a brand image and telling a story. How you tell your story is your choice, but generally it focuses on two types of content – ​​evergreen content and current events content.

Evergreen content is generally accepted truth or opinion, similar to an encyclopedia or academic knowledge – this type of content is always (or almost always) valid at any time of year. Current affairs content is about current events, such as news, commentary, and gossip. For example, “Corrupt Politics” would be an evergreen piece of content, while “Corruption Among Political Candidates 2017” would be a current events piece of content.

It’s easier to write a year-long content calendar with evergreen content, while writing current events content can drive traffic spikes. But the problem is that current affairs content will gradually lose traffic as people pay less attention to the events.

So you might consider implementing RSS in your website sidebar (or social media) to curate current news content while also showcasing evergreen content on your website and app.

4. Create a content calendar

Creating a monthly and yearly calendar can help keep planning smooth, especially when starting multiple projects at the same time, making it easier to meet project deadlines. A content calendar is like a quick map that anyone can use to see the progress of each content project. A formal content calendar also makes changes and updates easier and less stressful.

With a documented content marketing strategy, it’s easy to create a three-month plan, and sometimes even a two-quarter plan, in a week.

5. Create click-through titles

If you use a title such as “Business Teaching Useful Stuff” you are unlikely to attract many readers. A headline like “Business Wisdom from 12 Successful Entrepreneurs” will get more clicks. A more specific headline like “10 Rules (Your Industry) Should Know” will get more clicks.

While headlines attract clicks, you don’t have to focus on them. Certain content marketing tools , like Quora, do a great job of identifying content that people want to click on.

6. Collaborate with writers, editors, and graphic designers

Once you have a content calendar, you need to hire writers, editors, and graphic designers to execute it. It would be best if there is an in-house editor, but if not you can look for a part-time one. Of course, you need to look at his or her previous projects first to understand his or her skills.

Graphic designers should be responsible for creating high-resolution and thumbnail images, including titles and graphics in the pictures. (Don’t forget to make sure your content calendar includes at least one content image that tells your overall brand story.)

In addition to producing text content, writers can research relevant data for statistics and charts.

The editor's task is to read and verify all information in depth. Verifying information is the most important component of any content marketing strategy. While marketing managers should still review all materials, most errors should be caught during the editing process.

7. Establish standardized work documents

Spell out the procedures and requirements for each job so that if you expand (or have to replace someone) it's easy to keep things moving forward.

Standardized company policies and departmental procedures will enable everyone to understand their effects according to expectations. To keep everyone on the team informed, templates, training manuals, and job aides need to be created. Provide notepads and pens, encourage process improvement, and have everyone use these internal marketing materials.

8. Use backlinks

You can link multiple social media accounts in your content management system to automatically announce your content whenever you publish it.

Also, don’t just post or share content that links to your website. Important in your search engine rankings is linking to other reputable resources. Additionally, if you are a blog owner, you can link back and forth to articles published by yourself and other sites. Consistent linking makes it easy for visitors to seamlessly navigate your brand story across channels.

9. Don’t sell products directly

You have a shopping cart on your e-commerce site, you have a phone and an office, that’s where you sell. But content marketing is different from marketing content. Everything you do in content marketing should be oriented towards educating, entertaining, or informing.

You want to create content that provides real value to your audience, but that doesn’t mean you have to knock on their doors to sell them vacuum cleaners. If someone wants your opinion on vacuum cleaners and happens to be your customer, then give your opinion honestly, appearing to be giving them advice but actually showing them your advantages, but don't try to sell them vacuum cleaners directly; talk to them about dirt, carpets, technological advances, recent movies , and pop culture.

Then make an excuse for yourself, such as wishing them a nice day, and handing them your business card. They will come back when they need someone like you. That’s content marketing.

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