Content marketing plan: 4 simple steps to success

Learn the 4 steps to creating a content marketing plan, with our content planning template and the RACE Framework

To help you develop a content marketing plan or review existing methods, I thought it could be helpful to share some of the planning techniques applied in our Content Marketing Learning Path. Take these 4 steps to create a content marketing plan today:

• Step 1 Review current use of content marketing. This is a classic SWOT analysis where we have given examples of problems with content marketing programs that are often forgotten.
• Step 2 Content marketing objectives and KPIs This uses an efficient planning table I have developed for summarising digital plans on one page. Here, as the example shows, it links objectives, strategies, and KPIs across the customer lifecycle shown as the RACE Planning approach.
• Step 3 Content Gap analysis This uses a new visualization of the Content Marketing Matrix that you may have seen before developed by Dan Bosomworth of First 10 and Smart Insights.
• Step 4. Create a content plan timeline. Don’t forget the options for repurposing content assets during a campaign since often opportunities are missed where there is one central asset in a campaign such as a whitepaper, but it is not repurposed to give the campaign more momentum.

These 4 steps take you through the brief process of creating a content marketing plan. Join Smart Insights as an Individual or Business Member for access to the full Learning Path, including modules such as ‘A planned approach to content marketing’.

Use the RACE Framework to hone your content planning

Content marketing plays a huge role in many parts of your customers’ experiences of your brand. The diagram below, based on our RACE Framework of reach-act-convert-engage, demonstrates just some of the typical marketing activities during the customer lifecycle.

Our popular RACE Framework empowers marketers and managers to use data and key trends to inform their marketing strategy across their integrated customer touchpoints. If you’re looking to optimize your strategy, the RACE Framework is a no-brainer