Thoughtfully curate a content planning strategy and rest easy knowing you’re moving forward with intention.

When it comes to digital marketing and running a business, one of your strongest assets is your ability to offload unnecessary work.

First thing? Plan content strategically.

You’ll save yourself hours of aimless Googling and (let’s face it) aimless blogging that does nothing to draw in more customers. Particularly, specific types of customers who will benefit from and buy your product or service.

But, depending on your industry or niche, content marketing can mean different things. So let’s begin with a definition.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a sales technique in which you provide valuable content to an interested audience and draw them closer to engaging with a solution you offer.

With content marketing, you can not only attract but convert and retain customers.

Which makes it an incredibly powerful tool.

Content marketing has grown in popularity because it establishes brand awareness, builds trust and authority, and increases inbound traffic.

You see content marketing play out in your daily life.

• Social media posts

• Blogs or articles

• YouTube videos

• Digital guides, ebooks, or quizzes

Remember searching for an answer on sustainable techniques for wrapping gifts and ending up on someone’s LinkedIn page? Or clicking on a YouTube video because the thumbnail was a funny image of a dog, only to find out that, according to [insert dog brand], your pet might be missing essential nutrients in its generic food?

Content marketing is everywhere, employing compelling information, visuals, answers to questions, or useful and unique resources to get your attention.

But it has to be more than attention-grabbing. Once you’ve clicked, it needs to be worth your time.

Ok, we’re on the same page about the definition and purpose of content marketing. Now why is it so important to plan it?

Why planning your content is important

Content planning allows you to hone in on what your people are searching, how to direct them to your resources, and how to connect them with your solutions.

If you’re familiar with SEO, you already know that simply choosing a word or phrase as the keyword focus of a particular article, web page, or post and then scattering it throughout the content or stuffing it into hashtags, is not going to do you any favors.

SEO requires a meditated and holistic approach with mindful research and implementation. For example, if you target the same keyword on every one of your web pages, you may end up with keyword cannibalization, which actually harms your ranking.

When content planning, brainstorm a list of topics that are both relevant to your target market and your products or services. Whether you’re deep in SEO tactics or not, it’s best to then organize those topics with an intuitive structure.

Let’s imagine your business makes dog and cat food with the USP that your products contain real ingredients. No chemicals or additives.

You begin planning content for the next month with the following topic clusters.

Dog Food

→ Food for large dogs

→ Food for small dogs

→ Best dog food ingredients

→ Dog food for a sensitive gut

Cat Food

→ What to look for in cat food

→ Wet cat food

→ Dry cat food

→ Best food for rescue cats

As you can see, there are opportunities to link to your other articles or product pages within these various categories, to prompt viewers to discover more content about similar topics, to build on ideas you’ve already established, and to narrow in on long-tail keywords with specialized content.

During the planning process, you’ll discover opportunities for ranking, building authority, or connecting with your audience. 

For instance, you target the keyword, “how to know if my dog is allergic to its food” with a blog post. Traffic to your website increases via that post and you now have the attention of people looking for a solution that you offer.

Are your wheels spinning with ideas for your own business? Before you begin, stop and ask yourself these five questions.

5 Questions to Ask Yourself

To get the most out of content planning, start by asking yourself these questions.

1. Who do I want to see this?

Maybe you already have a strong understanding of your customer or client base. If not, try answering these four questions:

• What are their interests?

• Problems?

• Desires?

• Objections?

It’ll be a start and you can continue to research, analyze, and uncover the most common characteristics.

But this is the question we’re asking here: who is my target audience for this piece of content?

Maybe it’s everyone in your base, maybe not. For example, if you offer mental health services or resources, you probably have a diverse audience of people with different needs.

It’s ok to develop content that’s not for everyone. A video with the title, “Post-breakup rituals for people struggling to heal and find hope” won’t attract everyone.

Ask yourself: Who am I trying to reach with this?

2. What am I offering that’s valuable and unique?

This one sometimes makes my eye twitch. Please, please don’t put too much pressure on yourself to create something that’s never been done before.

You probably can’t. At least not every time.

BUT, you will benefit from having a direction and that requires intention. This is the same process I recommend for every strategic endeavor, like brand messaging, and it 100% applies to content planning.

• What am I drawn to help people with?

• What have I discovered that I can share?

• What problems are my business addressing for customers?

Hopefully you’ve already mapped out your brand’s USP, or unique selling point, and you know in and out what makes your solution stand out (to specific people).

Just like you did with the target audience, consider how this specific piece of content connects to your offer.

In the case of a mental health professional preparing the video on breakups, what is the solution you’re proposing or the prompt you’re pressing to encourage people to find healing and hope?

If you’re zeroing in on your expertise in this area to encourage viewers to book a session, say how many people you’ve worked with or how many years you’ve been in practice and helped others with this problem.

Want to highlight your explorative, Jungian philosophy for self-discovery and realization? Incorporate appropriate language as you write the script and plan the visuals to show the benefits of this approach.

What do you have to offer that fits with your USP?

3. What’s working and what’s not for my competitors?

Find examples of similar content to what you’re planning. Other videos, articles, or posts that either a well-known competitor created or a brand in a similar market published.

What was the response they received? Are there comments, likes, or reactions you can view? Did they continue to use that as a pillar or reference for other content?

Did their audience ask for more or express what was lacking?

Is there something missing from all the content you’ve seen your competitors publish, or is there an audience who’s been left out?

Inevitably, you’ll be inspired by what you see. And maybe the inspiration is because of what you don’t see.

Leverage your competitor’s wins and losses to your advantage.

4. What do the numbers tell me about my content?

If you’ve already posted content, what was the response and what story did the numbers tell?

Categorize your content by topic clusters so you know what’s been covered. If you’ve leaned heavily in one direction and it’s brought exponential growth, that could be a sign to keep mining that area. Or, it could be inspiring to target a new segment and harness the techniques that previously helped you.

What exactly are the numbers? It depends on the medium. Measures like click rates, bounce rates, or conversions are all helpful for websites. Other measures such as views, likes, shares, or comments are more appropriate for social content.

The bottom line: How did people engage and did they take action?

5. What’s the bigger conversation?

This question goes in a few different directions. The bigger conversation might be — what season is it? The beginning of the year usually means opportunities for year-specific topics or anything in the vein of life improvement subjects.

• What’s the cultural conversation right now? Are there news stories or trending topics that fit with your business or mission and is it a conversation you want to enter?

• What shifts are occurring in your industry? Do you have a hot take or an affirmation?

• It’s always important to look beyond your own circle and approach these wider conversations with curiosity.

But of course, don’t get too lost in the sauce. Focus is equally important. I like to use the metaphor of white space to talk about the practice of focusing the topical lens after you’ve taken in your surroundings.

Discover Your Method

With those five questions in mind, you’ve got a lot to work with. 

In your business, do you fearfully throw together content hoping it will stick with an unsuspecting newcomer? Or do you thoughtfully curate a strategy first, and rest easy knowing you’re moving forward with intention?

Either way, I want to encourage you to personalize your process, your message, and your conversation. Discover a method that works best for you.

And don’t stop creating.