In these content planning tips, you can pick a few tricks to make your job much easier. You may want to create a few pieces of content. Maybe you’re preparing for a whole period. Are you producing a year’s worth of publications?
You can continually improve your processes no matter how much copy, graphics, or video you’re trying to do. Sometimes a little goes a long way, and this information can be what you need. Remember the tenets of quality control and continuous improvement: You can constantly refine a process, even if it’s working.
Maybe you know most of these tips by heart, then what are you waiting to execute them? Keep this list of tips handy for your next content marketing planning session.
1. Begin with the end in mind
First, why do you need the content you’re about to create? Maybe you want sales improvements; perhaps you want more reach; maybe you wish to scale what’s already working.
The Top, middle, or bottom of the funnel content is a bit different. You need to map what type of content you’re creating. This planning should obey a strategy, which shouldn’t necessarily be this long document where you don’t even know where to start reading.
Strategy can be written on a napkin but should be sound and comprise the goals you have with your content. You need to have goals since only if you know what you can measure can you add a control phase, day, or plan to your endeavors.
2. Batch your actions
Do you want to know a neat trick that has saved me countless hours when creating content? What I do is Batch my actions. For example, if I need to create five blog posts, I don’t follow a process where I write one, then another all at once. First, I need to understand my priorities according to my content writing goals. Then I do keyword research and exploration at once. Then I create the five outlines I need, and at the very end, I begin filling these outlines with highly researched text.
Not only will you save some time, but you will also make the best use of your mental energy.
3. Think about your calls to action
When creating your piece of content, you should know beforehand what your Call to Action will be. For example, maybe you want them to exchange their email for a lead magnet. Perhaps you want them to click on an affiliate link, or your goal is for your visitors to download a file, subscribe to your email newsletter, donate money, give them a discount, etc.
Not every page on your site needs to have the same Call to Action, which is why thinking about it beforehand can be beneficial. Having the CTA at hand may change, add, modify, or eliminate some information in your content.
4. Proper Keyword Research
You may think Keyword Research is an obvious process when creating blog posts. But have you heard of Video Keyword Research? The truth is that people tend to use the exact keywords to do their searches beyond search engines. Sometimes they will use a site like YouTube to search, or they may even use social media pages or apps.
This thoroughness in understanding the keywords you’ll be ranking for will be helpful for any content you publish. No matter if you’re using the latest software or if you’re using free Keyword Research tools, this process will help you reach your content goals.
5. Ask yourself if you will repurpose this content
If you’re not repurposing your content, you may leave behind some low-hanging fruit. Repurposing your content is one of the fastest ways to create content. A strategy is to have a pillar piece of content, such as a video or blog post. Then, you create content around it. For example, you can quote a phrase from your pillar content and add it to an attractive social media graphic. You get the idea.
You can create a video from a blog post, extract the audio, and have a podcast. You can take a video and transcribe it, adding this text to your website. You can also take some blog posts and present them as an eBook. You can come up with your ideas. The sky is the limit.
6. Think about the tools you’re using
A content calendar contains all the elements you plan to share through your marketing channels. When starting, you can manually input the images and posts you want to share with the world. However, as you increase your reach, you must consider how to program that content.
When you scale is where tools come in handy. Of course, your first option is spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. For most people, these options are everything they need. However, if your needs become more specialized and the sheer amount of content you wish to publish is more extensive, they will lead you to search for a scheduler.
7. Who will you mention in your content?
Websites, people, and places should have a special place inside your content. You can add a profile section if you’re writing the article for a third party. You can add links to articles and entities you mention in a blog post or video.
Adding these elements has a clear Search Engine Optimization benefit. The more you associate yourself with people and websites in your domain, the higher you can rank. These associations provide an easy way for search engines to categorize your content, which can catapult you to higher spots on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
8. Don’t forget your headlines
So, you’ve created content worthy of an award. What’s next? Don’t forget that your headline is half the equation; when it comes to the user, a headline first attracts them to your publication. Of course, you should always choose an option that draws the readers in and explains your content.
How much time should you spend choosing a headline? It varies from industry to industry, and you can accelerate the process by having a swipe file full of ideas. A Swipe file is a physical or digital collection of creative, tried, and proven pieces of copy or advertising. Based on their importance, you can spend at least an hour developing and choosing the right one.
Conclusion
These tips can increase the effectiveness of your content marketing. Some of them, such as repurposing content, can send you to the next level. But, as you can see, much of what you’ll be doing to provide world-class publications has little to do with tools and a lot to do with your brain, which is why feeding your creativity is of the utmost importance.
With some thought and little, incremental changes in how you do things can have powerful and tangible results. You can begin by applying just one of these tips, or you can go mad and see how much you can use all at once. After that, it’s up to you and how you do things. I encourage you to find fulfillment and success in your content planning tips endeavor.
