Content calendar
Content marketing is the current buzz and for good reason – it works. Articles that match the searches of your potential customers will draw people to your online presence. So understandably many businesses are keen to get started and get their articles read and traffic boosted.
Producing good content will allow you to engage with your target audience online in an effective way – attracting traffic to you site which if you offer the right calls to action will become leads and with care conversions. (NB Marketing or sales copy is not what most people are seeking online.) If your content isn’t delivering a good return on your current efforts maybe you need to look at your current content plan or calendar.
A well executed content campaign will make a worthwhile contribution to your revenues. As with any marketing campaign planning and organising before you start will help keep your activity on track to reach your goals more effectively.
Before you start content marketing
Have a content marketing strategy. This should be a blueprint that considers how your content will be created, executed and updated. Identify your targets and objectives.
Do your research, know who are you writing for. Identify you site personas and do your keyword research.
Armed with this information you are in a position to pull together your content calendar that will engage with your target market and deliver results.
Use the following tips to produce your content marketing calendar.
- Use your SEO/Keyword research. Every time you produce any content item have your keyword list in front of you. Each item should focus on a particular term or related keywords. Don’t forget blend your keywords into your content not stuff.
- See what you have at your disposal, split your content into types: case studies, how-to’s, research, videos, surveys, news from your company, relevant national news, lists, press releases, white papers.
- Aim to build a consistent and compelling story for your brand, product and services.
- Look at different content for your different site personas.
- Look to produce content that will support visitors at different stages in the buying cycle.
- Consider where it will be used, company blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc. Different platforms will suit different content – think ahead and you can get the round pegs in the round holes. Using your content in multiple places will help you maximise your ROI.
- Be time sensitive consider the time of year and how your content can be adapted to be seasonal. Be flexible and topical when you can. Topical items are most likely to drive traffic and viral activity.
- Develop evergreen content that you can reuse or reference multiple times. Informational, and educative content such as How-to’s will work hard for you over a long time period. (Do keep them updated)
- Consider your resources. Who will produce all the items in your content plan? Share the load by seeking out multiple contributors.
- Measure results and respond – do more of what works well.
Tools
There are lots of different tools out there that will help you organise your content plan. A few below but lots of others paid and free. Its worth researching to find a good match for your requirements
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-calendar/
Get help!
If you would like so assistance or extra resource to help you with content marketing for your site please get in touch. Whether its helping to create a plan or producing and posting content for your we can offer affordable help.