Establishing a fully functioning 12-month content marketing plan is a crucial component for any business success. It helps you establish and promote your brand more effectively and cost-efficiently. Through creating relevant, engaging and compelling content, such as blog posts, videos, and social campaigns you will reinforce your brand as being reputable and trustworthy and will help grow your target audience and get more leads.

So, how exactly do you go about planning content for a whole year?… we hear you ask.
We know that planning a content strategy sounds stressful and overwhelming, especially if you don’t know what to include. But believe us, if you put meaningful time and effort into it, you will reap the benefits in the long run. To help guide you, we have put together the following important steps for developing and executing a 12-month content plan.

Step 1. Identify goals and KPIs

The first step to building an effective content plan is to identify your goals. Spend quality time brainstorming new ideas with your team and getting feedback from your customers. Ask yourself questions – What is the purpose of the content? Increase brand awareness? Drive more traffic to your website? Generate leads? Convert more leads into customers?

Figuring out what your goals are first will help you turn them into something specific and measurable. That means setting key performance indicators (KPIs). – For example; Content: Social media posts that link to your website / Goal: Drive more traffic to your website / KPI: Total number of website visits per month – By tying KPIs to specific goals, you can gain insight into how well you’re progressing toward them.

Step 2. Know your audience

It is very important that you do your research and know exactly who your audience are, so you can create the right content for them – through the right channels. Focus on providing content that speaks to your target audience, with the goal of building a relationship with them. Whether it’s entertaining or educational, use your content as an opportunity to showcase our brand personality. If your audience find your brand interesting, they will want to find out more.

Step 3. Time your content

Planning content around events throughout the year is a guaranteed way of ensuring brand visibility and increased sales. Identify annual events, peak periods, seasonal campaigns and regular sales, and plan your content around them. Develop a calendar for the entire year to get all your content scheduled.

Step 4. Create Content

Once you have all the prep work done, you can start creating the content. Try to think outside the box.  Create content that is meaningful and interesting. Tell your brand story and make good use of visual and video marketing to increase brand awareness, improve engagement and improve lead generation. Be unique, be brave and be fun!

With 2019 just around the corner, you need to be getting your content marketing plan in place now. Doing an entire year of content planning up front will allow you to focus on creating and delivering quality content, which will ultimately benefit your business. So, don’t wait around – start planning now!