Why You Need a Content Marketing Plan

byTheCatherine

14K followers

4 years ago

A newbie started a website about her true passion, creating art. But she couldn’t seem to make any traction and she wasn’t sure why. She began studying content marketing and quickly realized her problem.

She didn’t have a consistent content marketing plan. Instead, she just published a new blog or updated her Facebook when the mood struck her. Of course, like many people she quickly discovered that it’s hard to build a community without consistency.

Determined to change things, the newbie created a schedule and made a content marketing plan. Within a year, her website was flourishing. She had plenty of traffic, lots of new mailing list subscribers, and was about to launch her first course.

Like this newbie, you may have struggled with content marketing. Maybe you’ve thought that having a content marketing plan is boring or that it won’t work for you. But there are so many advantages to creating a plan for your content…

Benefit #1: Release Fresh Content Regularly

The first and most obvious benefit is that you’re releasing fresh content regularly. You can’t reap any of the rewards that come from content marketing if you’re not doing it. You have to show up daily and get the work done, just as you would at the gym.

But once you have a content marketing plan, it’s much easier to do the actual content creation. That’s because you no longer have to stare at a blank screen, hoping you come up with something to share. Instead, you have plenty of ideas and inspiration available right at your fingertips.

Benefit #2: Keep Your Brand Consistent

When you don’t have content to publish regularly, it’s easy to start putting up anything just so it looks like your blog or your Facebook page is active.

The problem with this approach is that it can cause your branding to become inconsistent. After all, if you’re talking about art one week and raising puppies the next, people might get confused about what it is you do.

But a content plan helps you to develop a strategy. Since all of your content is consistent in tone and style, your community begins to recognize your brand.

Benefit #3: Increase Your Productivity

With a content marketing plan, you already know about the content you plan to publish each month. This makes it easy to re-use your content in a variety of ways, so you spend less time wondering what to publish next and more time actually creating.

For example, you write one lengthy blog post each month and publish four videos to YouTube. With a plan, you could easily take that lengthy blog post and repurpose the content into four videos. This would save you countless hours while still giving you great videos to publish.

Benefit #4: Watch Your Mailing List Grow

This was the first benefit Alicia noticed to her new content marketing plan. Her mailing list began to grow within a few weeks of consistently publishing valuable tips and tutorials on her blog.

When website visitors give you their email address, it’s a sign that they trust you and they would like to hear from you more often. But visitors typically need to be exposed to your content many times before they’ll sign up for your mailing list. This means you need to have a big collection of content available for them to browse.

Benefit #5: Diversify Your Reach

With a content marketing plan, it’s a lot easier to make a single piece of content go further. That’s because you’re able to diversify your reach and get the most out of every piece you publish.

For example, let’s say you publish one new podcast episode each week. You could easily take that podcast transcription, add some headings, and images to turn it into a blog post or even a short report.

Benefit #6: Create Funnels that Turn Visitors into Buyers

Many marketers talk about the power of having a sales funnel in place. But when you’re publishing content with no real strategy, it’s hard to create a funnel that converts a one-time visitor into a super fan who buys all of your products.

This is the power of a content marketing plan. You have a real strategy that you can use to envision the path your website visitors will take. Then you create content specifically for this path so you can change that visitor into a happy, paying customer.

Benefit #7: Learn What Works for Your Audience

The more content you publish and the more consistently you do it, the easier it will be to discover what works for your audience. You might find that publishing in the evenings gets you more likes and comments or that your audience prefers audio to video. These are insights that can only be gained from the trenches.

After you’ve been publishing for a few months, take a step back. You’ll be able to analyze your results and see where you need to course-correct to serve your audience in an even better way.

Benefit #8: Outsource with Ease

If your strategy or plan is solely in your head, it’s hard to outsource certain elements of your marketing. For example, you can’t ask your graphic designer to create Pinterest images if you have no idea what text is even supposed to go on there.

But once you have a schedule in front of you, delegating tasks gets much simpler. You make a note of the text you need on the images and simply hand it off to your favorite graphic designer without worrying.

Benefit #9: Build Your Authority

When you publish content regularly, people begin to see you as an authority. They come to view you as an “expert” in your niche. This can result to even more doors opening such as requests for interviews, speaking opportunities, and even book deals.

You also become the go-to person for your topic. As people begin trusting you, they ask for your recommendations and guidance. They want your opinion before they make a purchase or try a new thing. If done ethically, this can lead you into the wonderful world of affiliate marketing where you make money simply by sharing useful links with your audience.

Benefit #10: Increase Your Profits

Another wonderful benefit of having a content marketing plan is that it can increase your income. That’s because you can design your content strategy around your products or services, resulting in more profits.

When you don’t have a plan, you may rush to promote the newest shiny object that someone else is releasing or you might put together content that doesn’t fully explain the benefits your service or product has to offer.

But when you take the time to come up with a content marketing plan, you can focus on the key objections that your buyers might face, and you can address them one-by-one. This boosts your conversion rate and results in increased sales.

Content Marketing Can Be Easy

This is the easiest and best benefit of having a content marketing plan – it makes the whole process of content creation more fun. That’s because you can relax and focus on building your relationship with your community. You get to create valuable content with a strategy and your audience gets to benefit from your smarts!