Everything you need to know about content planning to showcase your business’s unique selling point — and increase your sales — is in this article!
I’ll show you step by step:
- How to search for references;
- How to define your guidelines;
- And how to build content in practice!
I’ll start by answering a frequently asked question:
What is content planning?
Content planning is a set of strategies and structures that bring to life material to be used in Content Marketing.
The idea of Content Marketing, in turn, is to create and distribute multimedia materials that attract the public’s attention and nurture a relationship with them.
When content is created based on planning with the aim of making it valuable, relevant and irresistible to a specific audience, the result is huge engagement of that audience with the brand!
This engagement opens the doors to new interactions, further multiplying the opportunities to sell and direct the public to make decisions within the company’s Digital Marketing strategy.
Content Marketing works because, instead of just relying on advertisements to push a product or service to your ideal customers, your business offers rich materials that change the lives of your audience — leading them to remember you when it’s time to close a deal!
First steps to good content planning
Keyword definition
I imagine you’ve already heard about the importance of keywords — and for good reason!
Also called “keywords” in English, these are the keywords that guide new visitors to your content. And how do they do this?
Well, every time your potential visitor does a search on search engines or social media, they use a specific group of words to find an answer on the Internet.
Now imagine someone searching for: “What is content planning?”.
If you analyze similar searches, or guess what words your audience will use to find answers to the problems they face, you can create content with the terms that directly answer those searches!
By defining and using the right keywords in the body of the text, or in the description of your multimedia content, the algorithms will show your material at the top of the searches as the definitive answer!
That’s how you ended up on this article, isn’t it?
So, think about how people search for your service or product, identifying:
- What words do they use?
- What questions do you want answers to?
- How can I anticipate and respond to these questions?
- What words are directly related to the solutions I offer?
Reference search
Before you begin your content planning, do some research using the keywords you’ve identified to use in your strategy.
Pay attention to the following questions:
- Which results appear first? Why?
- What did these results fail to answer that you could answer better?
- What do these results have in common that you should avoid so as not to become “more of the same”?
In Content Marketing, curating references is important not only to find gaps between results or increase your chances of ranking in the top positions of searches.
Research also serves to analyze other people’s mistakes (so as not to make them) and highlight the authenticity of your business among all the available options!
Creative Brainstorming
Once you have mapped out your keywords and identified your competition’s successes and failures to improve your content, you will need to think about how to position yourself within these searches.
Now that you know what words your audience will use to search for answers, it is in the brainstorming part that you will imagine how to connect with this audience:
- Creating personas of your target audience;
- Developing a tone of voice that gives your company personality;
- Selecting which platforms you will find potential fans on;
- And what topics will be most helpful in attracting them.
Content selection and organization
With your brainstorm complete, you’ll have a wealth of ideas to add to your content planning.
To avoid getting lost in the sea of options — and to keep an eye on the materials that will bring the best results — think about the media format that will make the most sense to publish on the platform where you will attract your audience:
- An e-book would work well on your blog, for example;
- A video would serve to attract people on YouTube organically;
- An image carousel would make perfect sense on social media… And so on!
This step is essential to have an aerial view of everything that is within your strategy, and how the content pieces communicate to direct your audience to your website, profile or sales team.
With your content types organized and aligned, you will invest your resources only in creating materials that will bring your business closer to the results you expect to achieve, ignoring vanity metrics and irrelevant trends!
How to create unique and different content planning?
Talk to the sales team
My biggest tip for unique and efficient content planning is to understand how your company’s sales department goes about closing sales!
When a customer talks to the sales team, they are looking to understand why your company is different from all the other companies in the sector — and few people will have a better explanation to convince their audience than the sales department!
In addition to being in contact with the consumer, the sales team also has in mind all the priorities defined by the executives!
This is a unique perspective, which takes into account the theory of the “Golden Circle” where:
- First, the company explains “why” it does what it does;
- Then it shows “how” she does what she does;
- And finally, it shows “what” it does.
Gathering this information will help in creating an original reference, which should be used in content planning to create useful and uncopyable materials!
Ask customers for feedback
And don’t imagine things: do research with people who have already bought from you!
Ask them what they thought of your products or services, what you could improve , or what they think makes your company different from everyone else.
The good news is that customers (for the most part) will be happy to give you feedback, so don’t be afraid to ask for anything!
Focus on showing your difference
Don’t try to differentiate yourself by just using techniques that get your content to the public, but don’t tell them how your company works — or what the values of the entity that is your business are!
Let’s say you sell backpacks:
You can put a bunch of pictures of backpacks on your business’s online store , create content explaining how backpacks are important for carrying objects, and wait for consumers to feel the need in their own skin to make a purchase.
Or you can go further and show your difference!
Instead of just publishing content about the importance of backpacks for carrying things, use Storytelling (the technique of telling stories in Digital Marketing) to show not only “how” your backpacks are made, but also:
And everything that makes your store less of a “factory” and more of a personality that your potential customers will enjoy immersing themselves in this shared culture with — and not just consuming!
- Highlight how these animals are well treated, and how important it is for your company’s process that they do not suffer at any point during production;
- How your brand is committed to reducing carbon emissions when manufacturing its products;
- Show how your company cares about the lives of animals that are slaughtered to provide the leather used to make backpacks;
- And everything that makes your store less of a “factory” and more of a personality that your potential customers will enjoy immersing themselves in this shared culture with — and not just consuming!
It’s time to create!
Now that you know everything you need to make your content planning foolproof, you can start creating your materials!
Take advantage of the fact that you’re here on the blog and use Enjoy Minder as a reference: in terms of Content Marketing, we use the most advanced Inbound Marketing strategies to sell even more — exactly the result you hope to achieve, right?
Start by completing the Free Digital Marketing Diagnosis here from our Content Marketing agency and discover what you need to do to attract, nurture and convert even more people to your business!
