You’ll also want to consider these storytelling elements to shape your story: There’s one more benefit to your content strategy: Once you define your strategy and goals, you can create a culture of content throughout your organization. The template can help you clarify your strategy, so you can develop marketing tactics in a comprehensive content marketing plan that will enable you to carry out your strategy … ‌ Download Content Marketing Strategy Creation Template Your content strategy roadmap will ensure that every piece of content (blog, video, tweet, post) has a purpose and fits with your story. If you want to dig deeper, consider conducting sentiment analysis. How does that address your customers’ wants and needs? You can do this using the Content Gap Analysis. You don’t have to do a full SWOT analysis, but you should collect some basic data to find out more about where customers get information about products and services that are similar to yours. How does your content compare? First, it must be localized so that the information is culturally and professionally relevant to your audience based on the personas you develop. Download our customizable content strategy template PDF to set your strategy and align your team on goals and priorities. Here we have a free strategic plan template for you to assist you while developing strategic plan for a company in which you are working. Just click the link below to grab a downloadable version of the template. Interview the stakeholders to identify their expectations for content strategy, the ways they prefer communication as you move forward, and their influence on your strategy and execution. This is more than customer service: This person follows your content channels and monitors the conversations that will eventually shape future content. Armed with all this organized information, you can now identify your staffing plan: Who you will need on your team to create, evaluate, and monitor the work. Then, combine your analytics with the point totals and see what’s really working. A strong content strategy boils down to creating the right type of content for your target audience. One way to start that process is to conduct another content audit. You know how much time it takes from idea to content creation to analytics. One way to create a unique piece of content in popular areas is to look for content gaps. If one piece of content gets a lot of traction on social media, with outside influencers or in comments on your site, this person will offer insight into what’s working and why, and suggest ways to create more content that builds on your success. Regardless of the type of content you create, it should answer your customers’ questions, offer product highlights, and compare your solution to your competitors. Similar to a gap analysis, a brand analysis can highlight how the perception of your company stacks up to your competitors. The spreadsheet in your content strategy template has formulas built into it, so you don’t have to figure it out yourself. Content Strategy Template – 12+ Free Word, Excel, PDF Documents Download. Free your team from content sprawl with Brandfolder, an intuitive digital asset management platform. Either the person producing the content can produce the related posts and tweets, or you can devote separate staff to handle promotions. Take a little time to learn more about those companies. By working across departments to build your migration plan, you reinforce the value of content marketing to your entire company. Describe the company’s product and/or service offerings. Consider these elements: These metrics tell you if your content is easy to find, relevant to your audience, and timely. It should have specific, achievable goals and still be flexible so you can build on what works and toss what doesn’t. Download Your 2021 Content Calendar Template + Bonus Resources. Learn more about writing SMART goals in this article.Â. In these difficult economic conditions, it is more important than ever for smaller companies stay afloat. Download the template and use it at each phase of your content strategy. The calendar should be detailed enough for you to have a solid understanding of the coming days and weeks, with a longer view of the next quarter or a year at a glance. Since you’ve established your goals, you can identify the data points that tell the story of your content. Get up and running fast with streamlined implementation and solution building to address your immediate business needs. {íFã$a/ÝÍ8¹Fр¯Õ­¿l”½×Ÿúá¨ì½yõ÷*î/Æøq‚§›É(ÞgÑôq0žž{ofá8ZŒu—ÉÓªÔÚá~0‰'8²QzwonnÜ­í-’h&IõóðÕ®'U K~"W ?Uy™IMç_ “>ÁÅaxtWZ$¡‡öQ^:W¼ùaXž—'Gwa%^_ce?D v'œ=˾:DÓòWõ£3|šÏƒþÿàñcçÏÃÀæ uz¯‡™Ð/îfá|1›xaecõoçñÐôø±ýׯó'¥÷ry¥ßr¾ £QXú­ÛíNL÷1ºî¢áaºë°ò¯?þð€÷—ðo‹0™ÑLâ£g³ÃâAÎntŽ’ðî:˜yQwTéÏB ËëQH§X¢ûR::*|?ârT‰Ý9þ#îÐüv&Wa8/áÕüv Dig a little deeper by describing their roles in content creation and distribution. The personas you created describe your potential customers and their pain points. “Audience” may be an inherently friendlier word than “customer,” but you want to make sure your content is welcoming. You can set realistic goals about the capacity of your team, and address any gaps that appear. What resources and data does content marketing need to succeed? Ultimately, a community manager is your in-house expert on what’s resonating with your audience. You’ll also need to tackle the technical aspects of publishing your content. What do you consider the best practices for writing, design, and SEO? A gap analysis reveals how your customers see you (and your competitors) online. Gather this information in collaboration with your sales and marketing staff. Will you wall off some content in a members-only section? So, search engines like Google and Bing continue to tweak the algorithms that deliver content. Are you publishing blog content? Take a look through your sales and marketing data, comments on your website, social channels, and more to get to know your customers, what they like about you, and what they need. Your company’s goals are your goals. Â. Here’s the most common types of content: Use this checklist to identify the type of content you want to create and the frequency at which you’ll distribute it: Regardless of the format, each piece of content should convey a message that relates to your central theme or story. LinkedIn is a great professional network. Use a content mapping template to create a plan. Spend the next 20 percent on improving or iterating on those efforts to attract a new audience. Not every piece of content gets equal promotion on all channels. Content strategy template helps you to put together an effective and efficient content marketing plan for both the business and the client. Engaging, entertaining, and informative content tells the story of who you are and generates more sales and service for your business.Â. Present the company’s mission. Good personas are realistic descriptions that help you understand your audience. One of the components of your persona analysis is where your customers get their information. Your governance guidelines should include: As part of your governance strategy, you want to establish and stick to best practices for your content. Learn more about how to plan a marketing calendar in this article. Â. You can use this information in creating your content strategy to motivate your team. This process can be part of your overall editorial calendar, but you may find it more effective to keep a separate promotions calendar. Another type of calendar favored by social media pros is the editorial content calendar. For example: Use the information you gather to complete this content audit template: Download Content Audit Worksheet Template, As you create the inventory for your content, you’ll also get a sense of how it’s created, organized, and measured. When everyone understands the value of the story of how your product connects to customers, more internal stakeholders will want to tell that story. The value of your content (or product or service) drives the amount of effort you put into promotion. Your content marketing goals will evolve from the larger company goals. You may start with some simple numbers such as Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Lead (CPL). Content marketing provides a unique opportunity to tell the story of your business and your product. What business objectives are most important? You can easily import and export Excel files to work with your tasks online, manage dates, track progress, and estimate marketing budget. Prioritize the information that gives you clear takeaways so you can use it to improve your work and grow your success. Because you’ve already mapped out your content strategy, you know the types of publishing the CMS will have to support. These metrics will help you identify what content is drawing traffic and, more important, what content drives traffic away. Text can take many forms: You can even package basic copy as a blog post, a list, a how-to or guide. This template gives you a pre-defined structure of your marketing project. Content strategy, and all content marketing, is a form of storytelling. If you follow these steps and use the free content strategy templates in this article, you are well on your way to achieving your content marketing goals.Â, The best marketing teams know the importance of effective campaign management, consistent creative operations, and powerful event logistics -- and Smartsheet helps you deliver on all three so you can be more effective and achieve more.Â. Make sure a second set of eyes reviews your content to ensure it meets your storytelling guidelines, follows a logical structure and flow, and avoids grammar and typographical errors. A content audit does not need to be a massive time investment in which you manually scrape your site. This information creates a customer journey map that identifies a person’s interaction with your product or brand. It doesn’t matter if you need Excel templates for budgeting the next fiscal year, tracking your business inventory, planning out meals, or creating a fantasy football draft sheet, there are plenty of Microsoft Excel templates for you. With your content research in hand (from the Content Audit worksheet you’ve completed in step one) you can see what’s been successful and what hasn’t quite hit the mark. How do your customers find you? Several companies, such as Brandwatch and CallMiner can create the required tracking to create the algorithms and reports that provide insight into how your brand is perceived.Â. Our templates will take you through each step necessary to identify what matters to you, your organization, and your customers. The strategy for your content is related to the strategy for your content marketing. How do they let you know what they like and don’t like? Regardless of the title, this person is responsible for defining the story behind your content, ensuring you deliver a consistent message, and supervising the creation and measurement of the team’s work. Once you have a mission statement, identify the goals of your organization. Before we jump into calendaring our content, let’s talk about what a content calendar actually is and a few baseline requirements for success.We define a content calendar as The search engines want users to successfully find what they want. Your content should guide them along the process of product discovery to the point of purchase. Here’s where you put all the information you’ve gathered into an action plan that generates results.Â, ‌ Download Content Marketing Strategy Creation Template. LinkedIn is a … Here are some KPIs to consider: Learn more about KPI dashboards by reading All About KPI Dashboards. See why Smartsheet is the platform you need to drive achievement, no matter the scale of your ambition. Do you need different white-label sections or microsites? Read The Definitive Guide to Stakeholder Management for tips on how to develop a plan to keep them engaged in the process.Â, Dig deep into the creation of your strategy. Give a … Don’t rely on your gut or anecdotal evidence to feel successful. You’ll also want someone who’s tracking the trends in technology so you can take advantage of the latest production tools, editorial calendars, and analytics services that help you succeed. The plan should be based on your company’s business goals and resources, including staff. That means there are few hard-and-fast rules for search engine optimization. From basic concepts to more in-depth SWOT analyses, KPI objectives, content-mapping, and comprehensive timelines, this Excel document based template has something for every business—even if it is gated. Content marketing can help your business break through the noise of traditional marketing channels. Why? (Elias St. Elmo Lewis developed the concept in the 1800s. Some of your governance guidelines will help you maintain those standards when creating content. Introduce the problem, explain the conflict, and offer a resolution. These descriptions are more than facts, however. Jump-start new projects and processes with our pre-built sets of templates, add-ons, and services. Content marketing is no longer an option—a good strategy is essential to compete in the market. Also, you have a content idea tracking template and a list of your best-performed contents. Free your team from content sprawl with Brandfolder, an intuitive digital asset management platform. On some teams, the writers review one another’s work. Just like there are a variety of ways to publish and promote your content, there are a wide range of tools and approaches to measure your work. This person spends his or her time making connections, especially through social media, and may coordinate the messaging on your social channels. Here are some of the questions to help you assess your company’s culture: When you understand how your company measures success and how well departments work together, you will be able to include those lessons in your content marketing plan, and also assess the resources you have and what you need to succeed. Â. Remember, your content strategy is not a linear journey for many people - they may engage with your content in fits and starts until they are ready to make a purchase. Download Content Plan Sample Template - Excel Simple, powerful marketing campaign management in Smartsheet. Try Smartsheet for free, today. Others prefer making the revisions on a new site because it helps their team learn how to use the new system. Spell it out for everyone who plays a role in creating and monitoring your content. What are the benefits to the company of successful content marketing? This can range from the timing of your email or blog posts, to conversion trends or SEO tactics. A persona is a detailed description of your typical customer or a collection of customers. This comprehensive planner gives you a clear overview of your content strategy, walking you through the major elements to plan, execute, publish, and optimize your content. You can’t effectively promote your product and business if your messaging and content doesn’t speak with one brand and voice. Plus, it will help you avoid publishing duplicate or overlapping content. Manually entering all articles, images, infographics, white papers, and other content on a new site is time consuming, so you can work with the IT department and other teams to develop automation tools that import content to a new system. Who do you want to reach and what do you want them to know? It also includes my favourite Template — the Content … A jump in 24 hours may not mean much, or it could mean you have killer content. How quickly does the video load, and how long does it play? While you may be able to plan a year’s worth of content at a time, you may find that executing on the vision is not practical. Where is cross-team collaboration successful? Content marketing uses a unique set of channels to promote a product or service. Content strategy template (PPTX, 390KB) Once you localize that content, you can translate it for an international audience. What marketing initiatives are already succeeding? You’ll also discover the places, or watering holes, where people go for information. If you are putting existing content on a new site, you will need to develop a content migration plan. This is clear from the sheer volume of content being produced by marketers, with over two-thirds of businesses (67%) creating more content, than they did in the previous year. 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