How to Plan Your Content Marketing Strategy for 6 Months

Planning is one of the most important aspects of being successful in any arena. In the world of content marketing, the creation and development of ideas can be a daunting and difficult task, so wouldn’t it be nice to have some of that work done in advance? Rather than brainstorming and planning only for the short term, it may be beneficial to create a 6-month strategy not only to keep you sane, but also to help improve the quality of your work (more on that later).

Below explains how to begin creating a 6-month plan along with some additional things that you can be doing every month, week, and day. Remember that how you plan will depend on your industry and company, but in general a good strategy involves a long-term plan that is then supported by maintenance, goal evaluation, and shorter term strategies.

Big Picture Concepts to Start

While most of the readers are likely to be updating their content marketing strategy I thought it would also be a good idea to cover the basics of setting up a new content strategy for those that may be working with a start-up company. With any company’s initial marketing strategy, it’s generally a good idea to first start with some big picture concepts. While some may say that you need to develop a content marketing strategy annually, it can actually be much more effective to work on a big-picture plan every quarter or 6 months. A lot changes in the online and marketing world in 6 months, and this will ensure that you are keeping your plan up-to-date and re-evaluating what worked and what didn’t—what kind of gains you have made, where you want to improve and align your strategy, etc. A few tips for thinking big picture include:

✓    Review set goals.

When you look at the previous six months, take your data and adjust goals based on performance, priority, and any obstacles you may have faced. Goals are supposed to be evolving and changing, so having a different set of goals and priorities at the 6-month checkpoint is not necessarily a bad thing!

I recommend looking through your Google Analytics Content Reports to see which articles had the highest level of engagement and then try to mimic that style or that subject matter in the future. Also pay attention to articles that seemed like they had potential and then brainstorm why they may have fallen short.

✓    Looking forward: The NEXT 6 months.

After you evaluate your goals and look at what worked and what didn’t it is time to adjust your strategy. What are you hoping to accomplish over the next period of time? What do you need to improve upon? I recommend checking out this article for ideas to help kick-start the discussions you will have with your team about improvement. Again, a lot can happen in 6 months, so talk with your team about where you want to be in the future. Remember, you don’t necessarily have to have the process set to go at this point, but try and have a few end goals to work toward.

✓    Write it down & make it tangible.

While this is probably obvious, simply have a strategy meeting is not going to be effective. There are several organization tactics that could work, but definitely create a document that you can review easily, and compile a space for past documents as well. A white board in the office may be suitable for daily or weekly tasks, but when planning for 6 months be sure to create a document that can be reflected upon and potentially accessed by your team as well.

I recommend using Google Docs because they work in real-time and are easily shareable, but you can get much more advanced with different tools like Trello. Learn more about a few content management tools and other general content tools here.

✓    Take inventory.

When you produce a lot of content, it can easily become unmanaged. At the 6-month point it is really important to review your organization’s content and to evaluate and identify gaps or weaknesses, and that would be next to impossible if you haven’t been keeping track. A great way to do this is by keeping a log on a spreadsheet, such as Google Docs once again.

✓    Set objectives to address gaps.

Have a brainstorming session where you plan ahead and look at specific content topics, content types (e.g. blog posts, e-books, video content), and success metrics (e.g. page views, unique visitors, downloads). Come up with creative ideas that you want to incorporate into your upcoming 6-months. Remember that you want your content to be relevant and timely so this may change as time progresses, but having general ideas ready to go can help get you off on the right foot and give you something to fall back on if you ever need it.

✓    Develop a content calendar.

Outline themes for each month that will target and address content creation efforts. It may be a good idea to get your team to develop some of these topics in advance, so that everything gets contributed in a timely fashion. There are many different content calendar choices, so I recommend checking this article for the different options.

✓    Create sales and organizational goals.

This is one that many marketers forget. You should look at big picture sales and organizational goals such as new product launches, organizational restructuring, or potentially rebranding. You also definitely want to consider external factors such as major events, trade shows and reports in your industry, as well as events important to your consumer (e.g. holidays). Once you have all of these goals in mind, you should be setup for the long time (or 6 months in this case).

It’s also worth noting that this idea is particularly important for ecommerce companies. Visit here for more information about ecommerce SEO and getting started with content for this type of company.

Monthly Tasks

Monthly planning still has big-picture goals in mind. However, instead of the brainstorming and organizing that you do at the 6-month mark, a lot of the foundation is already laid. You want to be sure you are staying on task and meeting the goals you set. Below are some things to consider EVERY month:

✓     Review your content calendar: make sure you are staying on task with themes, and coming up with content ideas that you did not already set in place during your brainstorming session.

✓     Confirm upcoming events and dates both locally and in your industry

✓     Set deadlines and also be sure that the deadlines that you set the past month are being met, based on things like writing time or publishing turn-around.

✓     Hold some kind of monthly meeting. Focus on marketing efforts and to solicit feedback for content ideas.

✓     Stay flexible. Towards the end of the 6-month period especially, you may need to adjust themes or take early steps for intervention or improvement (don’t wait until the big 6-month time mark to try and work on the efforts that are not proving successful).

Weekly Tasks

On the week-by-week scale objective, you want to be sure to look at short-term goals and adjust team workload as necessary. Below are some strategies to make every week the best it can be:

✓     Set aside time each week for a weekly review that involves planning and organization with your team. If you can not hold a weekly meeting, send out an email with the week’s goals and focuses on Monday, or a “how did we do?” email on Friday. This will help to be sure that everyone is on the same page, and is doing everything they can to meet goals for the week.”

✓     Review deadlines: are you meeting the goals you set? Is there something that needs to be addressed to assure that publishing is happening at a timely rate?

✓     Get caught up on industry news.

✓     Review weekly assignments with your team. The meeting should cover their assignments, shift workloads as necessary, and larger content pieces that should also be in development.

Daily Tasks

On the day to day it is important to be sure the job is getting done and that there is on-going communication in your marketing department. This includes:

✓     Make sure that the writers on your team are staying on task and commits some time to content development each day.

✓     Keep the lines of communication open, both for project management and idea generation—there are several ways to do this. If many of your staff are not in-office at all times a social media platform, spreadsheet, or other electronic mechanism may work well for this.

✓     If anyone develops an idea at any point of time, be sure to keep a record of it and also be sure to encourage this process. Although an idea may not fit in to that day’s work load, it can be saved for weeks or even months ahead. Your goal is to plan and store as many ideas as possible in advance to make content development easier.

Do you have experience creating a 6-month plan? How do you feel about monthly, weekly, or even daily goals and strategies with content marketing? We would love to hear from you, so let us know in the comments section below.

About The Author

Jason Hawkins / http://www.themiamiseocompany.com

Jason Hawkins is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Miami SEO Company. He has over ten years of experience in search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization and lead generation. His core responsibilities include identifying ways to increase value of services rendered, training staff on advanced SEO topics, and A/B testing internal processes to consistently improve client return on investment.