9 Tips for an Effective Content Marketing Plan
Ensure the effectiveness of your Content Marketing Plan with 9 simple, executable tips.
Are you a protagonist of a systematic approach or do you roll along with randomosity?
How do you design your content marketing plan?
How do you develop a content marketing strategy– a rather effective one?
Do you just sit down, follow your instinct, and get started with whatever feels right? Or do you dig deeper into the tactics and tips for the most effective Content Marketing plan?
If you do your research of dos and don’ts and the right tactics while following a whole content marketing strategy checklist, the odds of success are quite high for you.
The challenges?
The process is not this simple.
Finding the right kind of tips takes a good deal of time and research skills, along with a patient mindset. Sometimes, even a strategy created based on research, industry best practices, and your best input doesn’t work.
Now, that’s what you call a real mess. The struggle is real (and so relatable for every marketer at some point in time, especially as a learner).
The solution?
So, we decided to bring you a comprehensive all-in-one list of tips, dos and don’ts to keep in mind.
Based on this list, you can follow the whole Content Marketing process we have mapped out from scratch in our detailed guide for effective results. Also, if you want to improve your existing strategy, here’s the guide for you.
Here are 9-tips to follow to make your content marketing highly effective.
Tips for making your Content Marketing Plan Effective
Tip #1 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: Avail all existing options proven useful
If research proves both Facebook and Instagram to be the best platforms for your business, do not chicken out of either one.
If you do, you’d miss on thousands (or probably more) of your potential clients.
Now multiply that estimated number with the profit of a sale you make. The numbers are startling, we know. But don’t go dizzy, go wise to avoid that loss!
If blogging proves to be beneficial for you, go for it by all means, for heaven’s sake!
But do not pull your legs back from Vlogging, specially when it proving fruitful, just because you want to focus more on blogging.
Focus on any and every type of content your audience approves of.
Tip #2 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: Explore new possibilities
Sticking to all the available options is wise, but exploring new options is entrepreneurial.
Remember: You are an entrepreneur, and that would be the secret of your progress in the long run!
Go a step further and develop your audience’s taste for a new type of content with all your creative skills.
Be confident and believe in your self. That’s how you’d be comfortable with experimentation.
Experiment, analyze, modify, and upgrade!
And let the magic of numbers (traffic, conversions, profits) startle you.
If your competitors are not using Pinterest, but your audience is, put that to use. Let your creative strategy make the best out of this platform. Do not let a postulate lead your life or hold you back. Make your own version of the postulate and prove it with rigorous experimentation.
BE UNIQUE and prove the authority of your uniqueness.
Understanding Sustainable Competitive Advantage and the Role of Digital Media in Achieving It
Tip #3 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: Adaptability
Adaptability in Content marketing (or any other life situation) has high returns.
It evolves you, and evolution ensures the survival of the fittest. So adaptability brings the best out in you and lets you lead at a given time, no matter what the context is.
So, remember this golden tip for designing an effective content marketing strategy. But more importantly, along with giving your memory cells an alert-notice, you’d like the application of the rule better.
Consider this scenario:
You create a Facebook Ad campaign and leave no stone unturned to make the campaign successful. Your designed strategy, choice of the audience, demographic values, and all relevant factors are on point. You make sure that the copy you create exhibits the platform’s best practices.
Not just that, but you were quite picky with the choice of all the creatives too. You chose the best images of your Instagram Ads for the same campaign, and you didn’t forget to take the Facebook overlay tool’s suggestions as well.
And why wouldn’t you because settling for anything less than the best is simply not you!
In short, you have made extra efforts at each step and with each factor to ensure the highest possible results.
What follows next?
Your ads are approved and are in the learning stage. Facebook starts delivering the ad to your specified audience. Everything seems to be falling in its rightful place now, and you are ready to harvest what you sowed. And then, you notice something…
Something’s off! The results are not as planned!
What’s causing the decline?
Your ads have a very low reach. “Oh, but the ad is still learning,” you tell yourself, “should be better once the initial learning is complete.”
But, it does not get better, costing you higher than your expectations.
In your mind, you look at the whole campaign from each angle possible, but nothing comes up. You have no clue why is Facebook charging you so high for such retarded reach!
“Now that’s crazy,” you think, “probably another of the Facebook marketing glitches OR Facebook is putting me through an endurance trial.” After all, you chose the best of everything; it just can’t be you.
And finally, you turn to the Ads manager to examine the campaign one last time before making some significant changes, and guess what?
Damn! It wasn’t Facebook, but you.
In fact, it was the Instagram image that you chose, considering it the best option. Unfortunately, you forgot that the dimensions for each platform, each kind of event, campaign, and feature are different.
It happens no matter how focused you are, specially if you are a learner. Sometimes, you miss on quite simple, obvious points! So, don’t be hard on yourself, if you will.
But the given scenario is a lesson for those who have opposing views of adaptability. Try not to be adaptive and see your efforts ruining right in your face.
So, how to be adaptive in your content marketing campaign?
The answer – HOWEVER POSSIBLE!
Ideally, your content marketing strategy covers all the platforms that your prospects hang out on.
Creating dimension-specific posts for each of the platforms is one example. Here’s a comprehensive guide by Elizabeth Arens on SproutSocial to keep up with the size requirements of all the platforms. Thank you, Elizabeth, for the complete guide!
Another example is, looking for trends – both the current and upcoming. And leave room in your strategy to modify according to the changing trends.
Let adaptability make you appear as the best available option in a given scenario.
Tip #4 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: OPTIMIZE
The content marketing strategy you create is of no use, no matter how extraordinary it is, unless you optimize for the best results.
A strategy is never CREATED perfect. You make it the most effective it could get using optimization.
Evaluate your results, look for improvement options, and optimize! Keep room for changes in your strategy and keep making the changes in your content that can possibly improve the results.
Tip #5 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: Stay Consistent
Stay consistent in all your efforts and matters.
But most importantly, keep consistency in scheduling your calendar.
But why?
There are many reasons. One of them, you’d be predictable. Predictability not in the sense of giving away your plans to competitors way before their execution, though.
By being predictable means, let your followers know your schedule.
So, if you have a live strategy session every Friday night, your followers know it. And if it is what they need (as a rule of thumb, it should be so valuable that they should feel the need), you’ll find them awaiting you, way ahead of time.
Mark that as a success milestone achieved if they do so. But why? Because that’s them trying to modify their schedule according to yours (instead of trying to fit you in). That points to the goal you are working tirelessly for: appearing as an authoritative name in your niche.
Consistency creates value for your prospects. It gives you an identity, and it makes things for you and your prospects crystal clear.
So, bring consistency in whatever you do – not just designing but the execution of your strategy too.
Tip #6 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: React to Feedback
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”
– Bill Gates
If you are focused on growth and progression, focus on improvement. Feedback is an essential factor that guides the process of improvement. Read our guide on the quality control matrix to make the idea clear.
Therefore, having people give you feedback is a blessing for your business.
However, positive or constructive feedback is not the only type of feedback known to your planet mates. Prepare for the worst too.
However, chickening out on a negative comment doesn’t make you big. The rules of ignoring rant or avoiding a row we learned, growing up, do not apply here.
Dare to ignore a negative comment and be prepared to perish because it proves you guilty.
That said, nobody wants you to roll your sleeves back and make it a war zone upon seeing negative feedback. Deal with it, gracefully.
The success of your business depends on your prospects. Responding to them (in a timely manner) and taking appropriate action shows them how important they are to you. A satisfied prospect and a satisfied client is the promotion you do not even pay for.
So, your content marketing strategy should have a set view on how to take and respond to feedback, be it positive or negative. Not responding is not and shouldn’t be an option if you are planning to grow in your niche.
Tip #7 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: Cater to mobile users
A 2019 Techjury report by Christo Petrov attributes 51% of the total online time in the U.S to mobile devices.
The same report declares the worldwide share of the mobile market to be 52.1% against 44.2% desktop market share.
Mobile users account for more than half of the total views on videos and engagement on apps.
If these stats do not prove the importance and need to optimize your content for mobile users, you’d better prepare for the loss!
OR
Keep the stats in mind to devise & optimize your strategy in favor of mobile users while creating your content marketing plan.
Tip #8 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: Stick to 3 Rs
The creation of content is not a piece of cake.
It metaphorically takes the blood and sweat of a whole team to create a piece of content from scratch.
Most marketers often make the mistake of forgetting their content after posting it. This costs them big time whether or not they realize it.
Ideally, Content marketing strategists should devise a plan to follow the three Rs to be efficient and effective:
- Repurpose
- Reuse
- Recycle
The whole idea is to keep utilizing the existing content in different ways to reduce the required efforts and maximizing the output manifolds.
In one of our blog posts, we have discussed Content Sprout Method. It is the favorite technique of top marketers that enables them to work on the existing content to make it suitable for multiple platforms. The other way to recycle content is to repost or share old content with your followers.
The efforts involved in recycling are negligible compared to creating new content from scratch; however, the results are quite refreshing.
Tip #9 for an Effective Content Marketing Plan: Ensure a consistent Tone
The tone you decide for your brand defines you and gives you an identity. Your identity should remain the same, no matter what the platform is.
If you are not able to maintain your brand tone across the different marketing channels, you won’t be able to get the same message across effectively. Keeping the tone the same on a new platform helps you make a connection with your audience effectively.
And this connection is what ultimately reaps profit for you, so working on strengthening it is a part of working on the achievement of your goals.
For instance, if your posts have a witty tone on Facebook, giving them a serious tone on twitter would make no sense to the audience. They would be confused and would question if the point of the message delivery for both the platforms is the same?
Your target is not to confuse and repel your prospects but to entertain and engage them.
So, plan your content marketing strategy keeping the voice consistent across all your marketing platforms for best results.
Wrap-up
So, content marketing is a process, planning what effectively ensures high results.
But what ensures that your content marketing plan is on point? For a recap, here’re 9 tips we have shared with you throughout the blog post to ensure that the Content marketing plan you craft is spot-on.
- Be Adaptive
- Avail all existing options proven useful
- Explore new options
- OPTIMIZE
- Stay Consistent
- React to feedback
- Cater to mobile users
- Stick to 3 Rs: Repurpose, Reuse, Recycle
- Ensure a consistent tone
Your turn
What other useful tips do you follow to create or upgrade your content marketing plan effectively?
Do you find your tip effective?
Share with us in the comments 🙂
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