5 business benefits of having a content plan

When there are hundreds of things to do, making time for a content plan can seem impossible and difficult to justify. However, when you plan your marketing it really does bring long-term benefits for your business. Just a few hours now could make a real difference.

Let me paint you a picture of a prosperous and exciting future, thanks to life with a content plan!

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When you have a content plan, your marketing will:

1 Help you reach your business and sales goals

Many business owners will plan their year…will set goals. However, not many sit down and work out how this should directly influence their marketing. Consider how the content created can be effective in bringing your business goals to fruition…but they should go side-by-side. This is being strategic!

Consider your different marketing tactics and the types of content you will create in light of your goals. Then, align what you plan to do in your marketing across the year with the steps you need to take to achieve your sales targets.

For example, if you have set a goal of selling X number of a particular product in Q1, putting up a social media post once in a while to advertise it is not going to get you there. However, having a plan in place to attract and engage with the right audience and ideal buyers of that product, followed by ways to nurture those who are interested, as well as having content that directly sells to those who are willing to buy, will have more of an impact overall.

2. Be more consistent, engaging and effective

When you try to wing it, it is likely that you will have peaks and troughs of content creation and marketing activity. Now, I am all for batch creating content, but the scheduling, publishing and sharing of your content should be consistent.

Consistency is key to visibility and familiarity, which should lead to more engagement and warm leads.

If you are inconsistent or sporadic, your audience can soon become ‘uneasy’. So, keep them interested and give them a reason to continue to follow, as well as to buy from you.

In terms of keeping your audience interested, a plan can also help you to come up with a number of ideas so that you can offer varied and interesting content month-on-month, rather than reverting to the same thing again and again. This can quickly get boring to an audience with an ever-diminishing attention span

3. Will take up less headspace

I know you think making time for a plan (and perhaps a bit of reflection on last year’s marketing and content) is something you can’t afford to do right now…but be honest…how much headspace has it taken coming up with marketing ideas, month-on-month, without a plan?

When you have a plan, you only have to do the ‘big thinking’ once. You know what you want to achieve and what is going to help you get there.

4. Make it quicker and easier to outsource

Talking of time and headspace, do you dream about outsourcing your marketing or elements of it? It will be so much easier to do if you have an overall plan. Why?

• A) you will know how much marketing or content you need, which enables you to get more accurate quotes
• B) you can clearly explain what you are trying to achieve, which makes it easier to keep who you are outsourcing to accountable with their progress, and how well the marketing activity is helping you reach your goals.
• C) any marketeer will love you (!), because they will see that you are clear about what you want and what is expected, which makes you a great client to work with. They will want to help you to achieve everything in your plan (or the bit they are helping you with, at the very least) and see measurable results.

5. Be easier to analyse and improve

A plan helps you to know exactly what you need to do when. It helps you to assess whether you are trying to commit to too much (i.e. you don’t manage to achieve most of what you planned) or whether you are not planning enough (i.e. your marketing activity is not having the effect or helping you to reach your goals, as you wished). It’s ok not to get your marketing “right” all of the time, but without a plan you have nothing to compare with.

A plan can act like a forecast. It’s a statement of what you are aiming to do, by when and for when. You can then measure your success by it. After following the plan, you can ask:

• Did you do what you planned?
• Was it effective?
• Did you digress from your initial plans as the year progressed? Why?
• What can you learn for next year?
• What can you reuse and repurpose?

These are all excellent questions to ask in business and, specifically, for improving your marketing.

Back up your plan with a strategy

I mentioned business goals at the beginning, after setting those, the next step, ideally is to think strategically and come up with a content strategy. This is the ‘why’ that underpins your content plan.

Learn more about the difference between a content strategy and a plan here:

A content strategy only needs to be done once and then simply reviewed. It makes your annual content planning much easier as you’ll be confident about who you are marketing to and with what ‘tools’ or types of content you want to use. It leaves you the space to create the plan around the fun bits….making great content on topics that will be interesting and entertaining…and, again, helps you achieve your business goals.

Get support with your content plan

Join The Content Club

Creating a content plan for your small business all on your own can be difficult. It can be hard to make the time and to come up with the ideas …even when you are convinced of the benefits.

This why I created the Content Planner and why I run an Annual Planning Session – designed specifically to keep you focused in a productive co-working environment. In fact, we have an annual planning session, as well as quarterly planning sessions to make planning both consistent and more achievable.

Get free access to all of this when you become a member of The Content Club today.