Marketing Process Step 4: Content Creation & Planning

At this point in the marketing process, the marketing team has a good idea of who the customer is they are targeting, the market, and how they want to position their brand in the market.

This will help to create content assets that will generate awareness, educate customers, and ultimately convert them into paying customers. 

Below is a basic plan for content planning and creation.

1- Building the Base Consideration Content

In any content marketing plan the business needs to make sure they have their base content assets created and published on their website and any other social media channels that potential customers will look at to learn about their business.

This is because any content marketing plan where content is being posted on different channels like SEO, social, or ads will be used to generate interest in the business and when people are trying to learn about the business they will often look at the base content assets on the website and social channels to learn more. 

Website Base Content Assets

These website base content assets include:

• About page content (including the mission and founders)
• Home page content 
• Product and Service offering pages (people need to be able to buy and check out offerings)
• Any informational video/text content that shows
  • Business team
  • Process that goes into product or services
  • About the company
  • Details on the products or services
  • Base informational content that educates on the products
  • Any testimonials or case studies 

Social Media Base Content Assets

The social media base content assets include:

• Clear bios and positioning 
• Pinned or featured posts that explain
  • What the business does
  • Who it’s for
  • How it helps 
• Foundation educational posts
  • Problem awareness
  • Brand beliefs
  • Core offers

Once the marketing team has determined what types of base content assets need to be created for the business website and social channels these should typically be the first pieces of content created in the content marketing plan to make sure the business content is building on a solid foundation.

The other thing to mention is that these base content pieces can also be repurposed and shortened to disperse as smaller pieces of content on other marketing channels so it makes sense to spend time getting them done well.

2- Content Brainstorming

After the base content assets are covered on the website and social media channels the next phase of the process is coming up with content topic ideas that both provide value to potential customers and work to gain awareness. 

When coming up with content ideas you should be thinking of the channels they will be posted on for the formatting and style as well as the specific phase of the customer journey they will be targeting customers in so you know what type of content you will be creating.

In this part of the process just start to think of the marketing channels you want to publish on consistently, the types of content, and how this content will drive potential customers to your assets to move them down the marketing funnel.

Marketing Channels & Content Formats 

Below is a table of the main marketing channels and their content formats to help with the brainstorming and content calendar ideation process.

Keep in mind that the process of content planning and ideation needs to be done with the intent of finding a clear marketing funnel that provides a positive return on investment and which covers each phase of the buyer’s journey.

For example, you can start with getting all the base content assets done and then test dispersing those assets on different marketing channels one by one where your customers hangout to determine what the most efficient and effective marketing channel will be.

Once you get some clarity on your marketing channel and content strategy then you can continue to publish content for that channel and funnel in order to stay top of mind in your target market.

3- Content Calendar Creation

A content calendar is where content strategy becomes real execution.

Without a calendar and a plan for content creation that you can maintain consistently over time the content creation process will become stalled and inefficient. 

And in order to gain awareness of your brand and drive potential customers into your funnel from awareness to consideration to conversion you need to have a consistent content publishing cadence that targets these customers.

The main goals of a content calendar include:

• Deciding what gets published and organizing these topics
• Creating the content and assigning tasks to workers
• Deciding where it will be published
• Deciding when it gets published and created
• Making content repeatable and consistent instead of stressful

A content calendar should answer the following questions:

• What is the topic of the piece
• Which customer journey stage is it supporting
• What channel is it going on
• What format is required for this channel and content
• When does it need to be completed and published
• Who is responsible for working on it

While there are many different software tools that you can use to create a content calendar like Asana, Notion, and Airtable you can also create a simple Google sheet that is used as a content calendar and database. 

Below is a table of what would be included in that content calendar database:

The content calendar should be a sheet or an app that can be shared with all team members working on the content as well as the client who is able to stay in the loop on what is getting done and when it is being published.

Putting Together The Content Creation Process

Any content marketing plan should contain a content calendar where content is being created and published each month to drive new and repeat customers into your marketing funnel.

Below are the key steps to remember in getting a content marketing plan rolling:

1. Start by identifying and getting all base content assets done- these can be completed on a monthly basis where they are reformatted and repurposed
   1. Create a content information web that organizes the different content categories for the business
   2. Identify the base content assets and topics to create
   3. Create the base content assets
      1. Longer form posts
      2. About company pages
      3. Sales pages
2. Next layer in awareness content to gain traction
   1. Social, video, and ad awareness content that drives traffic to your base assets and funnels
   2. Make sure your conversion content is done and users go from awareness to conversion
3. Create and schedule retention content
   1. Emails and other social content that keeps customers aware of your brand

Do these action items in batches each month and have clearly planned tasks and goals. 

Determining the proper cadence for your budget and marketing needs is essential in this process over time.

Example monthly cadence guidelines:

• 1-4 longer form website posts or video pieces (as base content)
• 2-5 social posts per week from the base content
• 1-4 emails per month from base content and time relevant updates

Overall, it always takes some testing and content creation in order to figure out the right cadence and topics that are going to gain awareness and drive conversions over time. 

Make sure to identify the main content categories and the main marketing channels that you are going to be publishing on as well as some basic KPIs and metrics to monitor on these channels. 

Then get a content calendar up and running and start publishing.