Few things could be more deadly to your marketing campaign – on any platform – than a lack of planning. You can’t just throw out blogs, social media posts and ads at random, and then hope for the best. You need to take a strategic and methodical approach and execute your plan with precision. The most challenging part is developing the plan; once that is in place, the rest of the process is relatively easy. So, how do you create a good content plan? Follow these steps:
Set Your Goals
What do you want to achieve from your marketing campaign? Are you looking to increase your subscriber base, boost your sales? By how much? In what timeline? Use the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based) principle to create goals that you and your team can aim for. It will make the next steps that much easier.
Identify Your Audience
“But I already know my audience”, you might be saying. Never assume that this is the case. You may have a good idea about your established audience, but your target market for this particular campaign might be different. Perhaps you want to focus on a specific subset of your overall market. For example, maybe this one is aimed at the women in your audience, or at its younger members. Or perhaps you want to target people outside of your established audience to bring them into the fold. Do your research and think carefully about who you are talking to, as this will determine the platforms, tools and tone you use going forward.
Choose the Right Media
Having decided on your goals and identified your target audience, now you need to pick the right tools for the job. Is this going to be a concentrated social media campaign? If so, on which platforms? Or maybe this is something that will require a targeted email funnel. Perhaps a bit of both, or something else. You can best answer these questions by having gone through the previous step. Once you know your target market, you can work out the best way to reach them.
Craft Your Message
Okay, so now you have established to whom you are talking and on which platform. Now you need to work out what you’re going to say. You already know the basics of what you need to communicate, so now it’s a question of tailoring the message to the audience and medium. You and your team should already have the raw creative power to do this – let your chosen media guide your creativity.
Schedule and Track Your Content
Now it’s time to get your content out there. Carefully plan how you are going to release it. Let your posts tell a progressive story, from your campaign’s introduction to its conclusion. Use apps such as Hootsuite or Buffer to time your posts and monitor the response to them.
Measure the Results
It’s vital that you take stock during and after the campaign to measure your success – or lack thereof. This will help you to see how well you’ve done on this campaign, as well as honing and improving your strategy for future ones.
Contact WSI for more guidance in devising and executing effective online marketing campaigns.