Learn how to create an effective content strategy for your business with this free 12-part video course.
How To Create An Effective Content Strategy For Your Business – Free Video Course
Learn how to create an effective content strategy for your business with this free 12-part video course.
Welcome to our free video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
In this course, you will learn the key principles and best practices for creating a successful content strategy that drives results for your business.
Whether you are a small business owner, marketer, or content creator, this course will provide you with the tools and knowledge you need to create and execute a content strategy that is tailored to your business goals.
Content is a critical component of any successful marketing strategy, and an effective content strategy is essential for building brand awareness, engaging your audience, and driving business results.
In this course, you will learn how to develop a content strategy that aligns with your business goals, resonates with your target audience, and drives results.
From defining your target audience and identifying your business goals to creating a content calendar and measuring your success, this course will walk you through the entire process of creating an effective content strategy. You will also learn about the different types of content, how to create and promote content, and how to measure your success.
So, whether you are just starting out or looking to improve your existing content strategy, this course is for you. By the end of this course, you will have the skills and knowledge you need to create an effective content strategy that drives results for your business.
This free and comprehensive video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business consists of 12 video lessons with links to detailed step-by-step online tutorials for all topics covered in the lessons.
Part 1 provides an overview of the course modules, what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits of having a clear content strategy.
Part 2 covers what you need to know and do before you can create an effective content strategy for your business. Learn about the challenges of managing content effectively and what you need to put in place first.
Part 3 looks at ways and methods to identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience, create user personas for your business, and understand the buyer’s journey and what types of content will be most relevant and valuable to your audience at each different stage of their journey.
Part 4 covers how to use your target audience information to set SMART goals for your content, plus defining your business goals, aligning your content strategy with your business goals, and determining what you want to achieve with your content (e.g. drive traffic, generate leads, build brand awareness, etc.)
Part 5 covers deciding which content types and formats will best help your business reach its goals.
Part 6 discusses effective ways and tools to do a content audit to identify the types of content your business is currently producing, assess the performance of your existing content, and identify gaps and opportunities in your current content offerings.
Part 7 covers creating a content plan – what a content plan is, why your business needs one, and how to create a content plan for your business.
Part 8 covers creating a content production plan specifying the strategy and the schedule your business will use to create and publish its content.
Part 9 covers creating a content promotion plan specifying the strategy and tactics your business will use to distribute and promote its content.
Part 10 covers creating a content management plan specifying the processes your business will use to manage and maintain its content.
Part 11 covers troubleshooting and fixing issues with your content, your content strategy, and your content plan.
Part 12 provides a recap of the course, discusses the next steps for implementing a content strategy for your business, and provides useful tips and resources.
Click the links in the gallery below the video to visit lesson pages with the video and a full transcript with screenshots…
This lesson provides a recap of the course, discusses the next steps for implementing a content strategy for your business, and provides useful tips and resources.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 12 and it’s the last lesson in our video series.
In our previous lessons, we covered all the steps we need to develop a strategy that will allow us to create, promote, and manage our content effectively.
We also looked at how to troubleshoot any problems and issues that can affect our content’s performance and results.
In this final lesson, I want to recap what we have covered in this course, talk about the next steps to take after creating a content strategy and provide links to additional information and useful resources.
If your business has done everything that we’ve talked about in this course and put all of the right foundations in place, developed a content strategy, created a sound content plan, and implemented plans to create, promote, and manage your content effectively, then you can expect your content to perform well and deliver your business great results.
And here is why your business can expect this.
Your business is thinking about content strategically. Strategic thinking lets you adapt and respond quickly to changes. You don’t change your destination, you just change the methods and tactics you are using to get there.
You can also expect great results if your business has set clear goals and objectives and you understand your audience’s needs, interests, and pain points, then create the right content, delivered at the right stage of their buyer journey, in the right type and format, and distribute it using the right channels, so that your content production and promotion are fully aligned with your business goals and your audience’s needs.
And you can also expect great results if your business uses documented systems to create, promote, manage, track, measure, and improve its content, and has a methodical approach to troubleshoot and fix issues.
This is what an effective content strategy aims to do. It lets you examine every area of your business that involves using content and make sure that everyone involved is aligned with the right goals and objectives and is working toward achieving these.
Now, I admit that this is not easy to do, especially if your business is already going full steam ahead and hasn’t put in place the systems and processes that we’ve discussed in this course…
…but this is the map that will get your business there and deliver you success using content.
So, now that you know what the purpose of having a content strategy is and how to create one, where do you go from here?
Well, if you plan to start a business or a website and haven’t started yet, then the first thing you need to do is put all the right business foundations in place, develop a content strategy, and create and implement plans to produce, promote, and manage your content effectively, as shown in this course.
And if your business is already going full steam ahead and it hasn’t put in place the systems and processes that we’ve discussed in this course, then that’s what you need to do next.
However poorly you do it, any attempt to develop and implement a content strategy with plans, systems, and documented processes is better than none at all.
The worst thing that can happen if you attempt to develop a content strategy for a business that hasn’t got one is that it will show you why your business actually needs one.
So, once you have this awareness, you can begin to do something about it.
So, regardless of whether you are planning to start a business or trying to manage content for an existing business, here are the practical steps that I recommend taking next…
First, I suggest that you review all of the video course lessons and any accompanying notes that are included with this course.
Next, go through all of the detailed tutorials that expand on these lessons. They are all available for free on ContentManagementCourse.com.
If you haven’t already, I also suggest that you register for the content management course email lessons on the site. It’s also 100% free and it will take you step-by-step through everything you need to know to manage content for your business or website effectively.
I have created another comprehensive email course on how to generate new content ideas for your website, blog, or newsletter. It’s also completely free to subscribe and will help you create an endless content pipeline for your business.
If your business uses WordPress as its content management system, I have created detailed step-by-step tutorials on how to use WordPress that you can access for free at WPTrainingManual.com
And I also run a site that provides thousands of video lessons that will help you develop digital business skills and master using WordPress. This site is not free but there’s a very low subscription price, so it’s extremely affordable.
So, I hope that you have found this video course instructive, useful, and practical.
I’m Martin Aranovitch, thank you for watching, and make sure to review the accompanying notes for ways to stay connected and updated.
Also, make sure to visit ContentManagementCourse.com for additional information and comprehensive tutorials that expand on everything we’ve covered in his course.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 11.
In the previous lessons, we looked at creating a content strategy and implementing plans for creating, promoting, and managing your content.
Now, what we want to do is look at what we can do if our content strategy isn’t working as expected, and how we can troubleshoot and find ways to fix any issues related to our content.
So, in this lesson, I’m going to introduce you to a systematic approach for troubleshooting content-related issues.
We’ll look at the general principles of this approach, and then look at how to troubleshoot issues with your content strategy and your content plan.
Everything covered in this lesson is documented in detail in a Content Troubleshooting Guide that you can refer to by visiting the link on your screen.
So here is the simple model we’ll use.
Basically, it’s a drill-down approach. So, when you run into a problem with your content, we start at the top to see if we can address, correct and eliminate the problem at that level, and if we can’t fix it at that level, we then drill down to the next level below it and start diagnosing the issue at that level, and so on.
Now, before we get into this, let me show you what I believe is the most important slide of this entire course.
Ok, this chart looks very simple, but if you really get it and understand what it means, you will realize that it is the key to fixing not only problems related to your content but also most of the problems in your business too!
And I’m not exaggerating here about the importance of understanding this chart. I showed this same chart to someone who was struggling to grow their business many years ago and it completely transformed their business.
Every business has three levels of decision-making and you can’t get away from this. So, even if you are just a one-person business, your business still has these three levels. You’ll just have to wear three different hats when making business decisions.
So let’s go through these.
The executive level is where strategic decisions get made, like defining your business vision and setting targets, goals and objectives.
The managerial level is where decisions get made that affect how your business will achieve the strategic goals and targets set by the executive level.
Now many people think that the managerial level is about managing people, but that’s the wrong approach.
Managerial-level decisions should be about implementing and managing the systems that the business will use to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.
So it’s about managing systems, not people.
And the tactical or technical level is where people do the actual work that will help the business realize its vision and achieve its goals and objectives.
At this level, people should be trained to follow the systems put in place by the management level, to hit the targets and goals set by the strategic level.
So, ideally, the way this works is that the executive level sets a strategic target, like for example “to increase annual sales by 20%”.
The managerial level then figures out which systems the business needs to put in place to achieve that 20% increase in sales.
The managerial level then also implements those systems and makes sure that the people hired to fill the tactical or technical roles have the skills and the training to operate those systems because when they do that, it will help to achieve the vision and goals set at the executive level.
Now, let me show you why understanding this is so important to fixing problems in your business like content-related issues.
So, let’s say that you have a small business and you want to grow your business with content marketing.
So you put together a content team with an editor, a couple of content writers, an illustrator with video-making skills, and a marketer who can do email marketing and social media marketing.
So everything is going well. Your team is publishing regular articles and blog posts, posting social media updates, uploading videos online, sending out newsletters, and so on.
A few months down the track, your manager informs you that the content is not really performing too well in terms of generating new leads, increasing engagement, and improving conversions.
And your content team also tells you that they’ve run out of content ideas and that the content pipeline has run dry.
So now we have a couple of serious problems on our hands.
We’re running out of new content ideas and our existing content isn’t delivering us the results that we need.
This is all costing us time and money so we need to find a solution.
At this point, many businesses kind of get stuck and start looking at short-term solutions.
So you can start running regular brainstorming sessions with your team each week to try and keep your content pipeline going, but if your content is not delivering the results you need, then just creating content for content’s sake isn’t going to fix anything.
It’s also kind of hard to know what to do to improve things like increase traffic from organic search or get more engagement on social media or convert traffic into sales if all you have is lots of data from analytics reports, but no systems or processes in place for turning this data into specific actions.
So what do you do to fix these problems?
Let’s go back to our chart with the three levels of decision-making and let’s map it on top of this scenario, and let’s see if it can help us troubleshoot and fix these problems.
First, if you really understand what this chart is about, you will see straight away why asking your writers to brainstorm new content ideas to create a content pipeline is not going to fix your issues and improve your results.
Why? Because you’re asking people at the tactical level to fix issues that should have been addressed at the strategic and managerial levels.
So you can come up with new content ideas all day long but if the content isn’t helping your business grow, then you’re just wasting valuable time, money, and resources.
But you can’t brainstorm new content ideas unless you first have a clear idea of what you are aiming to achieve, of who your target audience is, what kind of content you should be focusing on, and so on.
All of these questions need to be answered by the managerial level in the form of a content plan spelling out in nitty-gritty detail what kind of content needs to be written, how it should be delivered, and so on.
But the managerial level can’t create an effective content plan if the executive level hasn’t defined a content strategy with realistic and achievable goals and objectives, allocated sufficient budget for resources, tools, and training, and so on.
So the point here is, if your content pipeline runs dry, it’s not the responsibility of people at the tactical level to fix the issue. The responsibility is at the managerial level.
A business owner has the big picture of their business but everyone below that level doesn’t.
So, your editor and your content writers, they don’t have the big picture, which means that putting them in charge of your content strategy is only going to create more problems.
And if your content isn’t performing well, the problem may not even be at the managerial level. It could be at the strategic level, which is the responsibility of the business owners to fix.
This is where many businesses say “well… I’m too busy trying to run other parts of the business to fix content issues and come up with new content ideas – that’s why we hired all these content experts!”
Well, how can you blame the body for following a head that doesn’t know where it’s going?
So this is what this chart is telling you. That the executive level has to know where it’s going and the managerial level has to put the systems in place to help the business get there before your business can start putting people into tactical or technical roles and giving them responsibilities for getting the work done.
Without putting those foundations in place, your business will just keep running into problems.
This is why outsourcing areas of your business like content production, content promotion, or even content management to a digital agency or freelance writers without first putting systems in place to manage the outsourcing process can often lead to poor results.
The chart tells you that an external digital agency is not part of the executive level of the business and so they shouldn’t make executive-level decisions, and that freelance writers won’t build managerial-level systems that will help the business realize its vision, so a lot of the time, what businesses think is outsourcing is really just abdicating their responsibility for making executive and managerial-level decisions.
Once you know which level is responsible for doing what in the business, you can start troubleshooting and fixing issues with your content.
Until this happens, any short-term fixes are really just a game of “passing the buck” where nothing is really going to get fixed in the long run.
So, now that we understand this, let’s apply our content troubleshooting approach and see how we would solve the issues of getting our content pipeline running again and improve our content’s performance.
So we’ll use our simple content troubleshooting model and map our chart of decision-making levels on top of it.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a top-down approach, so we’ll start at the top by making sure that our basic business principles are in place.
This means looking at things like:
Has the business clearly defined its vision, mission, and core values?
Has the business set clear, realistic, and achievable goals and objectives?
Does it have a business plan, marketing strategy, and marketing plan that flow logically from its vision, mission, and core values?
Is there an allocated budget for resources and is it realistic?
Are the business and marketing plans aligned with the goals and objectives of the business?
And more importantly, is all of this documented and accessible to everyone in the business?
If all of the above are not in place, then the business is going to experience problems at the levels of implementation.
Let’s assume, then, that everything checks out at the foundational level, so the next level to look at is your content strategy.
As you can see from this chart, creating a content strategy is an executive-level responsibility.
The managerial and tactical levels can be involved and contribute to the content strategy, but the responsibility for setting the overall strategy for the long-term vision and direction of the content ultimately lies with the executive level.
So let’s look at some of the key areas to assess and review when troubleshooting our content strategy.
I’ve listed here a number of areas that can lead to content issues when certain things aren’t addressed at the content strategy level.
You will notice that many of these areas will also show up at the managerial level, i.e. the content plan, but for different reasons.
For example, if poor search engine optimization is identified as an issue that’s affecting your content performance, the strategic level is responsible for outlining in its content strategy that all content must follow SEO best practices.
The managerial level then has to figure out what these SEO best practices are and put together the SEO systems, guides, and guidelines that the content team should follow to make sure that SEO best practices are being implemented.
Another example is the allocation of resources.
Your content strategy might allocate a budget for content marketing based on their total budget for all business areas, but when the managerial level tries to implement their plans, they might find that their allocated budget is insufficient to cover all of the costs needed to meet the content strategy’s specifications, like hiring or training new content team members, investing in tools and technologies, and covering production costs like creating high-quality videos, and so on.
In this case, either the executive level needs to find and allocated additional funds or re-evaluate their specifications.
So as before, let’s assume that our content strategy has all of these areas covered, but that our content team still has no content pipeline and that our content isn’t performing as well as expected.
So, we have to go down one more level and see if we can try to locate the issues at the level of the content plan.
Here are some of the key areas to look at when troubleshooting your content plan.
What you will find with most of the areas listed here, is that the real time-consuming work of building systems, processes, and procedures to make the content strategy work is the managerial level’s responsibility. The executive and tactical levels can be involved in helping to document the content plan, but it’s not the responsibility of the content team to create it.
So, with areas like no content measuring or evaluating, a content strategy will tell us which metrics are important to track, but setting up the systems, processes, and tools to measure and report on those metrics is a managerial-level responsibility.
A content manager might choose to create and run those systems themselves, or assign it to someone else in the team, or even to outsource the task to experts, but it is their responsibility to create a content plan first that addresses all of these areas.
So the point here is that these are all managerial-level decisions and responsibilities. And if any of these areas is deficient, then your content team will struggle to have an ongoing pipeline and your business will struggle to improve its content performance.
Your business will keep running into problems if managers are trying to manage people instead of putting systems and processes in place for tactical and technical-level roles to follow.
So if the strategic level has clearly outlined the metrics that are important to track in its content strategy and the managerial level has implemented an effective content tracking system as per their content plan, and the same thing has been done for all of the other important areas like understanding the target market, defining content types, setting guidelines for your content, branding, SEO, etc. then you should be able to identify and pinpoint exactly what’s causing the issue with a content pipeline or with your content performance.
You would have all the systems in place for creating, promoting, and managing your content effectively and your content team would know what content topics and themes they should be focusing on.
This is where and when they can help brainstorm new content ideas to keep the content pipeline running.
If everything at the content plan level is fine and there are still issues, then the next step is to drill further down into your content plan and look at the specific components like your content production plan, your content promotion plan, and your content management plan.
Once again, creating these is the responsibility of the managerial level.
So, for example, if having no content pipeline is still an issue, you would look at your content production plan and see if there are any issues or problems like poorly-defined production workflow processes, or a lack of documented procedures, or are people just not following the documented processes and guidelines, or is there no content calendar, or are there unclear roles and responsibilities, or lack of skills or training in using the right tools, and so on.
Now, if your content performance hasn’t improved after reviewing your content plan, then you would look at your content promotion plan and see if there are any issues or problems like whether your team is following the marketing plan, if they have access to analytics data and reports and can understand the metrics, if they are using the right distribution channels and the right tools to track content performance, improve SEO, and so on.
Similarly, if after drilling all the way down there are still issues, then you would go through your content management plan and review whether any areas here are causing issues.
For example, issues at this level may be related to poor organization, poor time management, work overload, blurry roles and responsibilities, or a lack of documentation, or even issues with content tracking and content protection, poor content linking practices, failures to backup content, a lack of knowledge of using management tools, and so on.
So, in summary,
Understanding the three levels of decision-making in a business is very important, as it helps to work out who is responsible for doing what in your business.
Use a top-down approach to diagnose and troubleshoot issues with your content. This is an effective approach because as you address and eliminate issues at the higher levels, your business will experience fewer problems and get better results as time goes on.
Also, keep in mind that most content-related issues are caused by the lack of a well-defined content strategy, so the more you focus on getting your content strategy clear from the outset, the fewer problems you will experience later in other areas of your business.
And finally, keep in mind that your content strategy is really an outline of the work that needs to be done but most of the time-consuming work of implementing the strategy is done at the managerial level, such as documenting system, processes, and guidelines, making sure that the content team is trained to follow systems, guidelines, and procedures, and troubleshooting and fixing issues with your content systems.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, you can refer to the comprehensive Content Troubleshooting Guide and tutorials on ContentManagementCourse.com if you need help with any of these areas.
So, that’s all for this video.
In the next and final lesson, we’ll wrap up this course with a recap and useful tips and suggestions for taking the next steps.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 10.
In the previous lesson, we looked at creating a content promotion plan for your business.
In this lesson, we’ll look at creating and implementing a content management plan.
This is the part of the content plan that determines how we’ll manage and maintain all of the content that we create, publish, and promote.
In this lesson, we’ll cover what a content management plan is, why your business needs it, and how to create one for your business.
So, what is a content management plan?
A content management plan is a document that outlines the processes your business will use to manage and maintain all of its content.
It includes your content management goals and objectives, information about your target audience, the types of content and distribution channels that you will manage, and the KPIs that will be used to measure the success of your content management practices.
Now, why does your business need a content management plan?
It needs a content management plan because it helps your business to…
Manage all the content it produces, from initial idea to final publication.
Also, to make roles and responsibilities of team members and stakeholders clear.
Establish a consistent workflow to ensure content is accurate, on-brand, and on time.
It helps you track your content performance over time, ensuring that content goals are being met and that your target audience is being reached.
It also helps to ensure that your content is organized, easily searchable, and retrievable, saving your business time and resources and providing a consistent customer experience.
Also, it helps to avoid duplication of effort and ensures compliance with legal or regulatory requirements.
And it also helps your business to stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.
So, in short, your content management plan is a strategy for organizing, storing, and maintaining your business content. It helps your business keep its content organized, ensuring that it stays up-to-date and relevant, and making it easily accessible to the people who need it.
So now that we have a basic understanding of what a content management plan is and why your business needs it, let’s look at how to create one.
I’ve outlined here the main steps and suggestions for creating a content management plan.
Like in our previous lessons, I’m only going to touch briefly on these points, because we’ve already covered many of the steps listed here in our Content Plan lesson in module 7.
If you need help with these steps, visit the link on the screen for a detailed tutorial.
So, how do we create a content management plan?
First, we need to define our content management goals. For example, it may be improving your website traffic or increasing customer engagement.
Next, we make an inventory of all of our existing content, including formats, topics, and target audience, and we covered this in Module 6.
To manage your content effectively, you’ll need to develop a content strategy and this is the central focus of our video course. Creating a content strategy includes outlining your content goals, defining your target audience, your content topics, content types and formats, and a whole lot more.
Next, establish a content workflow and document the processes your business will use to create, review, edit, and publish content.
Set up a content calendar with your content publishing schedule.
Document the roles and responsibilities involved in creating, editing, publishing, and promoting your content.
Use a content management system to organize, store, and distribute your content.
Document your SEO Guidelines. Include best SEO practices, links to SEO courses, resources, tutorials, etc.
Use analytics tools to track and analyze your content performance and gather insights for future content.
Review and update to make sure your content stays fresh and relevant.
Collaborate and communicate with your team members and stakeholders to ensure that your content stays aligned with your overall goals and objectives.
Document all of your processes to ensure that anyone can manage your content to the highest quality standards set by your business.
Make regular content backups to keep your content safe and protected and to ensure business continuity, and
Continuously monitor and improve your content management processes.
In terms of choosing a content management system for your business, I recommend that you consider using a platform like WordPress.
WordPress is the most popular content management system platform in the world,
Over one-third of all websites in fact run on WordPress.
WordPress is a free, open-source CMS, which means it’s infinitely expandable with add-ons, which WordPress calls plugins.
WordPress is also actively supported by a community of thousands of web developers, so it’s always being updated with new features and bug fixes, which means that it’s secure.
And you can build any kind of website you can imagine with WordPress. From company websites and blogs to full-featured e-commerce stores, private membership sites, business directories, and so much more!
Plus, WordPress is easy-to-use and requires no coding skills.
You can learn more about using content management systems by following the link on the screen.
More importantly, if your website runs on WordPress, I have created comprehensive and detailed step-by-step tutorials on how to use WordPress.
You can access these tutorials for free at WPTrainingManual.com. Just visit the link on the slide for more details.
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Also, in terms of content organization, you’ll want to implement systems that will improve your efficiency and user experience, that will save you time and money, and that will help your business maximize its resources.
So, see the link on your screen for a detailed tutorial on ways to organize your content.
And regarding documenting, backing up, and protecting your content, I have also written comprehensive tutorials covering each of these areas, so if you need help with any of these areas visit the links on the screen.
So, in summary,
A content management plan specifies the processes for managing and maintaining your content.
It also includes your goals and objectives for managing your content, information about your target audience, the content types and the distribution channels that you will manage, and the KPIs you will use to measure your content.
Follow the steps discussed in this lesson to create and implement a content management plan for your business and if you need help or want to see an example of a content management plan, check out the tutorials listed on the screen.
So, that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to troubleshoot and fix issues with your content strategy.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
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Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 9.
In the previous lesson, we looked at creating a content production plan for your business.
In this lesson, we’ll look at creating and implementing a content promotion plan.
This is the part of the content plan that determines how we’ll promote and get our content in front of our target audiences.
So in this lesson, we’ll cover what a content promotion plan is, why your business needs it, and how to create one for your business.
So, what is a content promotion plan?
A content promotion plan is a document that outlines the strategy and tactics your business will use to distribute and promote its content.
It includes your content promotion goals and objectives, information about your target audience, the types of content you will produce, the distribution channels that you will use to get your content out there, and the KPIs or key performance indicators that will be used to measure the success of your content promotion activities.
Now, why does your business need a content promotion plan?
Your business needs a content promotion plan because it helps your business to:
Reach and engage your target audience more effectively.
Helps to maximize the impact of the content you produce.
It helps to allocate resources and budgets more efficiently toward content promotion.
It helps to track your content’s performance over time.
It helps to identify & leverage the most effective distribution channels to reach your target audience.
And it helps you to stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.
So in short, your content promotion plan tells you how to get the word out about your content, increase its visibility and drive engagement and conversions.
So now that we have a basic understanding of what a content promotion plan is and why your business needs it, let’s look at how to create one.
I’ve outlined here the main steps and suggestions for creating a content promotion plan.
Like in our previous lessons, I’m only going to touch briefly on these points, because many of these steps have already been covered in our Content Plan lesson in module 7.
If you need help with these steps, visit the link on the screen for a detailed tutorial.
So, to create a content production plan we’ll need to…
Define our goals for promoting our content, for example, increase website traffic, generate leads, etc.
Identify our target audience: Where are they are most likely to be found?
Create a plan for distributing our content through various channels, for example, social media, email, videos, paid advertising, etc.
Use a promotion calendar or scheduling tool to plan out when and how to promote each published piece of content.
Optimize content for search engines
Share the content on social media platforms and encourage followers to share it.
And you may also want to reach out to influencers in your industry and ask them to share your content with their audience.
Also, you can leverage email and video marketing, so include the content in your email newsletter and send it to your email subscribers.
And upload and share your videos on video-sharing platforms
And also you can consider using paid promotions like Google Ads or Facebook ads, to reach a larger audience.
Additionally, set metrics and use analytics tools to track and analyze your promotions and gather insights for future campaigns.
Repurpose and refresh your content with new information and insights to reach new audiences and keep your existing audiences engaged.
And continuously monitor and improve your promotion strategy based on your results and feedback.
So, in summary…
Your content promotion plan specifies the strategy and schedule for promoting and distributing your content, and it includes your goals and objectives for promoting your content, information about your target audience, the content types that you will create, your distribution channels, and the key performance indicators you will use to measure the success of your content promotion efforts.
Follow the steps presented in this lesson to create and implement a content promotion plan for your business and if you need help or want to see an example of a content promotion plan, check out the tutorials listed on the screen.
So that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to create a content management plan for your business.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers creating a content production plan specifying the strategy and the schedule your business will use to create and publish its content.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 8.
In the previous lesson, we looked at creating a content plan so we can start implementing our content strategy.
In this lesson, we’ll look at creating and implementing a content production plan.
This is the part of the content plan that determines how we’ll create and produce all the content in our business.
So in this lesson, we’ll cover what a content production plan is, why your business needs it, and how to create one for your business.
So, what is a content production plan?
A content production plan is a document that outlines the strategy and schedule your business will use to create and publish its content.
It includes your content production goals and objectives, information about your target audience, the types of content you will produce, the distribution channels that you will use, and the KPIs or key performance indicators that will be used to measure the success of your content production efforts.
Ok. Now that we know what a content production plan is, why does your business need one?
Your business needs one because it helps your business to:
Align its content efforts with its overall marketing and business goals.
It also ensures the creation of relevant, valuable, and engaging content for your target audience.
It helps you allocate resources and budget more efficiently towards content creation.
Helps you track content performance over time.
Helps you to identify and fill gaps in your content offerings.
And it helps you stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.
So in short, a content production plan is a detailed plan that outlines the specific actions and resources that your business will use to create and publish content.
So now that we have a basic understanding of what a content production plan is and why your business needs it, let’s look at how to create one.
I’ve outlined here the main steps to creating a content production plan.
I’m only going to touch briefly on these points here, because many of these steps have already been covered in the Content Plan lesson in module 7.
If you need help, I’ve also written a detailed tutorial covering these steps, just visit the link on the screen.
So to create a content production plan, we need to…
Review our content plan and make sure that we have a clear understanding of our audience, goals, topics, and distribution channels.
We also have to assign roles and responsibilities, which means deciding who will be responsible for each aspect of the content creation process, like who will do the research, writing, editing, design, etc.
We also need a calendar or a scheduling tool to plan out when each piece of content will be created, reviewed, and published.
Another important step is to create a detailed workflow outlining the specific steps that will be taken for each piece of content. This should include research, writing, editing, design, and distribution. We’ll cover this in the next slide.
Also, outline the process for creating each type of content. Identify the tools, resources, and steps required to create different types of content, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.
And, finally, review and optimize. Review the content production plan regularly and make adjustments when needed. Use the metrics defined in your content plan to measure the success of your content and to make changes that will help to improve your results over time.
In terms of defining our workflow, we want to outline the processes for creating, reviewing, editing, and publishing content for each different type of content that we will create.
Obviously creating an article for a blog requires a different process than creating a video, so when we outline the workflow for each content type, we need to define things like:
The steps involved
Who is responsible for doing each step and what each step involves doing
How and when should a process move to the next step
What formats, guidelines, and procedures need to be followed to ensure that consistent standards are maintained
How and when to deliver each step, and so on.
For more information about outlining and documenting workflow processes visit the links on the screen.
Another thing to keep in mind when creating your content production plan is to include different methods like content repurposing.
Content repurposing is the process of taking existing content and adapting it for use on different platforms or in different formats.
This can include things like turning a blog post into a video, or republishing an article on a different website or creating an infographic from a research report, and many other forms, such as the examples listed here.
Repurposing content helps you get the most out of the content you have already created, maximizing your resources, and helping you reach new audiences.
The link on this screen has more information about repurposing content.
Coming up with ideas for your content can be a challenging part of the content creation process. But with the right sources, resources, and methods, you can generate a steady stream of ideas to keep your content fresh and engaging.
I recommend visiting ContentManagementCourse.com and signing up for my free and comprehensive email course on how to keep coming up with endless new content ideas for your website articles, blog posts, and newsletters.
So, in summary…
A content production plan specifies the strategy and schedule for creating and publishing your content, and it typically includes the goals and objectives for your content, information about your target audience, the content types that you will create, your distribution channels, and the KPIs that will be used to measure the success of your content production efforts.
Follow the steps discussed in this lesson to create and implement a content production plan for your business and if you need help or want to see an example of a content production plan, check out the tutorials listed on the screen.
Also, make sure to sign up for the free content ideas creation email course so you’ll never run out of content ideas.
So, that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at creating a content promotion plan for your business.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 7.
In the previous lesson, we looked at doing a content audit, which is taking an inventory of all of our existing content.
In this lesson, we’ll look at how to create a content plan so we can start implementing our content strategy in our business.
So, this is where we take all of the information we’ve been compiling about our audience, setting content goals, choosing content types, and doing a content audit, and we put it all together into a cohesive and actionable plan.
In this lesson, we are going to cover what a content plan is, why your business needs one, and how to create a content plan that will deliver your business results.
So, what is a content plan?
A content plan is a document that specifies what content your business will create to target your audience at all stages of their buyer journey, and how this content will be created, distributed, and managed.
A content plan also outlines…
who is responsible for creating the content,
what the purpose of the content is, and
how the content impacts your content strategy
The difference between a content plan and a content strategy, is that a content strategy is the overarching plan for creating, publishing, and managing content that aligns with the goals and objectives of your organization.
A content strategy defines the goals for the content, the audience it will target, and the overall tone and style of the content.
A content plan, on the other hand, is the tactical plan for executing your content strategy.
A content plan outlines the specific pieces of content that will be created, the channels through which they will be distributed, and the schedule for publishing and promoting your content. It also includes tasks and responsibilities for creating, editing, and publishing your content.
So, in short, a content strategy tells us the why and what, and a content plan tells us the how and when.
Now, why does your business need a content plan?
Your business needs a content plan to ensure that the right systems and workflow processes are put in place to create the right content, for the right audience, at the right time, using the right distribution channels, to help your business achieve its strategic goals.
So essentially, the goal of the content plan is to deliver the goals of the content strategy.
Now that we have a basic understanding of what a content plan is and why our business needs one, let’s look at how to create a content plan.
Here I’ve outlined 12 steps to creating a content plan and I’m just going to touch on these briefly in this lesson because I’ve written a comprehensive tutorial that covers all of these steps in detail and you can go through each of these at your own pace by visiting the link on the screen.
So in Step 1, we ask the question “what do we want our content to achieve?” Are we looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales? We covered this step in module 4 of this course.
We also covered Step 3 which content types to focus on in module 5, so if you need help in those areas, just go back and review those modules.
So let’s take a brief look, then, at Steps 2, 4, and 5, which is setting the frequency, topics, and distribution of our content.
And these are the questions that we need to ask
How often should we be publishing new content?” This will tell us the frequency.
What content should we be writing or talking about?” This will tell us the topics to write about, and
How should we be getting our content out into the world?” This will tell us the distribution methods.
So let’s look at frequency first.
It’s important to find a sustainable balance between producing enough content to keep your audience engaged, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming or low quality.
It also depends on the type of business you’re in. For example, if you run a news website, you’ll probably need to publish multiple articles a day to keep up with the latest developments. On the other hand, if you’re running a personal blog or a small business, you might only have the capacity to publish once or twice a week or a few times a month.
So, it’s important to consider our audience, our resources, and our goals when determining the frequency of our content. In general, it’s a good idea to find a frequency that we can sustain over the long term. Consistency is key when it comes to content marketing, so it’s better to publish on a regular schedule rather than trying to push out as much content as possible and then burn out.
Next up, are the topics you should be writing or talking about. Again, this will depend on your goals and audience.
If you’re running a business, you’ll want to focus on topics that are relevant to your products or services. For example, if you sell outdoor gear, you might want to write about hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities.
It’s also a good idea to consider what your audience is interested in. You can use social media polls, surveys, and other tools to get a sense of what your followers want to see more of.
Finally, there’s distribution. There are many options to choose from when it comes to getting your content out, including social media, email newsletters, press releases, guest blogging on other websites, and so on.
So it’s important to find the right mix of distribution channels for your business or personal brand. For example, if you’re targeting a younger audience, you might want to focus on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. And if you’re targeting a more professional audience, you may want to target channels like LinkedIn.
Another important area of distribution is understanding that there are different types of distribution channels, like owned media, paid media, and earned media.
Owned media is content that you create, own, and have full and complete control over. Like blog posts and articles that you write and publish on your website.
Paid media is where you pay to promote your content. Like taking ads on Google and social media.
And then there’s earned media, which is content that someone else creates, and you don’t pay for it but it benefits your business. Like when someone posts a great review about your business.
You can read more about these distribution channels by visiting the link on the screen.
Our content plan needs to align with our content strategy, so if our content strategy includes paid media, this brings up the next step, which is how to allocate our resources.
So the two main areas we need to focus on here are financial and personnel resources.
Financial resources mostly come down to the budget allocated to create and distribute content and to invest in the right tools.
So, if our content strategy specifies using paid media to distribute our content and there’s no budget for paid media, we’re going to have a problem.
We either have to try and find the budget, or rework our content strategy and content plan to focus more on owned media like blog posts and articles.
Which brings up the issue of personnel resources.
So, what kind of content team can your business afford to put together?
Creating and promoting content involves many different skills and responsibilities.
Whatever talent you have available to create and promote content is going to have a tremendous impact on your content plan.
For example, I run a number of websites on my own and I also work with a team in my full-time job, and both of these have pros and cons.
Working with a content team, for example, requires having really effective communication.
So, to implement a content plan effectively with a team means that we need to establish a central point of contact. This can be a content manager or a designated member of the team.
We also need to set up regular meetings or check-ins with all relevant teams and stakeholders and establish clear guidelines and processes for creating and approving content.
We’ll cover some parts of this step in this lesson, like setting up a content calendar. But in the next lesson, we’ll talk about editorial guidelines and workflow processes for reviewing and approving content.
It’s also very important to choose the right tools to ensure that everyone has access to the latest version of the content plan.
So, this would be like a document management system and also setting up team communication channels so everyone can communicate effectively, especially if your team comprises of people working remotely.
This can be done using tools like Slack and email, plus tools for live meetings, conference calls, and online presentations, like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Skype, etc.
And we also need to choose our content management tools. These include Project Management Software like for example, Monday.com, or Asana, Jira, or Trello, and a Content Management System like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla.
Once again, the tools you choose will depend on your budget, your needs, and how you’ve designed your workflow processes.
If you need more information about these tools, visit the links on the screen.
After choosing the tools your team will use to collaborate, communicate, and manage your content, the next step is to set up a content publishing schedule to organize and schedule your content creation and promotion activities.
Typically, this will be a tool that lets you set up and manage a content calendar or an editorial calendar.
Now, these terms are often used interchangeably, but an editorial calendar generally outlines each step of the process, while a content calendar usually covers one aspect, such as when posts are published or shared to social media.
If you’re just starting out, you can use a spreadsheet to track your content publishing schedule, but if keeping track of things starts to become too hard, you might want to use a calendar tool.
Some project management tools and content management systems also include scheduling features, so whichever method you choose, just make sure that everyone in your team can access the tool and that they know how to use it.
For a detailed tutorial on how to set up a content scheduling calendar, visit the link shown on the screen.
Now, we’re almost done setting up our content plan.
We just need to work out how to assign tasks and set deadlines for everyone who is involved in creating and promoting our content.
And here are some things to keep in mind.
First, we want to provide clear and detailed descriptions of the task and ensure that everyone on the team understands the expected outcomes.
So include any necessary resources or instructions.
Also, we want to take each team member’s skills and workload into consideration and make sure that we assign the task to the right person.
It’s also important to set realistic deadlines by learning to estimate accurately how long tasks will take to complete and how complex they are.
We also want to clearly communicate tasks and deadlines to assigned team members.
To do this, we can use team meetings, email, or a project management tool to follow up with team members and make sure they understand the task and have what they need to complete it.
And we also want to check in with our team members periodically to keep track of their progress, offer assistance and support, provide additional resources, and answer any questions they may have.
Finally, it’s important to create guidelines for assigning tasks to members that include all the points we’ve just discussed and add these guidelines to your workflow documentation.
The next step in creating your content plan is to include ways to measure content performance and content ROI, so you can see which parts of the plan are working and which areas will need improvement.
With content performance, we want to set up metrics to measure and analyze our content’s performance in areas like engagement, traffic, lead generation, conversions, bounce rates, and so.
We also want to set up ways to track revenue generated from our content and compare this to the costs of creating and promoting our content to work out our return on investment.
The links on the slide will take you to tutorials on how to set up content metrics, content tracking and a content measurement plan, and lists of tools you can use to measure your content performance.
Now the last step in creating our content plan is to schedule a periodic review of the plan itself to make sure that everything set out in the plan is progressing along, that all strategic goals are being met, and to figure out how to improve things if the goals are not being met.
So, in summary, a content plan tells us how and when to execute our content strategy.
Follow the steps we’ve covered in this lesson to create and implement a content plan for your business, and if you need help in any of these areas refer to the tutorials listed on the screen.
So, that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to break our content plan into a content production plan, a content promotion plan, and a content management plan, so we can create, promote and manage our content more effectively.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson discusses effective ways and tools to do a content audit to identify the types of content your business is currently producing, assess the performance of your existing content, and identify gaps and opportunities in your current content offerings.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is Module 6.
In the previous lesson, we looked at the types of content we’ll need to produce to meet our audience’s needs and the goals we have set.
In this lesson, we’ll look at doing a content audit, which is taking an inventory of our existing content to see how it’s performing and to identify any gaps or opportunities that we may be missing.
Up to this point, the focus has been to get our thinking organized so we know who we are going to be creating content for, what types of content we’ll be creating, and what we want to achieve with our content.
Now, it’s time to take stock of where we are currently at, so we can plan where to go from here.
So.. how do we go about identifying the types of content that our business is currently producing?
The best way is by doing a content audit.
So in this lesson, we are going to look at what a content audit is and why your business needs one.
And we’ll also look at how to perform a content audit and tools that will help make this easier and faster.
So, what is a content audit?
A content audit is the process of systematically analyzing and evaluating our existing content’s performance and effectiveness.
It involves identifying and cataloging all of our content, evaluating its quality and relevance, and determining which content should be kept, updated, consolidated, or removed.
The goal of a content audit is to ensure that our content is aligned with our business goals and objectives and is providing value to our target audience.
So, why does your business need to perform a content audit? What are the benefits?
Well, there are a number of reasons for performing a content audit.
The first reason is to make sure that the content is aligned with your business goals.
By evaluating the relevance and effectiveness of your existing content, we can then identify areas that need to improve to better support the goals of the business.
Another reason is to improve user experience.
A content audit can help to identify content that is confusing, outdated, or irrelevant to users, which can negatively impact their experience.
By removing or updating this content, we can improve the overall experience of our visitors.
Another benefit is that it helps to identify gaps in our content and inform our future content strategy and planning activities.
A content audit also helps to improve SEO: By identifying and removing duplicate or low-quality content, we can improve our content’s search engine rankings and visibility.
And a content audit also provides insights to help evaluate our content performance in terms of engagement and conversions, and identify which content is resonating with our audience and which content isn’t.
So those are some of the reasons for performing a content audit.
Now, how do we actually perform one?
Well, the first step is to set some goals.
So, here are some general goals we’ll want to set.
First, we’ll want to start by identifying the purpose and the main objectives of the audit.
This could be to improve the user experience, increase conversions, or to align our content with the overall goals of our business.
Once we have identified the main objectives of our content audit, the next step is to define the specific goals and steps that will help us achieve those objectives.
For example, if our goal is to improve user experience, a specific goal could be to reduce the bounce rate on our website.
We’ll also want to set measurable targets to track our progress and evaluate the success of our audit.
For example, if our goal is to reduce the bounce rate on our website, then we’ll want to set a target percentage to achieve.
It’s also important to establish a timeline and set a deadline for achieving our goals.
It’s easy to get lost in all the little details and become overwhelmed once we start, so defining a time frame will help us to stay focused and motivated throughout the audit process.
We’ll also want to review and revise our results once the content audit is completed and evaluate whether the goals were met.
If they weren’t, we’ll need to revise our goals and identify any areas that need improvement.
Once we have set goals for our content audit, the next step is to perform an inventory of our existing content.
The aim of the content inventory is to basically take stock of all of our existing content … so, that means making a list of all of our blog posts and articles, videos, podcasts, social media posts, email newsletters, infographics, and any other types of content that we are currently outputting.
There are a number of tools that can help make this process easier and faster, and I’ve listed these in the URL shown on the screen.
After gathering and making an inventory of all our content, the next step is to organize and categorize it.
You can use a spreadsheet to document everything. You can create this spreadsheet from scratch or use a template.
There are content audit templates that you can download and I’ve added links to useful content audit templates in the slide.
In our spreadsheet, we simply create a column for every new category of data that we want to analyze, add each new content item from our inventory into a new row, and then just go across and fill in the information.
The table on the slide lists some of the items that you may want to include in your spreadsheet to categorize content-related, SEO, and performance elements.
And how you choose to organize and categorize your content and how much detail you want to record about each item is completely up to you.
At a minimum, you’ll want to list your content URLs, and add various useful categories, some metadata, and important metrics to track.
It’s also a good idea to categorize the content into different types. For example, written content, video content, social media posts, etc.
Also, if you review your content calendar – which we’ll talk about in another lesson, it will help you identify the types of content that your business is currently producing and planning to create in the near future.
After categorizing our content, we can then start to analyze our data.
Analyzing our content gives us a better understanding of the types of content our business is currently producing.
So we can begin by asking questions like:
Which topics or themes are we mostly focused on writing about?
Which content types are we mostly focused on creating?
How often are we producing this type of content?
What is the purpose of the content (is it to educate, entertain, generate leads, etc.)?
Who is its intended audience?
Which stage of the buyer journey is this content aimed at?
Which types of content perform the best?
Which types of content are most popular with our audience?
Are there any obvious gaps in the content that stand out, which we should be addressing and taking advantage of?
Do this for your web content, your social media channels, your email marketing, etc.
As you analyze your content, you can also record notes about each item to help your team decide what to do with it later on.
For example, you can mark items as having
Missing content. So, are there any topics that the content hasn’t covered which would be of interest to the audience?
Underperforming content. Looking at the numbers, are there any items that aren’t performing as well as they should?
Outdated content. Can the information be refined (or updated or reworked) to remain optimized and relevant to our audience?
Hit Content. This is content that’s performing well, and its metrics and results are meeting or exceeding all targets and expectations. So it can be left alone, as it’s already doing well.
A really useful tip is to use color coding where assigning colors to different categories in your analysis, then highlight the rows with these colors as you work through the spreadsheet.
So, for example, you can highlight items with missing content in a light red color, underperforming content in yellow, or outdated content in blue, and hit content in green.
This way, anyone looking at the spreadsheet will quickly be able to tell which items need attention and filter these for actioning later.
You can also use tools like Google Analytics and social media analytics tools to gather data on how your content is performing.
After analyzing the content, the next step is to classify it.
This step is important if you plan to rank content by priorities or include a timeline for your audit.
So, the goals that we defined earlier will help to prioritize what needs to be executed first.
For example, you may want to prioritize content from 1 to 5, and then define what happens to content assigned to each of these levels.
So, we would first classify all items as 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.
Then, let’s say that all items ranked 1 are top-converting content and should be given top-priority treatment.
So, we analyze all priority treatment items, that is all items marked 1, further to find ways to do things like
Improve the content, for example, make sections clearer or more detailed, add supporting media like explainer videos, downloadable reports, etc.
Or improve search ranking through different SEO methods, for example, internal linking, more helpful content, etc.
Or improve traffic through social media, email newsletters, paid ads, content repurposing, etc.
So using this process, we can then specify that all items with a score lower than 3 should be transferred to a separate spreadsheet, analyzed in more detail, and assigned different highlight colors to determine whether the content should be updated, rewritten, or trashed.
Now. depending on how much content there is, you may also want to schedule it using a content production tool or your editorial calendar.
And the last step of the content audit process is to take action.
Here we evaluate our content and note what’s working and what isn’t.
Are you seeing desired results from your content like increased website traffic, leads, etc.? If not, what can be improved?
Look for opportunities for improvement and document your findings in your content strategy.
Ultimately, the objective of the content audit is to help you decide whether to keep, discard, refine, or develop content after analyzing each content item that you have inventoried.
So with each item of content, we would use our analysis data and notes to decide if we are going to keep or trash the item.
If we decide to trash the item, there are some things to consider, like whether the item has any kind of traffic or SEO value.
If so, we may want to redirect visitors to another content item before trashing it.
And if we decide to keep the item, does it need to be refined with a quick fix, a longer update, or even a complete rewrite?
Also, the audit may reveal missing gaps and opportunities to develop new content, repurpose existing content, like turning an article into a video or even consolidate a number of articles or blog posts on a similar topic into one authoritative long-form article or guide.
For more information on how to make the most from each of these options, please visit the tutorial listed on the screen.
Let me give you just a couple more tips before we move on…
After performing a content audit, list 5-10 immediate action steps and start getting to work on those right away.
Also, keep in mind that some actions that require little effort can deliver big results (like improving page structure or adding internal links to other content on your site), while other actions need a lot of effort but could deliver poor results (like spending weeks creating a downloadable guide or an eBook).
It’s also important to keep things manageable. As you can imagine, a content audit can turn into a huge and overwhelming task, especially if your business has already published lots of existing content already.
Ideally, performing a complete and thorough audit of your content is best. However, it’s completely up to you to decide which content you will audit, how you will do it, and what goals you are trying to achieve.
So for example if time is a limiting factor, you can break things down into smaller goals and audit only content that falls within a certain period of time (e.g. the previous 6-12 months), or content that meets only certain metrics (like your 50 most popular articles ranked by traffic or conversions), or audit only your website’s blog posts, etc.
Finally, after performing an initial content audit, you will want to schedule regular content reviews (e.g. perform an annual review), as this will continue delivering valuable insights on ways to improve not just your content strategy, but your website and your business too.
Now, let’s talk briefly about taking our content audit further.
A content audit doesn’t have to be limited only to content on your website.
You can also perform audits in areas like…
Offsite content assets. So if you’ve published content on external sites like infographics or slide decks, it’s a good idea to include as much data as you can gather on any external content pieces to help you assess how effective your content marketing efforts are.
There’s also other marketing channels you can look at. As mentioned earlier, you are not restricted only to your web content, you can also look at your social media channels, email marketing, and so on.
For example, if you run email marketing campaigns, is the content in your autoresponders up-to-date? Are there messages with higher open rates than others? Many email services provide analytics and reports that can help you improve the performance of your emails.
You can also audit your social shares. If your site displays share counters on pages, you can measure social shares by looking at the post itself, or by entering the URL of the page or post into various online services. This should provide plenty of actionable data about areas where your competition is outperforming your site.
Also, think about approaching sites that are linking to your competitors with a better piece of content or a guest post idea on the same topic and see if you can persuade them to link to your site instead.
And finally, you can also audit your competitor’s websites. You can use many of the same tools that you used to analyze your own site to perform competitive analysis on your competitors’ sites.
This can help to improve your content performance, especially in areas like SEO or driving more traffic to your site.
While you won’t be able to access certain metrics about their website (such as bounce rate, average time on page, and conversion rate), there are things you can track, like who is ranking higher for the keywords you are targeting, number of backlinks, etc.
So in summary,
If your business has existing content, performing a content audit is key to an effective content strategy.
Taking stock of what we have helps us know how we are doing and where we are going.
A content audit can benefit your business in many ways. It helps to align your content with your goals, improve user experience, identify missing gaps and new opportunities, make better data-driven decisions, and improve your content strategy’s overall performance and results.
And depending on how much content you have, a content audit can be a major task, so use tools to help you. Keep it manageable, but take action. Don’t just let the information sit in a spreadsheet.
After performing an initial content audit, schedule regular content reviews to make sure that there’s continuous improvement and better results in your business and your website.
And finally, remember that you can perform content audits in other areas of your business too, such as external content, other marketing channels, social shares, even audit your competition!
For more detailed information about what we’ve covered in this video, visit the tutorials and lessons listed on your screen.
So that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to start implementing our content strategy by creating a content plan for our business.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 5.
In the previous lesson, we looked at setting goals for our content.
In this lesson, we’ll look at the different types of content that we’ll include in our content strategy.
You can read about each of these content types, including the challenges of creating each of these types, recommended best practices, and links to useful tutorials, tools, and other helpful resources by visiting the URL on your screen.
I’ve listed them here, but I won’t go into each specific type in this lesson.
Content formats include not only common formats like text, images, video, and audio but also interactive formats, virtual and augmented reality, and live streaming.
What I do want to cover in this lesson are the key things to consider when making decisions about which content types you will use.
So, the first thing to consider is your target audience’s needs.
There are many different kinds of business models and what type of business you’re in will affect which types of content you should create to keep your audience engaged.
For example, if we look at these side-by-side charts of content types for B2B and B2C businesses, we can see that while both types of businesses use articles and videos, with B2B businesses, there’s more emphasis on using content types like webinars, case studies, and whitepapers, whereas B2C businesses focus more on using infographics, charts, and long articles.
So what kind of business are you in? What type of audience will you be creating content for?
The next area is knowing what types of content our audience wants to consume, do they prefer their information delivered in the form of blog posts, webinars, case studies, eBooks, etc.?
As we will see in the next lesson, knowing which types of content we will need to create for different stages of our audience’s buying journey is also important.
Resources are the other important area to consider when choosing content types.
These resources mostly have to do with our budget and what kind of team we have available to work on our content.
For example, if our content strategy requires the regular production of high-quality videos, then we obviously need to make sure that we have the budget to cover this and access to people with video production skills, plus the tools to create and edit video content, and so on.
That’s one of the challenges we talked about in module 2.
An important part of creating our content strategy, then, is working with budgets and knowing what percentage of our total marketing budget will be allocated to areas like content production and marketing activities.
So, to summarize what we have covered in this lesson…
To create an effective content strategy, we not only need to understand our target audience and set content goals, we also need to familiarize ourselves with different content types and formats,
We need to know what kind of business we are in, as different business models need different content types.
We need to understand our audience’s content preferences and which content types work best for different stages of the buyer journey,
We need to assess our resources in terms of the budget and team we have to work with, and then we have to decide which content types we’ll create to meet our audience’s needs within our available resources.
For more information about all of these areas, see the tutorials and lessons listed on the screen.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at doing a content audit, which is taking an inventory of our existing content to see how it’s performing and identify any gaps or opportunities that we may be missing out on.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers how to use your target audience information to set SMART goals for your content, plus defining your business goals, aligning your content strategy with your business goals, and determining what you want to achieve with your content (e.g. drive traffic, generate leads, build brand awareness, etc.).
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 4.
In the previous lesson, we looked at understanding our target audience.
In this lesson, we’ll look at setting content goals for our content strategy.
Setting content goals involves identifying what we want to achieve with our content, and then developing specific, measurable, and actionable targets to help us achieve these objectives.
Here are the general steps to follow when setting content goals:
First, identify our target audience. Understanding their demographics, interests, and pain points will inform the types of content that we should be creating.
Next, define our business objectives. We need to determine how our content will support our overall business objectives, such as driving website traffic, increasing conversions, building brand awareness, and so on.
Next, establish specific, measurable, and actionable goals: For each objective we set, we’ll need to create specific, measurable, and actionable goals that align with our objective. For example, “Increase website traffic by 30% within the next six months.”
Also, we need to prioritize our goals based on importance and feasibility. This will help us focus our resources on the content that creates the most impact.
We also need to regularly review and adjust our goals, because the digital landscape is always changing, and so what worked well before may not work as well now.
So, we need to make sure that our goals are current and feasible.
Another important area is to measure and analyze our content’s performance. Here, we can use analytics tools to track performance and measure the success of our content against our goals. This will then help us identify areas for improvement and allow us to make data-driven decisions instead of guessing.
By following these steps, we can set clear and measurable content goals that will align with our business objectives and that will help us achieve our desired outcomes.
So, let’s explore each of these areas now in a little more detail.
The first step is to identify our target audience.
We’ve already covered this in module 3, so if you need help identifying your target audience, just go back and review that module.
The next step is to identify our business objectives.
Before we can identify our business objectives, however, we should have a clear idea of our business vision, mission, and core values.
If you need help with any of these areas, then visit the URL on this screen for an in-depth tutorial.
The next step is to establish specific, measurable, and actionable goals. For each objective or goal that we specify, we need to create specific, measurable, and actionable goals that will align with our objectives.
For example, our goal might be to increase website traffic by 30% within the next six months.
We can use SMART goals to set specific, measurable, and actionable goals to help us achieve this objective.
At this point, we will also want to define the metrics that we will use to measure our results.
If you need help or more information on content metrics, visit the URL on the screen.
The next step is to prioritize our goals based on importance and feasibility.
This will help focus our resources on the content that will create the most impact.
When prioritizing content goals, it’s important to consider both the importance and the feasibility of each goal.
Importance refers to how closely the goal aligns with our overall objectives, while feasibility takes into account the resources, time, and any other constraints that can impact our ability to achieve the goal.
One way to prioritize content goals is to use a method like the Eisenhower Matrix, which separates goals into four categories based on their importance and feasibility:
So…
Important and feasible are goals that should be prioritized and tackled first, as they will have the greatest impact and can be completed with the resources that we have available.
For example, creating product announcement blog posts when new products are released or existing products are updated would likely fall into this category.
The next category is important but not feasible. These goals are important, but can’t be completed given current constraints, so we might need to put these on hold or reevaluate them later to determine if they can be made more feasible.
An example of a goal that might fall in this category is producing a high-budget video ad campaign when we’ve only been given a very low budget to create our content.
Not important but feasible goals are not critical to our objectives, but could still be achieved within our available resources.
These goals can be completed if time allows but should be given lower priority than more important goals.
For example, translating website pages into another language that isn’t critical for our target audience would probably fall into this category.
And the last category is not important and not feasible, If goals are neither important nor feasible, then just drop them. They are not important and they are not feasible.
When using a method like the Eisenhower Matrix, it’s important to list all of our goals, then evaluate each one, add them into one of these four categories, and make a decision based on the category we’ve selected.
The next step is to continually review and adjust our goals.
As mentioned earlier, the digital landscape is always changing, so what worked well before may not work as well now.
The last step is to track our goals and measure and analyze our content performance using analytics tools. This will help us identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions.
So, to summarize what we have covered in this lesson, setting content goals involves steps like:
Identifying our target audience
Defining our business objectives
Establishing SMART goals
Prioritizing our goals according to importance and feasibility
Regularly reviewing and adjusting our goals to make sure they remain aligned with our objectives, and
Measuring and analyzing our content performance against the goals that we have set.
For more information about each of these areas, see the tutorials and lessons that are listed on the screen.
That’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at the different types of content to include in our content strategy.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson looks at ways and methods to identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience, create user personas for your business, and understand the buyer’s journey and what types of content will be most relevant and valuable to your audience at each different stage of their journey.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
So far, we’ve looked at what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits and importance of having a clear and defined content strategy in module 1.
We then looked at the main challenges of managing content effectively and what we need to put in place before we can develop an effective content strategy. That was module 2.
This is module 3, and this lesson is all about identifying and understanding our target audience.
Understanding our target audience is essential to develop an effective content strategy that will help our business succeed.
By identifying key characteristics of our target audience such as demographics, their interests, and their pain points, we can then create content that will speak directly to their needs, desires, and motivations.
So, how do we identify our target audience?
First, let’s look at what we are trying to understand about our audience.
Demographics relates to a market or a sector of the population.
Understanding our audience’s demographics lets us tailor our content strategy and content to better meet the specific needs of our customers.
Demographics relates to attributes like age, gender, income, education, occupation, geographical location, maybe even their family structure or lifestyle, if that’s important, and psychographics.
Psychographics is similar to demographics, but it deals with attributes that are harder to observe, such as mental and emotional characteristics and motives, whereas demographics are more visible and easier to determine.
So, things like your audience’s values, beliefs, and attitudes are psychographic attributes, whereas age, income, and occupation are demographics.
Now, the next set of information that we want to identify relates to our target audience’s interests and hobbies.
Understanding our target audience’s interests and hobbies can help us create messaging and advertising content that will fit their preferences and resonate with our audience, keep them engaged longer with our business or website, and create a more personalized approach that will help to increase our chances of attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.
To identify the interests and hobbies of our audience, we need to know things like:
What do they like to do in their free time?
What are they interested in learning more about?
Here are some examples of questions we can ask to uncover these answers:
“What are some of your favorite hobbies or activities outside of work?”
“What are some of the books, movies, or TV shows you enjoy?”
“What are some of the websites or blogs you like to visit?”
“What kind of music do you like to listen to?”
“What kind of events or activities do you like to attend?”
“What kind of sports or fitness activities are you interested in?”
“What kind of hobbies or activities do you enjoy with your family?”
“What are some of your favorite travel destinations or dream vacation spots?”
“What are some of the volunteer or community activities you’re involved in?”
“What are some of the causes or social issues that you care about?”
Another area we want to identify about our target audience are their pain points.
Their challenges, problems, and frustrations.
So what problems are they trying to solve?
And how can your product or service help to address these pain points?
Understanding our audience’s pain points lets us tailor our content to address their specific needs, desires, and concerns.
Now, how do we gather data about our target audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points?
If you visit the page listed on this slide, you will find more detailed information about each of these sources and links to tools and resources that you can use to gather this data.
Another way to identify your target audience is to create user personas for your business.
A user persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer.
User personas provide a detailed and specific picture of who your target audience is, what their needs and goals are, and how they think and behave.
You create a user persona from the data and research gathered about your target audience.
And these allow you to address your ideal customer when creating your content.
And there are a number of free user persona online generators that you can use to create user personas.
Visit the URL on the screen for a list of free tools.
The other important area that will help you identify your target audience and their needs, is understanding your customer’s buyer journey.
The buyer journey is the process that a potential customer goes through before making a purchase.
The stages of the buyer journey are typically divided into Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Retention.
In the awareness stage, your potential customer becomes aware of a problem or need that they have.
In the consideration stage, our potential customer is actively searching for a solution to meet their needs and is considering their options.
In the decision stage, potential customers have made a decision to solve their problem, and they are now looking for the best solution, and they are ready to make a purchase.
In the retention stage, the customer has already purchased the product or service and is now using it.
Since they have already purchased, this stage is not typically considered to be part of the customer’s purchasing journey but your content strategy still needs to accommodate this audience group in terms of retaining them and building customer loyalty.
Visit the URL on the screen for more details on understanding your customer’s buyer journey, the types of content you can create for each different stage of their journey, and useful tools and resources that will help you save time.
So, to summarize what we have covered in this lesson, let’s look at the action steps that we need to take to identify our target audience.
One, gather data about their demographics, interests, and pain points. There are various methods you can use to do this,
Two, create user personas. There are free online user persona generator tools that you can use, and
And three, understand the customer’s buyer journey and the best content types to help them at each stage.
For detailed tutorials covering each of these areas and links to tools and resources, just visit the URLs shown on your screen.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at setting content goals to create an effective content strategy.
Thank you for watching this video and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 2.
In module 1, we introduced you to the course and looked at what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits and importance of having a clear content strategy.
In this lesson, we are going to look at what you need to know and do before you can create a content strategy for your business.
Now, there are obvious and not-so-obvious challenges to managing content effectively.
So, let’s look at some of the obvious challenges first.
These include things like:
Having too much content. The more content you have, the more content you have to manage. Without good content management systems, it’s hard to keep your content organized and easy to find, and important information can end up getting lost or overlooked.
It’s also harder to coordinate your content when you have multiple people or teams contributing to it.
Also, having outdated, inaccurate, or obsolete information can be confusing for users and harm your credibility.
Another challenge is adapting to new technologies and platforms. Your business needs to keep up with new technologies, systems, and tools to stay current and manage its content effectively.
Keeping sensitive or confidential content secure and protected from unauthorized access or leaks is another challenge.
And so is tracking and measuring content performance, which is essential for making informed decisions.
Keeping content integrated and aligned with other systems and processes within your organization is also challenging, but important to optimize efficiency and avoid confusion or duplication of effort.
And budget and resources constraints is a challenge for all businesses, especially small businesses.
Now, the not-so-obvious challenges of managing your content effectively don’t become apparent until you actually start trying to manage your content effectively.
Then you discover that effective content management is a Catch-22 situation.
If you are not familiar with this expression, think about the dilemma that most people face when they first try to get a job.
You’ve probably heard people complain that no one will give you a job if you don’t have experience, but how can you get experience if no one will give you a job?
That’s an example of a Catch-22 situation.
Similarly, when it comes to managing your content effectively, you discover that “You can’t plan, produce, promote, and manage your content effectively until you have put in place the right systems and processes to plan, produce, promote, and manage your content effectively.”
But then you are faced with the challenge of do you put content management systems in place first and then start to create and promote your content, or do you start creating and promoting your content first and then worry about putting systems in place later?
As we will see, this has a significant and direct impact on our content strategy.
So, let me explain what I mean.
Your content strategy is part of your content management system, so if we start creating and promoting content before developing our content strategy and putting systems in place to manage our content effectively, then what’s the point of having a content strategy?
Let’s go back to our definition of a Content Strategy from module 1.
A content strategy is…
A plan for creating, publishing, and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to achieve specific business goals and objectives.
A content strategy also helps you:
Define who your target audience is and understand their needs and interests
Create the right content to address their needs and speak to their interests
Determine the most effective channels for distributing your content
And track and measure performance so you can continue to improve your results.
So, without a content strategy, we are just creating content blindly with no real direction or ways to measure and track our content’s performance, so it’s all going to be hit-and-miss and guesswork and assumptions.
As we will see later in this course, eventually your business will end up with a very difficult mess to deal with and many more problems to try and sort out.
So we want to put a content strategy in place before we start creating and promoting our content.
But, this has its own challenges.
The first challenge is that a content strategy involves all areas of our business because content impacts all areas of our business.
Even writing a simple article or blog post for our website has to take into account areas like marketing and research, product development, accounting, legal stuff related to what you can and can’t say in your content, and even different types of technology like servers and different applications that are used by different teams or departments to store and send information, and so on.
You can read more about this challenge by following the link on your screen.
The point is that our content strategy has to take all of this into account.
The next challenge is that creating high-quality content and managing our content effectively requires quite a sizeable team.
There are many different roles involved in the process of planning, creating, promoting, and managing content.
So, whether you’re an individual blogger or part of a larger organization, all of these roles and responsibilities have to be met, so our content strategy also needs to take all this into account.
This leads to the next challenge, which is that it takes significant resources to create high-quality content and manage this content effectively.
You need a sizeable budget and personnel with the right skills and expertise, plus spending time doing content research, content planning, and documenting systems.
All of this is time-consuming and takes resources away from other areas of our business.
Most businesses operate with very limited resources and have very little time to devote to areas like content planning and documenting systems, so that’s a big challenge when it comes to creating a content strategy.
And finally, the last of the “not-so-obvious” challenges only becomes obvious when we try to start putting our content strategy together.
And this challenge is that all of the basic business foundations need to be in place for our content strategy to be truly effective.
Let’s think about what this means.
If the aim of our content strategy is to help our business achieve specific goals and objectives, then our business first needs to define those goals and objectives before we can put a strategy together to achieve these goals and objectives.
But it’s not just setting goals and objectives.
Before we can put an effective content strategy together, we also need to have a clear marketing plan, and this comes from having a clear marketing strategy, which comes from having a clear business plan, which comes from having a clear business strategy, which comes from having clear strategic goals and objectives, which come from having a clearly-stated business vision, mission statement, and core values.
If all of these processes are not clearly defined, then our content strategy will not be as effective.
So, let’s recap what we need to know and do before developing a content strategy for our business.
First, we need to be aware of the challenges of managing content effectively and
Then, we need to make sure that all of the basic business foundations are in place.
I’ve listed a number of articles on this screen that I recommend you read, as these cover in more detail everything that we’ve talked about in this lesson.
So, make sure to visit the website and if you have subscribed to the free email course, you will get additional information on everything that we cover in this video course.
So, that’s the end of this lesson.
In the next video, we’ll cover module 3, which is all about understanding our target audience.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Troubleshoot common issues in your content plan to improve your content strategy.
Troubleshooting Your Content Plan
Learn how to troubleshoot common issues in your content plan to improve your content strategy.
To establish a strong online presence and engage with your target audience, it’s essential for your business to develop a sound content plan.
However, even the most well-crafted plan can run into unexpected obstacles along the way.
Whether it’s a lack of clarity about your target audience, limited resources, or a failure to consider SEO, there are a number of common issues that can negatively impact your content plan.
In this lesson, we’ll explore some common problems that your business may face implementing a content plan and provide solutions and ways to address these.
By understanding these issues and knowing how to troubleshoot them, you’ll be better equipped to create a content plan that resonates with your target audience and helps your business reach its goals.
This article is part of our Content Troubleshooting Guide where we help you identify and fix content-related problems in your business.
Most content-related problems are a result of not having a sound content strategy in place, so if your content is not performing or delivering results as expected, the first thing to do is troubleshoot your content strategy.
If you are sure that the problems you are experiencing with your content are not strategic-level issues, the next area to look at is your content plan.
Step 2 – Troubleshoot Your Content Plan
Here are some common problems related to your content plan that can affect your content’s performance and results:
Lack Of Clear Goals And Objectives
Without a clear understanding of what your business wants to achieve with its content, it can be difficult to create a content plan that aligns with the overall strategy.
A lack of clear goals and objectives in your content plan can be addressed by setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for your content.
For example, instead of setting a goal to “increase website traffic,” a more specific and measurable goal would be “increase website traffic by 20% over the next quarter by publishing two new blog posts per week.”
Insufficient Resources
Your business may not have the necessary resources, such as budget, personnel, technology, or time to execute its content plan effectively, thereby limiting the scope and reach of the content that you can produce.
For example, if you have a small marketing budget, you may not be able to produce high-quality videos or run expensive advertising campaigns.
To address issues in your content plan related to insufficient resources, your business must find ways to prioritize and optimize available resources.
Also, your business may allocate a budget for content marketing in its content strategy, but when the budget filters down to the content planning stage, the allocated budget may be insufficient to cover all that is expected to do. In this situation, your business either has to find or free up more resources or reevaluate its content strategy.
Lack Of Clarity Of Your Audience
Without a deep understanding of your target audience, it can be difficult to create content that resonates with them and drives engagement.
For example, you may create content that is too technical for a general audience, or not specific enough for a niche audience.
To address issues in your content plan related to a lack of clarity regarding your target audience, consider conducting market research to better understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points.
For example, you could conduct surveys or focus groups to gather information about your target audience or analyze customer data to identify patterns and trends.
If your business’s content is similar to that of its competitors, it can be difficult to stand out and attract and retain customers.
Issues related to a lack of content differentiation can be addressed by researching and better understanding your target audience, their pain points and interests, and creating content that addresses their specific needs and interests.
For example, if your company sells a weight loss supplement, you could differentiate your content by creating a series of blog posts on healthy recipes, workout plans, and success stories from real customers who have used your supplement.
Inadequate Content Distribution
Even the best content can fail to generate results if it is not distributed effectively. Your business needs to have a distribution plan that reaches your target audience.
Issues related to inadequate content distribution can be addressed by identifying the most effective channels to reach your target audience and utilizing these to distribute your content.
For example, if you are targeting young professionals, you could find that you’ll get better results distributing your content on LinkedIn and Instagram, while if you are targeting stay-at-home parents, you may find more success on Facebook and Pinterest.
No Content Measuring Or Evaluating
Without measuring or evaluating your content’s performance, it can be difficult to determine what is working and what is not, identify areas for improvement, and improve your results.
For example, you may produce a high volume of content but fail to track engagement or conversions, making it difficult to understand the impact of the content on your business.
To address issues in your content plan related to a lack of measurement or evaluation, establish clear goals and metrics for your content and track its progress over time.
For example, you can use analytics software to track website traffic, conversions, and engagement, or conduct surveys to gather feedback on your content and use it to improve future content.
Lack Of Content Focus Or Consistency
If your business fails to publish content consistently, you risk confusing, alienating, or losing your audience, and failing to establish yourself as an authoritative source in your industry.
For example, if you regularly produce content on different topics, you may struggle to build a following or establish yourself as an expert in any one area.
To address issues in your content plan related to a lack of focus or consistency, establish a content calendar that includes regular content topics, themes, or formats, such as a weekly blog post or a monthly video series focusing on one industry or niche, and stick to it.
No Content Integration With Other Marketing Efforts
To maximize the impact of your content marketing activities, you need to ensure that your content integrates with other marketing efforts, such as social media, email, and advertising.
Issues caused by a lack of integration with other marketing efforts can be addressed by creating a content marketing plan that aligns with your overall marketing strategy and goals.
For example, if you are running a social media campaign to increase brand awareness, you could integrate your content by creating shareable social media posts featuring the content and including the campaign hashtag.
Difficulty Creating Engaging And Relevant Content
Creating content that resonates with your target audience and aligns with the goals of your business can be challenging.
To address this issue, use data and research to understand the current content landscape and identify content gaps that your business can fill, and conduct research to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience, including their demographics, pain points, and interests.
Use this information to create unique and valuable content that addresses your audience’s needs and interests, and test and experiment with different types of content to see which resonates best with them.
No Sense Of Storytelling
Your content should be able to tell a story and engage your audience, instead of just being a series of bullet points or facts.
Issues related to no sense of storytelling can be addressed by incorporating storytelling elements into your content, such as relatable characters, a clear conflict, and a satisfying resolution.
For example, if your business sells a productivity app, you could create a series of blog posts featuring real-life examples of how the app has helped different types of users, such as small business owners, students, and stay-at-home parents to increase their productivity.
For example, you may produce great content but fail to optimize it for search engines by ignoring warnings and suggested fixes from your Google Search Console dashboard.
Consider implementing suggestions from Google on how to improve your content’s search engine optimization.
To address issues related to a lack of consideration for SEO, ensure that your content is optimized for search engines by reviewing SEO guidelines, including relevant keywords, meta tags, and alt tags.
Also, make sure that your site is mobile-friendly with a fast page loading speed, and has a clean and structured site architecture.
Without understanding the metrics that matter, it can be difficult to assess the effectiveness of your content plan and make data-driven decisions.
For example, you may focus on increasing website traffic but neglect to track conversions or sales.
To address issues related to a limited understanding of analytics, consider investing in tools and training to help your team track and analyze key metrics and use analytics software to track website traffic, conversions, and engagement, or consider hiring a data analyst to help make sense of the data.
Content Plan Not Flexible
A content plan that is not flexible can limit the ability to adapt to changes in the market or the industry.
For example, if you are not willing to pivot your content strategy to reflect changes in customer needs or industry trends, your business may struggle to stay relevant.
To address issues in your content plan related to a lack of flexibility, be willing to pivot your strategy as needed to adapt to changes in your market or industry.
For example, conduct a content audit and regular reviews of your content to identify areas that need improvement and make adjustments accordingly.
Step 3 – Troubleshoot Your Content Implementation Plans
If you are not experiencing the general issues described above, you may need to drill further into areas of your content plan and troubleshoot elements of your content plan like:
Content marketing is an inbound marketing strategy and it takes time to generate leads.
If your business is not getting enough leads from your content marketing efforts, this is most likely an issue related to content promotion.
Solution: Review your content promotion plan. You may need to troubleshoot issues related to lead magnets, calls-to-action, and landing pages to convert visitors into leads or use retargeting ads to target people who engaged with your content but haven’t converted.
Difficulty Measuring Content Performance
Measuring your content’s performance can be challenging because there are many different metrics that you can use and each metric may have its own strengths and weaknesses.
If you’re experiencing difficulty measuring your content’s performance, this could be an issue of content promotion related to not defining content metrics aligned with the goals and objectives of your business, or a content management issue related to not setting up systems for tracking your content’s performance.
For example, you may find that the issue is related to things like:
Not defining common metrics used to measure content performance such as engagement (e.g. clicks, shares, likes), reach (e.g. views, unique visitors), and conversions (e.g. sales, signups). You may need to use a combination of metrics, rather than relying on a single metric (for example, engagement metrics and reach metrics) to provide a more complete picture of how well a piece of content is performing,
Not tracking metrics over a longer period of time to identify meaningful trends and patterns in performance
Not using A/B testing to test different versions of a piece of content and compare their performance, or
Not providing your team with better training on how to interpret the metrics used to measure performance and how these relate to a desired outcome, such as driving sales or increasing brand awareness.
Summary
Creating a content plan that effectively communicates your brand message and drives business growth can be a challenging task.
When things aren’t going as planned, take a step back and assess the situation. Are your goals and objectives clear? Is your content differentiated from your competitors? Are you utilizing the right channels to distribute your content?
Hopefully, the simple yet actionable solutions to common content plan issues presented above will help you get your content back on track.
A content measurement plan is not just a document, it is a powerful tool that can help to improve the effectiveness and ROI of your content marketing efforts.
By outlining the goals, objectives, key performance indicators (KPIs), measurement tools, and schedule for measuring and evaluating the performance of your content marketing efforts, a content measurement plan helps to track progress and make data-driven decisions on how to optimize your content strategy.
Benefits Of Having A Content Measurement Plan
The key benefits of having a content measurement plan include:
Alignment with business goals: A content measurement plan ensures that your content marketing efforts are aligned with your overall business goals and objectives, which can help to increase the ROI of those efforts.
Data-driven decisions: By tracking and analyzing key performance indicators, a content measurement plan allows you to make data-driven decisions on how to optimize your content strategy, which can help to improve the effectiveness of your efforts.
Improved ROI: By measuring and analyzing the ROI of content marketing, a content measurement plan can help you to identify which types of content are most effective and allocate resources accordingly.
Increased accountability: A content measurement plan helps to increase accountability by making it clear what goals and objectives have been set and how progress will be tracked and evaluated.
Better communication: A content measurement plan can help to improve communication between different stakeholders by providing a clear understanding of goals and objectives and how they will be measured.
Continuous improvement: Regular monitoring and measurement allows for continuous improvement, as data from the measurement can be used to adjust your strategy, improve your content and optimize your results.
How To Create A Content Measurement Plan
Creating a content measurement plan involves several steps, including:
Define goals and objectives: The first step in creating a content measurement plan is to define clear goals and objectives for your content marketing efforts. These should be aligned with your overall business objectives and should include specific, measurable targets. For example, a goal could be to increase website traffic by 10% in the next quarter.
Identify key performance indicators (KPIs): Once goals and objectives have been defined, the next step is to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure progress towards those goals. These should be specific, measurable metrics that are directly related to your goals and objectives. For example, website traffic and engagement rates are KPIs for the goal of increasing website traffic.
Select measurement tools: After identifying the KPIs, you’ll need to select the tools you will use to track and measure them. Examples of tools include Google Analytics, social media analytics, and marketing automation software.
Set a schedule: Decide on a schedule for monitoring the performance of your content, this could be monthly, quarterly, or even daily. This will help you to track progress and make adjustments to your content strategy as needed.
Analyze and interpret data: Once data has been collected, it’s important to analyze and interpret it to determine what’s working well and what’s not. This may involve identifying patterns, trends, and outliers, and making decisions based on the insights gained.
Make adjustments: Based on the analysis and interpretation of the data, make adjustments to your content strategy as needed. This may involve making changes to the types of content you’re creating, the channels you’re using to distribute it, or the messages you’re communicating.
Content Measurement Plan – An Example
Here is an example of a content measurement plan:
Goal: Increase website traffic by 10% in the next quarter
KPIs: Website traffic, bounce rate, time on page, and new vs returning visitors
Measurement tools: Google Analytics
Schedule: Monthly
Tasks:
Collect data from Google Analytics every month
Analyze the data to identify trends, patterns, and areas of opportunity
Compare the data from the current month to the data from the previous month
Use the insights gained to make adjustments to the content strategy.
Summary
A content measurement plan is not only a critical tool for any content marketing strategy, as it helps to track progress, make data-driven decisions, and improve the effectiveness and ROI of content marketing efforts, but it is also a living document and should be regularly reviewed and updated as needed.
Also, it is important to communicate the plan with the stakeholders involved in the content creation process, so that they understand the goals and objectives of the plan and how they can contribute to it.
A Document Management System can improve your organization’s productivity and efficiency.
Document Management Systems
A Document Management System can improve your organization’s productivity and efficiency.
A Document Management System (DMS) can play a crucial role in your content documentation system by providing a central location to store, manage, and organize all of your electronic and physical documents, automating tasks, providing security and compliance, and integrating with other tools.
In this lesson, we will discuss the key benefits and features to look for when selecting a Document Management System, and provide a list of popular DMS applications.
Document management systems (DMS) are software programs designed to help organizations manage, store, and track their electronic and physical documents.
These systems provide a centralized repository for all documents, making it easy for users to access and share information.
They also offer powerful tools for organizing, searching, and retrieving documents, as well as for controlling access to them.
Benefits Of Using A DMS
When selecting a DMS, it’s important to consider the specific needs of your organization.
Some key features of a DMS to look for include:
Document organization: A DMS should provide a centralized repository for all documents, making it easy to organize and categorize them. This can save time when searching for specific documents and ensure that all documents are stored in a consistent and easy-to-find location.
Document security: A DMS should include robust security features to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with industry regulations. This can include user-level access controls, encryption, and backups.
Document version control: DMSs should provide version control functionality, which allows users to track changes made to a document over time and easily revert to previous versions.
Document retrieval: A good DMS should make it easy to search for and retrieve documents, even if they are stored in different locations. This can save time and increase productivity.
Document collaboration: A DMS should include tools for collaboration, such as commenting and shared editing. This can improve team communication and coordination.
Document workflow: Many DMSs include tools for automating document-related tasks, such as routing documents for approval or tracking their status. This can streamline document-related processes and improve efficiency.
Integration: Your DMS should easily integrate with other software systems you already use, such as email or project management tools. This can improve the overall workflow and collaboration between different tools.
Cost-effective: A good DMS should help to reduce the need for paper storage, which can save on costs related to printing, paper, and storage space.
Mobile access: Some DMSs allow users to access documents from mobile devices, which means employees can access their work even when away from the office.
Compliance: DMSs can help organizations to comply with legal and regulatory requirements by providing document retention and destruction policies, and audit trails of access and changes.
Time-saving: A great DMS should automate many of the manual tasks associated with document management such as document retrieval, organization, and version control, which can save time and increase productivity.
Popular DMS Applications
Here is a list of popular Document Management Systems:
Microsoft SharePoint: A web-based DMS that offers document storage, collaboration, and workflow tools. It also integrates with other Microsoft Office applications.
Google Drive: A cloud-based DMS that allows users to store and share files, including documents, images, and videos. It also includes tools for collaboration and commenting on documents.
Dropbox: A cloud-based DMS that enables users to store and share files and folders. It also includes tools for file syncing, version control, and collaboration.
Box: A cloud-based DMS that offers tools for storing, sharing, and collaborating on documents. It also includes advanced security and compliance features.
Evernote: A note-taking application that can also be used as a DMS. It allows users to store and organize documents, images, and audio recordings.
DocuSign: An electronic signature and document management platform that allows users to sign and send documents electronically. It also includes tools for tracking document status and compliance.
Acrobat DC: A PDF editing and management tool that allows users to create, edit, and sign PDF documents. It also includes collaboration and commenting tools.
NetDocuments: A cloud-based DMS that offers document storage, search, retrieval, and collaboration tools. It also includes advanced security and compliance features.
iManage: A DMS that is specifically designed for the legal industry. It offers document management, email management, and knowledge management tools, as well as advanced security and compliance features.
M-Files: A DMS that uses metadata to organize and classify documents. It also includes tools for document workflow and collaboration, as well as advanced security and compliance features.
Alfresco: An open-source DMS that offers document management, collaboration, and workflow tools. It also allows for integration with other software systems.
OpenText Content Suite: A DMS that offers document management, collaboration, and workflow tools, as well as advanced security and compliance features. It also allows for integration with other software systems.
FileHold: A DMS that offers document management, version control, and search and retrieval tools, as well as advanced security and compliance features. It also allows for integration with other software systems.
Docuware: A DMS that offers document management, workflow, and search and retrieval tools, as well as advanced security and compliance features. It also allows for integration with other software systems.
PairSoft(formerly PaperSave): A DMS that is specifically designed for the accounting industry. It offers document management, workflow, and search and retrieval tools, as well as advanced security and compliance features.
DMS vs CMS: What’s The Difference?
A Document Management System (DMS) and a Content Management System (CMS) are both software solutions that are used to manage, store, and distribute digital content.
However, there are some key differences between the two:
Content scope: A DMS is specifically designed to manage and store documents, such as Word, PDF, and Excel files. A CMS, on the other hand, is designed to manage and distribute a wider range of content, such as text, images, videos, and audio files.
Functionality: A DMS typically includes tools for document management, version control, and collaboration. A CMS, on the other hand, includes tools for creating, editing, and publishing content, as well as for managing and organizing website content.
User experience: DMSs are typically used by a specific group of users within an organization, such as the legal or accounting department. They are designed to be used by employees within the organization. A CMS, on the other hand, is used to manage and distribute content to a wider audience, including external users, customers, and clients.
Access Control: A DMS usually has more robust access control features than a CMS, as it is designed to manage and protect sensitive documents, while a CMS is designed to distribute content to a wider audience.
Integration: A DMS may have more integration options with other business-specific software such as accounting or project management systems. A CMS, on the other hand, may have more integration options with e-commerce and marketing platforms, as it’s focused on publishing and distributing content to the public.
In short, while both systems can be used together to manage all of your digital content…
A DMS focuses on managing and protecting documents within an organization, while a CMS focuses on creating, managing, and distributing content to a wider audience.
Document Management System (DMS) vs Document Library
A Document Management System (DMS) and a Document Library are both tools used to store and manage documents, but they serve different purposes and have different functionalities.
A Document Management System is designed to manage, track and store documents, as well as facilitate document collaboration, workflow, and sharing.
A DMS usually includes features such as version control, document check-in and check-out, audit trails, access controls, and document retention policies.
A DMS is also typically used in more complex environments, such as large organizations, where a significant amount of documentation is produced, and where document workflows and processes need to be strictly controlled and monitored.
On the other hand, a Document Library is a simpler tool designed to provide easy access to documents and resources. It usually allows users to upload and store documents in a central location, and share them with others.
A document library may include features such as search, filtering, categorization, and tagging to help users find the documents they need.
It is typically used in smaller organizations, such as small businesses or nonprofits, where the volume of documentation is lower and where simple access and organization of documents are the primary needs.
In short, a Document Management System is a more complex tool that provides advanced document management features, while a Document Library is a simpler tool designed to provide easy access to documents and resources. The choice between the two depends on your organization’s needs and the complexity of your document workflows and processes.
Here are frequently asked questions about documenting management systems:
What is Document Management?
Managing the creation, storage, organization, and disposal of documents within an organization.
Why is document management important?
It helps in maintaining organizational efficiency, ensures compliance with laws and regulations, and improves information accessibility and security.
What is a Document Management System (DMS)?
A DMS is a system used to receive, track, manage, and store documents to reduce paper and organize electronic documents. These systems maintain records of the various versions created and modified by different users (history tracking).
Essentially, a DMS is a software system that manages, stores, and tracks electronic documents and electronic images of paper-based information.
What are the key benefits of using a document management system?
Benefits include improved efficiency in accessing and retrieving documents, reduced costs on paper and storage, significant reduction in physical storage space, better control over sensitive documents and strengthened data security, better compliance with regulations, enhanced efficiency, improved collaboration by allowing multiple users to work on documents simultaneously, and streamlined workflows.
What types of documents can be stored in a DMS?
Any type of document can be stored, including text files, PDFs, spreadsheets, images, and emails.
How much time will using a document management system actually save?
It varies by organization, but improvements in document retrieval times and workflow efficiencies can significantly reduce operational hours.
When should we use a Document Management System?
Whenever managing large volumes of documents, needing secure archival and quick access, or needing to comply with regulatory requirements.
What document management issues can a DMS solve?
It can solve issues related to document loss, access control, audit trail gaps, and inefficiencies in retrieval and storage.
How does a Document Management System reduce costs?
It reduces costs associated with physical storage, paper usage, and administrative overhead.
What should we look for in a document management system?
Key features should include version control, indexing and search, security measures, access controls, audit trails, document workflow, compliance tracking, and the ability to integrate with other business systems.
How do we begin to manage our documents more effectively with a document management system?
Start by defining document categories, setting up indexing and taxonomy, implementing access controls, and training staff on the new system.
How does a Document Management System differ from a Content Management System?
A Document Management System focuses specifically on managing documents in compliance with regulations and internal policies, primarily suited for handling formatted documents. In contrast, a Content Management System manages all types of content including web content and multimedia, often with tools for creating, editing, and publishing digital content.
Can Document Management Systems be web-based and locally hosted?
Yes, Document Management Systems can be configured as web-based solutions that are hosted on local servers or in the cloud, depending on organizational needs and security requirements.
What is an example of an enterprise application for Document Management?
Content Manager is an example of an enterprise application used as the official recordkeeping system by the University of Melbourne. It is designed to manage the lifecycle of information from creation to disposition.
What is records management?
The systematic control of records throughout their lifecycle, from creation to final disposition.
How long should we keep our records?
This depends on legal and business requirements; each type of record will have a different retention schedule based on regulatory and operational needs.
What is a record retention program?
A policy-based system to determine how long different types of records should be kept based on legal and operational requirements.
What is backfile conversion?
The process of converting paper documents into electronic formats to be managed and stored by a document management system.
How do I prepare my business to prevent data loss or breach disasters?
Implement robust data backup and recovery plans, use encryption, regularly update security protocols, and educate employees about cybersecurity.
What is electronic document management?
The use of computer systems and software to store, manage, and track electronic documents and electronic images of paper documents.
What is electronic document imaging?
The process of converting paper documents into digital images.
What does EDMS mean?
Electronic Document Management System, focused on managing, storing, and securing electronic documents.
What are the typical features of an EDMS?
Includes document indexing, search capabilities, version control, security features, workflow management, and compliance tracking.
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So that’s all for this lesson.
Content formats include not only common formats like text, images, video, and audio but also interactive formats, virtual and augmented reality, and live streaming.
What I do want to cover in this lesson are the key things to consider when making decisions about which content types you will use.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at doing a 
By identifying key characteristics of our target audience such as demographics, their interests, and their pain points, we can then create content that will speak directly to their needs, desires, and motivations.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at setting content goals to create an effective content strategy.
Now, there are obvious and not-so-obvious challenges to managing content effectively.
Now, the not-so-obvious challenges of managing your content effectively don’t become apparent until you actually start trying to manage your content effectively.
Your content strategy is part of your content management system, so if we start creating and promoting content before developing our content strategy and putting systems in place to manage our content effectively, then what’s the point of having a content strategy?
Let’s go back to our definition of a Content Strategy from module 1.
So, without a content strategy, we are just creating content blindly with no real direction or ways to measure and track our content’s performance, so it’s all going to be hit-and-miss and guesswork and assumptions.
The first challenge is that a content strategy involves all areas of our business because content impacts all areas of our business.
The next challenge is that creating high-quality content and managing our content effectively requires quite a sizeable team.
This leads to the next challenge, which is that it takes significant resources to create high-quality content and manage this content effectively.
And finally, the last of the “not-so-obvious” challenges only becomes obvious when we try to start putting our content strategy together.
So, let’s recap what we need to know and do before developing a content strategy for our business.
So, that’s the end of this lesson.
To establish a strong online presence and engage with your 
A Document Management System (DMS) can play a crucial role in your