Getting on Target with Your Content
In our previous post, we discussed the importance of establishing a quarterly content marketing outline for your business. Creating content marketing can be a fun but sometimes challenging way to market your business online, develop your digital brand and convert readers into paying clients and customers. Maintaining a consistent schedule of content can be especially difficult if you are working from the seat of your pants, without a proper guide to help you stay organized, consistent and on-message. A quarterly content marketing outline can help you do those things and more, allowing you to create an overarching series of content for your blog and social media accounts that accurately reflects your brand voice and conveys exactly what you want to convey to your readers on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.
The best way to develop an outline for your content marketing is by quarter, month and week. In this blog post, we will detail the best ways to complete each step of the process!
Creating A Quarterly Outline
At the end of the calendar year, it’s important to begin thinking ahead to the next, and this is the perfect time to create a quarterly outline for the next year. While it shouldn’t be difficult to create a list of four quarterly topics, the simplicity can be deceiving – this is the highest level on which you will be deciding the course and direction of your content marketing for the entire year! While these quarters won’t completely coincide with the four seasons, it is important to consider the time of year that you will be covering a particular topic – for instance, a quarterly topic such as “New Beginnings” would be more appropriate for the first quarter than the third. With each quarterly topic, consider creating a goal that you wish to accomplish for each quarter. This is the stage in which you should carefully consider your business goals and how you want to implement them throughout the year.
Creating A Monthly Outline
With your quarterly outline complete, you know have the basic foundation set for the content marketing throughout the year. At the monthly level, it’s now time to get more specific about what you want to accomplish, further refining the topics you established for the quarters. Each month of the year falls within a specific season, and depending on your industry, some months may be more crucial than others when it comes to marketing your products or services or connecting with your audience. Consider making more direct, pointed efforts at reaching your audience during these months, while saving more relaxed or fun topics for the slower months. It’s important to note that at the monthly level, you will begin to set a more concrete and inflexible schedule for content, so be certain that you’re taking the process seriously and you’re not going to want to make drastic changes later down the line.
Creating A Weekly Outline
At this step of the process, you’ve now reached a very specific and granular level for planning your content marketing. Depending on if you blog on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, this outline will guide you through the creation of only one or two posts, so be very specific about what you want to cover and the concepts that you want to convey. Using your quarterly and monthly outline as a guide, plan out exactly what you want to say to your audience with each post. Don’t plan on writing out 52 weeks all at once – instead, complete each quarter at a time, focusing on the quarterly topic and allowing the weekly topics to “flow” in a manner that feels both natural and interesting to your audience. Finally, consider bringing in another party to review your work, as brainstorming ideas is the best way to ensure that you are creating an outline that is suitable for your brand and business.