The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has found that among 88% of small-to-medium businesses practicing content marketing, the top 48% have a written content strategy plan. Despite the clear benefits of having a written plan, only 37% of B2B and 40% of B2C write down their content marketing strategy. A decade ago, marketing suffered from the physical constraints of space, such as trade booths and the length of commercials. Now, the rat-race is to make meaning of the limitless space in the internet, and create content that’s unique and appealing to consumers.
With so many more variables like SEO and lead generation in the picture, how can businesses condense their content marketing strategy into a methodical and systematic whole that connects all the pieces together? Businesses often waste a lot of time making lengthy content strategy plans by breaking down each element of the process into separate bits resulting a comprehensive but disjointed proposal. A much better idea would be to use a crisp and succinct one-page plan for your marketing strategy which clinches it together and allows your employees to refer to one common blueprint when holding meetings.
What To Include In Your One-Page Plan
SWOT Analysis: A SWOT Analysis is a powerfully simple way to assess your company’s progress. Before you embark on your content marketing strategy, you should know where your business stands in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, so you can keep them in mind when planning your marketing efforts. It’s a surprisingly effective way to learn more about your business by focusing on the main points and creating a simplified roadmap for both yourself and your clients.
Target Audience: It’s impossible to create a website for all demographic populations since every niche has its own set of tastes and preferences. In order to pitch a successful marketing strategy, you need to identify who your service is catered towards and conduct in-depth research about your buyer personas. The better you know your audience, the more likely you’ll be able to create content that’s relevant and insightful.
Objectives and Goals: Your objectives will qualitatively address what you aim to achieve through your content strategy depending on the kind of business you are in. They should be worded clearly and precisely and use strong action words that will improve your strategic pitch to clients. Your goals on the other hand qualitatively add business viability to your objectives. For example, your content marketing strategy could aim to increase your conversion rates by five times with a twenty percent profit margin. Remember that the first thing most executives look at is the profitability of any venture, so make sure that your goals are realistic and accommodate your company’s balance sheet.
Content Marketing Mission: This is a brief thesis statement about how you want to see your content marketing strategy grow, and is usually broader than your objectives and goals.
Strategy: As one of the most important sections of your one-page cheat sheet, you should pay special attention to how you word your strategy. Summarize it as briefly as possible within two to three sentences. It’s okay if you can’t fit in all the minute details, because your one-page plan is simply a guide to put your marketing strategy into motion, not a full-fledge manual.
Benefits for Consumers: To convince your stakeholders that your content marketing strategy is worth every penny, you need to come up with a strong selling point that will make your clients believe in it. Avoid making generic and sweeping statements- instead, be specific in your arguments and always keep your company’s core mission and values in mind.
Content Marketing Checklist: It’s a good idea to have a table encapsulating your main distribution channels, SEO keywords, and calls-to-action. That way, you’ll be able to anchor your strategy to your objectives and goals. You can change your SEO keywords and calls-to-action along the way as long as you don’t completely deviate from the original plan.
Estimated Budget Breakdown: Since your page functions as a blueprint, specifying your budget will help you stick to it as you progress in your marketing strategy. If possible, providing a broad break-down would be even better.
Metrics: To measure how successful your marketing is, you need to have an appropriate yardstick that fits well with your strategy and drives growth. Below is the one-page plan you should use for your content marketing strategy:
Marketing Strategy
SWOT Analysis
| S | W | O | T |
Your Target Audience:
Objectives:
Goals:
Content Marketing Mission:
Strategy:
How will consumers benefit from your product/service:
Content Marketing Checklist
| Channel (Offline and Online) | SEO Keywords/Main Focus | Possible calls-to-action |
Estimated Budget Breakdown:
Metrics:
If you want to create the next big marketing strategy, then there’s no better way to start than by creating a one-page written plan. The reason it’s so useful to have one is because it can help crystallize your thoughts and be an easy reference point for your whole team rather than a long, wordy document with cumbersome sections and clauses. A well written one-page plan can even function as an executive summary and unlock exciting new clientele.
ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.