Content creation is not cheap. As content marketers, we may have brilliant ideas for content that meets the needs of customers and prospective customers, but ideas alone don’t convince stakeholders to invest. We need to back up our ideas with data. We need to show that our suggestions align with the needs of our target audience segments.
To make this effort easier, I have created a tool that does this aligning literally – across rows in a spreadsheet. I call it the multichannel content marketing planner. This planner provides an easy-to-use, easy-to-share place to capture the data and data-related insights that lead to a strategically solid content marketing plan.
What do I mean by a strategically solid content marketing plan? I mean a plan that achieves the user-centered goal that content strategists everywhere strive for: getting the right content to the right people at the right time, which requires us to use the right channels.
This planner fits into a process that looks something like this:
Conduct content stakeholder interviews.
Review metrics reports, research, and insights.
Audit the site.
Summarize and share your findings.
Brainstorm content ideas with your team.
Fill in the planner (the focus of this article).
Share the planner with stakeholders and get their buy-in.
Develop editorial guidelines.
Plot out your editorial calendar.
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The role of data-driven content strategy
Let’s talk about the role that data plays inside this tool. The data works well in this format because the rows and columns give us visual support for telling a story of what our target audience needs. This format is easy for stakeholders to follow.
Presenting your stakeholders with just raw data – piles of research – might bore or overwhelm them, but sharing the data in this template’s digestible form to communicate what your audience segments need and want across channels can be persuasive.
Insights and data have always been part of my content strategy and content marketing plans. My clients, especially those who are new to publishing, always want to see the numbers to decide whether content creation is worth the risk. For example, I have had clients resist incorporating corporate-responsibility content into their fashion e-commerce site because they thought that this content would distract those who want to purchase. When those clients saw in the planner that, prices being equal, over 90% of global consumers are more likely to switch to a brand that supports a cause, they dropped their resistance and supported my recommendation.
So yes, the planner can help you get your ideas approved. Beyond the approval, it can support ongoing content development. One client – whose bounce rate decreased by 50% after implementing the plan I had proposed as part of a redesign – found this format so useful that the team continued to use the planner as they developed content after the relaunch. The tool lends itself to ongoing brainstorming because the audience segments and consumption patterns are laid out in such an accessible, helpful way.
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Using the planner
Let’s take a look at the planner. I will walk you through the columns. You can download it here.
Click to enlarge
The right people – audience segments [Column 1]
List your target audience segments – your primary customers and users – in the first column. I’ve picked pregnant women for our hypothetical example. If you are a financial company, the “right people” might include high-net-worth consumers. Fill in as many audience segments as you plan to create strategically sound content for.
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The right content – interests/consumption (insights-driven) [Column 2]
This column helps you make a case for content creation. Include data and insights about each audience segment’s interests and behaviors.
The data might come from secondary research or primary research. Fill in data that answers the question, “Why should we create this content?” Use credible sources. My example includes some data on pregnant women and their digital content consumption for a theoretical company that might want to create products or develop a site to target them.
I add asterisks next to the insights and, if room allows, cite my sources at the bottom of the spreadsheet, as shown in the example. If I have a lot of sources, I point to where I’ve listed them (for example, “All references and citations appear at the end of the content strategy summary document”).
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The right content – content types [Column 3]
Recommend content types based on the data in the previous column. For example, you might find that 70% of your audience members are more likely to watch a particular type of video. If it makes sense for your data, you may want to put the rows in order of priority so that it’s easy for stakeholders to see which content types have the most strategic value.
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The right content – topics [Column 4]
Recommend topics based on insights, data, research, and social listening. Topics should not focus on your products and services but on content your customers will value.
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The right time – channels [as many columns as you need]
I group channels under “right time” because picking the right channel can help you deliver content at the right time. For example, if a consumer in a department store receives an alert on her smartwatch about items on sale, the ad came at the right time through the right channel. An alert appearing on a desktop will not help the consumer at that time.
Base your channel selections on what your audience segments use. For example, if a segment is not interested in wearables, exclude watches from that part of your plan. Your stakeholders will want to see that your plan is not generic, but instead tailored to their audience segments. In the example above, I’ve put an “x” in the recommended channel columns based on the data and insights noted in column 2. You may want to briefly describe the form that the content will take.
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Summary
This planner has proven its value time after time with my clients as a tool for persuading stakeholders of the soundness of my recommendations based on data about their audiences. Feel free to use it. Please let me know if it works for you. Of course, you may want to add or modify columns for your team and stakeholders. Remember that it’s the quality and relevance of the data and insights that make it effective.
Learn more
Editor’s note: Intrigued by content strategy? Can’t get enough templates? Check out these recently published books:
Content Strategy Alliance Tools and Templates: A Best Practices Handbook (“40+ free templates – from a content brief to a content model – and 40 additional examples that demonstrate those templates in use”)
The Content Strategy Toolkit by Meghan Casey (“a step-by-step approach for doing content strategy, from planning and creating your content to delivering and managing it” – includes a slew of downloadable templates)
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Cover image by Viktor Hanacek, picjumbo
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