Content Marketing Planning Tools

Step 1: Establish the main objectives for creating content

Objective

Details

Measurement tools

Objective 1:

Objective 2:

Objective 3:

Step 2: Establish and define the audience profiles

Create personas

Map the buying stages for personas questions/ answers from/ for every individual persona
Persona
Persona 1

Attention

Interest

Main questions/needs:
1.
2.
Company answers/ solutions:
1.
2.
Channels:
1.
2.
3.

Calls to action:
1.
2.

Persona 2

Desire

Action

 Establish the personas contexts: targeted personas significant events (important situations from
personas context that the content might be an answer to):
Events
Event 1
Event 2

Persona 1

Persona 2

Persona 3

Persona 4

Step 3: Establish the content theme

Assessment criteria
Criteria might be:

In the Sweet Spot

Likely to be shared
Easy to write
Rare in the market
Hot topic
Fun
Weird
Pure geek stuff etc.
Criteria

Theme

Theme 1
Theme 2

Focus
Keyword

In the
Sweet
Spot

Likely to
be
Shared

Keyword 1

Easy to
write

Hot topic

Fun

Weird

Pure Geek

Rare

Expensive

Step 4: Establish the content topics

Topic ideas:
A topic is a theme detailed approach, with a focus point and a smart title.
Criteria
Topic title

Topic title 1
Topic title 2

Focus
Keyword

In the
Sweet
Spot

Likely to
be
Shared

Keyword 1

Easy to
write

Hot topic

Fun

Pure Geek

Possible mediums:
o Blog post
o Guest post
o eBook
o White paper
o Newsletter
2

Very detailed

Expensive

Step 5: Established the best medium for topics

Practical/
How-to

o
o
o

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Checklist
Curated piece
Interview
Customer
3rd party expert
In-house expert
Video
Interview/ Chalk talk
Demo/ Documentary
Viral/ Animation
Webinar
Survey or contest
Widget or self-grader
Slideshare or Prezi
Infographic
Print (remember print?)
Article
Live event
Other: Other: Other:

Step 6: Establish the content source

In-house experts/ authors

Experts Name

John Hardy

Customers: Known sites & resources

Website

Links

Existing internal content:

Content name

Where is to be found

Existing external content

Content name

Where is to be found

Desk research (Google, Twitter, Social forums)

Source

Document name

Original research
Research

Where is to be found

Crowd source
Research

Where is to be found

Commission an expert
Experts name

Contact info

Step 7: Establish the style

Tone and content style guide:
Style element
Active vs passive tone
You + I or You + Us
Phraseology
Formal vs casual
Document format

Guidelines

Words That Describe Tone: amused humorous pessimistic angry informal playful cheerful ironic
pompous horror light sad clear matter-of-fact serious formal resigned suspicious gloomy optimistic witty

Design style guide:

Style element
Colours
Icons to use
Fonts

Guidelines

Step 8: Establish the publishing and promotional channels

Your own channels
Your blog
Your e-newsletter
Your website real estate
Your resource library (where will it fit in?)
Cross-promotion in other related content (essential!)
Internal alert
Email footer

Influencers, bloggers, partners & friends

Give them a sneak peek
Let them know its live
Give them thumbnails and (tagged, optimised) URLs
Write a related story for key media
Thank them when they share (duh)

Social Media accounts

Twitter
LinkedIn including relevant groups
Facebook
Google+
Tumblr
Flickr
Pinterest
Social bookmarking (Stumble, Digg)
Q&A Forums Focus, Quora
5

Paid media
PPC AdWords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, LinkedIn Ads etc.
Banner ads
Newsletters & sponsorships
Webinar with media partner
Cost-Per-Lead programs
Direct mail & print media
Affiliate

Step 9: Establish the Lead Nurturing strategy

Map the flow: Public User Lead Prospect Customer
Lead nurturing flow:
Steps
1. Get to a landing page
2. Read/Download content

Content

Copy and CTAs

Download our content
Thank you for downloading.
Interested in more?
You can get better at
See here how.
Which is your situation?
Choose from here.
We can help you with that
and that. What is your
challenge?

3. Get to a new landing page

with more specific content
4. Choose something
5. Let us know your challenge

Step 10: Establish the KPIs and measurement tools

KPIs:

Measurement tools:

Step 11: Create the Content Calendar

Editorial/ Content Calendar
Weekly Publication Calendar
Week 3: 21 28 January 2013
Responsible

Content
Content piece 1
Content piece 2

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

14:30

09:20

Content piece 3

18:20

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monthly Calendar
Period

Theme

Media

Title

Quarterly Content Calendar Sample

Image credit: Velocity Partners UK

Publishing date

Ready on

Yearly content roll-out sample:

Image credit: Velocity Partners UK.

Created by Gabriel DOMBRI

December 2012 / Updated April 2015
Email: gabrieldombri@gmail.com
Phone: 07936 827 598
[Based on some materials and great insights from Velocity Partners UK (especially from The Content
Marketing Strategy Checklist). I thank them here!]