As digital marketing has evolved over the past few years, content marketing has become a key driver of success. The right content marketing strategy increases customer engagement and brand awareness.
Today we’re continuing our three-part content marketing series with part two. To recap, our first blog post helped you determine where to start in building out your strategy for next year. Now, let’s dive in to learn the specifics of how to create a content marketing plan.
1. Define your goal.
What’s your aim for developing a content marketing plan? Why do you want to produce content and create a content marketing plan? Know your goals before you begin planning, and you’ll have an easier time determining what’s best for your strategy.
2. Conduct persona research.
To develop a successful plan, you need to clearly define your content’s target audience — also known as your buyer persona.
This is especially important for those who are starting out or are new to marketing. By knowing your target audience, you can produce more relevant and valuable content that they’ll want to read and ultimately convert from.
If you’re an experienced marketer, your target may have changed. Do you want to target a new group of people or expand your current target market? Do you want to keep the same target audience? Revisiting your audience parameters by conducting market research each year is crucial to growing your audience.
3. Run a content audit.
Most people start out with blog posts, but if you want to venture out and try producing other content pieces, consider which ones you want to make.
For instance, if you’ve been doing weekly blog posts for the past year, creating an ebook that distills all your blog posts into one ultimate guide would be one way to offer information in a different format. We’ll go over several different types of content you can use further down below.
If you’ve been in business for a while, review your content marketing efforts and the results from it in the last year by running a content audit. Figure out what you can do differently in the upcoming year and set new goals to reach. Now is a great time to align your team’s goals with the rest of your organization’s goals.
4. Choose a content management system.
Have a system in place where you can create, manage, and track your content, otherwise known as a content management system (CMS). A few vital parts of content management include content creation, content publication, and content analytics.
With HubSpot CMS, you can plan, produce, publish, and measure your results all in one place. Another popular CMS is WordPress, to which you can add the HubSpot WordPress plugin for free web forms, live chat, CRM access, email marketing, and analytics.
5. Brainstorm content ideas.
Now, it’s time to start coming up with ideas for your next content project. Here’s a list of popular content generators, each offering unique features to enhance your content marketing strategy:
Copy.ai
Copy.ai uses advanced AI to generate marketing copy, blog posts, and ad content. Its intuitive interface allows users to create a variety of content types, including product descriptions, email subject lines, and social media posts, making it ideal for quickly generating high-quality text.
Jasper (formerly Jarvis)
Jasper is a versatile AI writing assistant that helps with long-form content, SEO optimization, and creative writing. It offers features like content templates and tone adjustments, which can assist in drafting blog posts, articles, and marketing materials tailored to your brand’s voice.
Writesonic
Writesonic provides AI-driven content generation for various needs, including landing pages, product descriptions, and social media content. It also offers tools for content ideation and SEO optimization, making it a useful resource for creating engaging and keyword-rich content.
Articoolo
Articoolo focuses on creating concise and coherent articles by summarizing information and generating content based on key points. This tool is particularly useful for generating quick drafts and summaries, allowing you to produce content efficiently while maintaining clarity.
ContentBot
ContentBot is designed for marketers and content creators, offering features for blog writing, ad copy, and email content. Its AI-driven suggestions help streamline content creation, making it easier to generate ideas and produce polished text.
Writesonic
Writesonic excels in producing a wide range of content, from blog posts and articles to Facebook ads and landing pages. It incorporates AI to analyze your input and generate content that aligns with your goals, ensuring that your marketing materials are both engaging and effective.
Frase
Frase focuses on content optimization and creation, using AI to generate content briefs and answer specific search queries. It helps in creating SEO-friendly content by analyzing top-performing pages and providing insights on how to rank better in search engines.
Kuki (formerly known as “Aiva”)
Kuki offers AI-powered content generation for various marketing needs, including blog posts, ad copy, and product descriptions. It helps in brainstorming ideas and drafting content quickly, with a focus on maintaining a consistent brand voice.
Clearscope
Clearscope provides AI-driven content optimization and keyword research, helping you create content that ranks well in search engines. It analyzes top-performing content and offers suggestions for improving readability and SEO.
Scribe
Scribe specializes in creating high-quality documentation and instructional content. It helps generate step-by-step guides and process documents, making it a valuable tool for creating educational content and user manuals.
Each of these tools brings different strengths to the table, so choosing the right one will depend on your company’s specific content needs and goals.
Blog Post Headline Analyzer
CoSchedule’s Blog Post Headline Analyzer tool analyzes headlines and titles and provides feedback on length, word choice, grammar, and keyword search volume. If you have an idea in mind, run a few title options through the Headline Analyzer to see how you could make it stronger, and to move your idea further along in the brainstorming process.
6. Determine which types of content you want to create.
There are a variety of options out there for content you can create. In the following section, we’ll discuss some of the most popular content formats marketers are creating, including some tools and templates to get you started.
7. Publish and manage your content.
Your marketing plan should go beyond the types of content you’ll create — it should also cover how you’ll organize your content. With the help of an editorial calendar, you’ll be on the right track for publishing a well-balanced and diverse content library on your website. Then, create a social media content calendar so you can promote and manage your content on other sites.
Many of the ideas you think of will be evergreen — they’ll be just as relevant months from now as they are today. That being said, you shouldn’t ignore timely topics either. While they may not be the bulk of your editorial calendar, they can help you generate spikes of traffic.
Stay tuned in to our blog for the conclusion of our three-part series where we’ll dive into types of content. We’ll help you determine which ones are best for your business, highlighting the advantages of each.
By the end of part three, you’ll be empowered to craft the perfect content marketing strategy for 2025 and be ready to hit the ground running.