And Today's Mission: Think About Your Content Goals
For some people, especially busy ones, the idea of a content plan can be alarming. Yet a content plan needn't take up a lot of time, and it's definitely worth it. You know what they say about failing to plan, right? It means planning to fail. And when it comes to content marketing, it's true.
Why?
A content marketing plan takes into account your goals and how best to reach them with your audience. It makes it easy to map out the ideal ways to present your content as far as your products and services. It also helps optimize your timing.
To create cohesive content, a content marketing plan is a must-have. It can get your pharmacy brand identity out there, while keeping you organized and increasing your productivity.
It can also help improve your analytics and ensure you get the most out of your marketing efforts.
A Cohesive Content Marketing Plan
Your content marketing plan lets you work out which products and services to promote. It also helps you establish your brand message, what platforms to use and when.
Now, that doesn't mean all your content will be promotional. It's important to strike a balance between promoting and engaging. But it does mean that you can map out both types of content and how they will work best together.
A great content plan will help you meet your marketing goals. Let's delve a little further into the four main benefits of a content marketing plan.
Brand Awareness
Planning your content ahead of time helps keep your brand identity consistent. And when it comes to brand identity, consistency is key for building brand awareness.
So what aspects of content marketing help contribute to brand identity?
The tone of your message, your images, colour and fonts, as well as the overall look of your content. Also important is the way your content fits together; your topics, themes and overall brand message.
This is true whether you're developing your content yourself or hiring a freelancer. It's so much easier to develop your brand identity with a good content strategy to keep you consistent.
Productivity
A content marketing plan helps you to stay up on what you need to do each day to meet your goals. If you're outsourcing, you can track what you need to outsource and when.
It helps you track your goals and keep your schedule predictable. Which means never getting behind and scrambling to get caught up.
And not only does it keep you clear on what you're working on, it helps you focus on why. Which makes it so much easier to create the content in line with your end goals.
Better Analytics
Once you've published your content, your strategy should include some form of analytics. Whether it's social media growth or an increase in sales, your goals and results should be clear.
Analytics help you understand what's working and what isn't, so you're not wasting time. Your plan should make assumptions. And those assumptions should be the basis of your analytics.
Tracking ROI
With cohesive content marketing, you'll get a much a higher return on investment.
You'll see higher revenue as your brand awareness increases. Because the more people know and love you, the more they'll want to trust you with their healthcare needs.
Creating a Content Marketing Plan
So how do you create a great content marketing plan?
First of all, you need to know:
Your target audience
What problems they're having
How you can solve those problems
You've already started to understand your audience better with our work on buyer personas yesterday. Once they're all filled out and you have a solid idea of who your buyers are, you can map out and experiment with different types of content.
Your mission for today is to download today's key takeaways and action items, as well as the iApotheca Pharmacy Content Planner and give it a quick look through. It should give you an idea of what goes into a simple content marketing plan.
Take a few minutes to jot down some preliminary ideas; you can always clarify them later. Also, if you're involving your team, have them take a look at the planner and get their ideas and input on potential goals.
Have fun with it; remember, we're just getting started here so don't expect perfection. Once you've got an amazing content marketing plan in place, it'll pay off for your business in so many ways.
See you back here for Day 3!