Adequate communication in the channels of your company, such as social networks, blogs, among others, is essential for Internet users to know about your offer. A good strategy will help you differentiate yourself from the competition and without a doubt, if you came to this post it is because you have wondered how to make a digital content plan in an intelligent way. Although there is no single way to do it, we share how we do it at Letras Laetas. In this post we will address the following topics:
Study or survey of the market
A market study consists of various stages. There are market research agencies that do a great job of learning about trends and the tastes, interests, and needs of different types of consumers. Big brands can’t skip this important step as their mistakes can cost dearly. But if your company is an SME, you should not overlook this important analysis either, or you should at least conduct a survey before defining objectives and designing your digital communication plan.
Macro environment analysis
Political, economic, social, legal aspects… all of them must be considered in the communication plan. Despite the fact that this study could be more associated with the development of the business itself, it cannot be ignored when defining the company’s communication. It has become popular to speak of the macroenvironment by means of the acronyms of PESTEL factors: Political, Economic, Social, Technological and Legal.
Micro environment analysis
This analysis focuses on the aspects properly related to the company and the persons or institutions with whom it has direct contact. Michael Porter, an American academic and expert in economics, created a model to analyze the microenvironment of a company, known as “Porter’s 5 forces”, which contemplates: the threat of competitors, the threat of new products in the market, the bargaining power of suppliers and the bargaining power of consumers. Later a fifth force was added: the rivalry between competitors. This model allows to measure the competition of an industry, and in the case of companies, to identify better opportunities.
Analysis of the company and its competitors
You must also have a deep understanding of the company and of the competitors. For this, SWOT matrices can be created that specify the strengths, weaknesses and threats of the company and compare them with those of its competition. To make a contrasting analysis between competitors, we can use a benchmark where a comparison is made between the products, services and work processes of different organizations.
SMART objectives
SMART objectives are those that meet the following characteristics and have been named by their acronym: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic y Time-Bound.
- They are specific, that is, they clearly indicate what it is that you want to achieve.
- They are measurable quantitatively or qualitatively
- They are achievable, although they can be a challenge, there must be the possibility of achieving them.
- They are realistic according to the human, economic, material and temporary resources that have been designated for the project.
- They must have a deadline that everyone involved commits to in order to reach the defined goal.
We present an example of what a SMART objective would be, in the field of content marketing:
Increase organic traffic to the company’s website from search engines by 14% during the first quarter of 2023.
As you have seen, it complies with being:
- Specific: Increase organic traffic to the company website from search engines
- Measurable: by 14%
- Attainable: The percentage or measure to be reached must be possible to reach. Let’s consider that 14% might be more attainable than a goal like 200%.
- Relevant: The relevance is determined based on the company’s mission and vision. It is an external factor to the writing of the objectives, so when defining them it is necessary to have knowledge of the company and its future ambitions.
- With a deadline: during the first quarter of 2023.
Creating a buyer persona
A buyer person is a model that represents our potential customer. Based on the analysis carried out, we can detect different market segments or groups of people with similar characteristics and needs. Of these segments, we have to select one or more, and create this scheme before planning the content that you will publish on your networks.
Plan development
As we have said in the introduction to this note, there is no single way to develop a content plan. However, this is the methodology that we use in Letras Laetas. We share with you some resources that can help you prepare a digital content plan in an intelligent way.
Definition of themes
The themes must be relevant to your potential customers or your future users. To do this, you can help yourself with the descriptions that you have already made in the buyer persona formats.
You can select topics related to your products or services, in relation to the benefit that your potential customers get. You can also include parallel themes that, although they are not properly related to a product or service, are of interest to your potential customers.
For example, if you are dedicated to designing clothing, a piece of content that has to do with your products can be a dress. A parallel theme could be a blog post that talks about the color palette that favors you according to your skin tone.
Try to select four or five topics and assign them a percentage of the total number of publications, for example:
- Products and services – 50%
- Parallel themes – 25%
- Success stories – 10%
- Frequently Asked Questions – 10%
- Experiments – 5%
Assign a space to experiment, try publishing new types of content and measure the interaction they generate, you could be pleasantly surprised.
Channel selection
The digital channels can include the company’s social networks, as well as other own media that it has, such as its website and a blog or magazine that it publishes with a certain frequency. One benefit of having your own communication channels is that:
- They contribute to search engine positioning.
- They give more information to Internet users about your offer.
- The cost to communicate a message is less than if you hire some other medium.
A common mistake that many SMBs make is that they post the exact same content across all of their networks. Try experimenting with different formats, the same message can be communicated differently depending on the platform for which it is designed. Some social networks favor video content while in others it might be more convenient to generate an infographic.
Creation of an editorial calendar
Finally, design an editorial calendar in which you establish what is going to be communicated in each of the channels that have been previously selected. Put the date it will be published and if applicable, also the time. This calendar can include comments so that the design team can carry out the corresponding arts, or it can be already more finished, with the final designs.
Content programming
Once the people who are involved with the approval of the contents have given their approval, you can proceed to schedule the contents so that they are published on the dates that we have already established. For this, some of the social networks have an internal tool to program them or, you can purchase the license of another tool for these purposes, such as Buffer, Hootsuite or Semrush.
Control
Measuring results month by month is the best way to optimize a campaign. After a couple of weeks of making publications, the analytical tools of social or external networks, such as Google Analytics, will provide important information about demographic aspects such as the countries where people connect to your media, the type of device from which they do it (computer, cell phone, tablet, etc.), and other demographic data such as gender, age range, among others.
Generating reports
If you must report the results to a superior or a business owner, define what are the metrics in which these people may be interested so that your reports are assertive. We also recommend reading our article How to make reports for SEO.
Continuous improvement
The feedback from the parties involved and the results that you can measure through the previously mentioned tools will help you to continuously improve your campaigns. Once implemented, maintenance must be done to perfect them month after month.
In conclusion…
- If you are going to create a digital content plan, you must be in direct contact with the marketing team of the company for which this content is going to be generated.
- In the event that there is no marketing department that has carried out a market study and has defined clear communication objectives, it is necessary to carry out a market survey and an analysis of the company.
- Based on this information that they provide us in a brief or that we obtain through our surveys, we can define objectives and make the content plan.
- Since developing a digital content plan in an intelligent way can be a complex task, you can help from agencies like Letras Laetas to carry out these projects and also to generate content.
Tell us in the comments, would you add to this model any step? Let us know how your campaigns are going!
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