Free Content Strategy Templates and How to Use Them to Create A Successful Plan

Once you’ve done your research and identified the story you want to tell about your product, it’s time to plan the specifics of your content and how it will connect to your users. Here’s where you put all the information you’ve gathered into an action plan that generates results. 

‌ Download Content Marketing Strategy Creation Template

Your content strategy roadmap will ensure that every piece of content (blog, video, tweet, post) has a purpose and fits with your story. The roadmap will help you prioritize your efforts and assign resources in a way that keeps you and your team focused and successful. You’ll create a realistic plan that fits the time, staff, and budget of your team. Plus, you’ll be able to prioritize your efforts so your hard work generates the greatest results.

Now’s the time to review what is and isn’t working with your content. Identify what your content needs to succeed. With your content research in hand (from the Content Audit worksheet you’ve completed in step one) you can see what’s been successful and what hasn’t quite hit the mark. What makes a piece of content successful? Consider these elements:

• Traffic
• Backlinks
• Social Shares and Comments

These metrics tell you if your content is easy to find, relevant to your audience, and timely. Other factors that can affect your content include how well it aligns with your brand and messaging, and whether it is easy to access across platforms (from smartphone to tablet to computer). Quality also matters. Is your content clear, easy-to-read, and free of grammar and spelling mistakes? Do your graphics have a professional polish to them? How quickly does the video load, and how long does it play? The easiest thing for any customer to do is click to another site. You want to provide an engaging and relevant experience.

You’ve now got guidelines for creating new content and what makes content successful. But what about existing content? Use your guidelines to decide what to keep in its current form, what needs revising to meet your new standards, and what you can delete or retire; then prioritize that long list of content assets. Now that you have a sense of the scope of your content, you can decide whether you want to create new content first, revise existing content, or scrap outdated assets that aren’t relevant to your strategy.

Now everyone in the organization, including all key stakeholders, can be on the same page about the kind of content you want and the story you want to tell. Armed with a shared vocabulary and mission, you continue to build a culture of content.

If you are putting existing content on a new site, you will need to develop a content migration plan. Manually entering all articles, images, infographics, white papers, and other content on a new site is time consuming, so you can work with the IT department and other teams to develop automation tools that import content to a new system.

Migrating Existing Content 

When you identify which content assets you’re revising, plan where you will revise them. Some organizations find it easier to work within an existing platform and then migrate the copy as part of a site-wide plan. Others prefer making the revisions on a new site because it helps their team learn how to use the new system.

By working across departments to build your migration plan, you reinforce the value of content marketing to your entire company. Use a content mapping template to create a plan.

Download Content Mapping Template

Excel  |  Word  |  PDF

The Role of Personas and the Content Journey

Useful content takes your customers on a journey from awareness to action. The personas you created describe your potential customers and their pain points. Your content should guide them along the process of product discovery to the point of purchase. Remember, your content strategy is not a linear journey for many people - they may engage with your content in fits and starts until they are ready to make a purchase. Therefore, you need to map your content to all stages of the journey.

The content journey stages are similar to the traditional marketing funnel: awareness, interest, desire, and action. (Elias St. Elmo Lewis developed the concept in the 1800s. William H. Townsend built on the concept with the “marketing funnel” in 1924.) The stages are:

• Awareness: A person realizes the problem and knows about potential solutions, which you hope includes your product or service.
• Interest: A person is looking for the product or service that will solve the problem.
• Desire: A person is evaluating products to see which one best solves the problem.
• Action: A person decides whether your product is the best solution and buys it — or keeps looking at other options.

Your content map, which coordinates the persona with the stages of decision-making, will guide the tactical messaging for each piece of content you create. 

The Many Forms of Content

Content can take many forms, from blog posts to white papers, e-books, podcasts and more. Text can take many forms: You can even package basic copy as a blog post, a list, a how-to or guide. Regardless of the type of content you create, it should answer your customers’ questions, offer product highlights, and compare your solution to your competitors. Content lives on various pages on your site, including landing pages, feature pages, channel pages that aggregate content by theme or topic, or even microsites dedicated to a specific product or service. Each of those pages have different requirements. Here’s the most common types of content:

• Lists are a quick hit of highlights (think Buzzfeed).
• How-tos introduce a problem and help your reader solve it. Good how-tos offer step-by-step details that walk your reader through the solution.
• Questions and Answers (Q&A) follow a simple formula of asking then answering a question.
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) let you answer a wide range of your customers’ common questions in one place.
• Explainers imagine your customer asking “why,” and use the article to offer all kinds of information about why your product was developed.
• Case studies let your customers explain how your product solves their problem.
• Testimonials and quotes are shorter case studies that tell your story in the words of your customers.
• Interviews expand the voices in your content. Interviews may include your customers’ voices, but also feature thought leaders who can talk about industry trends and other valuable insight.
• Company news gives your customers an inside look at how your company makes decisions and responds to industry needs.
• Reviews provide some expert analysis of products, books, videos, and services that addresses the problem your customers are trying to solve. As a bonus, you can show your authority in the topic by sharing your expertise and recommendations.
• Roundups aggregate and curate what others are writing about the topic. You can offer one-stop shopping for people who are just starting their product journey with this type of content.
• Research illustrates your authority on the topic. Be careful to not get deep in the numbers. Highlight trends and takeaways for your readers.
• Newsletters and email campaigns push the content from your site to your customer’s in-box.
• Guides, e-books, and white papers provide your readers with in-depth coverage of a topic. This long-form content should be the definitive piece of information about a problem and possible solutions.
• Worksheets, checklists, and templates let your customers learn by doing. Turn your insights into action by giving your customers a way to work through their problem and solution.
• Infographics, diagrams, and data visualization help your customers see the solution through compelling graphics that walk them through your product.
• Video, like text, can take many forms, from an interview to a how-to or testimonial. Customers can also share video easily, which helps you grow your audience.
• Podcasts and audiobooks are a highly portable kind of content. People can listen to them on their commute, at the gym, or while working around the house.
• Webinars give your customers the chance to put a face to your product or brand. Use webinars to do everything from demonstrating your product to interviewing thought leaders.

Use this checklist to identify the type of content you want to create and the frequency at which you’ll distribute it:

Download Content Type Checklist

Excel  |  Word   |  PDF

Set a Schedule and Commit to It

Regardless of the format, each piece of content should convey a message that relates to your central theme or story. Not every call to action will be the same, and not all content covers every message (nor should it). But if you’ve created an overarching story that speaks to your mission, strategy and goals, then any piece of content should tell part of that story. As you create content, ask: How does this fit with our story?

Many marketers and advertisers follow a 70:20:10 model for prioritizing their content efforts. Typically, spend 70 percent of your time and money on efforts that already are successful. Spend the next 20 percent on improving or iterating on those efforts to attract a new audience. Finally, spend 10 percent experimenting with new ideas.

In addition to deciding and prioritizing your content, you also need to decide who will produce it, review it, publish it, monitor it and update it — and then make sure everyone knows who’s responsible at each stage. Communication among your team is critical for a smooth content marketing experience.

The content workflow outlines the process from idea to analytics, maps out who is responsible at each point, and estimates how long each step will take. Armed with this knowledge, you can identify the resources you have and the resources you need to execute your strategy. You can set realistic goals about the capacity of your team, and address any gaps that appear.

As you plan your content and workflow, you need a calendar to keep track of all the moving parts. While you may be able to plan a year’s worth of content at a time, you may find that executing on the vision is not practical. The calendar should be detailed enough for you to have a solid understanding of the coming days and weeks, with a longer view of the next quarter or a year at a glance. Calendars are useful tools for mapping out the big pieces at a 30,000-foot-view, and then seeing the details as the days and weeks unfold.

Download Editorial Calendar Template

Excel  | Smartsheet

One more thing: Calendars won’t do you much good if you are the sole keeper of the schedule. Make sure everyone on your team (and other stakeholders as needed) can see, share, and contribute to the calendar to keep them on track and give you a way to measure the work. Learn more about how to plan a marketing calendar in this article.  

Assembling A Content Team 

Armed with all this organized information, you can now identify your staffing plan: Who you will need on your team to create, evaluate, and monitor the work. Remember, a content marketing strategy starts with a vision. Typically, the person driving the content strategy is the company’s CMO. While not a member of your team, this person will set the direction that your efforts supports. The size of your content marketing team will depend on the size (and budget) of your company and the scope of your work. Some of these roles should be filled with staff, but you may consider using freelancers to fill in the gaps.

The head of your content marketing team can go by several titles: chief content officer, content strategist, managing editor. Regardless of the title, this person is responsible for defining the story behind your content, ensuring you deliver a consistent message, and supervising the creation and measurement of the team’s work. The strategist oversees the editorial calendar and serves as project manager who directs the other team members.

The writers and designers who produce your content work with the managing editor, as do those who curate outside content that can be repurposed for your company. Whether your team consists of internal employees, freelancers, or a mix of both, make sure they all have access to the editorial calendar and understand your audience personas. 

Make sure a second set of eyes reviews your content to ensure it meets your storytelling guidelines, follows a logical structure and flow, and avoids grammar and typographical errors. Some organizations hire editors who work with content creators. On some teams, the writers review one another’s work.

You’ll also want a community manager (sometimes called a chief listening officer or even a director of audience) to monitor feedback about your product or service. This is more than customer service: This person follows your content channels and monitors the conversations that will eventually shape future content. If one piece of content gets a lot of traction on social media, with outside influencers or in comments on your site, this person will offer insight into what’s working and why, and suggest ways to create more content that builds on your success. Following conversations about customers’ pain points, this person will be able to identify gaps that your content should fill. Ultimately, a community manager is your in-house expert on what’s resonating with your audience. Depending on your resources, you should consider adding a public relations or promotions person to work with your community manager. This person spends his or her time making connections, especially through social media, and may coordinate the messaging on your social channels.

Add an analytics expert to the team so you know what’s working, what can work better with a little revision, and where you need to change tactics. This can range from the timing of your email or blog posts, to conversion trends or SEO tactics. This is where you measure your work based on your SMART goals.

You’ll also need to tackle the technical aspects of publishing your content. Whether the writers and designers produce their work into your content management system (CMS) or someone else gathers the assets and publishes them, a team member needs to get the work in a form that your audience will find. If your business has other web assets, you may find a way to combine efforts across departments. You’ll also want someone who’s tracking the trends in technology so you can take advantage of the latest production tools, editorial calendars, and analytics services that help you succeed.

If you have the opportunity to choose a CMS, take the time to identify the functions you need. Are you publishing blog content? Do you need an e-commerce engine? Will you wall off some content in a members-only section? Do you need different white-label sections or microsites? Will you publish in multiple languages? Will one CMS handle all your content or should you consider a suite of tools and platforms? Because you’ve already mapped out your content strategy, you know the types of publishing the CMS will have to support. But you don’t need to make the decision alone. Take advantage of the opportunity to work with your IT department, and generate buy-in and support throughout the company for your content strategy.

One more consideration: If you have content in multiple languages (or plan to start creating content in multiple languages) you’ll need to develop standards for localization and translation. Valuable content that engages readers must be more than a blog post that has been translated in another language. First, it must be localized so that the information is culturally and professionally relevant to your audience based on the personas you develop. Once you localize that content, you can translate it for an international audience.

Governance Guidelines

Governance guidelines set the standards for your content and ensure a consistent experience for your audience. These guidelines spell out your brand, design, style, voice, metadata, and more. What do you consider the best practices for writing, design, and SEO? Spell it out for everyone who plays a role in creating and monitoring your content. You can’t effectively promote your product and business if your messaging and content doesn’t speak with one brand and voice. Your governance guidelines should include:

• Branding: These guides help designers, writers, and community managers present a unified look and feel to your audience, especially in terms of graphics and typography. Here are some examples of what a branding guide can include from Berkeley, Medium, and the American Red Cross. 
• Voice and Style: All your content should have the same distinctive tone, no matter who creates it. Imagine if your brand could speak: What words would you use to describe your brand’s presence and promise? Style is part of your brand’s voice. Think about the length of your sentences and paragraphs, tweets, and Facebook posts. Style extends to your internal guidelines around what you capitalize and hyphenate. “Make it easy on your readers,” says Mark Allen, the owner of Mark Allen Editorial and a board member of ACES: The Society for Editing. “Consistency provides clarity and inconsistency affects your credibility. Show readers that you care about what you’re doing.”
• Metadata: This is the “data about your data,” and it describes each piece of your content. Metadata will include the author’s name, the type of content, the date it was created, the size of the file, and so on. It helps readers find your content online. Develop a plan for what metadata you want to include in each asset and be consistent with capturing the information. This will improve your ability to track and report your traffic and audience engagement, so your team can focus on creating more content that resonates with readers.

As part of your governance strategy, you want to establish and stick to best practices for your content. Here are some suggestions for writing for the web.

• Write for the Reader: Use the words, vocabulary, and sentence structure that appeal to your personas. Stay away from jargon or too many abbreviations or acronyms.
• Write in Active Voice: Follow the “who did what” formula. (For example, “The dog bit the boy,” rather than “The boy was bitten by the dog.”)
• Be Relevant: Give readers the information and answers they are researching, and help them solve the problems you identified in your persona research.
• Be Concise: More and more customers are seeing your content on mobile devices and tablets. Don’t make them scroll or swipe too long to get to the point of your article.
• Offer a Call to Action (CTA): Tell your readers what you want them to do: Click a link, fill out a form, download a guide, or even buy your product.

All content marketers want their work to show up quickly when customers search for it. The search engines want users to successfully find what they want. So, search engines like Google and Bing continue to tweak the algorithms that deliver content. That means there are few hard-and-fast rules for search engine optimization. There are, however, guidelines to help your content stay relevant and easy-to-find.

• Write Clear and Consistent Tags and Descriptions: Title tags should include the keywords that your readers might be searching for, and meta descriptions should use those words in a way that readers would enter their query in a search engine. Your own guidelines should include preferences for title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and keyword phrases.
• Avoid Keyword Stuffing: Don’t repeat keywords for the sake of packing them in and trying to rank higher. Search engines are now programmed to devalue that duplication. Use keywords in ways that provide value to your audience without seeming overly spammy. You want readers to stay on your site, not bounce somewhere else.
• Don’t Forget Your Images: Use basic descriptions in your alt text for images, video, and other kinds of visual content. Search engines see these words when they are indexing your site. And this makes your site more accessible for the visually impaired, which helps you reach a larger audience.