How to Write a Content Marketing Strategy Step-by-Step

How to Write a Content Marketing Strategy Step-by-Step [w/ Strategy Template!]
The good news: your boss or client is totally on board with your running content marketing. (SCORE!)

The challenge: she wants to see a content marketing plan . . . and you have NO IDEA what that’s supposed to look like.

I’ve been there.

It’s a tough situation, because you’ve been doing content marketing with your gut this whole time, and now you’re being asked to put all that into a document. (And the gut-to-document process can be pretty painful.) Plus, you know that awesome content marketing involves a lot of flexibility—how do you build that into a strategic document?

Good news: we’ve scoured the Internet for content marketing strategy templates, tried a few, and put together an approach to building your own content marketing plan step-by-step.

(This is built with both the in-house content marketer and the agent in mind, BTW!)

Let’s go!

Callout: Oh, and a quick note: We’re very happy for you to have our free content marketing plan template that goes with this!

Table of contents
Preface

1. Start with an outline

2. Write down what you’re trying to accomplish

3. Write down what you’re selling (optional)

4. Now, who’s going to consume your content?

5. Map your personas’ needs to your product or service

6. Heroes and watering holes

7. Look to the competition’s content marketing efforts for inspiration

8. Take inventory of your content

9. Evaluate your existing content

10. What sticks?

11. What should we fix?

12. What should we nix?

13. What should we add to the mix?

14. Sort your effective and prospective content marketing assets by theme

15. List the types of content you’ll be dealing with

16. Snapshot the content team and the workflow

17. Estimate your content capacity

18. Map out your editorial calendar

19. Make a content promotion workflow

20. Write the epilogue

21. Write the executive summary