5 Effective Content Planning Methods to Streamline Your Marketing

Need a better way to simplify your daily, weekly or monthly content planning process? Here are five methods that you can try. 

Make a commitment to stop posting and creating random content. Random content gives you random results. Scattered ideas also generate scattered results. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to experiment and hop on trends, but sometimes you just want to get down to the strategic activities that help you effectively connect, nurture, grow or convert your audience. 

If you struggle with generating content ideas, check out this content planning method that will help you simplify and streamline your content marketing. 

1. Daily Theme: 

If you’re having a hard time coming up with content ideas to share, try setting a daily content theme or category to help guide you along. You can repeat and recycle these themes with new tips and information. 

Above all, make sure you’re providing valuable content that your audience is curious about and wanting to learn more about.

Here’s an example:

M: Motivation 

T: Tutorial

W: Industry News/Updates

TH: Tips

F: Product/Service

You can mix this up and customize this as needed, but you get the idea of ways you can easily plan your content according to a daily category. 

Here are some additional categories you can try: brand collaborations, live video, teaching, lifestyle, thought leadership or anything else that you feel aligns.

If you’re a fitness instructor, here’s how this might look:

M: Motivational TED Talk about pushing through mental roadblocks 

T: Tutorial on how to properly do a sumo squat 

W: Industry news/stats on physical wellness

TH: Tips to help create an ideal workout routine 

F: One-on-one personal training sessions with you 

Related: 8 Tools to Help You Manage Your Editorial Calendar

Content Calendar Template

Get access to this course and content calendar that helps you maximize your channel distribution and helps you with your content marketing.

2. Weekly Topic: 

Setting a weekly theme is an approach you can take when you have a set of 3-5 content pillars that you’d like to rotate or focus on. 

So what you do here is you identify a content pillar topic you’d like to focus on and you create a weekly theme around it. 

For example, if one of your content pillars is about productivity and organization, you would split up that topic into weekly themes. 

You’ll want to start by writing down your content pillar and then creating topic clusters around it that you can expand on. 

Content Pillar: Productivity & Organization

Week 1: Best apps and tools to help you stay organized

Week 2: Creating an organized routine (morning, night time, weekly routine)

Week 3:  Lessons from books and podcasts on decluttering and organization

Week 4: Using a planner to stay organized

Related: 6 Ways to Improve Your Content Creation Workflow

3. Product or Service Launch:

So what if you have a product launch or a new offer you want to promote? 

If you have a product or service that you want to promote, you will reverse engineer your content planning around your launch. 

Here’s an approach you can take to communicate your launch in a month: 

Week 1: Identify the problem your audience faces

Week 2: Agitate the problem by going into specifics and villains getting in the way of a transformation or result 

Week 3: Present your solution and benefits, proof of your product/service

Week 4: Sales/CTA

Every week you will focus on creating content around your launch and move your audience through a journey with you. Remember that you’re the guide in this journey and you’re helping your audience see a transformation or result that they may aspire to have. 

Related: How to Create Your Social Media Content in Batches

4. Content Intent

With this approach, you’re organizing and planning content according to a particular intention around your content and goal(s) (e.g. grow your digital presence, target new customers, nurture existing customers, develop brand loyalty, increase profit, etc). 

Whatever your personal marketing goal is, remember to take it one step at a time and stay focused on your goal and modify your tactics accordingly. 

Here are four content intentions you can use to plan and create your content. 

• Attract: Creating shareable content that boost your visibility and attracts new audience to you
• Nurture: Creating content that is relatable and helps you nurture a community and establishes a know, like, trust factor with your audience 
• Value: Creating content that is valuable and highlights your thought leadership and helps your audience 
• Convert: Content where you pitch or sell a product or offer 

Related: 5 Steps Process to Help You Generate Endless Content Ideas

Content Calendar Template

This content calendar has the foundational elements built into it that will help you be more strategic with the content and marketing activities you’re focusing on.

5. 80/20 Rule

In this particular method, you’re going to allocate a certain portion toward providing value and then the other to promotional content. 

This means 80 percent of your posts should inform, educate or entertain your audience. You can share curated content, insights or amusing content from your industry and then the remaining 20 percent will promote your brand or business. 

Ever heard of the 80/20 rule before? The Pareto Principle states that 80 percent of your results are from 20 percent of your actions.

The Pareto Principle can be an effective way to view your input and output of work and where you’re allocating your content marketing efforts. 

• You can apply the 80/20 rule to your content mix
• You can also apply the 80/20 rule to how you prioritize the social media platforms you’re active on. 
• You can also use the 80/20 rule to evaluate your outreach you use to move the needle in your marketing efforts, by focusing on the 20 percent of activities that effectively help your bottom line. 

Key Takeaways:

• If you’re having a hard time generating content ideas, try using a themed approach. Try setting a daily content theme or category to help guide you along. You can repeat and recycle these themes with new tips and information.
• Setting a weekly theme is an approach you can take when you have a set of 3-5 content pillars that you’d like to rotate or focus on. 
• If you have a product or service that you want to promote, you will reverse engineer your content planning around your launch.
• Anchor yourself to four content intentions you can use to plan and create your content. 
• Try using an 80/20 approach to your content. This means 80 percent of your posts should inform, educate or entertain your audience and then the remaining 20 percent will promote your brand or business. 

Which of these content planning methods will you implement in your content planning next week?