The ultimate guide to planning your content in 2024
In the online marketing space content creation is key to a successful marketing strategy. But when you're faced with trying to plan a lot of content for the year ahead it can feel very overwhelming and a little bit confusing about where to start.
But taking the time to plan your content in advance can be so beneficial for your business (and your sanity) as we enter the New Year!
It can help you remain consistent even when times get busier, it can save you a lot of time, it can keep you aligned and on track with your goals and it's a really great way to be able to effectively monitor your content so you know what would work well if you wanted to repurpose any of your content on a different platform or using a different media!
So if you’re looking to plan out your content for 2024, you are in the right place as I'm going to walk you through step by step exactly how to make planning your content easy and effective this New Year.
Step 1: Establish your content pillars
Having solid content pillars that you can build on when it comes to creating your content makes the whole content creation process a lot easier.
You might have heard about content pillars before but in my experience, there are five that I recommend that give you a well-rounded approach to content that is led by strategy.
These five are:
Sales - This is for all content directly related to selling your services
Educational/informational- This is for content that provides your audience with value
Relatable/emotive- This content is about connecting with your audience and showing your personable side
Engagement- This is for content specifically designed to boost your engagement
Topical- This content is very reactive to what’s happening in the world/your industry
Step 2: Create your evergreen content
Evergreen content is essentially content that doesn't expire. This is the best type of content to prepare in advance because the relevancy of the topic isn't going to change!
One of the best examples of evergreen content is certain types of educational content or content that is specifically related to your signature services that aren't going to change throughout the year.
I recommend prepping as much evergreen content as you can for several quarters ahead of time as it's going to save you a lot of time in the long run!
Step 3: Think about creating dynamic content
Unlike evergreen content, dynamic content is much more reactive to all of the changes and developments that happen in your business as time goes on.
When it comes to preparing this content, you might not be able to prepare as much of this as evergreen content but you can mark out space in your content calendar to prepare this based on what's happening at the time.
Dynamic content is great for sharing new information about your business, announcing any new services or giving your take on hot topics as they come up in your industry.
Step 4: Get Psychological
When it comes to strategically preparing your content, you want to make sure that you are aware of the different things that influence people to purchase.
Ultimately, no matter what type of content you are producing, it should all work together to convert your audience.
Many different factors can influence people to purchase when it comes to content and ideally, you want to make sure that each piece of content is hitting one of these core influencing factors.
Your content either needs to be motivational, aspirational, based on necessity or trigger an emotional response.
If your content has this, the chances are you'll be hitting the mark when it comes to converting your audience.
Step 5: Create your calendar
The next step is creating a calendar to keep you organised throughout 2024. This is where you can marry up your content to your goals and break things down month by month so everything doesn't feel as overwhelming.
Creating a physical content calendar can give you very clear guidance and structure which makes creating the content a lot easier.
I recommend using a tool like Airtable as this is what I use for myself and my clients.
It's a great tool as it allows you to create a level of structure and consistency while being very flexible so you can move things around as and when you need to. It's also great for keeping track of a wide variety of content such as email marketing, social media content and ads.
If you want to read more about Airtable, how it works and how I use it, you can read my blog about it, here!
Remember, if this still feels really overwhelming it can be very helpful to have someone with an outside perspective help you create content that is aligned with your goals and strategically structured to help you meet them.
This is why I offer content planning sessions to help you get ahead of your content while having a clear direction of how to create it. If you want to find out more about this service click here!
Happy content creating!