Tips for Planning Blog Content

Content marketing is a highly effective business strategy all about creating connections with a target audience that hopefully results in a lasting customer relationship. Although there are various approaches to content marketing, blog content remains one of the most used techniques.

 

With that being said, blogging isn’t simply writing a post and pressing publish. It requires a solid vision that’s only possible with extensive planning. But the work is worth it to encourage profitable customer connections and stay relevant in today's digital landscape.

 

Here are five tips for planning out blog content for business blogs. 

Conduct Thorough Target Audience Research

Our first tip is to conduct thorough target audience research. If you don’t have a defined target audience and don’t know much about the people in it, you won’t create blog content that resonates with them.

 

Increase your chances of attracting potential customers through your blog by learning as much about them as possible. You absolutely want to explore demographic information about your target audience, but be sure to pay special attention to:

  • Favorite media types
  • Preferred communication methods
  • Favorite digital platforms
  • Preferred social media platforms
  • CTAs that generate the most conversions
  • Most popular blog posts
  • How they navigate a blog post
  • Messaging your target audience engages with the most

 

Next, take all you’ve learned about your target audience to a brainstorming session with your team.

Conduct A Content Brainstorming Session

Some of the best blog content comes from productive brainstorming sessions. You can bring together your entire content marketing team or select individuals to converse about the types of content you should produce, what business goals blogging will help with, the budget, how you’ll protect your blog content, and so forth.

 

Content brainstorming sessions are terrific because you get to hear multiple perspectives and gather various ideas. However, having many people in one room throwing around ideas without any structure can get messy and unproductive.

 

So, here are some best practices to follow for your content brainstorming sessions:

  • Designate a facilitator
  • Create a session outline
  • Create and distribute session guidelines to everyone participating
  • Encourage each participant to share their perspective
  • Ensure someone is taking notes or recording the brainstorming session
  • Pinpoint next steps and make everyone understands their task
  • Keep track of progress

Once your content brainstorming session concludes, create actionable takeaways by defining exactly how you’re going to rank ideas, prioritize the next steps, and delegate tasks.

 

Next, allow team members to make a case for their ideas before your team comes to a consensus on the best ones.

 

After voting on the best idea, create a concrete plan for moving forward and delegate tasks to your blog content team. Also, be sure to organize the remaining ideas and store them in a safe place.

 

Furthermore, you’ll need to identify all resources available to you that will assist you in creating quality blog content.

Identify Available Resources

You’ll likely go over what you need to bring your blog to life in your brainstorming session. For instance, the necessary budget, how much manpower you’ll need, and the time commitment.

 

Realistically, you probably won’t get every resource you need. Still, it’s important to discuss what you want and compare it to the resources available to you. You may have to find creative solutions to launch your business blog, but at least you know where you stand.

 

Now, it’s time to define your overall content strategy.

Define an Overall Content Strategy

It’s good practice to define and put your overall content strategy in writing. That way, you’ll have something to keep your blog content focused and purposeful. 

 

Answering the following questions will help you put together a solid overall content strategy:

 

  • What kind of content do you want to publish on your blog?
  • Why is this kind of content the best choice for your target audience?
  • What are your blog content goals?
  • What business goals will a blog help you achieve?
  • What’s your publishing schedule?
  • Who are your content writers and designers?
  • How will you promote your blog content?

 

With a solid content strategy mapped out, you can then put together a content calendar. Your content calendar should include:

 

  • The title of the piece
  • The type of content
  • The topic
  • Its publish date and time
  • The call-to-action or CTA
  • The key performance indicators or KPIs you’ll track
  • Goals for the content
  • Who’s in charge of creating it
  • When you’ll assess its performance
  • A section for additional notes

 

Lastly, lean into analytics tools to help with the content creation process.

Lean into Analytics Tools

Planning your blog content is much more productive with the help of analytics tools. For instance, business analytics can offer you critical insights into the people reading your blog content and why they’re engaging with it.

 

Armed with this information, you can focus your efforts on creating blog content that your ideal customers are interested in reading and allocate your resources to the most appropriate promotional channels.

 

Also, once you’ve created and published blog content, be sure you’re using your analytics tools to track each blog post’s performance. Doing so will help you make data-driven improvements that better your blog.  

Conclusion

Planning blog content is essential to its success. Without a careful planning stage, your blog is likely to take the slow road in converting visitors to long-term customers.

 

You can start planning your blog content by conducting thorough target audience research to find out how to reach them through blogging best. Next, run a rigorous content brainstorming session with your team. That session should lead you to identify all resources available to you to help create and maintain a successful blog.

 

Then, move on to defining your overall content strategy and transferring that information onto a detailed content calendar. Finally, lean into analytics tools to guide you through the content creation process and monitor the performance of your blog posts to make adjustments that better your blog.