Can you believe we are already in March 2022! It never hurts to revisit your content strategy plan to make sure it is not only up-to-date, but innovative and engaging for your customers. It is a good time to check you’re getting the right message to the right people in the right way, to help your business to grow.

If you know where you want to take your business and how you are going to move forward, then you need a marketing ‘to-do’ list where you can map out the media you want to target, potential costs and timings. By media, I mean email marketing, social media, advertising and PR activity, blogs, Facebook Ads, SEO and video. Your plan will help you to identify which mix of media is right for your business and what it wants to achieve. If you want to increase your brand awareness for example, your plan may focus on SEO to increase your website’s visibility on Google.

Where should you start?
How do you know what marketing you need to do? Is it best to focus mainly on social media or paying for additional advertising, for example?

1. Who do you want to interact with your content? Using a variety of content types and channels will tailor this to their needs.
2. Consider what the demand is for your product or service. Who are your customers and where is the best place to find them? Are they on Facebook, or are Google Ads the way forward? Are you measuring your metrics to assess the click-through rate? This will help to inform you of where best to spend your marketing budget.
3. Review what your competitors are up to – this will give you a steer on your best course of action.
4. What channels should you use? This reflects where your customers spend their time – for example young audiences like quick content so you may want to opt for TikTok and Instagram to engage them.
5. What is it you want to see at the end of any marketing campaign? What change do you want to see in your business? This is crucial to determining how you plan for your marketing.

How should you plan?
I love a spreadsheet! Consider these points:

• Who is creating what?
• Where is it going to be published?
• When will it go live?

It’s a simple way to keep track of all your marketing activity, and where and who is providing it. Remember, when you plan your calendar with the topics you want to cover, you need to visualise what message your business is delivering and how you are an authority in your market so that you can get this across clearly.

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