Content Planning

In this competitive B2B marketing landscape, businesses make substantial investments in building content marketing programs. Why? Content marketing has been proven to deliver resounding success. As one of the most effective methods of growing audience engagement, developing your brand presence, and driving sales, content marketing is a mission-critical growth method for most businesses. Below, let’s review content marketing — the benefits of producing consistent, high-quality content, and how to measure success. According to the State of Inbound report, content creation is a top priority for 53% of marketers. Moreover, on average, content marketing accounts for 29% of B2B marketing budgets….

The irony doesn’t escape me that I’m currently writing a “How to” guide on … “How to” guides. Fortunately, I’ve had my fair share of experiences writing How to guides for HubSpot over the years — some of my favorites include How to Give a Persuasive Presentation, How to Develop a Content Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide, and How to Write a Request for Proposal. How to Guides are incredibly valuable opportunities to reach new audiences with useful, high-quality content. Plus, for both B2B and B2C businesses, How to Guides are often necessary components of a healthy lead generation strategy. For…

One of the most frequent questions we get from aspiring and current inbound marketers is, “How do you manage all of that content?” When we tell them we use an editorial calendar, the next question is often, “Oh, how much does that cost?” Nothing. Because, for the most part, we use Google Calendar. Surprised? There are a lot of great calendar tools out there you can choose from. (In fact, for those of you who are HubSpot customers, there’s a marketing calendar built right into HubSpot’s software.) But after trying a ton of other solutions, our team found that we…

70% of companies are actively investing in content marketing, and 60% regard it as an important part of overall strategic planning. These points emphasize the need for a strong content marketing strategy. A strategy is only as good as its tools. If you have a winning strategy, but unreliable resources to pull it all together, your plan might fall apart at the execution level. The challenge isn’t creating a strategy, but rather, finding the perfect tools to help you manage and work through your plan. You need tools to provide accurate metrics, the insights that will inform better decisions, and…

If you’re anything like me, you’re consistently working out of at least 20 browser tabs, four journals, a yellow legal pad or two, and a myriad of Post-it notes stuck around your computer monitor. To the average overseer, it’s nothing short of chaos. To the blogger, it’s evidence of a (desperate) need for an editorial calendar. My muddled system transforms dramatically when I work with a team. I realize the need for organization and structure, and this could not be more necessary than with managing a blog. Without a mutually agreed-upon system for planning, writing, and scheduling content every week,…

Creating content can feel discouraging. For instance, you might spend hours producing something that’s amazing, only to get little engagement, traffic, or leads. What’s more, later, you’ll have to explain that ROI to your boss — talk about a dreadful workday. If you’re feeling frustrated or burnt out with your content creation process, you’re in luck. Here, we’ve created a complete blueprint to a successful content marketing strategy. In this post, I’ll walk you through the different aspects of the content blueprint and why each facet is so important for marketers to include in an overall strategy. For more information…

What do you use spreadsheets for? If you’re anything like me, you likely use them for data collection, to track campaign or blog post analytics, or to keep track of weekly assignments. But have you ever thought about using spreadsheets to make a calendar? And, more specifically, have you ever thought about using Google Sheets to make a functional calendar? If you often work on campaigns for a few different clients, creating individual calendars in Google Sheets to share with clients and track progress could be uniquely useful for ensuring the client understands when certain content will go live. Alternatively,…

Think of all the content you create — the good, the bad, and the ones that take a scary amount of time. Now think of how you organize it. How do you keep track of how content is performing? Do you use those metrics to improve for future campaigns? If not, you could be, with the help of content audits. Content audits keep track of your content, including blog posts, social media posts, events, and web pages, and provide analysis for how they impact audience. Additionally, they can provide insights into how to improve underperforming content, so you know how…

A sound content marketing strategy is one of the better ways a business can help shape its brand identity, garner interest from prospects, and retain an engaged audience. It lets you establish authority in your space, project legitimacy, and build trust between you and who you’re trying to reach. As you can assume, it’s well worth understanding. But that’s easier said than done. Content marketing isn’t static. The landscape of the practice is constantly changing. It doesn’t look the same now as it did ten years ago, and in ten years it won’t look the same as it does now….