How to Plan Content for Your Business (Quickly + Efficiently!)

Does content creation suck up all of your time and leave you feeling at your wits end each month? Well then, have no fear – in this post, I’m breaking down five ways you can plan your biz content… without the headaches!

1) Do Your Market Research

Before you really dive into content creation, you should do a bit of market research so you’re not posting at random. Things you’ll want to look into include:

Your audience: Without ‘em, there’s no sales, subscribers, or followers. So, be sure to go where they’re hanging out –whether it be on social media, a community forum, or simply talking to them to find out what makes them tick. It would also be helpful to find out what challenges they’re facing so you can apply those needs to your content and products and/or services.

Competitor research: As a marketer, you always want to have an idea of what your competitors are up to so you can see what’s working for them (aka, if their audience engages with a certain topic or trend, then your audience might too!)

Trending content: From Answer the Public and Google Trends, to Pinterest Predicts and  Tiktok –you can find a lot about what’s hot right now in the matter of minutes. Make notes of trending songs or themes that you can apply to your own niche and what topics people are searching for right now.

2) Have a Strategy

After you’ve gathered some initial research, you should be able to create a content strategy to meet the needs of your business and audience. This will become the roadmap you follow as you begin planning and then eventually, creating your content. It’s designed to keep you on track so everything you put out to the world has a purpose in some way.

In fact, this is one of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of entrepreneurs make and why my 1:1 strategy sessions have become quite useful. For one, you’ll walk away with all the necessary tools you need rock your content each month before wasting your time creating, and two, so you can produce content with confidence in knowing you’re not just publishing content for the heck of it –but with your business goals in mind.

3) Utilize a Content Management System

Now that you’ve mapped out your content strategy, you’ll need a place to house all your content ideas, calendar, and keep track of all your tasks. This is where  a content management system becomes very handy!

Soo, what’s a content management system? It’s basically just a fancy phrase for a program that organizes all your digital content. There’s several programs on the market, but my favorites at the moment are Trello and Airtable. They both allow you to sort content into Kanban lists, tables, calendar views, and more.

Your content management system is ideal if you want an all-in-one platform to brainstorm content ideas, create your content calendar, and keep track of project progress. It’s also useful for assigning due dates, write notes and captions, labeling your content by category, and more! Plus, if you have a team, these programs will allow you to collaborate with each other and work from the same tool –much easier than a desk filled with messy papers and chicken scratch!

I recommend trying out one of the CMSs I recommended and playing around with the features to see which would be most efficient for your content workload. Then after you’ve gotten into a good rhythm, create a system for how you will manage all your content, so you’re as organized as possible.

4) Have a Workflow – for Everything

Speaking of systems, it’s important that you have these in place for all your tasks to ensure content planning is as efficient as possible. Here’s some other benefits:

• Systems allow you to have a repeatable process to follow each time you do something –so you’re not starting from scratch each month

• It’ll save so much time because you’ll be more focused and not bouncing around from task to talk

• Systems allow you to hand off those tasks to someone on your team in the future, should your priorities shift and you can no longer take everything on yourself

Now that you have a good understanding of workflows, I want to help you put that knowledge into action so you can make some real progress. Ready?

First, grab a sheet of paper and answer these questions:

1. What are all the high-level tasks you need to do to create content? (eg. writing content, recording videos, making graphics, etc.)
2. What are the steps you need to take to complete each task? (write them down!)
3. How long does each task take to complete? (record if needed)

High five, friend! You’ve started creating some bangin’ content creation systems. Now, full disclosure here – systems can be adjusted as needed. In fact, before you lock these in, test out your systems a few times to make sure it’s actually feasible for your business.

5) Batch and Automate

Finally, if you haven’t gotten into the habit of batching and automating your content – it’s about time you start!

But what exactly is content batching, you ask? So, in short, content batching is the process in which you create a set of content in one sitting versus creating content every day. For example, maybe you dedicate the last Thursday of every month to creating graphics for the upcoming month.

Automating is exactly as it sounds. There are plenty of ways to schedule your social media, blog and email content ahead of time so it auto-posts for you.

When you implement a combination of the two, it allows you to be consistent and avoid posting at the last minute every day… which is never fun –especially when you’re not in the mood for content that day (and IFKYK).

Curious what a content batching schedule can look like? Snag my free batching guide below!

Alright, so you know what you need to do to plan content efficiently, but just frankly don’t have the time, energy, or desire to do it anymore?

Well, what if told you that you could have endless content ideas, a strategy-infused content plan, a posting schedule optimized for your audience, and an entire system in place so you’re organized and know EXACTLY what’s going on each month?

Enter our content planning package.

This package is perfect for the busy entrepreneur who can handle the content but needs a strategy-infused plan done for them. Interested in how it can help you? Then, click the button below to inquire about this all-new service, today!

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