Are you struggling to stick to your content plan? Don’t stress. Here are some easy tips to help you stay the course.
You’ve worked hard to develop your organisation’s content plan. But as the year unfolds, you notice your team isn’t sticking to the plan.
After investing your time in creating the plan, it can be discouraging to see it ignored. You’re not the only one, this is a common challenge faced by marketing managers across industries.
Priorities change, team capacity reduces, the unexpected happens – many of which are out of your control. But it doesn’t mean they can’t be managed from a content planning perspective.
In this blog, we share 10 simple strategies to help you (and your team) follow through with your content plan. If you’re yet to develop a content plan, you can start with our blog on how to plan a year’s worth of content in 2 hours.
Why you should stick to your content plan
Your content plan is the blueprint for all your content marketing efforts during the year. It’s the go-to for anyone and everyone who creates content in your organisation. So when people don’t refer to the plan to guide content creation it can have flow on effects for the rest of the business. This includes:
- Content gaps where not enough content is being produced and your audience is left hanging, potentially losing interest and engagement. This could lead to loss of reach across channels and force you to play catch up.
- Lower quality content resulting from last-minute content creation without a clear goal or strategy.
- Missed opportunities to create timely content aligned with seasons, company events, industry trends or product campaigns.
- Frustration for you and your team as workflow is disrupted to meet urgent requests for content.
The good news is there are things you can do to help stick to the plan and avoid these consequences.
Keep your content consistent
Here are 10 simple strategies you can implement to help stick to your organisation’s content plan:
1. Align your content goals to business goals (more on that here) you’re more likely to stick to the plan if it helps achieve your objectives.
2. Do a content audit – assess your content plan for any weaknesses or gaps. Consider getting external eyes on the plan to help reveal any blind spots and offer strategies to make it more achievable.
3. Build in flexibility – things are likely to change as the year progresses. Allow space to reschedule and adapt as new opportunities emerge and review the content plan as needed. For example, if your business objectives shift, that’s a good reason to revisit your content goals to make sure they align.
4. Get buy-in and accountability – make sure your team is on board with the content plan by highlighting its value and developing it through collaboration. Also assign clear ownership of the content to keep everyone accountable to publish consistently.
5. Define content creation processes – document your processes and guidelines for creating content, including reviews and approvals.
6. Use a system that works – have all your content-related collateral (content strategy, plan and content) in one place with easy access for your team. Use project management tools like Asana, Trello, Excel or Google Docs to maintain a single source of truth. We’re fans of Google Sheets for our content planning here at Writers.
7. Share your content plan – your content plan isn’t just for your internal team but for every person who creates content for your organisation. Share the plan to provide guidance and direction to writers and other creators so they stay consistent and contribute to your goals.
8. Set realistic timelines – use your team’s capacity to inform content timelines and build in a buffer for unexpected delays, including changing priorities due to business needs. You can also schedule reminders leading up to deadlines to help content creators manage their time and deliver on time.
9. Prioritise content creation – schedule time to create and promote content in bulk. Time blocking allows you to focus on one task, increases inefficiencies and reduces the stress that comes with last-minute content creation. If possible, create content for the next month (or even quarter) in a single time block to avoid going back and forth between tasks and reducing your productivity. Haven’t got the time to create bulk content? We can help. Get in touch with us today!
10. Analyse how your content is performing – which posts are performing best? Create more of that high value content for your audience for more engagement. The better the engagement, the more motivated you’ll be to share content consistently.
That might seem like a lot of tips to stick to your content plan but it’s well worth it! You don’t have to implement them all at once – start with one or two and stay consistent. There’s no right way to do it, simply find a sustainable system that works for you and your team in the long run.
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