Does this sound familiar? It’s a Tuesday morning and you realize you haven’t posted to LinkedIn in two weeks and that blog post that was set to go up last week is still in draft mode? If it does, don’t worry, you’re not alone. But if you want your content to work for you, it can’t be an afterthought.

Too many businesses publish content for no other reason than they think they should. But the truth is, content is a huge asset when works for you.  So the question becomes, how do you ensure your content work for you?

While there’s no silver bullet, there are things you can do to increase the likelihood that it will work for your, one being by creating and following a content plan. A written content plan not only clarifies what type of content you’ll create but also who you’re speaking to, the challenges they have, the next steps in their buying journey and how every piece moves the business forward.

Why “content that works” starts with a plan

Content that attracts views is fine, but ultimately, that’s not its job. It’s job is to add to your bottom line.

At its core, content helps businesses establish and build their credibility. But that’s just the beginning of its capabilities.  

When created correctly, content establishes trust with its audience so that audience begins to know, like and trust the brand or business behind the content. As that happens, content begins to attract, qualify and convert potential buyers as they journey through their buying process.

But if you think throwing up a blog post here, LinkedIn post there and email newsletter in between will achieve this, you’ll be sorely disappointed. It’s achieved by carefully planning and implementing your content.  

It’s prudent to stop here and clear one thing up before going any further: planning your content does not equal busy work. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Planning your content gives you an operating system, complete with an understanding of your audience, goals, topics and themes, formats, channels, cadence and measurement.

So what goes into an effective content plan?

Plan around the who, the what and the why

In order for your content to have a purpose, it needs to talk to a specific audience about a specific challenge they have; to be for someone and something. It needs to demonstrate you get them and know what they’re dealing with. It shows empathy and understanding, which is what your audience wants. And it’s what helps your audience get to know, like and trust you.

In fact, when you clearly understand your audience and demonstrate that with your content, it will drive results. According to Content Marketing Institute, the top performers most often credit understanding their audience for their content’s success. But that’s just one element to creating effective content. You also want to drill down and ensure you really understand who our ideal audience is, their specific challenges, what makes them buy, what prevents them from buying and what is their overall journey?

When you have that information you can map it to specific content topics and determine what you want each piece of content to do for your business. Perhaps it’s grow your email list or it could be secure 10 registrations for an upcoming webinar. Whatever it is, ensure you assign a goal to it.

Putting it into practice

So now that you have the information you need to create content, how do you manage it all as you put it into practice.? The easiest way is to create a content calendar that includes everything you and your team will create by the week, month and quarter.

You can structure the calendar in a way that works best for you. Be sure to include everything you’re scheduled to create needs so you know what’s slated and when.

That said, don’t spend all your time strategizing the structure of the calendar, and don’t make it too complicated. Finally, include only the content that you know you will create, reflecting the capacity of the team and the reality that the content will get made. Remember, the main goal of your content calendar is to provide focus and clarity for you so you can create content that connects with your audience.

Content starts working the moment you give it a job—and a plan to do it. Document the strategy, schedule the work you can sustain, and assign every asset a clear next step. That’s how you turn publishing into progress.

‍