Ready to create a marketing process that brings in leads? Follow this easy nine-step content marketing plan.

1. TO DIVE IN
9 STEPS
Content Marketing Plan:

2. for the first time is way harder than
actually swimming.
INTO THE POOL
DIVING
“

3. LET’S DIVE!
(But once you jump in, you’ll get
used to the temperature in no time.)

4. SET GOALS
AROUND A
CAMPAIGN
STEP 1:

5. WHAT’S
THE
POINT?
You can create pages and pages of
content, but if there’s no PURPOSE
and no GOAL behind it,

6. Every piece of content
you create should
have a SPECIFIC
MARKETING
OBJECTIVE IN MIND.

7. A CAMPAIGN
LAUNCH
The best way to do that?

8. A campaign should be focused
on ONE GOAL, such as:
Drive more email subscriptions
Encourage repeat purchases
Sell more of a new product or service
Convert more contacts of a specific
buyer persona

9. Let that goal be the
driver for every blog
post, social media
update, email, and
landing page you craft
for the campaign.

10. KEYWORD
RESEARCH
STEP 2:

11. Now that you have a
goal, you’ll want a plan for
creating content that YOUR
IDEAL CUSTOMER CAN
EASILY FIND ONLINE.

12. Search engine
optimization is one of
the best ways to get
found online. But how
do you identify SEO
targets?

13. AHOY,
KEYWORDS!

14. The key is KEYWORD
RESEARCH, which should:
Be done early in the campaign process
Guide the strategy of all (or most) of
your content topics
Determine the angle of site pages, too
Be implemented naturally — never
stuffed into content!

15. There’s a lot to learn
about SEO best
practices and keywords
when you get started
with your content plan.
Visit our full blog post for a list of resources!

16. PLAN
CONTENT FOR
A WORKFLOW
STEP 3:

17. BUT HOW?
When done correctly, content
marketing is meant to turn strangers
into customers.

18. MARKETING &
SALES FUNNEL.
By consistently providing
contacts with helpful and relevant
information, you can swiftly send
them through the

19. There are a few key
pieces of content
you need for these
workflows:

20. CONTENT OFFERS
PREMIUM
First, you need
for every stage of the Buyer’s Journey.

21. The Buyer’s Journey consists
of three stages of content:
Awareness: Top-of-funnel content (like blog posts
and eBooks) that addresses/alleviates buyers’
problems — should be majority of content.
Consideration: Middle-of-funnel resources (like
white papers and eBooks) that suggest solutions
and introduce your product. Less of this content.
Decision: Content (like demos or case studies) that
explain why you’re the best choice. Few key pieces.

22. You’ll also need a series
of nurture content
(often emails) to move
contacts from one stage
to the next — and down
the funnel.

23. DOWNLOADS
TOP-OF-FUNNEL
OFFER
NURTURE EMAILS
DOWNLOADS
MIDDLE-OF-
FUNNEL OFFER
These emails persuade contacts to
take a subsequent action — and move
from point A to point B.

24. You’ll need blog posts
to publish periodically
throughout your
campaign. These are
related to your premium
content offers.

25. LANDING
PAGES
And finally, you’ll need
to tie it all together. These are “gated”
pages that tease your premium offers.
Utilize forms to gain information
on leads before they can download.

26. How it all fits together:
AWARENESS CONSIDERATION DECISION
Top-of-funnel content
Landing page w/ form
Nurture Nurture
Top-of-funnel offer
Middle-of-funnel content
Landing page w/ form
Middle-of-funnel offer
Bottom-of-funnel content
Landing page w/ form
Bottom-of-funnel offer

27. Create a list of the
content you’ll need
for every stage of the
campaign.

28. CREATE YOUR
EDITORIAL
CALENDAR
STEP 4:

29. Now, determine when
to publish your content.
You’ll particularly want to
space out your blog posts
(i.e., one post per week).

30. FREQUENCY of posting is
unique to your business —
based upon your capacity,
writing process, and industry.
Be realistic and reliable!

31. CONSISTENCY
IS KEY.
Above all,
Be it daily, weekly, or monthly, your
readers should know when to expect
you. Push yourself to stick to it!

32. There are plenty of tools
for creating a calendar,
like Google Calendar,
Trello, or HubSpot’s
built-in calendar. Choose
what works for you.

33. OUTLINE
EACH CONTENT
PIECE
STEP 5:

34. DON’T DIVE IN!
When starting to write your content,

35. Start with an outline.
Heading 1: Have only one designated H1. It is
the title of your piece and should include the
keyword you identified earlier.
Heading 2: Decide up on the body of your piece
with a few H2s, or section titles. Keywords are
good here, but don’t overdo it!
Heading 3: If you need to break it down further,
use H3s. Keywords aren’t as important here.

36. in the outline stage. It’ll shave
time off your writing process.
This includes gathering links.
DO YOUR
RESEARCH
“

37. Also gather feedback at
the outline stage to make
sure you’re on the right
track. (It’s a good time to
request assets from your
designer, too!)

38. DRAFT EACH
PIECE OF
CONTENT
STEP 6:

39. LET’S WRITE!
All right — no more procrastinating.
Your plan is in place... now,

40. When you start writing your
masterpieces, remember:
Your buyer personas and their questions
The buyer’s journey stage you’re targeting
(awareness, consideration, decision)
Keywords identified in your keyword research
The campaign “next step” readers should take

41. COMPELLING STORY
CRAFT A
It’s beneficial to
with your content to pull readers in.

42. Make sure your writing is
hyper-focused on the topic
you identified for your
buyer persona. Give them
a clear takeaway — and a
next action!

43. BUILD,
REVIEW,
FINALIZE
STEP 7:

44. Now’s the time to take
your writing live. Have a
teammate look over your
work for any last-minute
edits — and proofread!

45. When your writing is ready, take
these final (important!) steps:
Build your blog posts in the website’s editor
Insert graphic or photo elements
Add hyperlinks and anchor them to keywords
Optimize with a meta description and tags

46. And, finally, link your pieces together
to create a true pathway for your
reader. Use links, calls-to-action,
and landing pages!

47. DISTRIBUTE
STEP 8:

48. Your content is ready, but
you’re not finished yet!
Now’s the time to get
your content out there.
It’s an active process that
includes several channels.

49. EVERGREEN
SOURCE
of traffic if you keep posts optimized.
Organic traffic will do its job if your
keywords were on point. It’s an

50. But social media is
YOUR BEST TRAFFIC
MAGNET. You must
promote to social across
all of your channels.

51. UTILIZE EMAIL to promote
your content to existing
contacts. Include it in a
monthly newsletter or weekly
blog update email.

52. ANALYZE AND
ADAPT
STEP 9:

53. WITH ANALYTICS
The content marketing process
ends the same way most marketing
processes do:

54. IF IT WAS
EFFECTIVE?
if you launch a campaign but
don’t measure its metrics,
how will you know

55. Seek out data that
aligns with YOUR
CAMPAIGN GOAL.
Use the data to refine
your process for
next time.

56. For example,
If you wanted email subscribers, track the new
size of your email list compared to the old.
If you wanted more qualified leads, note your
new conversion rate.
If you wanted increased traffic, pay attention
to where new traffic came from, and how big
the increase was.

57. You’ll continually refine your
content process with time — but
you’re off to a great start!
ON YOUR FIRST CAMPAIGN!
CONGRATS
“

58. Want to step up your
marketing process with
an inbound marketing
strategy? Grab our guide:
INFO.SPARKREACTION.COM/IMPLEMENT-
AN-INBOUND-MARKETING-STRATEGY