It may sound like the title of a kids book, but keeping your digital beasts fed with quality content is certainly not child’s play.
This year, we are on a quest to save websites, social media accounts and email recipients from starvation… and you can help!
Make the commitment that this is the year that you will develop a feeding schedule for your digital marketing channels… and stick to it.
The team at MRD are here to assist. We can take the heavy lifting out of creating both your Content Strategy and Content Development Plan.
We can even take over the implementation, so that you can focus on what your business does best! We have already had many businesses reach out, who are simply stuck on where to start…that’s where we can really make a difference.
Get in touch with our friendly team today and let us take over the feeding of your digital monsters…
How and why you should feed your digital beasts…
Websites, social media accounts and email marketing audiences are hungry beasts. Just when you’ve triumphantly posted your latest blog article or social media post, your audience and digital accounts are starving for more! So, how and why should you feed your digital accounts?
The web is littered with websites and corporate social media profiles that have been left to starve. When first launched, the account owners enthusiastically posted about their businesses and offerings to their feeds, but after receiving no immediately obvious sales or leads, the owners simply stopped trying to sate the beast.
Websites, social media profiles and emails are like pets. You’d never dream of feeding your beloved pooch only when you could be bothered, or not at all… so, why are so many people starving their digital marketing channels and then wondering why they won’t perform?
When you boil it down, all digital tools are content delivery devices. So, if they’re not fed with fresh, engaging and well written content, produced on a consistent basis, your digital marketing tools will wither and die – failing to generate the sales, leads or profile that you aim for.
The solution is a feeding schedule – also known as a Digital Content Development Plan.
Where to start…
Before you can create a Digital Content Development Plan, you first need to start with a Content Strategy.
A Content Strategy helps you to determine:
- Who you are creating content for
- What problems your content will solve for your target audiences
- What your point of difference is
- What channels you should use
- Which content formats your target audience wants
- How to manage the creation and publication of content
- What your business goals are for each channel
While many businesses make the mistake of taking an informal “trial and error” approach to their digital marketing (never really knowing who they’re trying to talk to, or why), a Content Strategy will ensure that you only invest time, resources and money into the content and channels that will yield the best results for you.
What is a Content Development Plan?
A Content Development Plan outlines how and what you will feed your digital marketing channels. It is the implementation plan that complements your Content Strategy.
Digital Content Development Plans should include:
- Content themes for each week/month
- Titles and outlines of any blog posts to be made
- Social Media messages broken down by type and channel
- For example: text posts, links, videos, images, polls, etc.
- Planned email marketing
- Any gated content that you plan to release/promote
- Timings for content releases (e.g. a calendar of posts)
- How you will measure the results of your published content
- What will be determined a positive return on investment
Content Plans should provide a comprehensive schedule for at least a month, but ideally a whole year. This way you’ll never find yourself scrounging around for scraps of content, to ensure your blog doesn’t die of malnutrition.
Using your Content Plan, the content you create and when you release it will be consistent, relevant to the time of year/seasonal events and can be budgeted for.
How do I know if my Content Plan is working?
The 5 main goals that a Digital Content Plan can help you to achieve are:
- Build brand awareness / keep your brand top of mind
- Drive traffic to your website
- Generate leads
- Convert leads (sales, sign-ups or enquiries)
- Retain existing customers
Once you know how to measure your online goals, you also need to determine your success criteria. For example: how many leads, sign-ups or sales will it take to make the ongoing investment you make into your digital content creation worthwhile? When determining this, don’t forget that intangible goals (e.g. brand awareness) also have value.
How do I know if my Content Plan is working?
The 5 main goals that a Digital Content Plan can help you to achieve are:
- Build brand awareness / keep your brand top of mind
- Drive traffic to your website
- Generate leads
- Convert leads (sales, sign-ups or enquiries)
- Retain existing customers
Once you know how to measure your online goals, you also need to determine your success criteria. For example: how many leads, sign-ups or sales will it take to make the ongoing investment you make into your digital content creation worthwhile? When determining this, don’t forget that intangible goals (e.g. brand awareness) also have value.
Getting Measurable Results from Social Media
It’s important to note that having an effective online presence is not just about social media. It’s also about having a great website that regularly refreshes its content, a decent SEO strategy both technically and in-copy, paid advertising, as well as the king of all online conversion tactics, regular email correspondence. All of these areas of digital marketing we’ll discuss in the near future via MRD Web’s Facebook page, website blog and our regular email newsletters.
Meanwhile, check out this article that identifies ten great reasons why every business should be using social media. And when you’re done, please give our social media team a buzz or flick them an email. We’re always up for a coffee and consult, to work out the right mix of digital strategy components that will work for your business and deliver real and measurable results.
Call us today on 06 390 4300 or email getsocial@mrd.co.nz for a FREE social media coffee and consult!
