As 2016 comes to an end, you’ve started preparing your content marketing plan. You’ve gone deep into the goals of your blog. You’ve taken the time to get to know your reader, and where they are in the sales process.
Now that you’ve defined what you want your blog to do and who you want the blog to serve, it’s time to plan for blog topics you will cover in the next year.
Plan for Blog Topics Months Ahead
When you plan for blog topics, it doesn’t require as many ideas as you might think. When you plan your content calendar, choose topics you want to cover throughout a set period. Do this for six to twelve months at a time.
When you know your topics that far in advance, you can create posts to match with special events. This could be holiday themed, such as for Halloween or Independence Day. Even in business, people like to be entertained. A useful post that ties into a holiday is more likely to be read.
You can also plan for blog posts to promote new product releases or upgrades. You may not know exact release dates in advance. That’s okay. Make a note on your calendar of when your releases will go live, or the expected time frame, and come up with specific topics closer to the date.
Once you have a general idea of what topics to cover, you can break down each topic into smaller posts.
Big Ideas into Small Posts
Let’s say you work for a software company that provides a PMS solution for hotels. Your potential customers might be interested in information about coordinating marketing. Marketing is a broad topic.
You can break this broad topic down into 6-12 smaller topics. One small topic within marketing could be about the power of user generated content.
Think of several single ideas to plan for blog topics you could cover related to user-generated content. Some ideas might include gaining permission for user-generated content, how to gather user-generated quickly, and uses for user-generated content. This creates a series. Here’s how to set that up for the best ROI on your blog.
Now you’ve taken one idea you want to cover in your blog-how a PMS helps your marketing- and broken it into six series. Each series has at least three blog posts. From one idea, you’ve created 18 blog posts, which you can use over a period of six to twelve months.
A series keeps your reader on your site. After they read the first post, a list of related posts encourages them to read more about your expertise and thought leadership in a specific area.
The more time they spend on your site, the more likely they are to remember your company or contact your company for more information.
When you plan for blog topics several months in advance, it’s easier to create useful blog posts for your readers. Use the information you’ve gathered about your reader to pick posts they’ll find useful. Then, craft your call to action and the information you give in each post to match your blog’s goal.
Are you ready to plan your content calendar for the upcoming year? Contact us for a free 20-minute phone call to get started. Or learn more about our other copywriting services.